(3) During the Franco-German War the French had captured forty German merchantmen, and made their captains and crews prisoners of war. Count Bismarck, who considered it against International Law to detain these men as prisoners, demanded their liberation, and when the French refused this, ordered by way of reprisal forty French private individuals of local importance to be arrested and to be sent as prisoners of war to Bremen, where they were kept until the end of the war. Count Bismarck was decidedly wrong,[476] since France had, as the law then stood, in no way committed an illegal act by detaining the German crews as prisoners of war.[477] [Footnote 474: See the case reported in Martens, _Causes Célèbres_, III, pp. 311-321. See also Phillimore, III. § 105.] [Footnote 475: See Wharton, III. § 348B.] [Footnote 476: That Bismarck's standpoint was wrong has been pointed out above in § 201. Some German writers, however, take his part; see, for instance, Lueder in Holtzendorff, IV. p. 479, note 6. As regards the present law on the subject, see above, §§ 85 and 201.] [Footnote 477: The case is one of reprisals, and has nothing to do with the taking of hostages; see below, § 258.] [Sidenote: Proposed Restriction of Reprisals.] § 250. The Hague Regulations do not mention reprisals at all because the Brussels Conference of 1874, which accepted the unratified Brussels Declaration, had struck out several sections of the Russian draft code regarding reprisals. These original sections[478] (69-71) stipulated--(1) that reprisals should be admitted only in extreme cases of absolutely certain violations of the rules of legitimate warfare; (2) that the acts performed by way of reprisal must not be excessive, but in proportion to the respective violation; (3) that reprisals should be ordered by commanders-in-chief only. Articles 85 and 86 of the Manual of the Laws of War, adopted by the Institute of International Law,[479] propose the following rules:--(1) Reprisals are to be prohibited in case reparation is given for the damage done by an illegal act; (2) in grave cases, in which reprisals are an imperative necessity, they must never exceed the degree of the violation committed by the enemy; (3) they may only be resorted to with the authorisation of the commander-in-chief; (4) they must in every case respect the laws of humanity and of morality. In face of the arbitrariness with which, according to the present state of International Law, reprisals may be exercised, it cannot be denied that an agreement upon some precise rules regarding reprisals is an imperative necessity. [Footnote 478: See Martens, _N.R.G._ 2nd Ser. IV. pp. 14, 139, 207.] [Footnote 479: See _Annuaire_, V. p. 174.] IV PUNISHMENT OF WAR CRIMES Hall, § 135--Bluntschli, §§ 627-643A--Spaight, p. 462--Holland, _War_, Nos. 117-118--Ariga, §§ 96-99--Takahashi, pp. 166-184--Landa in _R.I._ X. (1878), pp. 182-184--_Land Warfare_, §§ 441-451.