[Footnote 488: _Land Warfare_, § 463, does not consider the practice commendable, because innocent citizens are thereby exposed to legitimate acts of train-wrecking on the part of raiding parties of armed forces of the enemy.] [Footnote 489: See above, § 255, No. 8.] [Footnote 490: See above, § 248.] [Footnote 491: Belligerents sometimes take hostages to secure compliance with requisitions, contributions, ransom bills, and the like, but such cases have nothing to do with illegitimate warfare: see above, § 116, p. 153, note 1, and § 170, p. 213, note 3. The Hague Regulations do not mention the taking of hostages for any purpose.] VI COMPENSATION Bonfils, No. 1026'1--Despagnet, No. 510 _bis_--Lémonon, pp. 344-346--Higgins, pp. 260-261--Scott, _Conferences_, p. 528--Nippold, II. § 24--Boidin, pp. 83-84--Spaight, p. 462--Holland, _War_, No. 19--_Land Warfare_, § 436. [Sidenote: How the Principle of Compensation for Violations of the Laws of War arose.] § 259_a_. There is no doubt that, if a belligerent can be made to pay compensation for all damage done by him in violating the laws of war, this will be an indirect means of securing legitimate warfare. In former times no rule existed which stipulated such compensation, although, of course, violation of the laws of war was always an international delinquency. On the contrary, it was an established customary rule[492] that claims for reparation of damages caused by violations of the rules of legitimate warfare could not be raised after the conclusion of peace, unless the contrary was expressly stipulated. It was not until the Second Hague Peace Conference that matters underwent a change. In revising the Convention concerning the laws and customs of war on land, besides other alterations, a new article (3) was adopted which enacts that a belligerent who violates the provisions of the Hague Regulations, shall, if the case demand, be liable to make compensation, and that he shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of his armed forces. [Footnote 492: See below, § 274, p. 335.] Attention should be drawn to the fact that Germany, on whose initiative this principle was adopted, proposed two articles concerning the matter, the one dealing with the payment of compensation for violations of the Hague Regulations with regard to subjects of neutral States,[493] and the other for violations of these Regulations with regard to enemy subjects. The conference, however, preferred to make no distinction between the different cases of violation but to adopt the general principle. [Footnote 493: See below, § 357.] [Sidenote: Compensation for Violations of the Hague Regulations.]