(23) "Private citizens are no longer murdered, enslaved, or carried off to distant parts, and the inoffensive individual is as little disturbed in his private relations as the commander of the hostile troops can afford to grant in the overruling demands of a vigorous war." (24) "The almost universal rule in remote times was ... that the private individual of the hostile country is destined to suffer every privation of liberty and protection and every disruption of family ties. Protection was ... the exception." (25) "In modern regular wars ... protection of the inoffensive citizens of the hostile country is the rule; privation and disturbance of private relations are the exceptions." (26) "Commanding generals may cause the magistrates and civil officers of the hostile country to take the oath of temporary allegiance or an oath of fidelity to their own victorious Government or rulers, and they may expel every one who declines to do so. But, whether they do so or not, the people and their civil officers owe strict obedience to them as long as they hold sway over the district or country, at the peril of their lives."] [Sidenote: War a contention between States for the purpose of overpowering each other.] § 58. The last, and not the least important, characteristic of war is its purpose. It is a contention between States for the purpose of overpowering each other. This purpose of war is not to be confounded with the ends[71] of war, for, whatever the ends of war may be, they can only be realised by one belligerent overpowering the other. Such a defeat as compels the vanquished to comply with any demand the victor may choose to make is the purpose of war. Therefore war calls into existence the display of the greatest possible power and force on the part of the belligerents, rouses the passion of the nations in conflict to the highest possible degree, and endangers the welfare, the honour, and eventually the very existence of both belligerents. Nobody can predict with certainty the result of a war however insignificant one side may seem to be. Every war is a risk and a venture. Every State which goes to war knows beforehand what is at stake, and it would never go to war were it not for its firm, though very often illusory, conviction of its superiority in strength over its opponent. Victory is necessary in order to overpower the enemy; and it is this necessity which justifies all the indescribable horrors of war, the enormous sacrifice of human life and health, and the unavoidable destruction of property and devastation of territory. Apart from special restrictions imposed by the Law of Nations upon belligerents, all kinds and all degrees of force may be, and eventually must be, made use of in war in the interest and under the compulsion of its purpose, and in spite of their cruelty and the utter misery they entail. As war is a struggle for existence between States, no amount of individual suffering and misery