§ 78. The chief part of the armed forces of the belligerents are their regular armies and navies. What kinds of forces constitute a regular army and a regular navy is not for International Law to determine, but a matter of Municipal Law exclusively. Whether or not so-called Militia and Volunteer corps belong to armies rests entirely with the Municipal Law of the belligerents. There are several States whose armies consist of Militia and Volunteer Corps exclusively, no standing army being provided for. The Hague Regulations expressly stipulate in article 1 that in countries where Militia or Volunteer Corps constitute the army or form part of it they are included under the denomination "Army." It is likewise irrelevant to consider the composition of a regular army, whether it is based on conscription or not, whether natives only or foreigners also are enrolled, and the like. [Sidenote: Non-combatant Members of Armed Forces.] § 79. In the main, armed forces consist of combatants, but no army in the field consists of combatants exclusively, as there are always several kinds of other individuals, such as couriers, aeronauts, doctors, farriers, veterinary surgeons, chaplains, nurses, official and voluntary ambulance men, contractors, canteen-caterers, newspaper correspondents,[115] civil servants, diplomatists, and foreign military attachés[116] in the suite of the Commander-in-Chief. [Footnote 115: See Rey in _R.G._ XVII. (1910), pp. 73-102, and Higgins, _War and the Private Citizen_ (1912), pp. 91-114.] [Footnote 116: See Rey in _R.G._ XVII. (1910), pp. 63-73.] Writers on the Law of Nations do not agree as regards the position of such individuals; they are not mere private individuals, but, on the other hand, are certainly not combatants, although they may--as, for instance, couriers, doctors, farriers, and veterinary surgeons--have the character of soldiers. They may correctly be said to belong _indirectly_ to the armed forces. Article 3 of the Hague Regulations expressly stipulates that the armed forces of the belligerents may consist of combatants and non-combatants, and that both in case of capture must be treated as prisoners of war, provided[117] they produce a certificate of identification from the military authorities of the army they are accompanying. However, when one speaks of armed forces generally, combatants only are in consideration. [Footnote 117: See below, § 127.] [Sidenote: Irregular Forces.]