The power given to the Council to formulate an armistice would be the power exercised if hostilities broke out rather than the power of adjudging the aggressor; unless the aggression was openly admitted, which would mean that one of the parties to the Protocol really defied the others; and, in that case, of course, it would defy the terms of an armistice as well as any other terms. But in any other case a new consideration would immediately arise. The Council would formulate an armistice and in the absence of an open defiance by one State, or possibly by a group of States, of all the others, the armistice would introduce a new situation, a situation in which hostilities were _not_ going on; and human experience shows that, given an armistice, the recommencement of hostilities on the old grounds is a real impossibility. In the view that I take, the Sanctions of the Protocol become less important in the light of its provisions as to the determination of an aggressor, for it is only against an aggressor that the {63} main Sanctions of the Protocol can be brought into play; and these provisions for determining the aggressor really mean that an aggressor is a State or a combination of States which has finally and deliberately determined to begin war and to carry it on regardless of its most solemn engagements to the contrary. In other words, there could be no war as between the parties to the Protocol without a wilful, wanton and wicked disregard of its provisions. [1] p. 50, _et seq._ [2] First paragraph. [3] Annex C, p. 156 at p. 186. [4] I use the word here in its largest sense. [5] Annex C, p. 156 at p. 187. [6] Of course there may be more than two. [7] The reason why I have used in regard to Article 10 of the Protocol this uncouth language, "its last paragraph but two," is that in the English text of Article 10 there is a textual error which is extremely confusing. Article 10 really consists of five paragraphs, and the second of these five paragraphs has two sub-heads or sub-paragraphs numbered 1 and 2. The third paragraph of Article 10, in referring to these two sub-heads of the second paragraph calls them "paragraphs 1 and 2." In other words, the first words of what is here referred to as the third paragraph of Article 10 (the paragraph which I call "the last paragraph but two") read as follows: "Apart from the cases dealt with in paragraphs 1 and 2 of the present Article." They should read something like this: "Apart from the cases dealt with in sub-heads 1 and 2 of the second paragraph of the present article." Compare the French text which is perfectly clear: "Hors les hypothèses visées aux numeros 1 et 2 du présent article." See the English and French Texts of Article 10 in full, _infra_, pp. 144, 145. [8] September 5, 1924.