Before his arrival at St Helena, was Napoleon legally a prisoner of war?
Upvote:0
Certainly no. The laws cannot be applied back in time. There was no legal notion of prisoner of war at the time of Napoleon. The corresponding international legislation was not introduced until the end of 19th century.
And even by this legislation he would not quality. Much later (in the middle of 20th century) a "war criminal" was defined. Perhaps he would qualify for "planning and performing a war of aggression". But this was more than a century after Napoleon's times.
Upvote:11
In the book Napoleon After Waterloo: England and the St. Helena Decision By Michael John Thornton the status of Napoleon is discussed in great detail, including questions of law.
There are several considerations:
- Napoleon had been declared a criminal and a madman in the Declaration of the Powers against Napoleon.
- "Accordingly, the Powers declare that Napoleon Bonaparte is excluded from civil and social relations, and, as an Enemy and Disturber of the tranquility of the World, that he has incurred public vengeance."
- Napoleon had abdicated, and sought asylum in Britain
- The wars were over by the time of Napoleon's abdication
On 13 July 1815, Napoleon wrote to HRH, the Prince Regent:
Napoleon's letter seeking hospitality from the British
The Prince Regent declined to offer hospitality in Britain, so he was summarily transported to St. Helena, a distant and isolated island in the south Atlantic, to stay for the remainder of his days.
Note added thanks to the research of @user8654. A few months later an act was passed "for the more effectually detaining in custody Napoleon Buonaparte", an ex-post facto law intended to regularize Napoleon's indefinite detention at the pleasure of the British government. In this act it states that he is to be treated as a prisoner of war, this despite the fact that all prisoners captured during the wars have already been released.
This act regularized Napoleon's indefinite detention.
Prisoners and Detainees in War discusses the evolution of the legal theory of prisoners taken during war; it has evolved considerably since the days of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars; one should not expect that the legal status of "Prisoner of War" could even be determined for a ruler who had abdicated
More post
- 📝 What was the first broadcast television programme?
- 📝 How much support did America give to the scientists working on the Manhattan Project?
- 📝 Why would the Rhodesians trust Blacks in their Army?
- 📝 How do I prove that Mahatma Gandhi said the following?
- 📝 Historical Claims Against Jesus Christ's Existence?
- 📝 Did the Germans face the same "weather" difficulties for an "Operation Sea Lion" as the Allies faced at Normandy?
- 📝 When did official documentation stop referring to black people as Negros in the States?
- 📝 When did the term "mirror" begin to be used in place of "looking glass?"
- 📝 Were there interstate tariffs before the US Constitution (1789)?
- 📝 Were there any Roman villas in Britain which were used rather than destroyed after the Romans left?
- 📝 A city or a geographical area with corners forming only 45, 90, and 135 degree angles.
- 📝 What is the exact date and year when the first car got invented?
- 📝 Why have major sporting events been held every 4 years?
- 📝 Were there often intra-USSR wars? If not, why not?
- 📝 Did marriage ever end a war?
- 📝 Eastern and Southern Europe in the medieval time period?
- 📝 What did education look like in occupied countries during WW2?
- 📝 Was any other religion as exact in terms of genealogy as Judaism?
- 📝 Which English ship was in Kamchatka in 1793?
- 📝 Why did Indonesia use a separate currency for West Irian before 1973?
- 📝 At which times did a mainly Jewish sovereign state control Jerusalem?
- 📝 Is Rama Setu a historical proof of Ramayana?
- 📝 History of "False Flag" Coups
- 📝 In the Bakumatsu period, was there any way to identify which clan a person belonged to?
- 📝 Where in San Francisco did the Land Commission meet?
- 📝 WW1 Uniform - Which country does this uniform belong to?
- 📝 WW 2 US Army Discharge Papers -- Codes
- 📝 When did the Arabic numerals appear on clock faces?
- 📝 The allure of totalitarianism/ communism/ fascism
- 📝 Why does the US use the opposite convention to the rest of the world for colour-coding harbour buoys?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Before his arrival at St Helena, was Napoleon legally a prisoner of war?
- 📝 Which war games did Napoleon practice with his generals?
- 📝 Are there any ideas as to what the English landscape was like before the arrival of the Angles?
- 📝 Was there anything in common between the War of 1812 between Britain and America and the War of 1812 between Napoleon and Russia?
- 📝 Does any evidence exist that suggests Hitler’s primary reason for declaring war on America was an attempt to draw Japan into his war with Russia?
- 📝 What was World War 1 called before World War 2?
- 📝 Was There a Specified Period Between Declaring War and Attacking Before World War II?
- 📝 In Tolstoy's War and Peace, one character is captured after the Battle of Austerlitz and is taken as a POW. Was his experience historically accurate?
- 📝 Was there a rational reason for Napoleon to attack Russia while the Peninsular War was still in progress?
- 📝 Did the citizens of US really back the declaration of war on Japanese Empire as it was implied by F.D. Roosevelt in his Pearl Harbor Speech?
- 📝 Why was France granted an equal status among victors of World War II?
- 📝 Did Adolf Hitler ever address the fact that his own appearance was almost an exact opposite of what he considered the ideal Aryan appearance?
- 📝 Is there any evidence to support the claim that the United States was "suckered into WW1" by Zionists, made by Benjamin Freedman in his 1961 speech?
- 📝 How was law enforcement handled in large US cities before professional police?
- 📝 Why was Spanish Fascist dictatorship left in power after World War II?
- 📝 Why was World War I ended on Nov 11 11:00, rather than immediately upon signing the armistice?
- 📝 Was Napoleon as short as "common knowledge" states?
- 📝 What was the religion of the Arabic people before conversion to Islam?
- 📝 What was the reason for Soviet troops to withdraw from Yugoslavia in World War II?
- 📝 Was slavery in the United States legally limited to blacks?
- 📝 Was World War I a war of liberals against authoritarians?
- 📝 Was Nixon's Vietnam claim right before the 1968 election true?
- 📝 How prevalent was pork in Arabia before Arabs conversion to Islam?
- 📝 Why was PTSD not written about as much before the 20th century?
- 📝 Was any stimulant used in wars before WW2 that gave a significant advantage to soldiers?
- 📝 Was the American Civil War the “bloodiest civil war in history”?
- 📝 What was the longest a World War II submarine stayed at sea without being resupplied at a port?
- 📝 What was Muhammad's religion before becoming a Muslim prophet?
- 📝 What was the cleanest war ever fought?
- 📝 What was the Seven Years War called at first?