to be retained till the negotiations or treaty obligations were carried out, and liable to punishment (in ancient times), and even to death, in case of treachery or refusal to fulfil the promises made. The practice of taking hostages as security for the carrying out of a treaty between civilized states is now obsolete. The last occasion was at the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, when two British peers, Henry Bowes Howard, 11th earl of Suffolk, and Charles, 9th Baron Cathcart, were sent to France as hostages for the restitution of Cape Breton to France.
In modern times the practice may be said to be confined to two occasions: (1) to secure the payment of enforced contributions or requisitions in an occupied territory and the obedience to regulations the occupying army may think fit to issue; (2) as a precautionary measure, to prevent illegitimate acts of war or violence by persons not members of the recognized military forces of the enemy. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the Germans took as hostages the prominent people or officials from towns or districts when making requisitions and also when foraging, and it was a general practice for the mayor and adjoint of a town which failed to pay a fine imposed upon it to be seized as “hostages” and retained till the money was paid. The last case where “hostages” have been taken in modern warfare has been the subject of much discussion. In 1870 the Germans found it necessary to take special measures to put a stop to train-wrecking by parties in occupied territory not belonging to the recognized armed forces of the enemy, an illegitimate act of war. Prominent citizens were placed on the engine of the train “so that it might be understood that in every accident caused by the hostility of the inhabitants their compatriots will be the first to suffer.” The measure seems to have been effective. In 1900 during the Boer War, by a proclamation issued at Pretoria (June 19th), Lord Roberts adopted the plan for a similar reason, but shortly afterwards (July 29) it was abandoned (see The Times’ History of the War in S. Africa, iv. 402). The Germans also, between the surrender of a town and its final occupation, took “hostages” as security against outbreaks of violence by the inhabitants. Most writers on international law have regarded this method of preventing such acts of hostility as unjustifiable, on the ground that the persons taken as hostages are not the persons responsible for the act;[1] that, as by the usage of war hostages are to be treated strictly as prisoners of war, such an exposure to danger is transgressing the rights of a belligerent; and as useless, for the mere temporary removal of important citizens till the end of a war cannot be a deterrent unless their mere removal deprives the combatants of persons necessary to the continuance of the acts aimed at (see W. E. Hall, International Law, 1904, pp. 418, 475). On the other hand it has been urged (L. Oppenheim, International Law, 1905, vol. ii., “War and Neutrality,” pp. 271–273) that the acts, the prevention of which is aimed at, are not legitimate acts on the part of the armed forces of the enemy, but illegitimate acts by private persons, who, if caught, could be quite lawfully punished, and that a precautionary and preventive measure is more reasonable than “reprisals.” It may be noticed, however, that the hostages would suffer should the acts aimed at be performed by the authorized belligerent forces of the enemy.
In France, after the revolution of Prairial (June 18, 1799), the so-called “law of hostages” was passed, to meet the insurrection in La Vendée. Relatives of émigrés were taken from disturbed districts and imprisoned, and were liable to execution at any attempt to escape. Sequestration of their property and deportation from France followed on the murder of a republican, four to every such murder, with heavy fines on the whole body of hostages. The law only resulted in an increase in the insurrection. Napoleon in 1796 had used similar measures to deal with the insurrection in Lombardy (Correspondance de Napoléon I. i. 323, 327, quoted in Hall, International Law).
In May 1871, at the close of the Paris Commune, took place the massacre of the so-called hostages. Strictly they were not “hostages,” for they had not been handed over or seized as security for the performance of any undertaking or as a preventive measure, but merely in retaliation for the death of their leaders E. V. Duval and Gustave Flourens. It was an act of maniacal despair, on the defeat at Mont Valérien on the 4th of April and the entry of the army into Paris on the 21st of May. Among the many victims who were shot in batches the most noticeable were Monsignor Darboy, archbishop of Paris, the Abbé Deguery, curé of the Madeleine, and the president of the Court of Cassation, Louis Bernard Bonjean.
HOSTE, SIR WILLIAM (1780–1828), British naval captain,
was the son of Dixon Hoste, rector of Godwick and Tittleshill
in Norfolk. He was born on the 26th of August 1780 at Ingoldsthorpe,
and entered the navy in April 1793, under the special care
of Nelson, who had a lively affection for him. He became
lieutenant in 1798, and was appointed commander of the
“Mutine” brig after the battle of the Nile, at which he was present
as lieutenant of the “Theseus.” In 1802 he was promoted post
captain by Lord St Vincent. During all his active career, he
was employed in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. From
1808 to 1814 he held the command of a detached force of frigates,
and was engaged in operations against the French who held
Dalmatia at the time, and in watching, or, when they came out,
fighting, the ships of the squadron formed at Venice by Napoleon’s
orders. The work was admirably done, and was also lucrative;
and Hoste, although he occasionally complained that his exertions
did not put much money in his pocket, made a fortune of at least
£60,000 by the capture of Italian and Dalmatian merchant
ships. He also made many successful attacks on the French
military posts on shore. His most brilliant feat was performed
on the 13th of March 1811. A Franco-Venetian squadron of six
frigates and five small vessels, under the command of a French
officer named Dubourdieu, assailed Hoste’s small force of four
frigates near the island of Lissa. The French officer imitated
Nelson’s attack at Trafalgar by sailing down on the English
line from windward with his ships in two lines. But the rapid
manœuvring and gunnery of Hoste’s squadron proved how little
virtue there is in any formation in itself. Dubourdieu was killed,
one of the French frigates was driven on shore, and two of the
Venetians were taken. After the action, which attracted a
great deal of attention, Hoste returned to England, but in 1812
he was back on his station, where he remained till the end of the
war. During the peace he did not again go to sea, and he died
on the 6th of December 1828. He married Lady Harriet Walpole
in April 1817, and left three sons and three daughters.
In 1833 his widow published his Memoirs and Letters. See also Marshall, Roy. Nav. Biog. vol. iii., and James, Naval History.
HOSTEL, the old name for an inn (see Hospital,ad init.); also employed at Oxford and Cambridge to designate the lodgings which were in ancient times occupied by students of the university and to a certain extent regulated by the authorities. In some English public schools what is known as the “hostel” system provides for an organization of the lodging accommodation under separate masterships.
HOSTIUS, Roman epic poet, probably flourished in the 2nd century B.C. He was the author of a Bellum Histricum in at least seven books, of which only a few fragments remain. The poem is probably intended to celebrate the victory gained in 129 by Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus (consul and himself an
annalist) over the Illyrian Iapydes (Appian, Illyrica, 10; Livy,
epit. 59). Hostius is supposed by some to be the “doctus avus”
alluded to in Propertius (iv. 20. 8), the real name of Propertius’s
Cynthia, according to Apuleius (Apologia x.) and the scholiast
on Juvenal (vi. 7), being Hostia (perhaps Roscia).
Fragments in E. Bährens, Fragmenta poetarum Romanorum (1884); A. Weichert, Poetarum Latinorum reliquiae (1830).
HOSUR, a town of British India, in the Salem district of Madras, 24 m. E. of Bangalore. Pop. (1901) 6695. It contains an old fort, frequently mentioned in the history of the Mysore wars, and a fine castellated mansion built by a former collector.
- ↑ Article 50 of the Hague War Regulations lays it down that “no general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, can be inflicted on the population on account of the acts of individuals for which it cannot be regarded as collectively responsible.” The regulations, however, do not allude to the practice of taking hostage.
