The Use of Force in International Law:

A Case-Based Approach Tom Ruys

(Editor)
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T H E USE OF FORC E I N I N T E R NAT IONA L L AW

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The Use of Force

in International Law

A Case-​based Approach

Edited by
TOM RU YS
and
OL I V I E R C ORT E N
Assistant Editor
A L E X A N DR A HOF E R

1
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Table of Contents

List of Contributors ix

1. Introduction: The Jus Contra Bellum and the Power of Precedent 1

Tom Ruys, Olivier Corten, and Alexandra Hofer
2. The Caroline Incident—​1837 5
Michael Wood

PA RT 1. T H E C OL D WA R E R A (19 4 5 –​8 9)
3. The Korean War—​1950–​53 17
Nigel D White
4. The Suez Crisis—​1956 36
Alexandra Hofer
5. The Soviet Intervention in Hungary—​1956 48
Eliav Lieblich
6. The U-​2 Incident—​1960 67
Ki-​Gab Park
7. The Belgian Intervention in the Congo—​1960 and 1964 76
Robert Kolb
8. The Indian Intervention in Goa—​1961 85
Tom Ruys
9. The Cuban Missile Crisis—​1962 97
Alexander Orakhelashvili
10. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident—​1964 108
Douglas Guilfoyle
11. The US Intervention in the Dominican Republic—​1965 118
Christian Walter
12. The Six Day War—​1967 131
John Quigley
13. The Intervention in Czechoslovakia—​1968 143
Gerhard Hafner
14. The USS Pueblo Incident—​1968 158
Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg
15. The Indian Intervention into (East) Pakistan—​1971 169
Dino Kritsiotis
16. The Yom Kippur War—​1973 189
François Dubuisson and Vaios Koutroulis
17. Turkey’s Intervention in Cyprus—​1974 201
Oliver Dörr
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vi Table of Contents

18. The Mayaguez Incident—​1975 213

Natalino Ronzitti
19. The Entebbe Raid—​1976 220
Claus Kreβ and Benjamin K Nuβberger
20. The Larnaca Incident—​1978 234
Constantine Antonopoulos
21. The Vietnamese Intervention in Cambodia—​1978 242
Gregory H Fox
22. The Ugandan–​Tanzanian War—​1978–​79 255
Kenneth Chan
23. Operation Litani—​1978 269
Myra Williamson
24. The Lebanon War—​1982 284
Myra Williamson
25. The Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan—​1979–​80 297
Georg Nolte and Janina Barkholdt
26. The US Hostage Rescue Operation in Iran—​1980 306
Mathias Forteau and Alison See Ying Xiu
27. The Iran–​Iraq War—​1980–​88 315
Andrea de Guttry
28. Israel’s Airstrike Against Iraq’s Osiraq Nuclear Reactor—​1981 329
Tom Ruys
29. The US Intervention in Nicaragua—​1981–​88 342
Jörg Kammerhofer
30. The Falklands/​Malvinas War—​1982 361
Etienne Henry
31. South African Incursions into Lesotho—​1982 379
Theresa Reinold
32. The Intervention of the United States and other Eastern
Caribbean States in Grenada—​1983 385
Nabil Hajjami
33. The Israeli Raid Against the PLO Headquarters in Tunis—​1985 395
Erin Pobjie, Fanny Declercq, and Raphaël van Steenberghe
34. The Killing of Khalil al-​Wazir by Israeli Commandos in Tunis—​1988 403
Erin Pobjie, Fanny Declercq, and Raphaël van Steenberghe
35. The US Strikes Against Libya—​1986 408
Maurice Kamto
36. The US Intervention in Panama—​1989 426
Nicholas Tsagourias

PA RT 2 . T H E P O S T- ​C OL D WA R E R A (19 9 0 –​2 0 0 0)
37. The ECOWAS Intervention in Liberia—​1990–​97 441
Ugo Villani
38. The Gulf War—​1990–​91 456
Erika de Wet
vi

Table of Contents vii

39. Intervention in Iraq’s Kurdish Region and the Creation of the No-​Fly
Zones in Northern and Southern Iraq—​1991–​2003 469
Tarcisio Gazzini
40. The Intervention in Somalia—​1992–​95 482
Terry D Gill and Kinga Tibori-​Szabó
41. The Intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina—​1992–​95 495
Pierre Klein
42. The US Airstrike Against the Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters—​1993 504
Paulina Starski
43. The ECOWAS Intervention in Sierra Leone—​1997–​99 527
Susan Breau
44. The US Strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan—​1998 541
Enzo Cannizzaro and Aurora Rasi
45. The Eritrean–​Ethiopian War—​1998–​2000 552
Sean D Murphy
46. The Great African War and the Intervention by Uganda and Rwanda in the
Democratic Republic of Congo—​1998–​2003 575
James A Green
47. The Kosovo Crisis—​1999 594
Daniel Franchini and Antonios Tzanakopoulos

PA RT 3. T H E P O S T 9/​1 1-​E R A (2 0 01–​)

48. The Intervention in Afghanistan—​2001–​ 625
Michael Byers
49. The Iraq War—​2003 639
Marc Weller
50. Israeli Airstrikes in Syria—​2003 and 2007 662
Lindsay Moir
51. The Israeli Intervention in Lebanon—​2006 673
Christian J Tams and Wenke Brückner
52. The Turkish Intervention Against the PKK in Northern Iraq—​2007–​08 689
Kimberley N Trapp
53. ‘Operation Phoenix’, the Colombian Raid Against the FARC
in Ecuador—​2008 702
Mónica Pinto and Marcos Kotlik
54. The Conflict in Georgia—​2008 712
Christine Gray
55. Israeli Military Operations Against Gaza: Operation Cast Lead (2008–​09),
Operation Pillar of Defence (2012), and Operation Protective Edge (2014) 729
Christian Henderson
56. The NATO Intervention in Libya—​2011 749
Ashley Deeks
57. US Extra-​Territorial Actions Against Individuals: Bin Laden, Al Awlaki,
and Abu Khattalah—​2011 and 2014 760
David Kretzmer
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viii Table of Contents

58. The Intervention in Côte d’Ivoire—​2011 783

Dire Tladi
59. The Intervention of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain—​2011 795
Agatha Verdebout
60. The Ethiopian Military Intervention in Somalia—​2011 803
Jean-​Christophe Martin
61. The Intervention of France and African Countries in Mali—​2013 812
Karine Bannelier and Theodore Christakis
62. Threats of and Actual Military Strikes Against Syria​—​2013 and 2017 828
Anne Lagerwall
63. The Crisis in Ukraine—​2014 855
Mary Ellen O’Connell
64. The Military Operations Against the ‘Islamic State’ (ISIL or Da’esh)—​2014 873
Olivier Corten
65. The Saudi-​led Military Intervention in Yemen’s Civil War—​2015 899
Luca Ferro and Tom Ruys
66. The ECOWAS Intervention in The Gambia—​2016 912
Mohamed S. Helal

Index 933
ix

List of Contributors

Constantine Antonopoulos ​Associate Professor of Public International Law, Faculty of Law,

Democritus University of Thrace.
Karine Bannelier ​Associate Professor of International Law, CESICE, University Grenoble Alpes.
Janina Barkholdt ​PhD candidate, Humboldt University Berlin.
Susan C Breau ​Head of School and Professor of International Law, University of Reading.
Wenke Brückner ​PhD Candidate, Institute for International Peace and Security Law, Cologne.
Mchael Byers Professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law,
University of British Columbia.
Enzo Cannizzaro ​Full Professor of International Law and European Union Law, Sapienza
University of Rome.
Kenneth Chan ​PhD (KU Leuven). Postdoctoral research fellow with the Berlin Research Group
“The International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline?”, Humboldt University Berlin and University
of Potsdam.
Theodore Christakis ​ Professor of International Law, CESICE, University Grenoble Alpes,
Member of the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF).
Olivier Corten ​Professor, Université libre de Bruxelles, Centre de droit international.
Andrea de Guttry ​Full Professor of Public International Law, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna,
Pisa, Italy.
Erika de Wet ​SARChI Professor of International Constitutional Law, University of Pretoria;
Honorary Professor, University of Bonn.
Fanny Declercq ​Assistant, University of Louvain (UCL).
Ashley Deeks ​Professor of Law, University of Virginia Law School.
Oliver Dörr ​Professor of Public Law, European Law and Public International Law, Osnabrück
University.
François Dubuisson ​ Professor of Public International Law, Centre de droit international,
Université libre de Bruxelles.
Luca Ferro ​PhD Candidate, Department of European, Public and International Law, Ghent
University.
Mathias Forteau ​Professor, University of Paris Nanterre and Former Member of the ILC
(2012–​16).
Gregory H Fox Professor of Law, Director, Program for International Legal Studies, Wayne State
University Law School.
Daniel Franchini ​PhD Candidate, Lincoln College, University of Oxford.
Tarcisio Gazzini ​Professor of International Law, School of Law, University of East Anglia.
Terry D Gill ​Professor, Military Law at the University of Amsterdam and the Netherlands
Defence Academy.
Christine Gray ​Professor of International Law, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of St John’s
College.
James A Green ​Professor of Public International Law, University of Reading.
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x List of Contributors

Douglas Guilfoyle ​Professor, Monash University.

Gerhard Hafner Professor, Department of European, International and Comparative Law
Faculty, Vienna University.
Nabil Hajjami ​PhD (Université libre de Bruxelles and Université d’Angers). Lecturer in Law,
Université Paris Nanterre.
Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg ​Chair of Public Law, in particular Public International Law,
European Law and Foreign Constitutional Law at the Europa Universität, Frankfurt (Oder),
Germany.
Mohamed S. Helal ​Assistant Professor of Law, Moritz College of Law & Affiliated Faculty,
Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Ohio State University.
Christian Henderson ​Professor of International Law, University of Sussex.
Etienne Henry ​ PhD (Neuchâtel), Early Postdoc. Mobility Fellow, Swiss National Science
Foundation, project number 168525; Visiting Fellow, ANU College of Law, Australian National
University.
Alexandra Hofer ​Doctoral Researcher in Public International Law at Ghent University; Member
of Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI).
Jörg Kammerhofer ​Senior Research Fellow, University of Freiburg.
Maurice Kamto ​Former Member of the ILC (2011–​16).
Pierre Klein ​Professor, Centre de Droit International, Université libre de Bruxelles.
Robert Kolb ​Professor of Public International Law, University of Geneva.
Marcos Kotlik ​PhD candidate, School of Law, University of Buenos Aires and PhD fellow,
National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina.
Vaios Koutroulis ​Professor of Public International Law, Centre de droit international, Université
libre de Bruxelles.
Claus Kreß ​Professor of Public International Law and Criminal Law, Director of the Institute
of International Peace and Security Law and Chair for German and International Criminal Law,
University of Cologne, Germany.
David Kretzmer ​Professor Emeritus of international law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem;
Professor of Law, Sapir College.
Dino Kritsiotis ​
Professor of Public International Law and Head of the International
Humanitarian Law Unit, University of Nottingham.
Anne Lagerwall ​Associate Professor, Université libre de Bruxelles.
Eliav Lieblich ​Associate Professor, Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University.
Jean-​Christophe Martin ​Professor LADIE (Laboratoire de Droit International et Européen) EA
7414, Université Côte d’Azur, France.
Lindsay Moir ​Professor of International Law, Deputy Director of the McCoubrey Centre for
International Law, University of Hull.
Sean D Murphy ​ Manatt/Ahn Professor of International Law at the George Washington
University Law School in Washington, DC, Member of the ILC (2012–21).
Georg Nolte ​Professor of Law, Humboldt University Berlin.
Benjamin K Nußberger ​LLM (Columbia Law School); PhD Candidate, Institute of International
Peace and Security Law, University of Cologne.
Mary Ellen O’Connell ​Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame.
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List of Contributors xi

Alexander Orakhelashvili ​
Senior Lecturer, Law School, Birmingham University, United
Kingdom.
Ki-​Gab Park ​Professor, Korea University, Seoul.
Mónica Pinto ​Professor of International Law and of Human Rights, Former Dean of the School
of Law (Facultad de Derecho), University of Buenos Aires (Universidad de Buenos Aires).
Erin Pobjie ​Research fellow and doctoral candidate, Institute for International Peace and
Security Law at the University of Cologne.
John Quigley Professor Emeritus, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University.
Aurora Rasi ​Research fellow in International Law and European Union Law, Sapienza University
of Rome.
Theresa Reinold ​PhD (Tuebingen University). Junior professor of Global and Transnational
Cooperation Research at the University Duisburg-Essen.
Natalino Ronzitti ​Emeritus Professor of International Law, LUISS University in Rome, Member
of the Institut de Droit International.
Tom Ruys ​Professor of International Law, Ghent University.
Paulina Starski ​Dr, LLB, Senior Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public
Law and International Law, Heidelberg and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Bucerius Law School,
Hamburg.
Christian J Tams ​Professor of International Law, University of Glasgow and Academic Member,
Matrix Chambers.
Kinga Tibori-​Szabó ​PhD (University of Amsterdam). Kosovo Specialist Chambers and
University of Amsterdam.
Dire Tladi ​Professor, University of Pretoria. Member of the ILC (2012–​17).
Kimberley N Trapp ​Senior Lecturer in Public International Law, UCL Faculty of Laws.
Nicholas Tsagourias ​Professor of International Law, University of Sheffield.
Antonios Tzanakopoulos ​Associate Professor of Public International Law, University of Oxford;
Fellow, St Anne’s College, Oxford.
Raphäel van Steenberghe ​Professor, University of Louvain (ULC), Research Associate, Belgian
National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS).
Agatha Verdebout ​PhD (ULB). Researcher, Centre de Droit International, Université Libre de
Bruxelles (ULB).
Ugo Villani ​Professor Emeritus, University of Bari.
Christian Walter ​Professor, Chair of Public International Law and Public Law, LMU Munich.
Marc Weller Professor of International Law and International Constitutional Studies in the
University of Cambridge; Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law.
Nigel D White ​
Professor of Public International Law, University of Nottingham, United
Kingdom.
Myra Williamson ​Associate Professor of Law, Kuwait International Law School.
Michael Wood ​Barrister at 20 Essex Street, London; Member of the UN International Law
Commission; Senior Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of
Cambridge.
Alison See Ying Xiu ​LLB (London School of Economics) and LLM (International Legal Studies,
NYU); Research Assistant at the ILC in 2016.
xi
1

1
Introduction: The Jus Contra Bellum and
the Power of Precedent
Tom Ruys, Olivier Corten, and Alexandra Hofer

The international law on the use of force, also known under its Latin epithet of jus ad
bellum, or, perhaps more accurately, jus contra bellum, is one of the oldest branches of
international law. Its emergence is closely intertwined with the birth of international law
itself. More than any other domain of international law, it is an area where law and power
politics collide. Notwithstanding the International Court of Justice’s bold assertion that
there exists ‘general agreement’1 as to what constitutes an ‘armed attack’ for purposes of
triggering the right of self-​defence, and notwithstanding the reaffirmation in the 2005
World Summit Outcome that the Charter provisions on the use of force ‘are sufficient to
address the full range of threats to international peace and security’,2 it is no secret that
the interpretation and application of the jus contra bellum has given rise to, and continues
to give rise to, fierce debates and disagreement among legal scholars and, more impor­
tantly, among states. A closer look at legal doctrine reveals that different views on the
interpretation of the rules governing the use of force between states often reflect different
underlying methodological approaches (with authors according different weight, for in-
stance, to ‘physical’ or ‘verbal’ state practice).3 In light hereof, some have created labels,
seeking to distinguish between ‘restrictionists’ and ‘expansionists’, between ‘bright-​liners’
and ‘balancers’, or between ‘purists’ and ‘eclectics’ (sometimes even categorizing scholars
accordingly).4 More imperceptibly, when dealing with the law on the use of force, mem-
bers of the ‘invisible college of international laywers’ often find it difficult to set aside their
own values, allegiances, and perceptions of what is ‘fair’ in international relations.5
At the same time, a common thread in legal doctrine is the importance attached to
previous precedents to interpret the jus contra bellum. The power of precedent is not
limited to legal doctrine, but is also recognized by states themselves, as can be inferred
from numerous Security Council debates. Reliance on precedent—​understood here as
referring not to judicial precedents, but rather to precedents from state practice and their
reception at the international level (or, what Michael Reisman would call ‘international

1 Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v US) (Merits) [1986] ICJ Rep
1986 14, [195].
2 2005 World Summit Outcome, UNGA Res 60/​1 (24 October 2005) UN Doc A/​R ES/​60/​1, [79].
3 Further: Olivier Corten, ‘The Controversies Over the Customary Prohibition on the Use of Force: A
Methodological Debate’ (2005) 16 European Journal of International Law 803–​22; Olivier Corten, ‘Breach and
Evolution of Customary International Law on the Use of Force’, in Enzo Cannizzaro and Paolo Palchetti (eds),
Customary International Law on the Use of Force: A Methodological Approach (Nijhoff 2005) 119–​4 4; Tom
Ruys, ‘Armed Attack’ and Article 51 of the UN Charter: Evolutions in Customary Law and Practice (Cambridge
University Press 2010) 29–​52.
4 See, eg, Matthew C Waxman, ‘Regulating Resort to Force: Form and Substance of the UN Charter Regime’
(2013) 24 European Journal of International Law 151–​89; Tom Farer, ‘Can the United States Violently Punish
the Assad Regime? Competing Visions (Including that of Anthony D’Amato) of the Applicable International
Law’ (2014) 108 American Journal of International Law 701–​15. See also the contributions by Kammerhofer, De
Hoogh, and van Steenberghe in the Leiden Journal of International Law, Issue (2016) 29:1.
5 Ruys (n 3) 514.
2

2 Tom Ruys, Olivier Corten, and Alexandra Hofer

incidents’6)—​is indeed an important and unavoidable element of the argumentative

process from which the jus contra bellum derives its compliance pull. It can have a
beneficial effect in that it can contribute to ensuring consistency and to clarifying the
precise meaning and scope of the relevant rules, thus resulting in greater legal certainty.
Conversely, it also entails evident risks. Precedents have often been interpreted in com-
pletely different ways (by scholars or states), and have sometimes been interpreted in
ways which substantially depart from the arguments invoked by the intervening states
themselves or from the general appraisal of the international community at the time
of the events. Such approach may reflect a deliberate methodological approach, in par-
ticular a denial of the relevance of ‘verbal’ practice or a rejection of the Nicaragua axiom.7
Yet, it may also result from a lack of awareness of the precise factual circumstances of
past incidents or of the concomitant exchanges of claims and counterclaims by the pro-
tagonists and other states. On a different note, excessive reliance on certain precedents to
the detriment of others risks creating a distorted image. More concretely, it is clear that
scholars and states have often tended to focus on cases involving interventions by a small
number of western states (particularly the United States) to sketch the contours of the jus
contra bellum.
Against this background, the present volume provides a collection of sixty-​five case
studies pertaining to specific incidents involving the cross-​border use of force, all written
by experts in the field of jus contra bellum. The incidents have all occurred after the adop-
tion of the UN Charter in 1945, save for the 1837 Caroline incident, which, in light of its
omnipresence in legal doctrine and state discourse, could not be ignored. The volume has
sought to comprehensively map the important jus contra bellum precedents throughout
the Charter era. The cases concerned include both large-​scale military interventions
involving ground forces, but also more small-​scale incidents including hostile encounters
between individual military units, targeted killings (eg through air strikes or commando
raids), and hostage rescue operations. Moreover, the volume covers both military oper-
ations that have been debated at length within the UN Security Council and/​or the UN
General Assembly, as well as operations that have hardly evoked any international reac-
tion and/​or legal scrutiny at all. It addresses military interventions involving both western
and non-​western states, great powers and smaller states alike. The editors readily acknow-
ledge that the overview is not exhaustive—​readers, we fear, will not receive a refund for
identifying precedents that are missing. Indeed, as is clear, for instance, from the periodic
Digests of State Practice featured in the Journal on the Use of Force in International Law
(JUFIL), border incidents and isolated clashes between military units are an aspect of
daily life in many regions of the world. It follows that the volume necessarily presents a
selection of case studies, albeit one that, we believe, is not arbitary in nature but the result
of careful deliberation. Case studies are ordered chronologically, starting with the 1950
Korean War and ending with the 2017 ECOWAS intervention in the Gambia.
Clearly, most of the case studies included in this volume have previously been the sub-
ject of scholarly analysis. This is certainly true for well-​k nown cases such as the US inter-
vention in Afghanistan or the 1999 Kosovo crisis, which have given rise to numerous

6 W Michael Reisman, ‘The Incident as a Decisional Unit in International Law’ (1984) 10 Yale Journal of
International Law 1–​20.
7 Nicaragua (n 1) [186]: ‘If a State acts in a way prima facie incompatible with a recognized rule, but defends
it conduct by appealing to exceptions or justifications contained within the rule itself, then whether or not the
State’s conduct is in fact justifiable on that basis, the significance of that attitude is to confirm rather than to
weaken the rule.’
3

Introduction 3

academic articles in various international law journals, but also for many other, if some-
what less ‘high-​profile’, incidents, such as the Belgian operation in Stanleyville, Congo in
1964 or the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia.8 Entire monographs have even been de-
voted to some cases.9 Furthermore, various monographs exist of course, whether general
jus contra bellum handbooks or more thematically focused works, that touch upon a large
number of cases within a single volume.10
However, the distinguishing features of the present volume are twofold. First, to the
editors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to systematically bring together the main jus
contra bellum precedents since 1945 into a single work of reference,11 including more-
over various cases that have largely escaped from academic attention (such as the Turkish
intervention in northern Iraq in 2007–​08 or the killing by Israeli commandos of Khalil
al-​Wazir in Tunis in 1988).
Second, in order to ensure consistency and transparency, and to maximize the value of
the volume as a work of reference, all case studies follow a common approach. Specifically,
every chapter starts with a brief overview of the factual background and the political con-
text against which the case is set. Subsequently, the chapters detail the exchange of legal
arguments and counter-​arguments, by identifying the positions taken by the protagonists
involved in the cross-​border use of force concerned as well as the reactions from third
states and international organizations. The third and fourth sections of each chapter are
devoted respectively to the appraisal of the legality of the incident/​operation concerned,
and to an appraisal of the broader implications of the precedent (or lack thereof) for the
evolution of the international law on the use of force. As editors, we have tried to steer
clear from influencing the substantive analyses of the contributing authors on contro-
versial jus contra bellum issues (issues on which the editors themselves at times hold con-
flicting views). Yet, we have insisted—​perhaps somewhat obsessively—​t hat authors rigidly
respect the abovementioned template. Furthermore, as far as the legality assessment is
concerned, we have urged the authors to not only provide their personal legal assessment
of the case, but to adopt—​inasmuch as possible—​a broader perspective and to examine
how legal doctrine in general has assessed the legality and the broader legal ramifications
of each case, while, where appropriate, clearly identifying personal views as such. Thus,
while academic articles focusing on specific incidents at times tend to primarily reflect the
author’s appraisal of the legality of the intervention concerned, the approach chosen here

8 See, eg, Alain Gérard, ‘L’opération Stanleyville-​Paulis devant le parlement belge et les Nations Unies’
(1967) Revue belge de droit international 242; Olivier Corten, ‘La licéité douteuse de l’action militaire de
l’Ethiopie en Somalie et ses implication sur l’argument de l’“intervention consentie”’ (2007) 111 Revue générale
de droit international public 513.
9 See, eg, John Quigley, The Six-​Day War and Israeli Self-​Defense (CUP 2013).
10 See, by way of illustration, Christine Gray, International Law and the Use of Force (3rd edn, OUP 2008);
Yoram Dinstein, War, Aggression and Self-​Defence (5th edn, CUP 2011); Thomas M Franck, Recourse to
Force: State Action Against Threats and Armed Attacks (CUP 2002); Olivier Corten, Le droit contre la guerre:
L’interdiction du recours à la force en droit international contemporain (2nd edn, Pedone 2014); The Law
against War (Hart Publishing 2010); Mary Ellen O’Connell, International Law and the Use of Force, Cases
and Materials (2nd edn, Foundation Press 2008); Noam Lubell, Extraterritorial Use of Force against Non-​State
Actors (OUP 2010); Michael Scholz, Staatliches Selbstverteidigungsrecht gegen terroristische Gewalt (Duncker
& Humblot 2006); Christiane Wandscher, Internationaler Terrorismus und Selbstverteidigungsrecht (Duncker
& Humblot 2006); Nyamuya Maogoto, Battling Terrorism: Legal Perspectives on the Use of Force and the War
on Terror (Ashgate 2005); Kinga J Tibori-Szabó, Anticipatory Action in Self-​Defence: Essence and Limits under
International Law (TMC Asser Press 2011); Arthur R Kreutzer, Preemptive Self-​Defense: Die Bush-​Doktrin und
das Völkerrecht (M Press 2004); Tom Ruys, ‘Armed Attack’ and Article 51 of the UN Charter (CUP 2010); Linos-​
Alexandre Sicilianos, Les réactions décentralisées à l’illicite: des contre-​mesures à la légitime défense (Librairie
générale de droit et de jurisprudence 1990).
11 To our knowledge, the only work that shares some resemblance in this respect is Mark Weisburd’s Use of
Force: The Practice of States Since World War II (Pennsylvania State University Press 1997).
4

4 Tom Ruys, Olivier Corten, and Alexandra Hofer

has sought to ensure that the case studies provide a balanced appraisal of the legality of the
incidents (reflecting opposite views where appropriate) and of the precedent’s place and
relevance in the realm of the jus contra bellum.
We are deeply grateful to all of the authors for integrating the abovementioned approach
into their respective chapters (and apologize for any nuisance caused along the way). We
believe it has contributed to largely achieving the stated objective and to establishing the
value of this volume as a work of reference for legal scholars, practitioners, and civil ser-
vants alike. We can only hope the reader will agree.
5

2
The Caroline Incident—​1837
Michael Wood

I. Facts and Context

Were it not for the ‘public and vainglorious’1 boasting of one Alexander McLeod about his
role in the incident, some three years after the event, the world of international law might
never have heard of the ‘unfortunate case of the Caroline’ of 1837. It was McLeod’s arrest on
charges of murder and arson that rekindled the incident, and led to the matter becoming
a legal and political cause célèbre between the British and American Governments. The
events culminated in correspondence (section II below) that—​in retrospect at least—​is
widely seen as a starting point for discussion of the customary international law on self-​
defence under the jus ad bellum.2 Even a cursory reading of the correspondence indicates
that it covers issues that run like a golden thread through many of the studies in the pre-
sent volume. A reader of the correspondence will note that both sides took what, on the
surface at least, seems to have been a remarkably modern and humane approach, even in
the heat of great political controversy. The Caroline formula (‘a necessity of self-​defence,
instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation’) is
much quoted today, even while reliance upon it is criticized from all sides. Writings on the
incident are extensive and cannot all be referred to here.3
Unlike most of the case studies in this volume, the Caroline incident itself was not a
major event—​t hough it must have been quite spectacular, given the vision of the burning
vessel as it descended the Niagara Falls (‘a fate which fills the imagination with horror’).
The facts are not entirely clear from the correspondence,4 but it seems that at most two

1 Citations in these early paragraphs are taken from the correspondence reproduced in section II below.
2 (1837–​38) 26 British and Foreign State Papers (BFSP) 1372–​77; (1837–​38) 29 BFSP 1126–​42; 30 BFSP 82–​99;
see also John Bassett Moore, Digest of International Law vol 1, 681.
3 See, among many, R Y Jennings, ‘The Caroline and McLeod Cases’ (1938) 32 American Journal of
International Law 82; Jaroslav Žourek, ‘La notion de légitime defense. Aperçu historique et principaux aspects
du problème’ Rapport provisoire (1975) 56 Annuaire de l’Institut de Droit International (Session de Wiesbaden)
52; K R Stevens, Border Diplomacy: The Caroline and McLeod Affairs in Anglo-​American-​Canadian Relations,
1837–​1842 (University of Alabama Press 1989); Martin A Rogoff and Edward Collins, ‘The Caroline Incident
and the Development of International Law’ (1990) Brooklyn Journal of International Law 493; Abraham Sofaer,
‘On the Necessity of Pre-​emption’ (2003) 14 European Journal of International Law 209; Michael C Wood,
‘Nécessité et légitime défense dans la lutte contre le terrorisme: quelle est la pertinence de l’affaire de la Caroline
aujourd’hui?’ in Hubert Thierry and Jean-​Pierre Quéneudec (eds), Société française pour le droit international,
Colloque de Grenoble, La Nécessité en droit international (Pedone 2007); Christopher Greenwood, ‘Caroline,
The’ in Rudiger Wolfrum (ed), Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (2012); Andrew Clapham,
Brierly’s Law of Nations (7th edn, OUP 2012) 468–​71.
4 The facts, such as they are, are well described by, among others, Jennings (n 3) and Sofaer (n 3). An Ontario
Archaeological and Historical Sites Board plaque reads thus: ‘On the night of December 29–​30, 1837, some 60
volunteers acting on the orders of Col. Allan Napier MacNab, and commanded by Capt. Andrew Drew, R.N.,
set out from Chippawa in small boats to capture the American steamer “Caroline”. That vessel, which had been
supplying William Lyon Mackenzie’s rebel forces on Navy Island, was moored at Fort Schlosser, N.Y. There she
was boarded by Drew’s men, her crew killed or driven ashore, and after an unsuccessful attempt to start the en-
gines, her captors set the ship afire and left her to sink in the Niagara River. This action almost precipitated war
between Britain and the United States.’ <http://​ontarioplaques.com/​Plaques/​Plaque_ ​Niagara59.html>.
6

6 Michael Wood

persons died on the night of 29/​30 December 1837 (Amos Durfee, and a cabin boy, known
as ‘little Billy’).
The incident took place in the context of a difficult period in British–​American rela-
tions, not long after the War of 1812.5 There was an ongoing rebellion in Upper Canada
(now Ontario), then a British colony, with some calling (in vain) for it to declare inde-
pendence from Great Britain and establish a ‘Republic of Canada’. American citizens were
aiding and assisting the Canadian rebels with arms and men from the American side of
the border. In mid-​December 1837, two rebel leaders, McKenzie and Rolfe, held public
meetings in Buffalo, New York, seeking men, as well as arms and ammunition which were
collected at the Eagle tavern. On 13 December 1837, some of the rebels and recruits estab-
lished themselves on Navy Island, a small island within Ontario just above the Niagara
Falls,6 where they were supplied from the American shore by a small vessel known as The
Caroline. On the night of 29/​30 December 1837, British–​Canadian militia set off to cap-
ture The Caroline. Finding that it had left Navy Island they traced it to Schlosser on the
American shore, whereupon they disembarked the crew and passengers, killing in the
process Amos Durfee and possibly the cabin boy. They then set fire to the vessel, dragged
it into the channel of the Niagara River, and cast it loose over the Falls.
Reports of the number of missing and dead were greatly exaggerated, and Amos
Durfee’s body was displayed at a tavern in Buffalo, all of which caused ‘great excitement’
and ‘some degree of commotion’. A first exchange of Notes took place between the United
States and Great Britain in early January 1838. However, the matter would probably not
have been taken further if it had not been for the arrest of Alexander McLeod in New York
in 1841. As summarized by Jennings, ‘[i]‌n 1841 the condition of Anglo-​American relations
was such that the desultory correspondence must be replaced by a determined effort for
a peace settlement if war was to be averted’.7 Lord Ashburton was sent to Washington as
special Minister and further and decisive correspondence then took place.
McLeod’s arrest and subsequent trial raised the issue of the immunity for official acts
of members of foreign armed forces. The United States was not, however, able to prevent
the trial going ahead. Following his acquittal by the jury (which—​after just 20 minutes
retirement—​found he had not been present on the night), McLeod eventually brought a
claim against the United States, before a US–​UK General Claims Commission, for com-
pensation for the undue period he was detained; the claim was disposed of in 1854–​55,
when the Umpire found that it had been settled by the two governments in 1841–​42 and
was thus outside the jurisdiction of the Commission.8 The UK Government then gave
McLeod a substantial annual pension.

II. The Positions of the Main Protagonists and the Reaction

of Third States and International Organizations
As Jennings noted in his celebrated article, published in 1938 just 100 years after the event,
‘paradoxically enough, this locus classicus of the law of self-​defence, is a case that turned

5 A B Corey, The Crisis of 1830–​1842 in Canadian-​American Relations (Yale University Press 1941); Howard
Jones, To the Webster-​Ashburton Treaty: A Study in Anglo-​American Relations, 1783–​1843 (University of North
Carolina Press 1977).
6 In 1945, an ‘international committee’ proposed that the headquarters of the United Nations should be
located on Navy Island: see International Committee to promote Navy Island as permanent headquarters for
the United Nations, Proposed United Nations Headquarters, Navy Island at Niagara Falls on the International
Boundary between Canada and the United States (Baker, Jones, Hausauer, Inc 1945).
7 Jennings (n 3) 88. 8 Jennings (n 3) 96–​99.
7

The Caroline Incident—​1837 7

essentially on the facts’.9 The legal arguments are well set out in advice from the British law
officers,10 and especially in correspondence between the two governments,11 which were
essentially of the same mind as to the law, so much so that the key ‘Webster formula’ was
repeated no less than three times.
It is worth citing at some length the correspondence between US Secretary of State,
Daniel Webster, and the British representatives in Washington (resident Minister, Fox,
and special Minister, Lord Ashburton, charged with negotiating an agreement on the
north-​eastern boundary and other outstanding matters, including the Caroline and
McLeod cases), so as to appreciate the context in which the Webster formula was used and
repeated.
Secretary of State Daniel Webster sent a Note to the British Minister in Washington, Mr
Fox, on 24 April 1841. The Note is lengthy, but deserves to be read in full to understand
the context of the frequently cited passage (which is highlighted below). The key passages
are reproduced here:
The Undersigned has now to signify to Mr Fox that the Government of the United States has
not changed the opinion which it has heretofore expressed to Her Majesty’s Government, of
the character of the act of destroying the ‘Caroline’. It does not think that that transaction can
be justified by any reasonable application or construction of the right of self-​defence under
the laws of nations. It is admitted that a just right of self-​defence attaches always to nations, as
well as to individuals, and is equally necessary for the preservation of both. But the extent of
this right is a question to be judged of by the circumstances of each particular case; and when
its alleged exercise has led to the commission of hostile acts, within the territory of a power
at peace, nothing less than a clear and absolute necessity can afford ground of justification . . .
That on a line of frontier, such as separates the United States from Her Britannic Majesty’s
North American Provinces, a line long enough to divide the whole of Europe into halves, ir-
regularities, violences, and conflicts should sometimes occur, equally against the will of both
Governments, is certainly easily to be supposed. This may be more possible, perhaps, in regard
to the United States, without any reproach to their Government, since their institutions en-
tirely discourage the keeping up of large standing armies in time of peace, and their situation
happily exempts them from the necessity of maintaining such expensive and dangerous estab-
lishments. All that can be expected, from either Government in these cases, is good faith, a
sincere desire to preserve peace and do justice, the use of all proper means of prevention, and,
that if offenses cannot, nevertheless, be always prevented, the offenders shall still be justly
punished. In all these respects, this Government acknowledges no delinquency in the per-
formance of its duties . . .
This Government, therefore, not only holds itself above reproach in every thing respecting
the preservation of neutrality, the observance of the principle of non-​intervention, and the
strictest conformity, in these respects, to the rules of international law, but it doubts not that
the world will do it the justice to acknowledge that it has set an example, not unfit to be fol-
lowed by others, and that by its steady legislation on this most important subject, it has done
something to promote peace and good neighborhood among Nations, and to advance the civ-
ilisation of mankind.
The Undersigned trusts, that when Her Britannic Majesty’s Government shall present the
grounds at length, on which they justify the local authorities of Canada, in attacking and
destroying the ‘Caroline’, they will consider, that the laws of the United States are such as the

9 Jennings (n 3) 92. Emphasis in original. 10 Quoted by Jennings (n 3) 87–​88.

11 The correspondence may be found in various publications, including 26 BFSP 1372–​77; 29 BFSP 1126–​
42; 30 BFSP 82–​99; J B Moore, Digest of International Law vol 1, 681; Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law
Library, The Avalon Project, The Caroline, <http://​avalon.law.yale.edu/​19th_​century/​br-​1842d.asp>.
8

8 Michael Wood

Undersigned has now represented them, and that the Government of the United States has
always manifested a sincere disposition to see those laws effectually and impartially admin-
istered. If there have been cases in which individuals, justly obnoxious to punishment, have
escaped, this is no more than happens in regard to other laws.

Having asserted that the United States could not be reproached any wrongful conduct,
Webster went on to address whether the destruction of the Caroline could nonetheless be
justified:
Under these circumstances, and under those immediately connected with the transaction
itself, it will be for Her Majesty’s Government to show, upon what state of facts, and what
rules of national law, the destruction of the ‘Caroline’ is to be defended. It will be for that
Government to show a necessity of self-​defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of
means, and no moment for deliberation. It will be for it to show, also, that the local author-
ities of Canada—​even supposing the necessity of the moment authorized them to enter the
territories of the United States at all—​did nothing unreasonable or excessive; since the act
justified by the necessity of self-​defence, must be limited by that necessity, and kept clearly
within it. It must be shown that admonition or remonstrance to the persons on board the
‘Caroline’ was impracticable, or would have been unavailing; it must be shown that daylight
could not be waited for; that there could be no attempt at discrimination, between the inno-
cent and the guilty; that it would not have been enough to seize and detain the vessel; but that
there was a necessity, present and inevitable, for attacking her, in the darkness of the night,
while moored to the shore, and while unarmed men were asleep on board, killing some, and
wounding others, and then drawing her into the current, above the cataract, setting her on
fire, and, careless to know whether there might not be in her the innocent with the guilty, or
the living with the dead, committing her to a fate, which fills the imagination with horror.
A necessity for all this, the Government of the United States cannot believe to have existed.12

Subsequently, on 27 July 1842, Webster sent a Note to the Special Minister, Lord Ashburton,
enclosing a copy of his Note of 24 April 1841. The main paragraph of the Note of 27 July
1842 read as follows:
The act of which the Government of the United States complains is not to be considered as
justifiable or unjustifiable, as the question of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the employ-
ment in which the ‘Caroline’ was engaged may be decided the one way or the other. That act is
of itself a wrong, and an offense to the sovereignty and the dignity of the United States, being
a violation of their soil and territory—​a wrong for which, to this day, no atonement, or even
apology, has been made by Her Majesty’s Government. Your Lordship cannot but be aware
that self-​respect, the consciousness of independence and national equality, and a sensitiveness
to whatever may touch the honor of the country—​a sensitiveness which this Government will
ever feel and ever cultivate—​make this a matter of high importance, and I must be allowed to
ask for it your Lordship’s grave consideration.

Lord Ashburton responded, the very next day, with a similarly lengthy and carefully
drafted Note. Again, only key extracts can be given here:
In the course of our conferences on the several subjects of difference which it was the object
of my mission to endeavour to settle, the unfortunate case of the Caroline, with its attendant
consequences, could not escape our attention; for although it is not of a description to be
susceptible of any settlement by a convention or treaty, yet being connected with the highest

12 For the earlier correspondence dated 5 January and 6 February 1838, see Jennings (n 3) 88.
9

The Caroline Incident—​1837 9

considerations of national honour and dignity it has given rise at times to deep excitement, so
as more than once to endanger the maintenance of peace . . .
It is so far satisfactory to perceive that we are perfectly agreed as to the general principles
of international law applicable to this unfortunate case. Respect for the inviolable character of
the territory of independent nations is the most essential foundation of civilization . . .
Every consideration therefore leads us to set as highly as your Government can possibly
do this paramount obligation of reciprocal respect for the independent territory of each. But
however strong this duty may be it is admitted by all writers, by all Jurists, by the occasional
practice of all nations, not excepting your own, that a strong overpowering necessity may
arise, when this great principle may and must be suspended. It must be so for the shortest pos-
sible period, during the continuance of an admitted overruling necessity, and strictly confined
within the narrowest limits imposed by that necessity.
Agreeing therefore on the general principle and on the possible exception to which it is
liable, the only question between us is whether this occurrence came within the limits fairly
to be assigned to such exception, whether, to use your words, there was ‘that necessity of self-​
defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means’ which preceded the destruction
of the Caroline, while moored to the shore of the United States . . .

Having expressed approval at the legal standard put forward by his American counter-
part, Lord Ashburton nonetheless contested the account of the incident as hinted at by
Secretary of State Webster:
I have only further to notice the highly coloured picture drawn in your note of the facts at-
tending the execution of this service. Some importance is attached to the attack having been
made in the night and the vessel having been set on fire and floated down the falls of the river,
and it is insinuated rather than asserted that there was carelessness as to the lives of the per-
sons on board. The account given by the distinguished officer who commanded the expedition
distinctly refutes or satisfactorily explains these assertions. The time of night was purposely
selected as most likely to ensure the execution with the least loss of life, and it is expressly
stated that, the strength of the current not permitting the vessel to be carried off, and it being
necessary to destroy her by fire, she was drawn into the stream for the express purpose of
preventing injury to persons or property of the inhabitants at Schlosser . . .

The correspondence concluded with Webster’s Note to Ashburton of 6 August 1842, the
relevant part of which reads:
The President sees with pleasure that your Lordship fully admits those great principles of
public law, applicable to cases of this kind, which this Government has expressed; and that
on your part, as on ours, respect for the inviolable character of the territory of independent
States is the most essential foundation of civilization. And while it is admitted, on both sides,
that there are exceptions to this rule, he is gratified to find that your Lordship admits that such
exceptions must come within the limitations stated and the terms used in a former commu-
nication from this Department to the British Plenipotentiary here. Undoubtedly it is just, that
while it is admitted that exceptions growing out of the great law of self-​defence do exist, those
exceptions should be confined to cases in which the ‘necessity of that self-​defence is instant,
overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation.’
Understanding these principles alike, the difference between the two Governments is only
whether the facts in the case of the ‘Caroline’ make out a case of such necessity for the purpose
of self-​defence. Seeing that the transaction is not recent, having happened in the time of one
of his predecessors; seeing that your Lordship, in the name of your Government, solemnly
declares that no slight or disrespect was intended to the sovereign authority of the United
States, seeing that it is acknowledged that, whether justifiable or not, there was yet a violation
of the territory of the United States, and that you are instructed to say that your Government
10

10 Michael Wood

considers that as a most serious occurrence; seeing, finally, that it is now admitted that an ex-
planation and apology for this violation was due at the time, the President is content to receive
these acknowledgments and assurances in the conciliatory spirit which marks your Lordship’s
letter, and will make this subject, as a complaint of violation of territory, the topic of no further
discussion between the two Governments.

It is worth recalling that, at the same time as laying to rest their differences over The
Caroline, the two sides reached agreement on the important Webster–​Ashburton Treaty,
and each regarded the 1842 correspondence as closing the matter.

III. Questions of Legality

As is apparent from the above correspondence, the United States and the United Kingdom
agreed on the applicable law as it stood in 1837 (‘we are perfectly agreed as to the general
principles of international law applicable to this unfortunate case’),13 and agreed to differ
on the facts (‘the topic [was] of no further discussion between the two Governments’).14
At this distance in time, and with limited access to the facts in what was evidently a
very heated matter, there is no point in seeking to assess, by the standards of the time, the
legality of the British actions on the night of 29/​30 December 1837.15

IV. Conclusion: Precedential Value

The Caroline incident continues to be cited as authority in at least three fields of inter-
national law: (i) the law of international responsibility, in particular with regard to the
invocation of necessity (état de nécessité) as a circumstance precluding wrongfulness;16
(ii) the law of international immunities, specifically the immunity of members of armed
forces;17 and (iii) in the jus ad bellum law of self-​defence. It is also of interest for the in-
terpretation of the principles of necessity and proportionality under international hu-
manitarian law,18 and reminds us of the importance of taking account of international
humanitarian law whenever there is a use of force.
The present contribution focuses on the jus ad bellum. Among the issues for which the
Caroline correspondence is cited are the right of ‘anticipatory’ self-​defence; the criterion

13 Lord Ashburton to Webster, 28 July 1842.

14 Webster to Lord Ashburton, 6 August 1842. See Vaughan Lowe, International Law (OUP 2007) 275–​76.
15 Though no less an authority than Waldock, writing in 1952, could say that ‘[i]‌t is commonly accepted
today that the proper limits of the pleas of self-​defence are correctly stated in the above principles and that, in
the particular circumstances, the destruction of the Caroline fell within these principles’. C H M Waldock, ‘The
Regulation of the Use of Force by Individual States in International Law’ (1952) 81 Recueil des Cours 463 (em-
phasis added).
16 Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA) UN Doc A/​R ES/​56/​83,
Annex, Art 25; commentary in ILC, Yb 2001 vol II(2), 80.
17 Secretary of State Webster to the US Attorney General, ‘that an individual forming part of a public force,
and acting under the authority of his Government, is not to be held answerable as a private trespasser or mal-
efactor, is a principle of public law sanctioned by the usages of all civilized nations’: J B Moore, A Digest of
International Law, vol 2 (US Government Printing Office 1906) 25.
18 Such considerations are apparent from the correspondence. Webster’s Note of 24 April 1837 is redolent
of international humanitarian law considerations: ‘it must be shown that daylight could not be waited for;
that there could be no attempt at discrimination, between the innocent and the guilty; that it would not have
been enough to seize and detain the vessel; but that there was a necessity, present and inevitable, for attacking
her, in the darkness of the night, while moored to the shore, and while unarmed men were asleep on board,
killing some, and wounding others . . .’. The British response will be familiar to anyone involved in modern
targeting: ‘The time of night was purposely selected as most likely to ensure the execution with the least loss
of life . . .’.
1

The Caroline Incident—​1837 11

of imminence in the event of anticipatory self-​defence; the requirements of necessity and

proportionality; and self-​defence against non-​state actors.
Virtually every author writing in the field of self-​defence refers to the Caroline inci-
dent,19 including in connection with the modern phenomenon of self-​defence against
non-​state actors.20 Webster’s 1841 formula is often the starting point for debate about the
right of self-​defence under international law. The issues raised include the use of force in
self-​defence against non-​state actors, anticipatory self-​defence, and related questions of
imminence and necessity. The former does not seem to have been controversial in the case
in question. The latter appears to have been central to the dispute, and remains a matter
of pressing concern today.21
The Caroline incident, together with the closely related McLeod case, date from
180 years ago. They are chiefly remembered today for short passages in the correspond-
ence between the US Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, and the British representatives in
Washington, which are often considered to encapsulate the requirements for self-​defence
under international law:
Undoubtedly it is just, that while it is admitted that exceptions growing out of the great law of
self-​defence do exist, those exceptions should be confined to cases in which the ‘necessity of
that self-​defence is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment
for deliberation.’22

The language used by the Americans and British in the early 1840s is at one and the same
time familiar (touching upon contemporary notions such as intervention, necessity, and
self-​defence) and unfamiliar (given the very different legal background almost 200 years
ago23). The issues too are strikingly modern. If the words ‘unable or unwilling’ are not
used, the notion seems to be implicit in the communications from the British side.
That the venerable Caroline incident was considered to be alive and well in the law
applicable in 1940 is clear from the judgment of the International Military Tribunal at
Nuremberg; the argument that the German invasion of Norway was justified on the
ground of self-​defence in the face of an imminent Allied landing was rejected by reference
to the Caroline criteria.24 That the Caroline survived into the Charter era may be seen inter
alia from Waldock’s reliance on it in his seminal Hague lectures from 1952,25 and in the
seventh (1952) edition of Oppenheim, volume II.26 The Caroline has also been invoked on

19 Except perhaps in France, where authors seem to prefer to ignore this Anglo-​Saxon precedent. A leading
French manual, Patrick Daillier, Mathias Forteau, and Alain Pellet, Droit international public (8th edn, LGDJ
2009), contains a single brief reference to the Caroline incident (at [481]), in the context of state responsibility
(self-​defence as precluding wrongfulness).
20 This can be seen from the many references to the Caroline incident in the present volume, as in other re-
cent collective works such as Marc Weller (ed), The Oxford Handbook of the Use of Force in International Law
(OUP 2015). For recent studies, see Institut de Droit International, ‘Tenth Commission, Present Problems of
the Use of Armed Force in International Law: A Self-​defence’ Resolution 10A (Session de Santiago, 27 October
2007) <http://​w ww.idi-​iil.org/​app/​uploads/​2017/​06/​Roucounas.pdf>; Pemmaraju Sreenivasa Rao, ‘Non-​state
Actors and Self-​defence: A Relook at the UN Charter Article 51’ (2017) Indian Journal of International Law
(published online 23 February 2017).
21 ‘Five Country Ministerial and Quintet of Attorneys General Joint Communiqué’ (US Department of
Homeland Security, 18 February 2016) included the following: ‘The Attorneys General agreed to continue to
discuss the application of the international law requirements for self-​defense, including imminence.’ Australia,
Canada, New Zealand, UK, USA: US Department of Homeland Security release, <https://​w ww.dhs.gov/​news/​
2016/​02/​18/​five-​country-​ministerial-​a nd-​quintet-​attorneys-​general-​joint-​communique>.
22 Webster to Ashburton, 6 August 1837.
23 On the important distinction between self-​preservation and self-​defence, which may not have been clear
to the participants in 1841–​42, see Jennings (n 3) 91–​92.
24 (1947) 41 American Journal of International Law 205. 25 Waldock (n 16) 462–​6 4.
26 Hersch Lauterpacht (ed), Oppenheim’s International Law vol II (7th edn, Longmans 1952).
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12 Michael Wood

several occasions before the UN Security Council, for example in connection with Israel’s
1981 attack on Iraq’s Osiraq nuclear reactor.27 The memory of the incident seems to have
lost none of its force, as may be seen from the UK Attorney General’s January 2017 speech
referred to below.28
A heated debate continues among states and writers over the permissibility of anticipa-
tory self-​defence in the Charter era. The central question concerns the meaning of Article
51 of the UN Charter and, in particular, the words ‘if an armed attack occurs against a
Member of the United Nations’ (in French, ‘dans le cas où un Membre des Nations Unies
est l’objet d’une agression armée’). Within this debate, the Caroline looms large. States and
authors differ in their reading of the Webster correspondence and above all in their views
of its current significance. Many tend to focus on the actual words used by Webster, and
repeated by the British representatives, and indeed on the words used in a short passage
read in isolation from the correspondence as a whole. The Caroline formula is too permis-
sive for some, too strict for others.
The Caroline is dismissed as irrelevant by those who reject the right of anticipatory
self-​defence, irrelevant because the law on the use of force was quite different in 1837 from
what it is in the Charter era; and in any event, even if a right of anticipatory self-​defence
existed under customary international law it could not have survived nor could it override
the express language of Article 51.29
Others favour a wider right than anticipatory self-​defence in the Caroline sense (pre-​
emptive or even preventive self-​defence), arguing that Webster’s language never con-
templated situations such as those faced in the twenty-​fi rst century, with the possibility
of weapons of mass destruction falling in the hands of terrorist groups.30
In other respects, many continue to place great weight on the Caroline incident when
considering the use of force in exercise of the right of self-​defence, relying on Webster’s
language to identify the strict conditions for the exercise of the right, particularly a right
of anticipatory self-​defence.31
In 2001, the International Law Commission opined that:
The ‘Caroline’ incident of 1837, though frequently referred to as an instance of self-​defence,
really involved the plea of necessity at a time when the law concerning the use of force had a
quite different basis than it now has.32

27 See, eg, UNSC Verbatim Record (15 June 1981) UN Doc S/​PV.2282 [15]–​[16]; UNSC Verbatim Record (15
June 1981) UN Doc S/​PV.2283 [148] (Sierra Leone). See also UNSC Verbatim Record (9 July 1976) UN Doc S/​
PV.1939 [115] (Israel with regard to the 1976 Entebbe raid).
28 At n 36 below.
29 Olivier Corten, Le droit contre la guerre (2nd edn, Pedone 2014) 666–​69; Tom Ruys, ‘Armed Attack’ and
Article 51 of the UN Charter: Evolutions in Customary Law and Practice (CUP 2010) 255–​59. According to
Crawford, ‘[r]‌eference to the period 1837–​1842 as the critical date for the customary law said to lie behind the
UN Charter is anachronistic and indefensible’: James Crawford, Brownlie’s Principles of Public International
Law (8th edn, OUP 2012) 751. (The language is taken over from the previous edition by Brownlie, which con-
tains a virtually identical sentence: Ian Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law (7th edn, OUP 2008)
734.) ‘[R]eliance on [the Caroline] incident is misplaced’: Yoram Dinstein, War, Aggression and Self-​Defence
(6th edn, CUP 2017) 225.
30 Sofaer (n 3) 219: ‘The historical setting of The Caroline incident makes clear that Webster’s formulation for
determining the legality of self-​defence was based on his assumption that the attack was unnecessary because
the US was both willing and able to satisfy its obligation to prevent and punish attacks from within its borders.
On that assumption, Webster reasonably claimed that the British could use force within the US if the need to
act was “instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation”.’
31 ‘It is generally accepted that the customary requirements are authoritatively formulated in correspond-
ence between the USA and the UK following the British attack on an American ship, the schooner Caroline, in
1837’ in Jan Klabbers, International Law (CUP 2013) 193.
32 Commentary to ARSIWA Article 25 in ILC, Yb 2001 vol II(2), 81 [5]‌. It will be recalled that Crawford was
the ILC’s Special Rapporteur who brought the articles and commentary to a successful conclusion. For a near
13

The Caroline Incident—​1837 13

Nevertheless, this rather overlooks the fact that the importance of that language lies not
so much in its original use as in its frequent re-​use as a precedent. In any event, the notion
of necessity in the nineteenth century and self-​defence today have a lot in common. That
both the facts and the law of the Caroline could be seen today as anticipatory self-​defence
is apparent from the advice given by the British Law Officers in 1839:
the grounds on which we consider the conduct of the British Authorities to be justified, is
that it was absolutely necessary as a measure of precaution for the future and not a measure of
retaliation for the past. What had been done previously is only important as affording irresist-
ible evidence of what would occur afterwards.33

A key issue at stake in the Caroline incident was the imminence of the attack against which
action was taken. If it is accepted that force may be used in self-​defence against attacks
from non-​state armed groups, and if anticipatory self-​defence is admitted (which is of
course still contested), the question of imminence becomes crucial.
Official statements and declarations by the United States, the United Kingdom, and
Australia suggest that, among those that accept the lawfulness of anticipatory self-​defence,
the imminence criterion is applied more flexibly today, in the face of threats from such
non-​state armed groups as Da’esh, than in the past in connection with attacks by states. In
the case of non-​state actors, the planning stages seem to be viewed as closely intertwined
with the attacks.
The US, UK, and Australian Governments have recently set out their positions on the
law of self-​defence in terms that apparently depart from the Webster formula, but which
in fact are not so far removed from the spirit of the correspondence when read as a whole.
The US position on the two questions, whether anticipatory self-​defence is permitted, and,
if so, how the criterion of imminence is to be applied in the case of self-​defence against
non-​state armed groups, was set out, by the Obama Administration, in December 2016 in
the following terms:
Under the jus ad bellum, a State may use force in the exercise of its inherent right of self-​de-
fense not only in response to armed attacks that have already occurred, but also in response to
imminent attacks before they occur. When considering whether an armed attack is imminent
under the jus ad bellum for purposes of the initial use of force against another State or on its
territory, the United States analyzes a variety of factors. These factors include ‘the nature and
immediacy of the threat; the probability of an attack; whether the anticipated attack is part
of a concerted pattern of continuing armed activity; the likely scale of the attack and the in-
jury, loss, or damage likely to result therefrom in the absence of mitigating action; and the
likelihood that there will be other opportunities to undertake effective action in self-​defense
that may be expected to cause less serious collateral injury, loss, or damage.’ Moreover, ‘the
absence of specific evidence of where an attack will take place or of the precise nature of an
attack does not preclude a conclusion that an armed attack is imminent for purposes of the
exercise of the right of self-​defense, provided that there is a reasonable and objective basis for
concluding that an armed attack is imminent.’ Finally, as is now increasingly recognized by
the international community, the traditional conception of what constitutes an ‘imminent’

contemporaneous reference to necessity not involving a use of force, see the Anglo-​Portuguese dispute of 1832,
cited by the International Law Commission ibid, at 81 [4] (‘The extent of the necessity, which will justify such
an appropriation of Property, of British Subjects, must depend upon the circumstances of the particular case,
but it must be imminent and urgent’).
33 Opinion of 25 March 1839: A D McNair (ed), International Law Opinions, vol 2 (CUP 1956) 228. Emphasis
in original.
14

14 Michael Wood

attack must be understood in light of the modern-​day capabilities, techniques, and techno-
logical innovations of terrorist organizations.34

The UK Government, which had explained its position on imminence under modern con-
ditions in 2004,35 did so again, in somewhat more detail, in January 2017 along similar
lines,36 as did the Australian Government in April 2017.37
In addition to the question of imminence, the Caroline correspondence, and the Webster
formula itself, retain importance for other aspects of the jus ad bellum. In particular, they
are often referred to in connection with the customary international law requirements of
necessity and proportionality for a lawful use of force in self-​defence under Article 51 of the
UN Charter. The Caroline incident is sometimes also recalled in connection with the use
of force in self-​defence against non-​state actors, and some of the language in the corres-
pondence may be thought to foreshadow an ‘unable and unwilling’ test. These are matters
that have been brought out above and are addressed in the case studies that follow.

34 The quotations are from Principle 8 of the ‘Bethlehem Principles’: see Daniel Bethlehem, ‘Principles
Relevant to the Scope of a State’s Right of Self-​Defense Against an Imminent or Actual Armed Attack by Nonstate
Actors’ (2012) 106(4) American Journal of International Law 769. For comment see Notes and Comments in
(2013) 107(2) AJIL 378–​95 and Dapo Akande and Thomas Liefländer, ‘Clarifying Necessity, Imminence, and
Proportionality in the Law of Self-​Defense’ (2013) 107(3) American Journal of International Law 563–​85. For
earlier collective attempts to set out principles, see Elizabeth Wilmshurst, ‘The Chatham House Principles of
International Law on the Use of Force in Self-​Defence’ (2006) 55 International and Comparative Law Quarterly
963; Institut de Droit International (n 20); ‘Leiden Policy Recommendations on Counter-​Terrorism and
International Law’ (2010) 57(3) Netherlands International Law Review 531; also published, with background
studies, in Larissa van den Herik and Nico Schrijver (eds), Counter-​Terrorism Strategies in a Fragmented
International Legal Order: Meeting the Challenges (CUP 2013) 706.
35 The then Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, explained in the House of Lords that the ‘concept of what
constitutes an “imminent” armed attack will develop to meet new circumstances and new threats . . . It must
be right that States are able to act in self-​defence in circumstances where there is evidence of further imminent
attacks by terrorist groups, even if there is no specific evidence of where such an attack will take place or of the
precise nature of the attack’: Lords Sitting of 21 April 2004, vol 660, cc 370–​71.
36 On 11 January 2017, the British Attorney General, the Rt Hon Jeremy Wright QC MP, delivered a speech
entitled The Modern Law of Self-​Defence, available at <https://​w ww.gov.uk/​government/​uploads/​system/​up-
loads/​attachment_​data/​fi le/​583171/​170111_ ​Imminence_ ​Speech_​.pdf>. Among other things, the Attorney
General endorsed the factors included in Principle 8 of the ‘Bethlehem Principles’: see Michael Wood, ‘The Use
of Force against Da’esh and the Jus Ad Bellum’ (2017) 1 Asian Yearbook of Human Rights and Humanitarian
Law; Michael Wood, ‘Self-​Defence Against Non-​State Actors—​A Practitioner’s View’ (2017) 77 Zeitschrift für
ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 75–​77.
37 On 11 April 2017, the Australian Attorney General, The Hon George Brandis QC, delivered a speech en-
titled ‘The Right of Self-​Defence against Imminent Armed Attack in International Law’, available at <https://​
law.uq.edu.au/​f iles/​25365/​2 017%2004%2011%20-​%20Attorney- ​G eneral%20-​%20Speech%20-​%20The%20
Right%20of%20Self-​D efence%20Against%20Imminent%20Armed%20Attack%20in%20International%20
Law%20-​%20for%20publication.pdf>
15

PA RT 1
T H E C OL D WA R E R A (19 4 5–​8 9)
16
17

3
The Korean War—​1950–​53
Nigel D White1

I. Facts and Context

Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and occupied it until the end of the Second World War,
when Korea became a battleground within another global confrontation. In the Korean
peninsula this involved the United States and United Nations (UN) on the one hand, and
the Soviet Union (USSR) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the other, with
direct military action taking place between US and PRC troops. It remains accurate to
say that ‘Korea remains the only conflict since 1945 in which the armies of two great
powers . . . have met on the battlefield’.2 At the outset of the Cold War there was a decidedly
hot, brutal, and long conflict in the Korean peninsula (1950–​53), in which the fortunes of
the two sides swung quite alarmingly until a stalemate was achieved at the 38th parallel,
leaving the north a hard-​line Communist country and the south a western-​supported and
increasingly western-​democratic country. The danger to world peace posed by the Korean
War was not simply evidenced by the fact that the United States, the United Kingdom,
and the PRC were directly, and the USSR indirectly, involved, but by the danger of escal-
ation. For example, in the face of a blistering Chinese offensive in the winter of 1950, US
President Truman openly contemplated the use of nuclear weapons.3 The Korean War
ended in July 1953 but there was no permanent peace agreement. The border remains
heavily militarized and is one of the most dangerous in the world.
Although its legal basis is disputed, the evidence is that the Korean War helped to shape
a decentralized UN collective security system,4 a model in which the UN Security Council
uses the rubric of ‘acting under Chapter VII’ to authorize willing states to tackle acts of
aggression or other threats to the peace. This is seen as a power implied, or developed
from, Article 42 of the UN Charter, which empowers the Council ‘to take such action
by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace
and security’ and, as such, is one of the exceptions (along with the right of self-​defence
under Article 51) to the prohibition on the use of force under Article 2(4).5 However, the
decentralized model does not accord with other provisions in Chapter VII of the UN
Charter that envisage greater control over armed forces by the Security Council through
the Military Staff Committee and by means of special agreements with member states to
make armed forces available to the UN.6 Furthermore, because of the peculiarity of the
political manoeuvrings in the UN at the time, which allowed only a small window for
action by the Security Council, the turmoil of Korea raised another vision of collective
security in which the UN General Assembly would play a more central role (in the form of

1 The author would like to thank Jennifer Giblin for her research assistance.
2 Max Hastings, The Korean War (Michael Joseph 1997) xiii. 3 ibid 214.
4 Nigel D White and Ozlem Ulgen, ‘The Security Council and the Decentralised Military Option:
Constitutionality and Function’ (1997) XLIV Netherlands International Law Review 378, 385.
5 Nico Krisch, ‘Article 42’ in Bruno Simma (ed), The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary (3rd edn,
OUP 2012) 1337.
6 Articles 43–​47 UN Charter 1945.
18

18 Nigel D White

the Uniting for Peace Resolution 1950).7 The Korean conflict is often seen as the forgotten
war by historians,8 being eclipsed by the later, longer, and, for the duration of the Cold
War at least, more disastrous Vietnam War, which started almost as soon as the Korean
War ended,9 and also involved a country divided by Cold War ideology.10 Arguably, in
the long run, the Korean War has had a more profound impact on the development of the
post-​1945, legal, political, and institutional order.
Korea was discussed by the United States, the USSR, Nationalist China, and the United
Kingdom at the Cairo Conference in 1943 and, by the time of the Yalta Conference in
1945, the idea of these states forming a four-​power trusteeship of Korea was emerging.
Events moved quickly once the United States used atomic weapons against Japan on 6 and
9 August 1945. The Soviet Union entered the war against Japan on 9 August and Japan
surrendered on 14 August. Soviet troops entered northern Korea on 10 August, but it was
agreed that the 38th parallel should separate the zones of occupation even though US
troops did not begin arriving in the south until 8 September 1945.11
The 38th parallel provided an ‘arbitrary separation’ of the country, cutting across a
number of rivers, roads, and railway lines.12 The Korean people themselves showed a desire
to live within a unified country, although political divisions started to show with a strong
communist party presence in both northern and southern zones.13 A Joint Commission
of representatives from the United States and USSR, agreed at the Moscow Conference
of December 1945, was deadlocked and so the United States decided to put the matter
before the UN General Assembly. The Assembly adopted a resolution on 14 November
1947,14 which was strongly supportive of the achievement of Korean independence, ‘be-
lieving that the national independence of Korea should be re-​established and occupying
forces then withdrawn at the earliest practicable date’, the future of the country being
‘primarily a matter for the Korean people itself’. The Assembly then recommended that
elections be held no later than 31 March 1948 ‘to choose representatives with whom the
[Temporary] Commission [of nine States] may consult regarding the prompt attainment
of the freedom and independence of the Korean people and which representatives, consti-
tuting a National Assembly, may establish a National Government of Korea’.
The division of the country into two zones of occupation prevented truly national elec-
tions, with the USSR not allowing the Commission into the northern zone. Elections
were held in those parts of Korea that were accessible on 10 May 1948, and were declared
to be a ‘valid expression of the free will of the electorate in those parts of Korea . . . in
which the inhabitants constituted approximately two-​t hirds of the people of all Korea’.15
Although seats were reserved in the National Assembly, headed by Syngman Rhee, for

7 UNGA Res 377 (V) (3 November 1950) UN Doc A/​R ES/​377 (V).
8 Hastings (n 2) xix. See further James I Matray, ‘Korea’s War at 60: A Survey of the Literature’ (2011) 11
Cold War History 99; Allan R Millett, ‘The Korean War: A 50-​Year Critical Historiography’ (2001) 24 Journal
of Strategic Studies 188; Dane J Cash, ‘ “History has Begun a New Chapter”: US Political-​Opinion Journals and
the Outbreak of the Korean War’ (2014) 36 The International History Review 395.
9 ‘Soon after the cease-​fire in Korea, in July, 1953, Communist equipment and advisers began to flow more
plentifully to Ho Chi Minh’s Viet-​Minh forces fighting the French in Indochina’, Bernard B Fall, Viet-​Nam
Witness 1953–​66 (Praeger 1966) 69.
10 Both Korea and Vietnam were the subject of the Geneva Conference of 1954; see Robert F Randle, Geneva
1954: The Settlement of the Indochinese War (Princeton University Press 1969).
11 Anthony Farrar-​Hockley, Official History: The British Part in the Korean War: Volume 1 A Distant
Obligation (HMSO 1990) 5.
12 James F Schnabel, The United States Army in the Korean War: The First Year from the Invasion to the
Beginning of Negotiations (Red and Black Publishers 1972) 16.
13 Farrar-​Hockley (n 11) 5–​7.
14 UNGA Res 112 (II) (14 November 1947) UN Doc A/​R ES/​112 (II); adopted by 43 votes with 6 abstentions.
15 UN Temporary Commission on Korea (25 June 1948) UN Doc A/​AC/​19/​66/​Add 3.
19

The Korean War—1950–53 19

representatives from the North, Kim Il-​sung, a Korean exile who had entered Korea with
Soviet forces and had become leader in the North, responded by holding elections in that
zone to a supreme people’s assembly.16 A UN General Assembly resolution of 12 December
1948 reflected acceptance of the situation by recognizing the government of South Korea
as the only government in Korea but one only having effective control over half of the
country, and establishing a new Commission on Korea to lend its good offices for the
unification of the country and to observe the withdrawal of the occupying forces, which
was to be achieved as early as possible.17 In the second half of 1949 there were a number
of incidents of insurrection by communist guerrillas in the south and ‘twelve clashes
of note along the border between uniformed forces of north and south. The latter were
deemed by the United Nations observers to be responsible for two of the twelve’.18 While
the South Koreans had, with US assistance, built up an army of around 100,000 by 1950,
the Soviets had trained and continued to advise a better-​equipped force of about 150,000
in the North.19 With US and Soviet troops withdrawn, leaving behind indigenous armies,
and with the idea of a unified Korea still in the air, the conditions for conflict were present.
Evidence suggests that Kim Il-​sung had first proposed military invasion of the South to
the Soviet leader Stalin early in 1949, while Korean President Syngman Rhee had made a
number of threats to invade the North.20
With communist insurgents in the South being defeated, the North took direct action
by attacking over the 38th parallel on the morning of 25 June 1950. That this was an un-
provoked attack by the North against the South was supported by the UN Commission
on Korea reporting that ‘all the evidence continues to point to a calculated co-​ordinated
attack [by North Korea] prepared and launched by secrecy’.21 Discussions had taken place
in the United States about this eventuality, including the proposition that the response
should come from the UN and not just the United States.22 The dangers of a unilateral
US response being seen as an ‘imperialistic action’,23 led the United States to exploit the
absence, since January 1950, of the USSR from the Security Council in protest at the con-
tinued occupation of the UN permanent seat by the Nationalist Chinese Government.24
Initially, the Security Council adopted Resolution 82 on 25 June 1950, the day of the inva-
sion, ‘noting with grave concern the armed attack on the Republic of Korea by forces from
North Korea’, determining that this action constituted a ‘breach of the peace’, and calling
for the immediate cessation of hostilities and withdrawal of the North Korean forces to
the 38th parallel. The resolution also called on member states to ‘render every assistance
to the United Nations in the execution of this resolution and to refrain from giving assist-
ance to the North Korean authorities’.25 The dangers of a ‘third world war’ were spoken

16 Farrar-​Hockley (n 11) 20.

17 UNGA Res 195 (III) (12 December 1948) UN Doc A/​R ES/​195 (III); adopted by 48 votes to 6 with 1
abstention.
18 Farrar-​Hockley (n 11) 29–​30. 19 Schnabel (n 12) 34, 38.
20 Farrar-​Hockley (n 11) 37–​38.
21 Report of UN Commission on Korea (26 June 1950) UN Doc S/​1505 [14]. But for the argument that South
Korea had crossed the border first see Karunakar Gupta, ‘How Did the Korean War Begin?’ (1972) 52 China
Quarterly 699, 704.
22 Schnabel (n 12) 47. 23 ibid 63.
24 The Secretary General opened the Security Council meeting on 25 June 1950, and saw this as an invoca-
tion of his powers under Article 99 of the Charter ‘to bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter
which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security’—​Trygve Lie, In the
Cause of Peace (Macmillan 1954) 328. See also Thomas J Hamilton, ‘The UN and Trygve Lie’ (1950–​51) 29
Foreign Affairs 67.
25 UNSC Res 82 (25 June 1950) UN Doc S/​R ES/​82; adopted by 9 votes to 0 with 1 abstention (Yugoslavia).
The USSR was absent.
20

20 Nigel D White

about in the UN.26 Two days after Resolution 82, and in the face of continuing military
incursion by North Korea, the Council, again in the absence of the Soviet Union, adopted
Resolution 83 on 27 June 1950, in which the Security Council: repeated its determination
that the ‘armed attack upon the Republic of Korea from North Korea’ constituted a ‘breach
of the peace’; noted the appeal ‘from the Republic of Korea to the United Nations for im-
mediate and effective steps to secure international peace and security to the area’; and re-
commended that ‘Members of the United Nations furnish such assistance to the Republic
of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace
and security to the area’.27
With North Korean forces capturing Seoul, the South Korean capital, on 28 June, the
defence of South Korea was entirely in hands of South Korean forces. The United States
had only sent a survey group on 27 June. Although the United States had plans in place to
take action in the event of a failure to secure a Security Council resolution, being unpre-
pared militarily, it was not able to send troops in significant numbers until after Resolution
83 had been secured.28 President Truman first authorized General MacArthur to under-
take airstrikes on targets in the North and then to deploy ground troops as it became clear
that the North Korean forces were pushing down the peninsula and resistance was failing.
The first major engagement between US forces and North Koreans was on 5 July, with US
forces overwhelmed by superior firepower and strength.29
Although the United States rejected UN control over the operation, it eventually wel-
comed forces and other military assistance from sixteen countries.30 A new Security
Council resolution was adopted on 7 July 1950, which welcomed the contributions made by
states ‘to assist the Republic of Korea in defending itself against an armed attack and thus
to restore international peace and security in the area’; it recommended that ‘all Members
providing military forces and other assistance pursuant to the aforesaid Security Council
resolutions make such forces and other assistance available to a unified command under
the United States of America’. It requested the United States to ‘designate the commander
of such forces’ and authorized the ‘unified commander at its discretion to use the United
Nations flag in the course of operations against North Korean forces concurrently with
the flags of the various participating nations’. This delegation of authority to the United
States had one element of ongoing UN involvement in that the resolution requested the
United States to provide the Security Council ‘with reports as appropriate on the course
of action taken under the unified command’.31 This resolution marked the end of mean-
ingful direction of the operation by the Security Council,32 with the USSR returning to the
Council chamber in August 1950.

26 For example, UNSC Verbatim Record (27 June 1950) UN Doc S/​PV.474, 2 (India).
27 UNSC Res 83 (27 June 1950) UN Doc S/​R ES/​83; adopted by 7 votes to 1. India and Egypt did not partici-
pate in the voting and the USSR was absent.
28 Schnabel (n 12) 68. 29 ibid 75.
30 Hastings (n 2) 411. These were Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ethiopia, France, Greece,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, South Africa, the United
Kingdom, and United States. As of December 1951, the US contribution to UN forces was 50.32 per cent
(ground forces), 85.89 per cent (naval forces), and 93.38 per cent (air forces), while South Korea’s was 40.1 per
cent, 7.45 per cent, and 5.65 per cent respectively; in Leland M Goodrich, ‘Korea: Collective Measures Against
Aggression’ (1953–​55) 30 International Conciliation 129, 145–​46.
31 UNSC Res 84 (7 July 1950) UN Doc S/​R ES/​84; adopted by 7 votes to 0, with 3 abstentions (Egypt, India,
and Yugoslavia). The USSR was absent. The United States supplied fifty-​nine reports to the Security Council
over the course of the War.
32 UNSC Res 85 (31 July 1950) UN Doc S/​R ES/​85 addressed the plight of the civilian population; while
UNSC Res 88 (8 November 1950) UN Doc S/​R ES/​88 invited the representative of the PRC to be present at a
Security Council meeting.
21

The Korean War—1950–53 21

In the first report by the United States to the Security Council on 25 July on the course of
action taken by the Unified Command in accordance with Resolution 84, the scramble to
deploy forces to meet the North Korean forces was apparent. The report stated that US and
UK forces had drawn upon troops occupying Japan, which had been initially deployed to
Korea ‘upon the request by the Security Council . . . for assistance to defend the Republic of
Korea against North Korean aggressors’.33 In the second report, the US ambassador wrote
about the ‘savage character of the fighting’, speaking of the ‘splendid cooperation and the
perfect coordination not only within but between the defence contingents of the various
nationalities that comprise the United Nations forces’. It also commented upon the ‘inter-
national character of the operations in Korea’, although the report identified the main
combat forces were from the United States and South Korea.34 The US-​led (South Korean,
US, and UK) forces successfully defended a perimeter around the southern port of Pusan
in August and September 1950 against successive North Korean attacks, enabling UN
forces to build up sufficiently to turn the tide of the war.35 On 15 September 1950, US-​led
forces launched a counter-​attack behind North Korean lines by landing forces at Inchon
on the western side of the Korean peninsula leading to the capture of Seoul, which, when
combined with US-​led forces breaking out of the Pusan perimeter, led to the retreat of
North Korean forces from the South.36
With the USSR returning to its seat in the Council, a Resolution was adopted by the
General Assembly on 7 October 1950 and, along with Security Council Resolution 83,
provided the links between the UN collective security system and the actions of the US-​
led operation. The Assembly, ‘having in mind that United Nations armed forces are at
present operating in Korea in accordance with the recommendations of the Security
Council’ recommended that: ‘all appropriate steps be taken to ensure conditions of sta-
bility throughout Korea’; ‘all constituent acts be taken, including the holding of elections,
under the auspices of the United Nations, for the establishment of a unified, inde-
pendent and democratic government in the sovereign State of Korea’; and that ‘United
Nations forces should not remain in any part of Korea otherwise that so far as neces-
sary for achieving’ these objectives. The resolution established a UN Commission for the
Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea (consisting of representatives from Australia,
Chile, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, and Turkey), to ‘represent the
United Nations in bringing about the establishment of a unified, independent and demo-
cratic government of all Korea’.37
On 19 October 1950, the US-​led force captured Pyongyang, the North Korean capital,
and moved up to the Sino–​Korean border. However, it proved premature for President
Truman to claim victory in his speech to the UN General Assembly on 24 October 1950:
In uniting to crush the aggressors in Korea, these Member nations have done no more than
the Charter calls for. But the important thing is that they have done it, and have done it suc-
cessfully. They have given dramatic evidence that the Charter works. They have proved that
the Charter is a living instrument backed by the material and moral strength of Members,
large and small.38

33 First US Report (25 July 1950) UN Doc S/​1626.

34 Second US Report (17 August 1950) UN Doc S/​1694.
35 Fourth US Report (18 September 1950) UN Doc S/​170.
36 Sixth US Report (21 October 1950) UN Doc S/​1860.
37 UNGA Res 376 (V) (7 October 1950) UN Doc A/​R ES/​376 (V); adopted by 47 votes to 5 with 7 abstentions.
38 UNGA Verbatim Record (24 October 1950) UN Doc A/​PV.295, 245 (US).
2

22 Nigel D White

Indeed, on 25 October 1950, the PRC intervened in the conflict, which by late November
amounted to a force of 200,000 troops from the People’s Liberation Army, known as the
People’s Volunteer Army when fighting in Korea.
A draft resolution calling on the PRC to withdraw from Korea was vetoed by the Soviet
Union in the Security Council on 30 November 1950.39 After this point, the matter was
removed from the agenda of the Security Council,40 and was dealt with by the General
Assembly. On 1 February 1951, the Assembly, after noting that the Security Council had
failed to exercise its primary responsibility for peace and security, found that the PRC had
‘engaged in aggression in Korea’ by engaging directly in hostilities against UN forces, and
ordered the PRC ‘to cease hostilities against United Nations forces and to withdraw from
Korea’. It also affirmed the ‘determination of the United Nations to continue its action
against Korea to meet the aggression’.41 In May 1951, the Assembly recommended that
‘every State’ apply an arms embargo on the PRC and North Korean authorities.42
After a massive Chinese spring offensive was repulsed in 1951, the war ground turned
into a stalemate around the 38th parallel but one that involved a number of bloody bat-
tles.43 Protracted armistice negotiations actually commenced in July 1951 but were not
concluded until 27 July 1953, with the repatriation of prisoners of war (PoWs) to North
Korea being a major stumbling block.44 The Preamble to the Agreement Concerning a
Military Armistice in Korea stated:
The undersigned, the Commander-​in-​Chief, United Nations Command, on the one hand, and
the Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army and the Commander of the Chinese
People’s Volunteers, on the other hand, in the interest of stopping the Korean conflict, with its
great toll of suffering and bloodshed on both sides, and with the objective of establishing an
armistice which will insure a complete cessation of hostilities and of all acts of armed force in
Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved, do individually, collectively, and mutually
agree to accept and to be bound and governed by the conditions and terms of armistice set
forth in the following Articles and Paragraphs, which said conditions and terms are intended
to be purely military in character and to pertain solely to the belligerents in Korea.

The above-​mentioned ‘final peaceful settlement’ has not been achieved, leaving Korea div-
ided, with tensions between North and South an ever-​present danger to world peace.45

II. The Positions of the Main Protagonists and the Reaction

of Third States and International Organizations
1. The initial conflict
The collective position of the UN on the Korean War, albeit one arrived at by majorities in
its main political organs with the USSR and its allies consistently in the minority, is found
in key resolutions described above. The Security Council adopted Resolution 82 on the day

39 UNSC Verbatim Record (30 November 1950) UN Doc S/​PV.530.

40 UNSC Res 90 (31 January 1951) UN Doc S/​R ES/​90; surprisingly adopted unanimously at UNSC Verbatim
Record (31 January 1951) UN Doc S/​PV.531 [46] (USSR). This was the first use of the ‘Uniting for Peace ma-
chinery’—​D H N Johnson, ‘The Korean Question and the United Nations’ (1956) 26 Nordisk Tidsskrift 25, 28.
41 UNGA Res 498 (V) (1 February 1951) UN Doc A/​R ES/​498 (V); adopted by 44 votes to 7 with 9 abstentions.
42 UNGA Res 500 (V) (18 May 1951) UN Doc A/​R ES/​500 (V); adopted by 47 votes to 0 with 8 abstentions.
43 For example, the battle of the Imjin River, April 1951; the battle of ‘the Hook’ (1952–​53), Hastings
(n 2) 250, 371–​73.
44 See proposals in UNGA Res 610 (VII) (3 December 1952) UN Doc A/​R ES/​610 (VII).
45 See Eric Y J Lee, ‘Can the SC Resolution 2270 Stop North Korea’s Nuclear Dilemma? From the Geneva
Agreed Framework to the Washington Communique’ (2016) 9 Journal of East Asia and International Law 262.
23

The Korean War—1950–53 23

of the outbreak of hostilities, in which it noted the ‘armed attack’ on the Republic of Korea
by forces from North Korea and determined that this constituted a ‘breach of the peace’.46
In Resolution 83, adopted on 27 June 1950, the Security Council repeated these determin-
ations and recommended that assistance be provided to the Republic of Korea ‘as may be
necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security to the
area’.47 In Resolution 84 of 7 July 1950, the Security Council welcomed the contributions
made by states ‘to assist the Republic of Korea in defending itself against an armed attack
and thus to restore international peace and security in the area’, recommending that they
be placed under US command and authorizing the use of the UN flag.48
Initially, therefore, it seemed that the Security Council’s position was that the move-
ment of significant numbers of North Korean troops over the 38th parallel was an ‘armed
attack’ by the North against the South, thereby equating this to an attack by one country
against another in violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and, therefore, triggering
the right of individual and collective self-​defence under Article 51. However, the legal
analysis in section III below shows that this is qualified by the determination that there
was a ‘breach of the peace’, rather than an ‘act of aggression’. Nonetheless, the rhetoric of
some of the Members of the Council suggests that they saw this as an aggression by one
state against another, especially those states supporting the resolutions. On 25 June 1950,
the United States stated that ‘this wholly illegal and unprovoked attack by North Korean
forces . . . constitutes a breach of the peace and act of aggression’, but also ‘this is clearly a
threat to international peace and security’; and later stated ‘it is an invasion upon a State
which the United Nations itself . . . has brought into being’.49 The invited South Korean
representative declared that ‘this unprovoked armed attack by the forces of North Korea
is a crime against humanity . . . the invasion of my country is an act of aggression and a
threat to international peace and security’.50 Nationalist China spoke of ‘aggression’, Cuba
‘armed attack’, and Ecuador ‘aggression’.51 In the Security Council, on 27 June 1950, the
United States spoke about an ‘armed attack’, ‘breach of the peace’, and an ‘attack on the
United Nations itself’; France used the term ‘attack’; UK ‘aggression’; China ‘attack’ and
‘aggression’; Norway ‘attack’.52 By determining the attack to be a breach of the peace in its
resolutions rather than a threat to the peace, the Security Council appeared to have viewed
this as an issue of inter-​state peace, rather than intra-​state peace, in which the term ‘threat
to the peace’ would have been more appropriate. However, the analysis in section III below
suggests that the term breach was understood in a different way in 1950, and that the situ-
ation was one of an internationalized civil conflict rather than an inter-​state one.
Given this finding, it would be feasible to view the US-​led operation as an action under-
taken at the invitation of the only recognized government in Korea; a view reinforced
by the fact that Korea was not a member of the UN at the time.53 However, those states
contributing to the military operation to repel the armed attack and to restore peace saw
themselves as fighting on behalf of the UN to enforce international peace and security, not
simply acting on behalf of South Korea to secure its territorial integrity. ‘There is ample

46 UNSC Res 82 (25 June 1950) UN Doc S/​R ES/​82.

47 UNSC Res 83 (27 June 1950) UN Doc S/​R ES/​83.
48 UNSC Res 84 (7 July 1950) UN Doc S/​R ES/​84.
49 UNSC Verbatim Record (25 June 1950) UN Doc S/​PV.473, 4 (United States).
50 ibid 8 (South Korea). 51 ibid 9–​11 (China), 12 (Cuba and Ecuador).
52 UNSC Verbatim Record (27 June 1950) UN Doc S/​PV.474, 3 (United States), 8 (France), 10 (United
Kingdom), 11 (China), 12 (Norway).
53 See Olivier Corten, The Law Against War: The Prohibition on the Use of Force in Contemporary
International Law (Hart 2010) 331.
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24 Nigel D White

evidence that the Security Council and the General Assembly, the United States and other
contributing States, and even the People’s Republic of China were all of the view that this
was a United Nations action and that the forces involved were United Nations forces’ and,
despite the fact that it was dominated by the United States, the ‘character of the Force as
a matter of law’ was unaffected.54 Examples of leading contributors having this belief can
be found in a statement made by Australia that the ‘Australian Government regards all
the Korean operations as having been conducted under the Security Council and in pur-
suance of the United Nations Charter’;55 and by the United States that this was the ‘first
and only genuine, powerful, collective security enforcement Army established under the
aegis of the United Nations Security Council’.56 In the case of the United Kingdom, at the
outset of the operation Prime Minister Attlee was of the opinion that the initial US assist-
ance to South Korea had been justifiable action in collective self-​defence under Article 51
of the UN Charter but, ‘after the passing of the resolution of the 27th justification for the
continued action of America and the United Kingdom and other members is to be found
in this resolution’.57 In his speech, opening Parliament in October 1950, King George VI
spoke of UK forces playing a part in a ‘historic action . . . giving proof of the ability of the
United Nations to meet a threat to world peace’.58
The UN Secretary-​General, Trygve Lie, also saw the war in terms of a UN collective
security action: ‘The aggression in Korea might . . . have doomed the United Nations; but
here in continental Asia the United Nations passed the test and set a first precedent for
armed international police action in the field’.59 The Secretary-​General noted that the
United States had committed troops before the Security Council, in Resolution 83 on
27 June 1950, had recommended that member states furnish assistance to South Korea.
However, he did not attribute this to the United States acting in collective self-​defence
of South Korea but acting ‘within the spirit’ of the Security Council Resolution 82 of 25
June that called for a cessation of hostilities and a withdrawal of North Korean forces to
the 38th parallel.60 The Secretary-​General also strove to try and make the military action
more of a UN action and less of a US one, though US dominance could only be curbed
a little. Although the United States wanted to avoid unilateral action and had secured
Resolution 83, it rejected Lie’s proposal for a Committee on Coordination of Assistance
for Korea, not wanting any level of control placed between the US Government and field
commander.61 This Committee would have coordinated assistance, kept the UN ‘in the
picture’, and promoted ‘continuing United Nations participation in and supervision of the
military security action in Korea’.62 Trygve Lie viewed the US rejection of this proposal as
a missed opportunity for shaping ‘the pattern of the police action’ that would have pre-
vented dominance by one state.63
The USSR objected to Resolutions 82, 83, and 84 as justifications by the United States
for its ‘armed intervention in Korea’, and argued that they were ‘adopted illegally by the
Security Council and constitute a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter’. It elab-
orated by saying that ‘only three of the five permanent members of the Council, namely, the
United States, the United Kingdom and France, were present at the meetings . . . at which

54 Derek W Bowett, United Nations Forces (Stevens 1964) 45.

55 Minister’s response in Leslie C Green, ‘The Nature of the “War” in Korea’ (1951) 4 International Law
Quarterly 462, 465.
56 S Pollack, Special Assistant, OSJA, Eighth US Army/​Korea, ‘The Korean Armistice: Collective Security in
Suspense’ (1984) Army Law 43.
57 HC Deb 5 July 1950, vol 477, col 485. 58 HC Deb 31 October 1950, vol 480, col 6.
59 Lie (n 24) 323. 60 ibid 332. 61 Schnabel (n 12) 92. 62 Lie (n 24) 334.
63 ibid.
25

The Korean War—1950–53 25

those resolutions were adopted’, meaning that ‘those resolutions were adopted at private
meetings of certain members of the Security Council’ and were ‘not legally binding’. The
Soviet Union stated that it was ‘absolutely clear’ that the ‘military operations in Korea are
conducted not by the armed forces of the United Nations . . . but by armed forces of indi-
vidual States which, in contravention of the Charter, are usurping the name and flag of the
United Nations’.64
The objections of the USSR to the US-​led military operation were: that Security
Council resolutions were not properly adopted as neither PRC nor the USSR had sup-
ported them; because the resolutions interfered in the domestic affairs of Korea; that
the Secretary-​General and UN Security Council should have attempted to reconcile the
two sides in the conflict; and that the United States was the real aggressor and violator of
the Charter.65 The Secretary-​General asked the UN Legal Department for advice, which
concluded that: the occupation of the Chinese seat was a decision for the United Nations
Security Council; the absence of the USSR was not a veto but the equivalent of an absten-
tion; the conflict was not a purely civil one but had been the subject of international and
UN concern for years, and besides which the prohibition on intervention in domestic
matters in Article 2(7) did not apply to enforcement action.66 The Secretary-​General did
not agree with the Soviet argument that the internal unification of Korea was a matter
for the Koreans:
In the world today, legally bound by the new factor of the United Nations Charter, such an
argument seemed to me to be transparent nonsense; for the United Nations clearly was em-
powered to deal with any threat to international peace, whether its origins were in an inter-
national dispute or in a civil one.67

2. Crossing the 38th parallel

With the Soviet Union’s return to the Council, and with North Korean forces in retreat in
September 1950, the issue for US-​led forces was whether to enter North Korea and unify
the country. With the Security Council now deadlocked, the United Kingdom took a draft
resolution to the General Assembly. The UK Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, explained
the purpose of the draft in the following terms:
You will see that the resolution contemplates the contingency that United Nations forces may
enter North Korea but that it very carefully defines their functions there. I feel strongly that
if the authority of the United Nations is to be established we cannot be content with restoring
the status quo. The 38th Parallel is an imaginary line on the map which has neither political nor
military significance on the ground. The General Assembly of the United Nations has already
declared as its object the unification of Korea and it is highly improbable that this object can
be achieved if North Korea is permitted to remain as a separate entity.68

With US General MacArthur in charge of the military campaign, there is little doubt
that the US-​led forces would have ventured into North Korea without Resolution 376.69
Nonetheless, it is interesting that the United States supported the General Assembly’s en-
dorsement rather than rely on the wording of Resolution 83 which, like Resolution 678
(1990) adopted in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, not only authorized repelling

64 UNGA Verbatim Record (7 October 1950) UN Doc A/​PV.294 [241] (USSR); for similar views see ibid
[227] (Ukraine).
65 Lie (n 24) 335. 66 ibid. 67 ibid 336. 68 Farrar-​Hockley (n 11) 210.
69 Hastings (n 2) 135–​38.
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26 Nigel D White

the attack but more broadly recommended restoring ‘international peace and security to
the area’.70 In the General Assembly, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) spoke
of a defeated alternative draft resolution that would have provided ‘for putting an end to
foreign interference in the settlement of the internal conflict between North and South
Korea’, reflecting the Eastern bloc view that there was a civil war in Korea.71
Essentially a General Assembly recommendation of military enforcement action to
unify Korea, Resolution 376 of 7 October 1950 was a harbinger of the Uniting for Peace
Resolution (377), adopted on 3 November 1950, in which the General Assembly resolved:
that if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails
to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security
in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of ag-
gression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making
appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a
breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or
restore international peace and security . . .72

This can be seen as a retrospective justification of the type of power exercised by the
General Assembly in Resolution 376 on Korea as well as embodying an alternative vi-
sion of collective security based on the will of the majority (two-​t hirds) of member states.
A direct product of the Korean War, the Uniting for Peace Resolution has been invoked at
crucial points in the UN’s history,73 but it has not been utilized in its fullest sense as a way
of unlocking enforcement action outside the Security Council.

3. Uniting for Peace

The majority of states argued that there was a legal base for Uniting for Peace, for ex-
ample: the Philippines on the basis that the Security Council’s responsibility was not ex-
clusive;74 Greece on the basis that it did not encroach on the Security Council’s power to
make legally binding decisions,75 and that such transference was necessary as the Council
would not have been able to act as ‘swiftly and effectively’ as it had done in the case of
Korea if the USSR had been present.76 The latter point reflects the majority view that
Uniting for Peace was a necessary outcome of the Korean War, to enable action to be taken
on the basis of a majority view in the UN. Canada stated that it was ‘nonsense’ to attack
the Resolution on the basis that it undermined Great Power unanimity: ‘what is the use
of a unanimity which can be achieved only by doing nothing, which is used as a cloak for
obstruction and reaction?’77
The USSR’s objection to Uniting for Peace and, therefore, to the power of enforce-
ment passing to the General Assembly was primarily that it violated the Charter,

70 At the meeting during which Resolution 83 was adopted only the invited representative of South Korea al-
luded to this provision in the Resolution when saying: ‘It is my fervent hope that the Council will consider this
appeal favourably in order to expel the invader from our territory and act directly in the establishment of inter-
national peace and security’—​U NSC Verbatim Record (27 June 1950) UN Doc S/​PV.474, 8 (Republic of Korea).
71 UNGA Verbatim Record (7 October 1950) UN Doc A/​PV.294, 227 (Ukraine).
72 UNGA Res 377 (V) (3 November 1950) UN Doc A/​R ES/​377 (V); adopted by 52 votes to 5 with 2 absten-
tions. Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, and Byelorussian SSR voted against.
73 For example, enabling the creation of the first peacekeeping force (UNEF I) by the General Assembly in
the Suez Crisis 1956. See Chapter 4, ‘The Suez Crisis—​1956’ by Alexandra Hofer in this volume.
74 UNGA Verbatim Record (1 November 1950) UN Doc A/​PV.299, 295 (Philippines).
75 ibid 297 (Greece). 76 ibid 301 (Greece).
77 UNGA Verbatim Record (3 November 1950) UN Doc A/​PV.302, 243 (Canada).
27

The Korean War—1950–53 27

specifically disregarding the fact that the Security Council was functioning within the
meaning of Article 12 and fulfilling its responsibility in the sense of Article 24 when
it did not take action as well as when it did.78 In the Korean situation, the Soviet veto
was cast when it returned to the Security Council on the basis that the conflict should
be seen as a civil one, which did not require action in the form of any outside involve-
ment.79 The attempted transference to the Assembly was illegal according to the USSR
because the US-​led majority in the UN wanted ‘to move the centre of gravity in the
veto controversy to a point where you are bound by nothing save your majority, which
you have under your thumb, and by using that majority to do what you want regardless
of anything’.80 Finally, the USSR made it clear that the General Assembly did not have
the power of enforcement action which ‘under the Charter, is reserved to the Security
Council’.81

4. Chinese intervention
When the US-​led forces reached the Yalu River that marked the boundary with China,
‘victory was within sight’ according to the UN Secretary-​General, but massive Chinese
intervention on 29 November 1950 against over-​extended UN forces led to the possibility
of defeat for the UN.82 In a Christmas broadcast, the Secretary-​General stated:
The collective military defense against aggression and invasion which the United Nations
undertook in Korea was the first action of its kind in history. It was not without risk . . . The
first victory for the United Nations’ principles, the purely military one, was . . . within sight
until four or five weeks ago. It was then that half a million Chinese soldiers were suddenly
thrown into the battle . . . the danger of a new world war . . . brought closer.83

The position of the majority of members at the UN on Chinese intervention can be found
in the draft resolution in the Security Council calling on the PRC to withdraw from Korea,
which was vetoed by the USSR on 30 November 1950.84 The draft called upon states and
authorities responsible for military action (‘Chinese communist military units’, which
were deployed against ‘the forces of the United Nations’) to ‘refrain from assisting or
encouraging the North Korean authorities’ and to withdraw those units. The draft af-
firmed the ‘policy of the United Nations to hold the Chinese frontier with Korea inviolate’,
but then called attention ‘to the grave danger which continued intervention by Chinese
forces in Korea would entail for the maintenance of such a policy’.85
After this point, the matter was removed from the agenda of the Security Council86 and
was dealt with by the General Assembly. The United Kingdom proposed this transfer ex-
pressing concern that otherwise ‘technical doubts’ may be raised about possible infringe-
ments of Article 12 of the UN Charter, which provides that while the Security Council is
exercising ‘the functions assigned to it under the present Charter’, the Assembly shall not
make any recommendations. The United Kingdom argued that a Council deadlocked by

78 UNGA Verbatim Record (2 November 1950) UN Doc A/​PV.301, 332 (USSR). For similar views see ibid
337 (Ukrainian SSR).
79 Other examples of Eastern bloc states making this argument were Czechoslovakia and Poland, see J L
Kunz, ‘The Legality of the Security Council Resolution of June 25 and 27, 1950’ (1951) 45 American Journal of
International Law 137, 138.
80 UNGA Verbatim Record (2 November 1950) UN Doc A/​PV.301, 333 (USSR).
81 ibid 333 (USSR). 82 ibid 350 (UNSG). 83 ibid 358 (UNSG).
84 UNSC Verbatim Record (30 November 1950) UN Doc S/​PV.530.
85 UNSC, ‘Complaint of Aggression upon the Republic of Korea’ (10 November 1950) UN Doc S/​1894.
86 UNSC Res 90 (31 January 1951) UN Doc S/​R ES/​90.
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28 Nigel D White

the veto was not properly functioning.87 On 1 February 1951, the Assembly, after noting
that the Security Council had failed to exercise its primary responsibility for peace and
security, found that the government of the PRC had committed aggression in Korea by
engaging directly in hostilities against UN forces, and ordered the PRC ‘to cease hostilities
against United Nations forces and to withdraw from Korea’. It also affirmed the ‘determin-
ation of the United Nations to continue its action against Korea to meet the aggression’.88
In May 1951, the Assembly recommended that ‘every State’ apply an arms embargo on the
PRC and North Korean authorities.89
The lack of representation for the PRC at the UN means that it is difficult to find the offi-
cial position of its government for its intervention in the Korean War in October–​November
1950.90 Bearing in mind that the US-​led force was at the time rapidly approaching the Yalu
River, which marked its frontier, and with General MacArthur dismissing any thoughts
of leaving a buffer zone between Korea and China,91 the evidence is that the PRC entered
the war reluctantly, and there certainly was no evidence of collusion between the USSR
and the PRC.92 One account of China’s reasons comes from General P’eng Te-​huai, who
led the Chinese military action in Korea, who recalled Chairman Mao Tse-​tung’s rea-
soning in the regime’s Central Committee to the effect that China was coming to the aid
of an ally, and that allowing the US forces to be on its border would be a constant threat
to the new Communist regime in mainland China.93 The intervention was forewarned
by a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement on 10 October that ‘the Chinese people cannot
stand idly by when such a serious situation has been created by the invasion of Korea by
the United States and its accomplices’.94 In fact, a representative of the PRC did speak be-
fore the Security Council on 30 November 1950, principally concerning the situation of
Taiwan, but took the opportunity to make the following statement on Korea (and impli-
citly justifying Chinese intervention):
The reason why I do not participate in the discussion of the so-​called complaint of aggres-
sion against the Republic of Korea is very clear. The truth of the question of Korea is that the
Government of the United States has used armed forces to intervene in the domestic affairs of
Korea, and has seriously breached the security of the People’s Republic of China. The usurp-
ation of the name of the United Nations by the United States Government is entirely illegal . . .
Since the Government of the United States started its aggressive war in Korea, according to
preliminary estimates, from 27 August to 25 November, the United States armed forces of ag-
gression in Korea violated the territorial air space of my country two hundred times, and the
number of airplanes thus employed total more than one thousand. These acts have damaged
Chinese property and killed Chinese people. I wish to ask Mr. Austin [US representative]: Is
this not aggression?95

Although there was no explicit invocation of the right of self-​defence by the PRC, the
rhetoric comes close. According to Max Hastings, the PRC remembered that ‘Korea had

87 UNSC Verbatim Record (31 January 1951) UN Doc S/​PV.531, 8 (United Kingdom).
88 UNGA Res 498 (V) (1 February 1951) UN Doc A/​R ES/​498 (V); adopted by 44 votes to 7 with 8 abstentions.
89 UNGA Res 500 (V) (18 May 1951) UN Doc A/​R ES/​500 (V); adopted by 47 votes to 0 with 8 abstentions.
90 The Security Council invited a representative from the PRC to discuss Korea on 8 November 1950, UN
Doc S/​184 (1950). The PRC did not accept.
91 Hastings (n 2) 147–​49.
92 ibid 155–​56. See also Hao Yufan and Zhai Zhihai, ‘China’s Decision to Enter the Korean War: History
Revisited’ (1990) 121 The China Quarterly 94, 99. But see Allan Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision
to Enter the Korean War (Stanford University Press 1960) 2–​13.
93 Farrar-​Hockley (n 11) 271–​72. 94 ibid 213.
95 UNSC Verbatim Record (30 November 1950) UN Doc S/​PV.530, 19 (PRC). For similar comments by
PRC’s leaders see Yufan and Zhihai (n 92) 101–​06.
29

The Korean War—1950–53 29

provided the springboard for the Japanese invasion of Manchuria only a generation be-
fore. As the Americans drove north after smashing Kim Il-​Sung’s armies in September
1950, Peking was appalled by the imminent prospect of an American imperialist army on
the Yalu’.96

5. Armistice
Initiatives for a ceasefire at the 38th parallel came from both sides and from the UN
starting in June 1951, but were delayed according to Secretary-​General Lie by, inter alia,
‘Communist fabrications that charged the Americans in Korea with carrying on germ
warfare’, and protracted negotiations over PoWs.97 An ‘armistice’ was signed on 27 July
1953. The UN Secretary-​General welcomed this:
As much as any man, I have been gripped by the tragedy of the Korean War. But I am con-
scious of the nobility and surpassing significance of United Nations police action in Korea, in
which sixteen Member nations actively have taken part. It has been the first determined stand
against international lawlessness and aggression which peace-​loving nations of the world have
taken. It has been a successful stand. Collective security has been enforced for the first time in
the whole of human history.98

The Secretary-​General returns to his vision of collective police action against lawless be-
haviour, but it is tinged with a grim realization that in the future the likelihood of regular
police actions by the UN was going to be very slim indeed.
The General Assembly welcomed the armistice agreement and also supported its rec-
ommendation that a peace conference be held within three months of its conclusion.99 In a
tribute to the armed forces who fought in Korea ‘to resist aggression and uphold the cause
of freedom and peace’, the General Assembly expressed satisfaction that:
The first efforts pursuant to the call of the United Nations to repel armed aggression by col-
lective military measures have been successful, and expresses its firm conviction that this
proof of the effectiveness of collective security under the United Nations Charter will con-
tribute to the maintenance of international peace and security.100

Thus, for the majority of states in the UN General Assembly, the US-​led action in Korea
was a legitimate expression of collective security under the UN Charter.

III. Questions of Legality

Debates as to the legality of the US-​led response revolve around the nature of the conflict,
whether the response was a collective one by states or by the UN, the legal basis of that re-
sponse (as either being the request of the recognized government, collective self-​defence,
or collective security), and the legality or otherwise of the intervention by the PRC.

96 Hastings (n 2) 158. Yufan and Zhihai (n 92) 106–​07: ‘Were Truman’s promises that United Nations Forces
would stop at the Yalu river and take no provocative action against China reliable? Everyone at the meeting
[of the Central Committee] doubted that they were since America had already broken its previous promise—​
which had been solemnly conveyed through the diplomatic channels of India—​not to cross the 38th parallel.’
97 Lie (n 24) 365. 98 ibid 366.
99 UNGA Res 711 (VII) (28 August 1953) UN Doc A/​R ES/​711 (VII); adopted by 43 votes to 5 with 10
abstentions.
100 UNGA Res 712 (VII) (28 August 1953) UN Doc A/​R ES/​712 (VII); adopted by 53 votes to 5 with 0
abstentions.
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30 Nigel D White

1. Inter-​state or civil war?

General Assembly resolutions prior to the outbreak of the conflict were clearly premised
on Korea being one country, with one recognized government, albeit one divided tem-
porarily with the recognized government in Seoul not having control over the whole.101
Furthermore, when US-​led military operations were poised on the 38th parallel in 1950,
the General Assembly spoke of bringing stability to the whole of Korea and of having one
single democratic government, showing a clear rejection of any de facto or de jure division
of the country into two states.102 The fact that the Security Council spoke of the ‘armed
attack’ on the South,103 suggests that this was an attack by one state against another and
there were certainly statements by some member states to this effect, but the Council de-
liberately chose the more neutral term ‘breach of the peace’ as the trigger for enforcement
action taken under Chapter VII rather than the term ‘act of aggression’, which is closer to
the concept of ‘armed attack’.
While modern understandings of the key terms in Article 39 might strongly suggest that
‘threat to the peace’ should have been used, as indicative of an internationalized civil war
that threatened regional and world peace, the fact is that in 1950 such broad understand-
ings of ‘threat to the peace’ were not fully realized.104 Although the Secretary-​General did
use the term ‘threat’ to describe the conflict on several occasions, thereby presaging its
broader use in the context of the Congo and Southern Rhodesia a decade later,105 the term
‘breach of the peace’ was used to indicate that the conflict in Korea, with its potential to
ignite a world war, represented a violation of a temporary division of the country and of a
broader accord between the great powers at the end of the Second World War.106 There was
limited discourse at the time of the US-​led operation that could be construed as indicating
an action in collective self-​defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, which is normally
triggered by an armed attack on one state by another. However, the weight of opinio juris
points to the Korean War of 1950–​53 not being treated as an inter-​state conflict between
two Korean states, but a civil war between two factions that quickly also became an inter-​
state war directly involving the United States and other western states on the one side and
the PRC on the other. This is supported by some writers who saw the alternative argument
(to UN enforcement action) not as one of collective self-​defence of South Korea but as one
of states coming to the aid of an established government confronted with a civil rebel-
lion.107 However, the weight of evidence indicates that this was viewed as a form of UN
enforcement action, aimed not at a classic aggressor in the form of a state, but at aggres-
sive action by North Korea that constituted a breach of international peace and security.
Although Simma notes that ‘a breach of the peace is typically characterized by hostilities
between armed units of two States . . . [it] is broad enough to reach well beyond such situ-
ations; it should be understood to include all situations in which a “threat to the peace” is
no longer merely a threat but has already materialized’.108 Korea should be understood in
that latter sense.

101 UNGA Res 195 (III) (12 December 1948) UN Doc A/​R ES/​195 (III).
102 UNGA Res 376 (V) (7 October 1950) UN Doc A/​R ES/​376 (V).
103 UNSC Res 82 (25 June 1950) UN Doc S/​R ES/​82; UNSC Res 83 (27 June 1950) UN Doc S/​R ES/​83.
104 Krisch (n 5) 1279–​84.
105 UNSC Res 161 (21 February 1961) UN Doc S/​R ES/​161 (Congo); UNSC Res 253 (29 May 1968) UN Doc
S/​R ES/​253 (Rhodesia).
106 Goodrich (n 30) 142.
107 Pitman B Potter, ‘Legal Aspects of the Situation in Korea’ (1950) 44 American Journal of International
Law 709, 712, although he preferred to categorize it as UN action. See also Corten (n 53).
108 Krisch (n 5) 1293.
31

The Korean War—1950–53 31

2. Collective self-​defence or collective security?

As has been stated, there was limited evidence of the US-​led response being framed as
collective self-​defence of South Korea in the opinio juris or legal doctrine, especially at
the time. The determination by the Security Council, however, was that the armed attack
by North Korean forces was a ‘breach of the peace’, thereby triggering the enforcement
provisions of Chapter VII through the gateway of Article 39, rather than the right of self-​
defence as found in Article 51.109 The emphasis from those taking part was on the ‘United
Nations character of the operation’,110 which is further evidence of the collective security
nature of the operation. The decision by the United States to send forces to South Korea be-
fore the adoption of the Resolution 83 was seen as a ‘strained interpretation’ of Resolution
82 rather than an action in collective self-​defence.111 Others, however, point to the action
by the United States of sending troops to Korea before the adoption of Resolution 83 as
only being justifiable as action undertaken in collective self-​defence of South Korea.112
Even if this were the case, it does not prevent the action from being a Chapter VII en-
forcement action once the resolution was secured. Goodrich also points to the term ‘res-
toration of international peace and security in the area’ in Resolution 83 as indicative
that the response was more than simply repelling an armed attack.113 Any uncertainty
about whether North Korea and South Korea were separate states at the time of the North
Korean incursion becomes irrelevant if the Security Council determines that there is a
breach of the peace (‘for even a civil war, if it was one, may constitute a breach of the
peace’),114 given that the limitation upon intervention by the UN in domestic matters is
not applicable to action taken under Chapter VII.115
Some later comment, made in the context of the Gulf Conflict 1990–​91, suggests the
Korean action was one of collective self-​defence and was a precedent for the Iraq cam-
paign that was also one of collective self-​defence rather than ‘international enforcement
action’.116 According to Rostow: ‘For all their symbolic panoply of the United Nations
flag and other emblems, the forces that which finally prevailed in Korea were national
forces carrying out a mission of collective self-​defense under American direction, not
a Security Council enforcement action’.117 The discussion of enforcement action in
Simma’s commentary on the Charter sees Resolutions 83 and 84 as recommendations
of actions in self-​defence, primarily on the basis that they were only recommendations
and not ‘authorisations’ of necessary measures.118 However, the leading French com-
mentary classifies Resolutions 83 and 84 as recommendations of military enforcement
action under Article 39,119 and other modern commentators agree, viewing Korea as
a precedent for a model of decentralized military enforcement action under UN au-
thority, albeit a model having weaknesses,120 a view shared by most scholars at the

109 Kunz (n 79) 139. 110 Goodrich (n 30) 133. 111 ibid 144. 112 Bowett (n 54) 33.
113 Goodrich (n 30) 172. 114 Kunz (n 79) 140. See Article 2(7) UN Charter 1945. 115 ibid.
116 Eugene V Rostow, ‘Until What? Enforcement Action or Collective Self-​Defense?’ (1991) 85 American
Journal of International Law 506, 506. Schachter seems to share this view, at least in relation to the Gulf, Oscar
Schachter, ‘United Nations Law in the Gulf’ (1991) 85 American Journal of International Law 452, 471.
117 Rostow (n 116) 508.
118 Krisch (n 5) 1296. See also Yoram Dinstein, War, Aggression and Self-​Defence (3rd edn, CUP 2001) 275.
119 Gérard Cohen-​Jonathan, ‘Article 39’ and G Fischer, ‘Article 42’ in Jean-​Pierre Cot and Alain Pellet (eds),
La Charte des Nations Unies (2nd edn, Economica 1995) 662, 714–​15. See further Jean-​Pierre Cot, Alain Pellet,
and Mathias Forteau (eds), La Charte des Nations Unies (3rd edn, Economica 2005).
120 White and Ulgen (n 4); Dan Sarooshi, The United Nations and the Development of Collective Security
(OUP 1999) 169–​74; Erica de Wet, The Chapter VII Powers of the UN Security Council (Hart 2004) 275–​77;
Thomas M Franck, Recourse to Force: State Action Against Threats and Armed Attacks (CUP 2002) 24–​25.
32

32 Nigel D White

time.121 The prevailing view is to ‘regard the Korean action as enforcement action au-
thorised by recommendations under Article 39’. The action was ‘fully consistent with
the Purposes and Principles of the Charter and was authorised by Resolutions of a
competent organ of the United Nations’, and therefore must be presumed to be within
the powers of the UN.122
Most commentators, like Goodrich, are critical of the collective security model that
emerged from Korea as potentially allowing one member to dominate with the conse-
quence that the ‘collective action risks taking on the character of a private or at least a
coalition war of the traditional kind’, which would be obviated by ‘continuous guidance
so that collective measures . . . will be kept within the limits prescribed by the purposes’
of the Charter and by the mandate,123 a criticism echoed by other commentators.124 This
lack of control existed for the duration of the Korean War including the armistice nego-
tiations. The Security Council, ‘apart from being technically the recipient of the reports
of the United Nations Command, played no role whatever in the political direction of
the armistice negotiations’. Perhaps one could say that the General Assembly did more
by suggesting terms for the ceasefire and proposals for the sensitive issue of PoWs.125
Unfortunately, during the conflict, alternatives to the Military Staff Committee envisaged
under Chapter VII were not explored, although the Secretary-​General’s suggestion of a
controlling Commission of States, appointed as a subsidiary organ of the Security Council
or General Assembly, would seemed to have been an obvious answer. Wright agrees: ‘It
seems likely that if the United Nations had had a more direct relationship with, and more
effective control of, its commander in the field, collective security would have worked
better.’126

3. Legality under the UN Charter

Despite its defects, the US-​led response is analysed as falling within one of the exceptions
to the prohibition on the use of force under Article 2(4) by being a lawful exercise of en-
forcement powers under Chapter VII by the Security Council, but this is not without con-
troversy.127 As regards the legality of Security Council Resolutions 82–​84, doctrine is split
between the majority who argue for a ‘living instrument’ interpretation of the Charter
and those who see the lack of compliance with key provisions of Chapter VII, such as
Article 43 (troops to be supplied by special agreements) and Article 45 (control by the
Military Staff Committee) as fatal to the operation’s legality. Goodrich argues that ‘a lib-
eral interpretation of the Charter’ was ‘essential to an effective United Nations response’,
permitting the adoption of recommendations by the Security Council under Article 39
of the Charter (as opposed to decisions based on Articles 42 and 43), in the absence of
the USSR.128 The absence of the USSR is viewed by most commentators as the equivalent
of abstention given that the latter means that the Security Council had already accepted

121 Kunz (n 79) 140; Goodrich (n 37) 172, Bowett (n 54) 34; Hans Kelsen, Collective Security under
International Law (Naval War College 1957) 142–​43; Quincy Wright, ‘Collective Security in the Light of the
Korean Experience’ (1951) 45 American Society of International Law Proceedings 165, 180.
122 Bowett (n 54) 34. For the argument that the US-​led operation is best analysed as intervention at the re-
quest of the established government rather than UN enforcement action see Corten (n 53).
123 Bowett (n 54) 191.
124 ibid 45; Finn Seyersted, United Nations Forces in the Law of Peace and War (Sijthoff 1966) 41; James W
Houck, ‘The Command and Control of United Nations Forces in the Era of “Peace Enforcement” ’ (1993) 4 Duke
Journal of International and Comparative Law 1, 15.
125 Goodrich (n 30) 179–​80. 126 Wright (n 121) 174. 127 See, eg, Corten (n 53).
128 Wright (n 121) 141.
Another random document with
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 Il existe, en Arabie, une vallée agréable, loin des cités et des
hameaux, qui s’étend à l’ombre de deux montagnes et est couverte
de sapins antiques et de hêtres robustes. En vain le soleil y projette
ses clairs rayons ; il ne peut jamais y pénétrer, tellement les rameaux
épais lui barrent le passage. Là s’ouvre une caverne souterraine.
Sous la forêt obscure, une vaste et spacieuse caverne s’ouvre
dans le roc. Le lierre rampant en couvre l’entrée de ses replis
tortueux. C’est dans cette demeure que repose le Sommeil pesant.
L’Oisiveté, corpulente et grasse, est dans un coin ; de l’autre, la
Paresse est étendue sur le sol, car elle ne peut marcher et se tient
difficilement sur ses pieds.
L’Oubli qui a perdu la mémoire se tient sur le seuil. Il ne laisse
entrer et ne reconnaît personne. Il n’écoute aucun message et ne
répond jamais. Il écarte indifféremment tout le monde. Le Silence
veille tout autour ; il a des chaussures en feutre et un manteau de
couleur sombre. A tous ceux qu’il rencontre, il fait de loin signe avec
la main de ne pas approcher.
L’ange s’approche de son oreille et lui dit doucement : « — Dieu
veut que tu conduises à Paris Renaud avec l’armée qu’il mène au
secours de son prince. Mais il faut que tu le fasses si secrètement,
que les Sarrasins n’entendent pas le moindre bruit, de façon
qu’avant que la Renommée ait pu les aviser de l’arrivée de ces
troupes, ils les aient sur les épaules. — »
Le Silence ne répond pas autrement qu’en faisant signe de la
tête qu’il obéira. Il se met docilement à la suite du messager, et, d’un
premier vol, tous deux arrivent en Picardie. Michel excite les
courageux escadrons ; il leur fait franchir en peu de temps un long
espace, et les mène en un jour devant Paris. Aucun d’eux ne
s’aperçoit que c’est par un miracle.
Le Silence courait tout autour, les enveloppant d’une immense
nuée, tandis que le reste de l’atmosphère était en pleine lumière. Et
cette nuée épaisse ne permettait pas d’entendre en dehors d’elle le
son des trompettes et des clairons. Puis le Silence se rendit au
camp des païens, répandant après lui un je ne sais quoi qui rend
chacun sourd et aveugle.
Pendant que Renaud — on voyait bien qu’il était conduit par
l’ange — s’avançait avec tant de rapidité, et dans un tel silence
qu’on n’entendait aucun bruit du camp sarrasin, le roi Agramant avait
disposé son infanterie dans les faubourgs de Paris, sous les
murailles et dans les fossés, pour tenter le jour même un suprême
effort.
Celui qui pourrait compter l’armée que le roi Agramant a
rassemblée contre Charles, pourrait aussi compter tous les arbres
des forêts qui se dressent sur le dos ombreux de l’Apennin, les flots
de la mer qui baigne les pieds de l’Atlas en Mauritanie, alors qu’elle
est le plus en fureur, ou les étoiles que le ciel déploie à minuit sur les
rendez-vous secrets des amoureux.
Les campagnes résonnent au bruit des coups répétés et
lugubres des cloches. Une foule innombrable remplit toutes les
églises, levant les mains et implorant le ciel. Si les trésors de la terre
étaient aussi prisés de Dieu que des hommes aveugles, le saint
consistoire aurait pu en ce jour obtenir une statue d’or pour chacun
de ses membres.
On entend les vieillards vénérables se plaindre d’avoir été
réservés pour de pareilles angoisses, et envier le bonheur de ceux
qui reposent dans la terre depuis de nombreuses années. Mais les
jeunes hommes, ardents et vigoureux, qui se soucient peu des
dangers qu’ils vont affronter, et qui dédaignent les conseils des plus
âgés, courent de toutes parts aux murailles.
Là étaient les barons et les paladins, les rois, les ducs, les
marquis et les comtes, les soldats étrangers et ceux de la ville, tous
prêts à mourir pour le Christ et pour sa gloire. Ils prient l’Empereur
de faire abaisser les ponts afin qu’ils puissent courir sus aux
Sarrasins. Charles se réjouit de leur voir tant d’ardeur dans l’âme,
mais il ne veut pas les laisser sortir.
Il les place aux endroits opportuns pour barrer le passage aux
barbares. Là, il se contente de mettre peu de monde ; ici une forte
compagnie suffit à peine. Les uns sont chargés de manœuvrer les
feux et les autres machines, suivant les besoins. Charles ne reste
pas inactif. Il se porte çà et là, organisant partout la défense.
Paris s’étend dans une grande plaine, au centre de la France,
presque au cœur. Le fleuve passe entre ses murs, la traverse et
ressort de l’autre côté. Mais auparavant, il forme une île et protège
ainsi une partie de la ville, la meilleure. Les deux autres — car la
ville est divisée en trois parties — sont entourées, en dehors par un
fossé, en dedans par le fleuve.
La ville, de plusieurs milles de tour, peut être attaquée par
plusieurs points. Mais Agramant se décide à ne donner l’assaut que
d’un côté, ne voulant pas éparpiller son armée. Il se retire derrière le
fleuve, vers le Ponant. C’est de là qu’il attaquera, parce qu’il n’a
derrière lui aucune ville, aucun pays qui ne lui appartienne jusqu’en
Espagne.
Tout autour des remparts, Charles avait fait rassembler
d’immenses munitions, fortifier les rives par des chaussées, élever
des bastions, creuser des casemates. A l’entrée et à la sortie de la
rivière dans la ville, de grosses chaînes avaient été tendues. Mais il
avait surtout veillé à mettre en état les endroits où il craignait le plus.
Avec des yeux d’Argus, le fils de Pépin prévoit de quel côté
Agramant doit donner l’assaut ; le Sarrasin ne forme pas un projet
sans qu’il ne soit immédiatement déjoué. Marsile, avec Ferragus,
Isolier, Serpentin, Grandonio, Falsiron, Balugant et les guerriers qu’il
a amenés d’Espagne, se tenaient dans la campagne tout armés.
Sobrin était à sa gauche, sur la rive de la Seine, avec Pulian,
Dardinel d’Almonte et le roi d’Oran, à la stature de géant et long de
six palmes des pieds à la tête. Mais pourquoi suis-je moins prompt à
mouvoir ma plume que ces guerriers à se servir de leurs armes ? Le
roi de Sarse, plein de colère et d’indignation, crie et blasphème, et
ne peut rester en place.
De même que, dans les jours chauds de l’été, les mouches
importunes ont coutume de se jeter sur les vases rustiques ou sur
les restes des convives, avec un bruit d’ailes rauque et strident ; de
même que les étourneaux s’abattent sur les treilles rouges de raisins
mûrs, ainsi, remplissant le ciel de cris et de clameurs, les Maures se
ruaient tumultueusement à l’assaut.
L’armée des chrétiens est sur les remparts ; inaccessibles à la
peur, et dédaignant l’orgueilleuse témérité des barbares, ils
défendent la ville avec les épées, les lances, les pierres et le feu.
Quand l’un d’eux est tué, un autre prend sa place. Il n’en est point
qui, par lâcheté, quitte le lieu du combat. Sous la furie de leurs
coups, ils rejettent les Sarrasins au fond des fossés.
Ils ne s’aident pas seulement du fer ; ils emploient les gros
quartiers de roches, les créneaux entiers, les murs ébranlés à
grand’peine, les toits des tours. L’eau bouillante versée d’en haut fait
aux Maures d’insupportables brûlures. Ils résistent difficilement à
cette pluie horrible qui pénètre par les casques, brûle les yeux,
Et fait plus de ravages que le fer. Qu’on pense à ce que devaient
produire tantôt les nuées de chaux, tantôt les vases ardents d’où
pleuvent l’huile, le soufre, la poix et la térébenthine. Les cercles
entourés d’une crinière de flammes ne restent pas inactifs. Lancés
de tous côtés, ils décrivent de redoutables courbes sur les Sarrasins.
Cependant, le roi de Sarse avait poussé sous les murs la
seconde colonne, accompagné de Buralde et d’Ormidas qui
commandent, l’un aux Garamantes, l’autre à ceux de Marmande.
Clarinde et Soridan sont à ses côtés. Le roi de Ceuta se montre à
découvert, suivi des rois de Maroc et de Cosca, connus tous deux
pour leur valeur.
Sur sa bannière qui est toute rouge, Rodomont de Sarse étale un
lion qui se laisse mettre une bride dans sa gueule féroce par sa
dame. Le lion est son emblème. Quant à la dame qui lui met un frein
et qui l’enchaîne, elle représente la belle Doralice, fille de Stordilan,
roi de Grenade,
Celle qu’avait enlevée le roi Mandricard, ainsi que je l’ai dit. J’ai
raconté où et à qui. Rodomont l’aimait plus que son royaume et que
ses yeux. C’était pour elle qu’il montrait tant de vaillance, sans savoir
qu’elle était au pouvoir d’un autre. S’il l’eût su, il aurait fait pour la
délivrer autant d’efforts qu’il en fit en ce jour devant Paris.
Mille échelles sont en même temps appliquées aux murs. Elles
peuvent tenir deux hommes sur chaque gradin. Ceux qui viennent
les seconds poussent ceux qui grimpent les premiers, car les
troisièmes les font eux-mêmes monter malgré eux. Les uns se
défendent avec courage, les autres par peur. Il faut que tous entrent
dans le gué, car quiconque reste en arrière est tué ou blessé par le
roi d’Alger, le cruel Rodomont.
Chacun s’efforce donc d’atteindre le sommet des remparts, au
milieu du feu et des ruines. Tous cherchent à passer par où le
chemin est le moins dangereux. Seul Rodomont dédaigne de suivre
une autre voie que la moins sûre. Dans les cas désespérés et
difficiles, les autres adressent leurs vœux au ciel, et lui, il blasphème
contre Dieu.
Il était armé d’une épaisse et solide cuirasse faite avec la peau
écailleuse d’un dragon. Cette cuirasse avait déjà entouré les reins et
la poitrine de celui de ses aïeux qui édifia Babel et entreprit de
chasser Dieu de sa demeure céleste, et de lui enlever le
gouvernement de l’univers. Son casque, son écu, ainsi que son
épée, ont été faits dans la perfection et pour cette occasion.
Rodomont, non moins indompté, superbe et colère que le fut
jadis Nemrod, n’aurait pas hésité à escalader le ciel, même de nuit,
s’il en avait trouvé le chemin. Il ne s’arrête pas à regarder si les
murailles sont entières ou si la brèche est praticable, ou s’il y a de
l’eau dans le fossé. Il traverse le fossé à la course et vole à travers
l’eau bourbeuse où il est plongé jusqu’à la bouche.
Souillé de fange, ruisselant d’eau, il va à travers le feu, les
rochers, les traits et les balistes, comme le sanglier qui se fraye à
travers les roseaux des marécages de Malléa un ample passage
avec son poitrail, ses griffes et ses défenses. Le Sarrasin, l’écu haut,
méprise le ciel tout autant que les remparts.
A peine Rodomont s’est-il élancé à l’assaut, qu’il parvient sur une
de ces plates-formes qui, en dedans des murailles, forment une
espèce de pont vaste et large, où se tiennent les soldats français.
On le voit alors fracasser plus d’un front, pratiquer des tonsures plus
larges que celles des moines, faire voler les bras et les têtes, et
pleuvoir, du haut des remparts dans le fossé, un fleuve de sang.
Le païen jette son écu, prend à deux mains sa redoutable épée
et fond sur le duc Arnolf. Celui-ci venait du pays où le Rhin verse ses
eaux dans un golfe salé. Le malheureux ne se défend pas mieux
que le soufre ne résiste au feu. Il tombe à terre et expire, la tête
fendue jusqu’à une palme au-dessous du col.
D’un seul coup de revers, Rodomont occit Anselme, Oldrade,
Spinellaque et Prandon ; car l’étroitesse du lieu et la foule épaisse
des combattants font que l’épée porte en plein. Les deux premiers
sont perdus pour la Flandre, les deux autres pour la Normandie. Le
Sarrasin fend ensuite en deux, depuis le front jusqu’à la poitrine, et
de là jusqu’au ventre, le Mayençais Orger.
Il précipite du haut des créneaux dans le fossé, Andropon et
Mosquin. Le premier est prêtre ; le second n’adore que le vin ; il en a
plus d’une fois vidé un baquet d’une seule gorgée, fuyant l’eau
comme si c’était du poison ou du sang de vipère. Il trouve la mort
aux pieds des remparts, et ce qui l’ennuie le plus, c’est de se sentir
mourir dans l’eau.
Rodomont taille en deux Louis de Provence, et perce de part en
part Arnauld de Toulouse. Obert de Tours, Claude, Ugo et Denis
exhalent leur vie avec leur sang. Près d’eux tombent Gauthier,
Satallon, Odon et Ambalde, tous les quatre de Paris, et un grand
nombre d’autres dont je ne saurais dire les noms et le pays.
Derrière Rodomont, la foule des Sarrasins applique les échelles
et monte de toutes parts. Les Parisiens ne leur tiennent pas tête,
tellement ils ont peu réussi dans leur première défense. Ils savent
bien qu’il reste encore beaucoup à faire aux ennemis pour pénétrer
plus loin, et que ceux-ci n’en viendront pas facilement à bout, car
entre les remparts et la seconde enceinte s’étend un fossé horrible
et profond.
 Outre que les nôtres font une vigoureuse résistance au bas de ce
fossé, et déploient une grande valeur, de nouveaux renforts qui se
tenaient aux aguets derrière le rempart extérieur, entrent dans la
mêlée et font, avec leurs lances et leurs flèches, un tel carnage dans
la multitude des assaillants, que je crois bien qu’il n’en serait pas
resté un seul, si le fils du roi Ulien n’eût pas été avec eux.
Il les encourage, et les gourmande et les pousse devant lui
malgré eux. Il fend la poitrine, la tête, à ceux qu’il voit se retourner
pour fuir. Il en égorge et en blesse un grand nombre. Il en prend
d’autres par les cheveux, par le cou, par les bras, et les jette en bas,
autant que le fossé peut en contenir.
Pendant que la foule des barbares descend, ou plutôt se
précipite dans le fossé hérissé de périls, et de là par toutes sortes de
moyens, s’efforce de monter sur la seconde enceinte, le roi de
Sarse, comme s’il avait eu des ailes à chacun de ses membres,
malgré le poids de son corps gigantesque et son armure si lourde,
bondit de l’autre côté du fossé.
Ce fossé n’avait pas moins de trente pieds de large. Il le franchit
avec la légèreté d’un lévrier, et ne fait, en retombant, pas plus de
bruit que s’il avait eu du feutre sous les pieds. Il frappe sur les uns et
sur les autres, et, sous ses coups, les armures semblent non pas de
fer, mais de peau ou d’écorce, tant est bonne la trempe de son épée,
et si grande est sa force.
Pendant ce temps, les nôtres qui ont tenu cachées dans les
casemates de nombreuses fascines arrosées de poix, de façon que
personne parmi les ennemis ne s’en est aperçu, bien que du fond du
fossé jusqu’au bord, tout en soit rempli, et qui tiennent prêts des
vases
Remplis de salpêtre, d’huile, de soufre et d’autres matières
pareillement inflammables, les nôtres, dis-je, pour faire payer cher
leur folle ardeur aux Sarrasins qui étaient dans le fossé, et
cherchaient à escalader le dernier rempart, à un signal donné font
de tous côtés éclater l’incendie.
 La flamme, d’abord éparse, se réunit en un seul foyer qui, d’un
bord à l’autre, remplit tout le fossé, et monte si haut dans le ciel,
qu’elle pourrait sécher le cercle humide qui entoure la lune. Au-
dessus roule une nuée épaisse et noire qui cache le soleil et éteint la
clarté du jour. On entend des détonations continues, semblables au
bruit formidable et lugubre du tonnerre.
Un concert horrible de plaintes, une épouvantable harmonie de
reproches amers, les hurlements, les cris des malheureux qui
périssent dans cette fournaise par la faute de leur chef, se mêlent
d’une manière étrange au sifflement féroce de la flamme homicide.
C’est assez, seigneur, c’est assez pour ce chant. Ma voix s’enroue,
et je désire me reposer un peu.

FIN DU TOME PREMIER.

 NOTES DU TOME PREMIER.

CHANT PREMIER

[16] Page 1, ligne 7 et page 2, ligne 1. — Qui s’était vanté de

venger la mort de Trojan. — Trojan était le père d’Agramant. Roland
lui avait donné la mort. (Voir le premier chant du livre Ier du poème
de Roland amoureux, par Boïardo.)
[17] Page 2, ligne 3. — Je dirai de Roland… — Le Roland du
poème d’Arioste est celui que la légende a immortalisé, sans qu’on
ait encore pu savoir s’il a vraiment existé un personnage de ce nom.
D’après cette légende, Roland était fils de Milon, comte d’Anglante
(Angers), et de Bertha, l’une des filles de Charlemagne. Il reçut de
l’empereur la sénatorerie de Rome, le marquisat de Brava (peut-être
Bourges, que les Latins appelaient Bravium) et le comté d’Anglante,
qui lui venait de son père.
[18] Page 2, lignes 7 et 8. — Par celle qui en a fait quasi autant
de moi. — On croit que le poète a fait ici allusion à Alessandra
Benucci, dame florentine, veuve de Tito Strozzi, et qui habitait à la
cour du duc de Ferrare. Arioste l’avait connue à Florence lorsqu’il s’y
arrêta, à son retour de Rome en 1513, pour les fêtes de la Saint-
Jean. Il l’épousa secrètement, probablement en 1527. Elle lui
survécut dix-neuf ans, étant morte en septembre de l’année 1552.
[19] Page 2, ligne 12. — Qu’il vous plaise, race généreuse
d’Hercule. — Arioste a dédié son poème au cardinal Hippolyte
d’Este, fils d’Hercule Ier, deuxième duc de Ferrare, à la cour duquel
le poète vécut quelque temps.
[20] Page 2, lignes 28 et 29. — … Avait dans l’Inde, en Médie, en
Tartarie, laissé d’infinis et d’immortels trophées. — Voir, au sujet des
amours de Roland pour Angélique, et de ses exploits en Asie, le
poème de Boïardo. Angélique et son frère Argail, tous deux enfants
de Galafron, roi du Cathay (province du nord de la Chine), avaient
été envoyés par leur père en France, afin de s’emparer par force ou
par ruse des paladins de Charles, et de les lui amener prisonniers.
Angélique avait pour arme son éclatante beauté. Son frère possédait
une lance d’or qui était fée et qui renversait quiconque en était
touché ; le cheval Rabican, plus rapide que le vent et qui se
nourrissait d’air ; enfin un anneau qui rendait invisible dès qu’on le
mettait dans la bouche et qui, porté au doigt, rompait tous les
enchantements. Toutes ces choses sont longuement racontées par
Boïardo.
[21] Page 3, ligne 3. — Pour faire repentir le roi Marsile et le roi
Agramant. — Marsile était roi d’Espagne et Agramant roi d’Afrique.
Ce sont deux personnages fictifs.
[22] Page 3, ligne 27. — Et son cousin Renaud. — D’après les
romans héroïques, Renaud, un des paladins de Charles, était cousin
de Roland. Il était fils d’Aymon de Darbena et de Béatrice, fille de
Naymes, duc de Bavière. Tous deux étaient de la maison de
Clermont et de la famille des rois de France.
[23] Page 5, ligne 4. — Au bord de la rivière se trouvait Ferragus.
— Ferragus était fils de Marsile ; Boïardo en parle, dans le XXXIe
chant du livre Ier, comme étant un des plus redoutables guerriers
d’Espagne.
[24] Page 6, ligne 8. — Le seigneur de Montauban fut le premier
qui… — La famille de Renaud possédait le château de Montauban.
[25] Page 8, lignes 22 et 23. — L’un appartint à Almont et l’autre
à Mambrin. — Dans un poème intitulé Aspramonte, et publié pour la
première fois à Florence, en 1504, on lit que, pour venger la mort de
son père tué par Almont, Roland tua ce dernier en combat singulier,
et lui prit son casque, son armure enchantée, ainsi que son cheval
Bride-d’Or et l’épée Durandal. Un autre roman, qui a pour titre : les
Amours de Renaud, parle d’un païen nommé Mambrin, venu à la
tête d’une armée contre Charles, et tué, dans une bataille, par
Renaud, qui s’appropria son casque.
[26] Page 9, ligne 7. — Il jura par la vie de Lanfuse. — Lanfuse
était la mère de Ferragus.
[27] Page 11, lignes 24 et 25. — Et sa poitrine un Mont-Gibel. —
C’est ainsi que les Italiens appellent l’Etna.
[28] Page 15, lignes 11 et 12. — Elle l’envoya demander du
secours en Orient. — Voir dans le Roland amoureux de Berni, chant
XXIVe, stances 67 et suivantes, comment et pourquoi Angélique
envoya Sacripant auprès de Gradasse, pour lui demander secours.
[29] Page 19, ligne 2. — C’est Bradamante. — Bradamante était
sœur de Renaud, et fille naturelle du duc Aymon.
[30] Page 20, lignes 11 et 12. — C’était elle qui, dans Albracca, le
servait jadis de sa main. — Voir dans Boïardo, livre Ier, chant XXIX, et
dans le Berni, chants XXVI et XXVIII, de quelle façon Bayard avait été
laissé par Roland à Angélique, qui l’avait ensuite envoyé à Renaud.
[31] Page 21, lignes 17 et 18. — Les batailles d’Albracca vous
sont donc déjà sorties de la mémoire ? — Sacripant fait ici allusion
au fait d’armes suivant : Bien que blessé et à la tête de trois cents
hommes seulement, il avait arraché d’Albracca Angélique que le roi
Agrican y tenait assiégée.

CHANT II

[32] Page 24, ligne 25. — Flamberge le fend. — Flamberge était

le nom de l’épée de Renaud, de même que l’épée de Roland
s’appelait Durandal et celle de Roger Balisarde.
[33] Page 30, lignes 2 et 3. — La malheureuse fille d’Agolante.
Galacielle, dont on lira l’histoire dans le chant XXXVI. Boïardo, dans
le XXVIIe chant de son livre Ier, raconte que le père de Galacielle,
nommé Agolante, fut tué par Roland. Elle avait eu d’un chevalier,
appelé Roger de Risa, un fils nommé aussi Roger, le principal héros
du poème d’Arioste, et qu’aimait Bradamante.

CHANT III

[34] Page 43, lignes 27 et 28. — Alors qu’il fut trompé par la
Dame du Lac. — Les romans de chevalerie racontent que Merlin,
enchanteur anglais, s’était épris de la Dame du Lac. Ayant préparé
pour elle et pour lui un superbe tombeau, il lui apprit certaines
paroles, lesquelles étant prononcées sur le couvercle du tombeau,
en rendaient l’ouverture impossible. La dame, qui haïssait tout bas
Merlin, lui demanda de se coucher dans le tombeau pour en
expérimenter la capacité, et, quand il y fut, elle rabattit le couvercle
et prononça les paroles fatales. Merlin mort, son esprit était resté
dans le tombeau, d’où il répondait à ceux qui l’interrogeaient.
[35] Page 45, ligne 14. — L’antique sang issu de Troie. —
Boïardo, dans le chant XVIe du livre Ier et dans le chant Ve du livre III,
prétend que la famille de Roger descendait d’un neveu de Priam.
[36] Page 46, lignes 17 et 18. — Elle la recouvre d’un grand
pentacule. — Sorte de pentagone, sur lequel étaient peints des
points, des signes et des caractères magiques, en usage aux
nécromanciens, et destinés à protéger ceux qui en étaient
recouverts des effets des enchantements.
[37] Page 47, lignes 9 et 10. — Je vois, par ses mains, la terre
rougie du sang de Poitiers. — Allusion au massacre des Mayençais,
par le fils de Roger et de Bradamante, lequel vengea ainsi la mort de
son père, tué par trahison dans le château de Ponthieu, en Picardie.
Il va sans dire que les renseignements généalogiques sur la maison
d’Este relatés ici par Arioste sont, pour la plupart, de pure
imagination. La généalogie vraie des princes d’Este se trouve dans
un remarquable ouvrage publié de nos jours par le comte Pompée
Litta sur les familles illustres d’Italie.
[38] Page 49, ligne 16. — La belle terre qui est assise sur le
fleuve où Phébus… — Par cette périphrase, Arioste veut désigner
Ferrare et son territoire situés sur le Pô, fleuve dans lequel, selon la
Fable, fut précipité Phaéton.
[39] Page 51, lignes 8 et 9. — La terre qui produit des roses. —
Rhodes.
[40] Page 56, lignes 7 et 8. — Les deux que nous avons vus si
tristes. — Jules et Ferdinand d’Este, frères d’Alphonse Ier. Ayant
conspiré contre ce dernier, ils furent condamnés à mort. Mais leur
peine fut commuée en prison perpétuelle. Ferdinand mourut en
prison en 1540, et Jules, rendu à la liberté par Alphonse II, mourut
en 1561.
[41] Page 58, lignes 9 et 10. — Un anneau qui fut dérobé dans
l’Inde à une reine. — Voir Boïardo, chant V du livre II, et Berni, chant
XXXIV, stances 30 et suivantes.

CHANT IV

[42] Page 72, lignes 2 et 3. — Son destrier se nommait Frontin.

— Frontin avait primitivement appartenu à Sacripant auquel il avait
été volé par Brunel, qui le donna ensuite à Roger. Voir Berni, chant
XXXIV, stance 43.

CHANT VI

[43] Page 107, lignes 10 et 11. — La vierge Aréthuse se fraya en

vain sous la mer un chemin sombre et étrange. — La nymphe
Aréthuse, poursuivie par le fleuve Alphée, fut convertie en fontaine,
et conduite par des voies sous-marines dans l’île d’Ortigie, toujours
suivie par son indiscret amant, qui l’y rejoignit.
[44] Page 110, lignes 20 et 21. — J’étais cousin de Roland et de
Renaud. — Suivant les romans de chevalerie, Bernard de Clairval
eut trois fils : Aymon, père de Renaud ; Beuves d’Aigremont, père
d’Aldigier, de Maugis et de Vivian, personnages dont il sera parlé
plus loin, et Othon, roi d’Angleterre, père d’Astolphe.
 [45] Page 113, lignes 21 et 22. — De même que l’Écosse et
l’Angleterre sont séparées par une montagne et une rivière. — Les
monts Cheviot séparent l’Écosse de l’Angleterre, se ramifiant et
s’étendant dans la partie septentrionale de l’une et dans la partie
méridionale de l’autre. La Tweed, qui appartient à l’Écosse dans la
partie inférieure de son cours, continue la démarcation, et se jette
dans la mer du Nord.

CHANT VII

[46] Page 128, lignes 8 et 9. — Que Cléopâtre offrit au Romain

vainqueur. — A César, vainqueur de Pompée.
[47] Page 134, lignes 13 et 14. — Quand bien même Roger fût
devenu plus vieux que Nestor. — Suivant Homère, Nestor, roi de
Pylos, dans le Péloponèse, vécut jusqu’à trois cents ans.
[48] Page 137, ligne 18. — Tu devinsses l’Adonis ou l’Atis
d’Alcine. — Adonis fut l’amant de Vénus, et Atis l’amant de Cybèle.
[49] Page 139, lignes 27 et 28. — Elle avait pris la figure
d’Atlante de Carena. — Il y a deux villes du nom de Carena : l’une
située en Syrie, l’autre en Médie. Il est probable qu’Arioste ne veut
parler ici ni de l’une ni de l’autre, car, dans le chant V, il a
précédemment appelé Atlante le vieux Maure. C’est d’une troisième
ville de Carena, située probablement en Mauritanie, qu’il a entendu
parler.

CHANT VIII

[50] Page 156, ligne 3. — S’étend une île nommée Ébude. —

C’est une île du groupe des Hébrides appelée aujourd’hui Mull ; les
Latins la nommaient insula Ebudarum.
[51] Page 164, ligne 20. — Il l’avait enlevé à un amostan. — Le
mot amostan est d’origine arabe ; c’est la désignation d’une dignité
chez les musulmans.

CHANT IX
 [52] Page 168, lignes 12 et 13. — Sur les bords d’un fleuve qui
sépare les Normands des Bretons. — Probablement la petite rivière
de Couesnon, qui se jette dans la baie Saint-Michel, près de
Pontorson et qui sépare, en effet, la Bretagne de la Normandie.
[53] Page 170, ligne 10. — Il laisse Saint-Brieuc et Landriglier. —
Par Landriglier, Arioste entend la petite ville de Tréguier, le Tricosium
des anciens.
[54] Page 182, ligne 13. — Près du Volano. — Branche du Pô qui
se sépare de la branche principale, près de Ferrare, et va se jeter, à
quelques lieues plus loin, dans l’étang de Comacchio et de là dans
l’Adriatique.

CHANT X

[55] Page 198, lignes 14 et 15. — On dirait Hécube entrant en

rage. — Hécube, veuve de Priam et esclave d’Ulysse, poursuivie par
les Thraces pour avoir arraché les yeux à Polymestor, qui avait tué
Polydore, le dernier de ses enfants, entra en une telle rage, qu’elle
fut changée en chienne enragée.
[56] Page 203, ligne 28. — La splendide reine du Nil. —
Cléopâtre, qui se fit piquer par un aspic pour ne pas être traînée
derrière le char du triomphateur romain.
[57] Page 207, ligne 47. — Et le grand Quinsi. — Ville de la
Chine appelée Chansay par Marco Polo. C’est la moderne Nanking.
[58] Page 212, lignes 20 et 21. — Où le saint vieillard creusa un
puits. — Allusion au puits qu’on prétend avoir été creusé par saint
Patrice, en Irlande, et où chaque année vont se plonger les fidèles,
dans l’espérance de se laver de leurs péchés.

CHANT XI

[59] Page 220, ligne 9. — Elle déjoua les enchantements de

Maugis. — Maugis, fils de Beuves d’Aigremont, était cousin de
Bradamante. Il exerçait la magie.
 [60] Page 220, lignes 10, 11 et 12. — Elle délivra un matin
Roland et d’autres chevaliers tenus en servitude par Dragontine. —
Dragontine était une enchanteresse qui s’était emparée de Roland
de la même façon qu’Alcine s’était emparée de Roger. (Voir Boïardo,
Liv. Ier, chant XIV.)
[61] Page 224, lignes 28, 29 et 30. — La machine infernale… fut
ramenée à la surface par enchantement et portée tout d’abord chez
les Allemands. — L’arme à feu fut découverte accidentellement par
un alchimiste allemand qui la communiqua aux Vénitiens. Ceux-ci en
firent pour la première fois usage en 1380 contre les Génois.
[62] Page 230, ligne 17. — Ino tout en pleurs, tenant Mélicerte à
son cou. — Pour se soustraire à la fureur d’Atamante, son époux,
Ino se jeta dans la mer, ayant dans ses bras son fils Mélicerte. Tous
deux furent changés en divinités marines.
[63] Page 239, ligne 16. — L’animal discret qui porta Phryxus. —
Phryxus, pour fuir les persécutions de sa belle-mère Ino, traversa la
mer sur un bélier.

CHANT XII

[64] Page 257, ligne 15. — L’étendard du roi de Tremisène. —

Aujourd’hui Tlemcen, ville de la province d’Oran, en Algérie.

CHANT XIII

[65] Page 273, lignes 10 et 11. — Avec la même agilité que l’on
voit l’adroit Espagnol jeter son fusil. — Espagnol est ici pour
Sarrasin, qui lui-même est synonyme d’Arabe. On sait que dans
leurs fantasias les Arabes lancent et rattrapent leur fusil avec une
grande dextérité.
[66] Page 281, lignes 7 et 8. — Lucrèce Borgia, dont la beauté, la
vertu, le renom de chasteté… — Cet éloge de Lucrèce Borgia, dans
la bouche d’Arioste, paraîtrait étrange, si nous ne savions combien
la poésie, depuis Dante et Pétrarque, avait perdu en dignité. Elle en
était réduite à mendier la faveur des princes, et par conséquent à les
louer jusque dans leurs vices les plus avérés. Arioste est, à cet
égard, un des modèles du genre courtisanesque.

CHANT XIV

[67] Page 286, lignes 6 et 7. — Notre joie fut trop troublée par la
mort du capitaine français… — Gaston de Foix, tué à la bataille de
Ravenne.

FIN DES NOTES DU TOME PREMIER

 TABLE DES MATIÈRES DU TOME
PREMIER.

Pages.
Préface du traducteur I

ROLAND FURIEUX
Chant premier. — Angélique, s’étant enfuie de la tente
du duc de Bavière, rencontre Renaud qui est à la
recherche de son cheval. Elle fuit de tout son pouvoir
cet amant qu’elle hait, et trouve sur la rive d’un fleuve
le païen Ferragus. Renaud, pour savoir à qui
appartiendra Angélique, en vient aux mains avec le
Sarrasin ; mais les deux rivaux, s’étant aperçus de la
disparition de la donzelle, cessent leur combat. —
Pendant que Ferragus s’efforce de ravoir son casque
qu’il a laissé tomber dans le fleuve, Angélique
rencontre par hasard Sacripant, qui saisit cette
occasion pour s’emparer du cheval de Renaud. Celui-
ci survient en menaçant. 1
Chant II. — Pendant que Renaud et Sacripant 22
combattent pour la possession de Bayard, Angélique,
fuyant toujours, trouve dans la forêt un ermite qui, par
 son art magique, fait cesser le combat entre les deux
guerriers. Renaud monte sur Bayard et va à Paris,
d’où Charles l’envoie en Angleterre. — Bradamante,
allant à la recherche de Roger, rencontre Pinabel de
Mayence, lequel, par un récit en partie mensonger et
dans l’intention de lui donner la mort, la fait tomber au
fond d’une caverne.
Chant III. — La caverne où Bradamante est tombée
communique avec une grotte qui contient le tombeau
de l’enchanteur Merlin. Là, la magicienne Mélisse
révèle à Bradamante que c’est d’elle et de Roger que
sortira la race d’Este. Elle lui montre les figures de ses
descendants et lui prédit leur gloire future. Au moment
de quitter la grotte, Bradamante apprend de Mélisse
que Roger est retenu dans le palais enchanté
d’Atlante, et se fait enseigner le moyen de le délivrer.
Rencontre de Bradamante et de Brunel. 41
Chant IV. — Bradamante arrache à Brunel son anneau
enchanté, grâce auquel elle détruit le pouvoir d’Atlante
et délivre Roger. Celui-ci laisse son cheval à
Bradamante, et monte sur l’hippogriffe qui l’emporte
dans les airs. — Renaud arrive en Écosse, où il
apprend que Ginevra, fille du roi, est sur le point d’être
mise à mort, victime d’une calomnie. S’étant mis en
chemin pour aller la délivrer, il rencontre une
jouvencelle qui lui raconte le fait pour lequel Ginevra a
été condamnée à périr. 60
Chant V. — Dalinda dévoile à Renaud la trame ourdie par
son amant Polinesso contre Ginevra, laquelle est
condamnée à mourir, s’il ne se présente personne
pour la défendre contre Lurcanio, qui l’a accusée
d’impudicité. Renaud arrive au champ clos, juste au
moment où Lurcanio vient de commencer le combat
avec un chevalier inconnu qui s’était présenté pour
défendre la princesse. Il fait suspendre le combat,
dénonce le calomniateur et lui fait confesser son crime. 79
Chant VI. — On reconnaît que le chevalier inconnu est 102
Ariodant, l’amant de Ginevra. Le roi la lui donne pour
femme et pardonne à Dalinda. — Roger est porté par
l’hippogriffe dans l’île d’Alcine, où Astolphe, cousin de
Bradamante, changé en myrte, lui conseille de ne pas
aller plus avant. Roger veut s’éloigner de l’île ; divers
monstres s’opposent en vain à sa fuite ; mais
surviennent plusieurs nymphes qui le font changer de
résolution.
Chant VII. — Roger, après avoir abattu une géante qui se
tenait à la garde d’un pont, arrive au palais d’Alcine. Il
en devient éperdument amoureux et reste dans l’île.
Bradamante, n’ayant aucune nouvelle de lui, va
chercher Mélisse et lui remet l’anneau enchanté qui
doit servir à rompre les enchantements d’Alcine.
Mélisse va avec cet anneau dans l’île et réveille la
raison endormie de Roger, qui se décide à quitter ce
dangereux séjour. 123
Chant VIII. — Après avoir surmonté divers obstacles,
Roger s’enfuit de l’île d’Alcine. Mélisse rend sa forme
première à Astolphe, lui fait retrouver ses armes et
tous deux se rendent chez Logistilla, où Roger arrive
aussi peu après. — Renaud passe d’Écosse en
Angleterre et obtient des secours pour Charles assiégé
dans Paris. — Angélique est transportée dans l’île
d’Ébude pour y être dévorée par un monstre marin. —
Roland, trompé par un songe, sort déguisé de Paris et
va à la recherche d’Angélique. 143
Chant IX. — Roland ayant appris la coutume cruelle
introduite dans l’île d’Ébude, soupçonne qu’Angélique
y est en danger, et il se propose d’y aller ; mais
auparavant, il secourt Olympie, comtesse de Hollande
et femme du duc Birène, poursuivie par le roi
Cimosque. Il défait complètement ce roi, et remet
Olympie en possession de ses États et de son mari. 166
Chant X. — Birène, étant devenu amoureux d’une autre 189