10 AUGUST 1918, Page 12

FOUR RULES OF WARFARE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. [To THE

EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Writing some five centuries ago, the Spanish author of the Cronica del Conde Pedro Nino says that a man may save his soul in Christian warfare if he keep four rules : (1) to kill no prisoner; (2) to respect churches and their contents; (3) to respect all women, married or single; (4) not -to burn crops or houses, "since this injures innocent persons and little children who have done no wrong." It is true that he prefaces these regulations with the remark that the war must be a just war. Possibly the Germans consider that the consciousness of waging an unjust war absolves them from these and similar rules.—I am, Sir, &c., A. F. GERALD.