La prigionia di guerra nell’Europa delle Successioni tra diritto bellico e prassi militare

The increased size of armies in 18th-century Europe induced a growth in the number of prisoners, subject to imprisonment often for several years. Their treatment followed shared legal norms, driven by utilitarian rather than humanitarian motives. We do not have general quantitative data; the analysis conducted here is aimed at delineating the different aspects of captive life, which was closely related to the lives of soldiers, as it is statistically estimated to involve about 1/3 of the effectives. As in peace, the rules of cetual preeminence applied. Great symbolic value was attached to the capture of enemy officers; for them, in addition to greater ease in captivity, there was the practice of parole, based on mutual recognition of the officer’s code of honor, which was one of the prerequisites for the regulated conduct of war. The increase in the number of common prisoners posed pressing issues of different kinds: frequent escapes, transportation and care of the wounded and sick, the presence of women, the costs. The increase in the number of common prisoners posed pressing issues of different kinds: frequent escapes, transportation and care of the wounded and sick, the presence of women, and the cost of maintaining them. An occasional practice still in use was that of enlisting captured enemy soldiers in one’s own army; by contrast, a practice that became increasingly common involved prisoner exchanges between states, which could take place while the war was still in progress. Many were the resulting logistical problems related to transportation, victualling, exchange routes and locations, redemption of supernumeraries. To this end, regulations began to be defined on the international level, in which references to humanitarian rules appear sporadically.