Battlefield Scavengers and the Geneva Conventions

Body Robbers

In his novel Les Miserables, Victor Hugo created the character of the villainous innkeeper Thénardier. In one scene, he searches the bodies of dead soldiers looking for trinkets he can sell.

Hugo drew on actual events that happened after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and had Thénardier stealing from corpses there. In the musical version of the book, Thénardier is robbing bodies in the sewers of Paris.

The Napoleonic Wars

There were many people like Thénardier, and Napoleon Bonaparte's belligerence provided them with a livelihood. In 1807, the Battle of Heilsberg was fought between the French and the Russians. The British General Robert Wilson described the scene he witnessed after the guns fell silent:

“The ground between the wood and the Russian batteries, about a quarter of a mile, was a sheet of naked human bodies, which friends and foes had during the night mutually stripped, although numbers of these bodies still retained consciousness of their situation. It was a sight that the eye loathed, but from which it could not remove.”

On June 18, 1815, the enormous armies of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington clashed near the Belgian town of Waterloo. The battle resulted in the final defeat of Napoleon and, just as at Heilsberg, left a landscape littered by the bodies of nearly 11,000 men.

As the smoke cleared, the carnage appeared. Wounded men and horses screamed in agony but the clean-up crews cared little for their distress. Scavengers were looking for treasure. A foot soldier might have a small amount of money on him, a junior officer a ring or watch. And, most had teeth.

At the start of the 19th century, dental care was atrocious and sugar consumption was rising. Acid solutions used to whiten teeth also destroyed enamel. The result was the extraction of massive quantities of teeth and a demand, among the wealthy, for dentures.

This created an occupation, as noted by the BBC, “The prospect of thousands of British, French, and Prussian teeth—sitting in the mouths of recently-killed soldiers on the battlefield at Waterloo—was an attractive one for looters. There were lots of bodies in one place and above ground. The teeth would have been pulled out with pliers by surviving troops and locals—but also by scavengers who had travelled from Britain.”

As the fictional Thénardier would argue:

“Here's a hint of gold
Stuck into a tooth
Pardon me, Monsieur
You won't be needing it no more.”

A Memory of Solferino

On June 24, 1859, France and Austria fought a monumental battle at Solferino in northern Italy. More than 40,000 men were killed or wounded.

By chance, a Swiss businessman named Henri Dunant was in Solferino when the fight broke out. The following day he ventured into the battlefield and was appalled by what he saw.

Among the dead and wounded were scavengers who made little effort to help the soldiers in pain. Dunant began organizing the local population to deliver aid to the fallen.

Recommended

Emily Dickinson’s "So has a Daisy vanished"

He dressed wounds, gave water to the thirsty, bought sheets and food, and recorded the last words of dying soldiers.

He persuaded the victorious French to release captured Austrian doctors to treat the injured of both sides under the slogan Tutti fratelli (All are brothers).

When he returned to his home in Geneva he began writing A Memory of Solferino. The book was published in 1862 and was a graphic description of the horrors of the battlefield and the failure of humanitarian assistance given to the fallen soldiers. Dunant ended his story with a question:

“Would it not be possible, in time of peace and quiet, to form relief societies for the purpose of having care given to the wounded in wartime by zealous, devoted, and thoroughly qualified volunteers ?”

He answered his own question by joining a small committee that set up the Red Cross. Within a year “delegates from 16 countries along with military medical personnel traveled to Geneva to discuss the terms of a wartime humanitarian agreement. This meeting and its resultant treaty signed by 12 nations became known as the First Geneva Convention” (history.com).

“When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.”

— The Young British Soldier by Rudyard Kipling

The Geneva Conventions

By its very nature warfare is an assault on human dignity. The first Geneva Convention was an attempt to bring a modicum of civilized behaviour to an inherently barbaric business. Subsequent protocols were added that broadened the idealistic notion that war could be conducted in a more humane manner.

The Legal Information Institute at Cornell University offers this summary:

“The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols are a body of public international law, also known as the Humanitarian Law of Armed Conflicts. They aim to establish minimum protections, standards of humane treatment, and fundamental guarantees of respect to individuals victimized by armed conflicts. The Geneva Conventions are a series of treaties on the treatment of civilians, prisoners of war (POWs), and soldiers who are otherwise rendered hors de combat (French, literally for "outside the fight") or incapable of fighting.”

The conventions have been ratified by just about every nation in the world but they are unenforceable, which makes them useless when confronted by a monster and his followers, determined to kill every Jew in Europe.

As this article was being written:

• Video emerged of Israeli Defence Force soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee; and,
• Six Israeli hostages were shot in the head at close range by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Nobody knows how many potential war criminals, such as these, are currently alive but it likely runs into six figures and possibly more. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court, which administers war crimes trials, currently has proceedings against fewer than 100 people underway.

The numbers show that it's unlikely that such fiends are brought to justice later. Even if they are captured, convicted, and punished it's of little comfort to their victims.

Clearly, the existence of high-minded ideals about the treatment of captives during conflicts is not a deterrent to those who choose to act barbarically.

Bonus Factoids

• Henri Dunant went bankrupt in 1867 and lived in poverty and obscurity until 1895 when he was tracked down by a journalist. Georg Baumberger wrote about him and his pivotal role in the founding of the Red Cross. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.
• Looting is banned under several international agreements. A Statute of the International Criminal Court says that in international warfare, “pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault,” is a war crime. Yet, plundering the property and valuables from a captured town is a common occurrence.
• In 1967, Nigerian soldiers seized the town of Onitsha from the breakaway forces of the Biafran province. While the Nigerians were busy looting the town they were overwhelmed in a Biafran counter-attack.
• In May 1991, a Lauda Air flight from Hong Kong to Vienna crashed in Thailand. There were no survivors among the 223 people aboard the Boeing 767. A Thai newspaper photographed large numbers of scavengers stealing the personal belongings of passengers. Police were reported to have joined in the looting.

Sources

• “The Dentures Made from the Teeth of Dead Soldiers at Waterloo.” Paul Kerley, BBC News Magazine, June 16, 2015.
• “How Were Napoleonic Battlefields Cleaned up?” shannonselin.com, August 2016.
• “160 Years on the Side of Humanity: A Commitment that Has Never Waned.” International Committee of the Red Cross, February 16, 2023.
• “Geneva Convention.” history.com, August 1, 2024.
• “Geneva Conventions and Their Additional Protocols.” Cornell Law School, undated.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

© 2024 Rupert Taylor