ENEMY (OF. anemi, Fr. emecnii, Fort. inimigo, enemy, from Lat. in ho ices, foe, from in not + a m ices, friend, from (mare, to love). In international hiw, a nation at war With an other, considered as a whole, or an individual or body of men belonging to the hostile nation. An enemy, in the latter sense of the term, may or may not be a belligerent, but there can in inter national law be no enmity without the existence of a state of belligerency. Accordingly, no mat ter how strained the relations of two States may become, they do not assume the position of ene mies toward one another until a state of war arises between them. Nor does the active inter vention of a third state or its active sympathy with one of two combatants, even though it be bound to the latter by an offensive and defensive alliance, make it the enemy of the other, until it, too, becomes a party to the war.
An enemy's status in international law de pends on whether it is a combatant or a non combatant. Against the former, the whole force of the opposing belligerent State may and should he exerted, with a view to its destruction or sub jugation. This is true of the Government of the enemy, its civil as well as its military and naval representatives—of all, in fact, who, it allegiance, are directly or indirectly engaged in carrying on the war. It is probable, however, that at the present time judges and minor civil servants having no direct connection with the war, as well as diplomatic agents accredited to neutral powers, would be deemed to be non combatants, though there are modern examples to the contrary.
Non-combatants—that is, such of the subjects of the enemy State as have no connection with the war, but are engaged in peaceful pursuits— are, by modern usage, exempt from hostile at tack. The old theory that, when a state of war existed, each and every subject of the one bel ligerent was at war with each and all of the subjects of the other, has been superseded in practice by more humane principles. Commercial
relations between the subjects of the respective belligerents are, however, suspended, contracts between them are rendered null and void, and the courts of each are closed to the subjects of the other. See ALIEN.
Non-combatants residing in their own country are equally exempt from the worst horrors of war. Though they may suffer incidentally, as the result of the bombardment of fortified places and the destruction. as a matter of military policy, of crops and other property, they are not ordinarily liable to injury either in person or property by any hostile operations. If attacked or plundered by unauthorized acts of soldiers be longing to the enemy, the latter become liable to punishment by their own martial law for vio lation of the rules of civilized warfare.
The treatment which modern international law accords to combatants will be more appropri ately considered in the article on WAR. It will suffice to say here that the mitigation of the horrors of war has not been confined to exempt ing the greater part of the enemy's population iron the list of its victims, but has been extended to the actual conduct of warlike operations on land and sea. It is a marked tendency of modern warfare between civilized nations to confine all public acts of hostility to the actual combatants and to the field of battle.
In their dealings with uncivilized races, how ever, the Christian nations have not yet reached the same standard of humanity, hut continue to confound combatants and non-combatants, and to employ against both classes the stern and indis criminate methods of warfare of a more barba rous age. See ALIEN; BELLIGERENT; WAR; and the authorities there referred to.