Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
(snip goodness for brevity)
The line between official military units committing war crimes and "marauders" is very fine indeed.
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Well, there are actually clear rules on what you can and cannot do. I studied war crimes in uni¹ and in every case I could see there are two sorts;
individual war crimes and
command war crimes.
Individual war crimes are part of war, they are impossible to stop no matter how good your troops are. Every soldier is an individual subject to immense pressures and the removal of all forms of normalcy. These are the behaviours we usually talk about when we refer to 'marauders' in that they are cut off, isolated, thrown onto their own resources and lose their focus. Normally it is simply a solider out of supervision losing control.
Command war crimes are very different and they range from Calley at Pinkville to the Nazis and The Three Illegal Orders. In all cases they are overseen by the officer corps, the very people placed in position to prevent the crimes, and implemented, planned and carried out according to some agenda.
As you can see the position of the officer is always critical and it's something players don't need to address but NPCs should be put into focus with. The officer's behaviour falls on the "Complicit-Complacent Spectrum" and largely determines what sort of crime occurs and how the military and civilian authorities see it. Note that the officer might not always be on the same place in the spectrum but can slide around due to events.
The laws of warfare are actually fairly lenient towards soldiers stuck behind lines. For instance killing another soldier in an escape is not legally murder as it is if a civilian kills a soldier². However banditry was outlawed in the early modern era and every soldier knows it and engages in it at their own peril. The further east you go the worse the penalties.
¹Which is why you saw me get very heated about it back in the old days
² Yes, legally The French Resistance were civilian criminals but they have always been considered to have had mitigating circumstances