Note 421 — Chapter IV · WARFARE ON SEA

The use of a false flag on the part of a belligerent man-of-war is analogous to the use of the enemy flag and the like in land warfare; see above, § 164. British practice—see Holland, Prize Law, § 200—permits the use of false colours. U.S. Naval War Code, article 7, forbids it altogether, whereas as late as 1898, during the war with Spain in consequence of the Cuban insurrection, two American men-of-war made use of the Spanish flag (see Perels, p. 183). And during the war between Turkey and Russia, in 1877, Russian men-of-war in the Black Sea made use of the Italian flag (see Martens, II. § 103, p. 566). The question of the permissibility of the use of a neutral or enemy flag is answered in the affirmative, among others, by Ortolan, II. p. 29; Fiore, III. No. 1340; Perels, § 35, p. 183; Pillet, p. 116; Bonfils, No. 1274; Calvo, IV. 2106; Hall, § 187. See also Pillet in R.G. V. (1898), pp. 444-451. But see the arguments against the use of a false flag in Pradier-Fodéré, VI. No. 2760.