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Humanitarian bullets and man-killers: Revisiting the history of arms regulation in the late nineteenth century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2022
Abstract
In 1899, the delegates at the first Hague Peace Conference outlawed the use of expanding bullets in warfare. Also known as “dum-dum” bullets, their prohibition was largely the product of a media spectacle that evolved around their use in British colonial warfare, a spectacle that focused particularly on the ghastly nature of the wounds these bullets inflicted. This article revisits the “dum-dum” controversy of the 1890s as it played out in the Anglo-European public sphere. It argues, firstly, that there was nothing all that innovative about employing the principle of expansion in rifle ammunition. Secondly, it shows that controversies around bullets and their wounds had existed since the invention of industrially produced military rifles – and soft-lead ammunition – in the 1850s. In 1868, the St Petersburg Declaration outlawed the use of exploding projectiles for many of the same reasons for which expanding ammunition would also be banned in 1899. The article also shows that many of the ideas mobilized in the early 1890s to promote a new range of cordite-powered full-metal-jacket bullets because of the supposedly “clean” and “humanitarian” wounds that they inflicted offer an important context in which to read and explain the prohibition of “man-slaying” expanding ammunition. Above all, the article highlights how powerful racist thinking and imperial imperatives were to the framers of the laws of war at the turn of the twentieth century.
Keywords
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- International Review of the Red Cross , Volume 104 , Issue 920-921: How International Humanitarian Law Develops , August 2022 , pp. 1684 - 1707
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the ICRC
Footnotes
*
With special thanks to Reuben Bull, Laura Thomas, Omar Mohamed, Gordon Morrell, Tom Gregory and our anonymous peer reviewers for their various contributions. This article contextualizes the historical development of ideas and practices of violence in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; in places, it reproduces primary source evidence, both visual and textual, of a confronting and offensive nature.
References
1 Declaration (IV, 3) concerning Expanding Bullets, The Hague, 29 July 1899, available at: https://tinyurl.com/ymp4f7y6 (all internet references were accessed in July 2022).
2 Meredith, John, Omdurman Diaries 1898: Eyewitness Accounts of the Legendary Campaign, Leo Cooper, London, 1998, pp. 25, 33–34Google Scholar; Gordon, Michelle, Extreme Violence and the “British Way”: Colonial Warfare in Perak, Sierra Leone and Sudan, Bloomsbury, London, 2021, p. 159Google Scholar.
3 Major H. B. Mathias [?], “Report on the Wounds Caused by the New Projectile, Used in the Lee Metford Rifle by the British Division at the Battle of Omdurman”, 24 November 1898, Appendix to Surgeon General W. Taylor, “Notes on the Effects of the Dum Dum Bullet at Khartoum”, 10 December 1898, in War Office, “General and Warlike Stores: Ammunition (Code 45(C)): Reports on Effects of Dum-Dum Bullets Used at Khartoum and Omdurman”, WO 32/7056, National Archives, London. See also M. Gordon, above note 2, p. 138.
4 The Bulletin International des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge even considered killing “fanatical” Mahdi wounded to be acceptable: “Les blessés de la battaille d'Omdurman”, Bulletin International des Sociétés de la Croix-Rouge, Vol. 30, No. 117, 1899.
5 W. Taylor, above note 3. For more on the violence of the Battle for Omdurman, see Gordon, Michelle, “Viewing Violence in the British Empire: Images of Atrocity from the Battle of Omdurman 1898”, Journal of Perpetrator Research, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2019CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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7 For more on this idea, see Bourke, Joanna, “Dum-Dum Bullets: Constructing and Deconstructing ‘the Human’”, in Obert, Jonathan, Poe, Andrew and Sarat, Austin (eds), The Lives of Guns, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019Google Scholar.
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13 Ibid. Cf. J. Bourke, above note 7, pp. 122–133; M. Abbenhuis, above note 6, p. 108.
14 War Office to Acting Attorney General, 27 August 1896, in War Office, “General and Warlike Stores: Ammunition (Code 45(C)): Experiments with Cup-Headed and Tweedie Bullets: Declaration Renouncing Use of Explosive Bullets under 400 Grammes Weight, St Petersburg, Russia, 1868”, WO 32/7053, National Archives, London.
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20 One notable exception is the work of Scott Andrew Keefer. Maartje Abbenhuis's previous work on the history of dum-dums and the Hague Conferences is certainly fuzzy on these technicalities; see M. Abbenhuis, above note 6, p. 109.
21 Cf. Spiers, Edward M., “The Use of Dum-Dum Bullets in Colonial Warfare”, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1975, p. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. Bourke, above note 7, pp. 123, 125, 129.
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27 The Colonial Ammunition Company in Auckland, New Zealand, started manufacturing Mark IV bullets in the middle of 1898: Under-Secretary of Defence J. F. Grey to Colonial Ammunition Company, 12 January 1899, and Arthur Douglas, Defence Minister Report, 11 January 1899, both in Army Department, “Inward Letters and Registered Files”, AAYS Item # R24395688, New Zealand National Archives. For information on the Colonial Ammunition Company's cartridges, see Barry W. Garcia, Whitney's Heritage: A Study of Cartridges Manufactured by the Colonial Ammunition Company in New Zealand, Hawera, 1991, pp. 16–19.
28 Confidential Cabinet Paper, 8 December 1899, in “MS Joseph Chamberlain Papers Relating to Africa”, JC12/3/1-62, in Nineteenth Century Collections Online, available at: www.gale.com/intl/primary-sources/nineteenth-century-collections-online. See also Scott Andrew Keefer, The Law of Nations and Britain's Quest for Naval Security: International Law and Arms Control 1898–1914, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndsmills, 2016, p. 193.
29 S. R. H. Knox, War Office Announcement, 3 March 1900, in War Office, “General and Warlike Stores: Ammunition (Code 45(C)): Future Pattern of Ammunition to be Used in .303 LM Rifle. Future Stocks to Be Held. Military Authorities at Home or Abroad to Use Discretion as to Use”, WO 32/7058, National Archives, London (WO 32/7058).
30 Berkeley R. Lewis, Small Arms and Ammunition in the United States Service (with 52 Plates), Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC, 1956, p. 167.
31 Ibid., pp. 116–117; Donald Featherston, Weapons and Equipment of the Victorian Soldier, Blandford Press, Poole, 1978, pp. 18, 20.
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36 Louis A. la Garde, Gunshot Injuries: How They Are Inflicted, Their Complications and Treatment, 2nd ed., William Wood, New York, 1916, p. 35.
37 Chris Kyle with William Doyle, American Gun: A History of the US in Ten Firearms, William Morrow, New York, 2013, p. 34.
38 Vivian Dering Majendie and Charles Orde Browne, Military Breech-Loading Rifles: The Snider, the Martini-Henry and Boxer Ammunition, Arms and Armour Press, London, 1973 (first published 1870), p. 67.
39 D. Featherston, above note 31, p. 25.
40 See, for example, “Medical and Surgical History of the British Army in Turkey and Crimea during the Russian War”, Command Papers, CH Microfiche No. 63.326-339, in UK Parliamentary Papers, 1857–1858, p. 859.
41 Henry Dunant, A Memory of Solferino, Cassell, London, 1947 (first published 1862), p. 22.
42 Cf. Russell Gilmore, “‘The New Courage’: Rifles and Soldier Individualism 1896–1918”, Military Affairs, Vol. 40, No. 3, 1976.
43 For 1850s versions: “Resources of Modern Warfare: Shells, Fuses and Enfield Cartridges”, Dublin University Magazine, Vol. 53, June 1859.
44 “War Instruments”, Illustrated London News, 2 April 1858.
45 The Field, Vol. 9, No. 223, April 1857, p. 230; George H. Daw, Gun Patents 1864, Kingsmead Reprints, Trowbridge, 1973; D. Featherston, above note 31, p. 16; Garry James, “General Jacob's Exotic Rifle”, 2008, available at: www.myjacobfamily.com/articleskennethjacob/generaljacobarticle.htm.
46 Robert V. Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War, Papamoa Press, San Francisco, CA, 2017, pp. 194–195; Berkeley R. Lewis, “Explosive Bullets”, Ordnance, Vol. 38, No. 204, 1954, p. 947; B. R. Lewis, above note 30, pp. 126–128.
47 Ian Skennerton (ed.), List of Changes in British War Material in Relation to Edged Weapons, Firearms and Associated Ammunitions and Accoutrements, Vol. 1, Margate, 1980, p. 28; “Mémoire sur la suppression de l'emploi des balles explosives en temps de guerre”, Appendix 1, 1868, in Foreign Office, “Commission Militaire Internationale, Protocole no. 1, 1868”, FO 83/316, National Archives, London (FO 83/316).
48 “The Explosive Bullet: A Fearful Instrument of Warfare”, Chicago Tribune, 22 July 1870, p. 1.
49 “Marksman”, The Times, 12 December 1868, p. 9; G.V. Fosbery, “Explosive Bullets and their Application to Military Purposes”, Royal United Services Institution Journal, Vol. 12, No. 48, 1868.
50 J. R. Cameron, “Incendiary, Tracer and Explosive Bullets”, Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps, Vol. 79, No. 6, 1942, pp. 269–270; Russia Circular St Petersburg 1868, Appendix 1, in FO 83/316, above note 47.
51 Henry Charles Fletcher, Special Committee on Breech-Loading Rifles: Together with Minutes of Evidence etc. etc., in House of Commons, UK Parliamentary Papers, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1868.
52 J. A. van den Bosch, “Afdeeling XVI”, Militaire Spectator, 1 February 1867, p. 79; Paul van ‘t Veer (ed.), A. W. P. Weitzel: Maar Majesteit! Koning Willem III en Zijn Tijd, Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam, 2008, pp. 28–29.
53 James Crossland, “Radical Warfare's First ‘Superweapon’: The Fears, Perceptions and Realities of the Orsini Bomb, 1858–1896”, Terrorism and Political Violence, 2021, available at: https://tinyurl.com/4xbyhat8. See also “Foreign Intelligence”, Sunday Times, 6 March 1859.
54 Explosive Projectiles Declaration, above note 11.
55 Cf. S. A. Keefer, above note 28, p. 40.
56 For specifications of British versions of Boxer and Snider-Enfield bullets, see I. Skennerton (ed.), above note 47, esp. pp. 39–65. See also Ian Beckett, “Retrospective Icon: The Martini-Henry”, in Karen Jones, Giacomo Macola and David Welch (eds), A Cultural History of Firearms in the Age of Empire, Ashgate, Farnham, 2013, p. 240.
57 Cf. S. A. Keefer, above note 26, pp. 445–446.
58 Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law, 1st ed., 1866, p. 343.
59 “Marksman”, The Times, 12 December 1868, p. 9. See also H. C. Fletcher, above note 51, p. 22; “Imperial Parliament”, Trewman's Exeter Flying Post, 16 December 1868, p. 7; G. V. Fosbery, above note 49.
60 “Cruelty in War”, Pall Mall Gazette, 17 June 1868, pp. 1–2. See also “Shell Bullets”, Pall Mall Gazette, 28 October 1868; “Explosive Bullets”, Leeds Mercury, 19 December 1868.
61 “On the Use and Abuse of Shells in War and Sport”, The Field, 31 October 1868, p. 347.
62 Catherine Jefferson, “Origins of the Norm against Chemical Weapons”, International Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 3, 2014, pp. 647–648.
63 Earl of Malmesbury in House of Lords, UK Parliamentary Papers, 23 July 1868. With thanks to Reuben Bull.
64 “News”, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 12 December 1868, p. 6.
65 S. A. Keefer, above note 28, p. 42.
66 “Nothing in the Papers”, Illustrated London News, 5 December 1868, p. 19.
67 Cf. Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, “Vermin Beings: On Pestiferous Animals and Human Game”, Social Text, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2011; J. Bourke, above note 7. On the racialized hierarchies of suffering and pain, see Joanna Bourke, The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014, pp. 193, 230; Anupama Rao and Steven Pierce, “Discipline and the Other Body: Humanitarianism, Violence, and the Colonial Exception”, in Anupama Rao and Steven Pierce (eds.), Discipline and the Other Body: Correction, Corporeality, Colonialism, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2006, pp. 4–5.
68 See, for example, W. H. Tisdall Ltd, Guns, Ammunition, Winter Sports Goods Catalogue, Christchurch, Wellington, April 1910, in “Ephemera of Octavo Size Relating to Guns, Rifles, Shooting and Ammunition 1900–1910”, Eph-A-GUN-1900/1910, esp. p. 26, Alexander Turnbull Library (ATL), Wellington, New Zealand; Smokeless Powder and Ammunition Co. London, May 1900 price list, in Eph-A-GUN-1900s, esp. p. 30, ATL, Wellington, New Zealand; “Bad News for Whales”, Illustrated Times (London), 20 June 1857.
69 Shaun Kingsley Malamey, “Defining the True Hunter: Big Game Hunting, Moral Distinction and Virtuosity in French Colonial Indochina”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 62, No. 3, 2020, p. 665. For an example, see “A New Form of Mushroom Bullet”, Scientific American, 11 May 1907, p. 395.
70 Clinton T. Dent, “A Lecture on Small-Bore Rifle Bullet Wounds and the ‘Humanity’ of the Present War”, British Medical Journal, 19 May 1900, p. 1212.
71 These were advertised as far away as the Dutch East Indies: Java-Bode, 19 October 1867, p. 2.
72 Édouard Manet, Portrait of Monsier Pertuiset the Lion Hunter, 1881, São Paulo Museum of Art, Brazil.
73 Cf. Nisha Shah, “Gunning for War: Infantry Rifles and the Calibration of Lethal Force”, Critical Studies on Security, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2017; Niko Rohé, “European Medical Experts in Wars of ‘Others’: The Greco-Turkish War of 1897”, European Review of History, Vol. 26, No. 2, 2019; Nick Maiden, “Historical Overview of Wound Ballistics Research”, Forensic Science Medical Pathology, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2009; Nicholas Senn, “The Modern Treatment of Gunshot Wounds in Military Practice”, Military Surgeon, August 1898; Gwilym G. Davis, “The Effects of Small Calibre Bullets as Used in Military Arms”, Annals of Surgery, Vol. 25, No. 1, 1897.
74 Thomas Longmore, Gunshot Injuries: Their History, Characteristic Features, Complications and General Treatment, Longmans, London, 1877.
75 G. G. Davis, above note 73.
76 See, for example, “The Question of the Employment of Explosive Bullets in the Franco-German War”, British Medical Journal, 11 March 1871, p. 257; “Latest Telegraphic News: The Civil War in France”, Observer (London), 30 April 1871, p. 6.
77 Explosive Projectiles Declaration, above note 11.
78 “De la gravité des blessures produites par les projectiles de plomb mou”, Bulletin International des Sociétés de Croix-Rouge, Vol. 5, No. 20, 1874; “The Action of Modern Bullets on the Animal Body”, British Medical Journal, 9 May 1874, p. 617.
79 Prince Gortchakow to Count Brunnow, 17 April 1874, in Miscellaneous No. 1 (1874): Correspondence Respecting the Proposed Conference at Brussels on the Rules of Military Warfare. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of her Majesty 1874, Harrison and Sons, London, 1874, p. 12. See also S. A. Keefer, above note 28, p. 50; Revue de Droit International et de Legislation Comparée, 1875, pp. 527–529.
80 N. Shah, above note 73; Cédric Cotter and Ellen Policinski, “A History of Violence: The Development of International Humanitarian Law Reflected in the International Review of the Red Cross”, Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2020. See also “Effets des balles de fusil modernes”, Bulletin International des Sociétés de Croix-Rouge, Vol. 16, No. 64, 1885.
81 “Summary of News: Foreign”, Manchester Guardian, 24 August 1870.
82 Earl of Carnavon to Governor Sir H. Barkly, 30 September 1876, in House of Lords, UK Parliamentary Papers, 1876. With thanks to Reuben Bull.
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88 Ellesmere Guardian, 2 October 1897, p. 3.
89 For more on the racialization of non-Europeans and justification of violence in Anglo-European law, see Elizabeth Kolsky, “The Colonial Rule of Law and the Legal Regime of Exception: Frontier ‘Fanaticism’ and State Violence in British India”, American Historical Review, Vol. 120, No. 4, 2015, esp. pp. 1221–1224.
90 J. B. Hamilton, “The Evolution of the Dum-Dum Bullet”, British Medical Journal, 14 May 1898, p. 1251; Auckland Star, 20 July 1898, p. 3.
91 “Trials with the .303-inch Lee-Metford Bullet”, from the Superintendent of Small Arms Factory Dum Dum to Inspector-Gen. Ordnance, Bengal Command, 3 September 1895, in East India (Military Bullet) Reports on the Effect of Military Bullet Now in Use in India, HMSO, London, 1899, p. 17.
92 Jay Gould, “Observations on the Action of the Lee Metford Bullet on Bone and Soft Tissues in the Human Body: Made during the Chitral Expedition”, British Medical Journal, 20 July 1895, pp. 129–130 (emphasis added).
93 “The Lee Metford Rifle”, British Medical Journal, 4 April 1896, p. 865.
94 J. B. Hamilton, above note 90, p. 1251.
95 Report of the Small-Arms Penetration Committee 1893 and 1894, War Office, London, 1894, and Department Committee on Small Arms: Various Reports, HMSO, London, 1900, p. 39, both in Ordnance Department, Small Arms Penetration Committee: Report, Supp. 5, No. 919, National Archives, London; East India (Military Bullet) Reports, above note 91, p. 8.
96 “The Dum-Dum Bullet”, Friend of India (Calcutta), 3 February 1898, p. 20.
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98 War in South Africa: Military Preparations: Report of the Royal (Elgin) Commission, Cd. 1789-92 IOR/PARL/21318, Part 1, 1903, p. 86, in Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
99 “Engels Vernuft en Geweerprojectielen”, Militaire Spectator, No. 68, 1899, p. 526.
100 See, for example, M. C. O'Connell, Report on Effect of Military Bullet in Use in India, House of Commons, CH Microfiche 105.573, in UK Parliamentary Papers, Vol. 65, 1899; “Wounds by Small Projectiles”, Hospital (London), 21 May 1898, p. 29; Alex Ogston, “The Effects of the Dum-Dum Bullet from a Surgical Point of View”, British Medical Journal, 28 May 1898, p. 1425; J. B. Hamilton, “The Dum-Dum Bullet”, British Medical Journal, 11 June 1898, p. 1559; Alex Ogston, “The Peace Conference and the Dum-Dum Bullet”, British Medical Journal, 29 July 1899, pp. 278–281.
101 “The English Mark IV Cordite Ammunition”, Scientific American, Vol. 81, No. 8, 1899, p. 122.
102 Wichita Daily Eagle, 16 July 1898, p. 4.
103 M. Abbenhuis, above note 6, pp. 109–111.
104 War in South Africa, above note 98, pp. 63, 87.
105 Confidential Cabinet Paper, 8 December 1899, in “MS Joseph Chamberlain Papers Relating to Africa JC12/3/1-62”, in Nineteenth Century Collections Online.
106 Colonial Office Minutes, 29 March 1900, in War Office, “General and Warlike Stores: Ammunition (Code 45(C)): Future Pattern of Ammunition to be Used in .303 LM Rifle. Future Stocks to Be Held. Military Authorities at Home or Abroad to Use Discretion as to Use”, WO 32/7059, National Archives, London; Defence Committee, Memorandum, 19 January 1900, in Public Record Office, “Major General Sir John Charles Ardagh: Papers: Peace Conference at The Hague May–July 1899”, PRO 30/40/14, National Archives, London (PRO 30/40/14).
107 S.R.H. Knox, War Office Announcement, 3 March 1900, in WO 32/7058, above note 29.
108 Minute by Mr Wyndham, 1 December 1899, in “MS Joseph Chamberlain Papers Relating to Africa JC12/3/1-62”, in Nineteenth Century Collections Online. See also Minute by Secretary of State for War for Cabinet, 8 December 1899, in PRO 30/40/14, above note 106.
109 Director Inspector General of Ordnance, 3 March 1900, in WO 32/7058, above note 29.
110 For more, see Maartje Abbenhuis, “The Dum-Dum Controversy: Rifle Ammunition in British Politics at the Turn of the Twentieth Century”, forthcoming, 2023.
111 Cf. S. A. Keefer, above note 15.
112 There is definitely more work needed on the actual use of expanding ammunition in military and non-military settings after 1899.
113 Cf Ramsey, L. J., “Bullet Wounds and X-Rays in Britain's Little Wars”, Journal of the Society of Army Historical Research, Vol. 60, No. 242, 1982, p. 93Google Scholar.