Journal of Civil & Legal Sciences
Open Access

The present paper deals with the concept of world wars and the international laws prevalent within the country. Public international law, as traditionally defined, is the law governing relations between nation states. Foreign law is simply the national law (also known as domestic or municipal law) of another country.

Private international law is a confusing term in that it refers to the national law(s) governing the cross-border interactions of private (non-state) parties, rather than international law. The question that often arises in such instances is “which country’s law applies?”. Private international law is, therefore, sometimes referred to as conflicts of laws, although the parties can select the law which governs their transaction by contract. A number of private international law topics are covered by treaty (i.e. family law, estates and trusts, litigation) [1]. Since treaties are characteristic of the public international law system, the idea that a treaty would apply to a private international law issue can be confusing as well. Often the aim of such treaties is to harmonize national laws. The sources of public international law are enumerated under Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, which is appended to the Charter of the United Nations. Those sources are, as follows: treaties, custom, general principles and case law and scholarly commentary as a subsidiary means for determining the rules of law. Treaties, custom and general principles are primary sources of law in the public international legal system.

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia for assistance [2]. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers quickly collapsed. Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria- Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

According to an aggressive military strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan (named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen), Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting Russia in the east.

On August 4, 1914, German troops crossed the border into Belgium. In the first battle of World War I, the Germans assaulted the heavily fortified city of Liege, using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal—enormous siege cannons—to capture the city by August 15 [3]. The Germans left death and destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium toward France, shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of inciting civilian resistance.

In the First Battle of the Marne, fought from September 6-9, 1914, French and British forces confronted the invading Germany army, which had by then penetrated deep into northeastern

France, within 30 miles of Paris, The Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful counterattack, driving the Germans back to north of the Aisne River.

The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France [4]. Both sides dug into trenches, and the Western Front was the setting for a hellish war of attrition that would last more than three years. Particularly long and costly battles in this campaign were fought at Verdun (February-December 1916) and the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916) [5]. German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in the Battle of Verdun alone.

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