
On 24 July 1916, Captain Charles Fryatt was executed by the German armed forces in the Belgian city of Bruges for his attempt of sinking a German submarine by ramming. The nature of his execution sent a shock wave throughout international political circles, many in the British government becoming outraged that a man should be condemned for exercising his right to resist an opposing aggressor. Germany had justified its military tribunal on the proviso that Fryatt was an illegal combatant, a franc-tireur, reintroducing a Franco-Prussian war concept, which could prosecute anyone that conspired to perverse the ‘established’ rules of war.
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