Axel,
' So that they may be easily distinguished, military hospital ships are painted white overall, with a horizontal band of green, about a metre and a half wide, around the hull. Hospital ships equipped wholly or in part by private individuals or by officially recognized societies are also white but their horizontal band is red. In addition, all have red crosses painted on the sides fore, aft and amidships and they fly their national flag as well as the Red Cross flag.
To ensure that they are distinguishable at night the hulls are brilliantly illuminated and there are usually long rows or red and green lights along the sides. Identified this way, they are protected from attack under the Geneva Convention.
Even when atagonists obeyed the Geneva Convention, hazards still faced the gleaming white hospital ships. In the years 1914-1917 seven military hospital ships struck mines and were either sunk or badly damaged. In 1917 the Central powers decided to disregard International Law and hospital ships no matter how prominently marked-were no longer protected by the Geneva Convention. In 1917 and 1918 eight hospital ships were torpedoed. The resulting casualties were indeed tragic.'
http://mzone.mweb.co.za/residents/wingj/descript.htm
Please tell me how you can mistake a vessel this CLEARLY MARKED? As I stated before the sinkings were DELIBERATE.
There is proof that there were no civilian resistance fighters in Belgium in 1914. Read 'The First World War' by John Keegan.
And I was unaware of the Russian atrocities on the Eastern Front for WW1 however, two wrongs do not make a right.
VBR,
Jim