Fixes #1923: Use babel features only if the babel latex element is nonempty.

CHANGES

@@ -33,7 +33,8 @@ Bugs fixed
 * #1949: Use ``safe_getattr`` in the coverage builder to avoid aborting with
   descriptors that have custom behavior.
 * #1915: Do not generate smart quotes in doc field type annotations.
-* #1796, On py3, automated .mo building cause UnicodeDecodeError
+* #1796: On py3, automated .mo building caused UnicodeDecodeError.
+* #1923: Use babel features only if the babel latex element is nonempty.
 
 
 Release 1.3.1 (released Mar 17, 2015)

sphinx/writers/latex.py

@@ -342,8 +342,12 @@ class LaTeXTranslator(nodes.NodeVisitor):
             else:
                 language = 'english'
 
-            babel_prefix = '\\addto\\captions%s{' % language
-            babel_suffix = '}'
+            if self.elements['babel']:
+                babel_prefix = '\\addto\\captions%s{' % language
+                babel_suffix = '}'
+            else:
+                babel_prefix = ''
+                babel_suffix = ''
 
         figure = self.builder.config.numfig_format['figure'].split('%s', 1)
         if len(figure) == 1: