Unconditional surrender
An unconditional surrender is a surrender in which no guarantees, reassurances, or promises (i.e., conditions) are given to the surrendering party. It is often demanded with the threat of complete destruction, extermination or annihilation.
Announcing that only unconditional surrender is acceptable puts psychological pressure on a weaker adversary, but it may also prolong hostilities. A party typically only demands unconditional surrender when it has a significant advantage over their adversaries, when victory is thought to be inevitable.
In modern times, unconditional surrenders most often include guarantees provided by international law. In some cases, surrender is truly accepted unconditionally; while in other cases terms are offered and accepted, but forces are declared to be subject to "unconditional surrender" for symbolic purposes. This type of surrender may also be accepted by the surrendering party under the expectation of guarantees agreed to informally.
Examples
Banu Qurayza during Muhammad's era
After the
Napoleon Bonaparte
When
By thus breaking the convention which had established him in the island of Elba, Bonaparte destroys the only legal title on which his existence depended, and by appearing again in France, with projects of confusion and disorder, he has deprived himself of the protection of the law, and has manifested to the universe that there can be neither peace nor truce with him.
The powers consequently declare, that Napoleon Bonaparte has placed himself without the pale of civil and social relations; and that, as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world, he has rendered himself liable to public vengeance.
— Plenipotentiaries of the high powers who signed the Treaty of Paris (1814).[8]
Consequently, as Napoleon was considered an
American Civil War
The most famous early use of the phrase in the
However, subsequent surrenders to Grant were not unconditional. When
Grant was not the first officer in the Civil War to use the phrase. The first instance came some days earlier, when Confederate Brigadier General
In 1863, Ambrose Burnside forced an unconditional surrender of the Cumberland Gap and 2,300 Confederate soldiers,[11] and in 1864, Union General Gordon Granger forced an unconditional surrender of Fort Morgan.
World War II
The use of the term was revived during
The term was also used in the Potsdam Declaration issued to Japan on July 26, 1945. Near the end of the declaration, it said, "We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces" and warned that the alternative was "prompt and utter destruction."
It has been claimed that it prolonged the war in Europe by its usefulness to German domestic propaganda, which used it to encourage further resistance against the Allied armies, and by its suppressive effect on the German resistance movement since even after a coup against Adolf Hitler:
"those Germans — and particularly those German generals — who might have been ready to throw Hitler over, and were able to do so, were discouraged from making the attempt by their inability to extract from the Allies any sort of assurance that such action would improve the treatment meted out to their country."[12]
It has also been argued that without the demand for unconditional surrender, Central Europe might not have fallen behind the Iron Curtain.[12] "It was a policy that the Soviet Union accepted with alacrity, probably because a completely destroyed Germany would facilitate Russia's postwar expansion program."[13] It has also been claimed to have prolonged the war with Japan or to be a cause of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (see debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
One reason for the policy was that the Allies wished to avoid a repetition of the stab-in-the-back myth, which had arisen in Germany after World War I and attributed Germany's loss to betrayal by Jews, Bolsheviks, and Socialists, as well as the fact that the war ended before the Allies had reached Germany. The myth was used by the Nazis in their propaganda. An unconditional surrender was felt to ensure that the Germans knew that they had lost the war themselves.[14]
Bangladesh War of Independence
On 16 December 1971, Lt. Gen
The signing of this unconditional surrender document gave
Afghanistan War
On 15 August 2021, the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Afghan National Security Forces unconditionally surrendered to the Taliban.[15][16][17] The unconditional surrender brought an end to the conflict and allowed the Taliban to take over Afghanistan and establish their government in the country.[18]
Surrender at discretion
In
Charles, thereupon, sent a verbal message to the magistrates, requiring them instantly to surrender the town; but, at their solicitation, they obtained till ten o'clock next day to make up their minds. The message was taken into consideration at a public meeting of the inhabitants, and anxiously debated. The majority having come to the resolution that it was impossible to defend the town with the handful of men within, two deputies were sent to Bannockburn, the headquarters of the Highland army, who offered to surrender to terms; stating that, rather than surrender at discretion, as required, they would defend the town to the last extremity. After a negotiation, which occupied the greater part of Tuesday, the following terms of capitulation were agreed upon:...[21]
Surrender at discretion was also used at the
The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken — I have answered their demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls — I shall never surrender or retreat.[22]
The phrase surrender at discretion is still used in treaties. For example, the Rome Statute, in force since July 1, 2002, specifies under "Article 8 war crimes, Paragraph 2.b:"
Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law, namely, any of the following acts:
...
(vi) Killing or wounding a combatant who, having laid down his arms or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion;[23]
The wording in the Rome Statute is taken almost word for word from Article 23 of the 1907
See also
- Surrender (military)
- Debellatio designates the end of a war caused by complete destruction of a hostile state.
- Military occupation
- Giving no quarter, refusal by the victor to spare the lives of surrendered foes
- Suing for peace
References
- ^ Watt, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman, pp. 167–174.
- ^ Peterson, Muhammad: the prophet of God, p. 125-127.
- ^ Ramadan, In the Footsteps of the Prophet, p. 140f.
- ^ Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol. 1, p. 191.
- ^ Brown, A New Introduction to Islam, p. 81.
- ^ Lings, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, p. 229-233.
- ^ For details and references see discussion in main article.
- ^ Baines, Edward (1818). History of the Wars of the French Revolution, from the breaking out of the wars in 1792, to, the restoration of general peace in 1815 (of II). Vol. II. Longman, Rees, Orme and Brown. p. 433.
- ^ MacDonald, John (1823). "Character of Bonaparte". In Urban, Sylvanus (ed.). The Gentleman's magazine (part 1). 16th of the New Series. Vol. 93. F. Jefferies. p. 569.
- ISBN 978-1-4696-4972-6.
- ^ Burnside's Official Report
- ^ a b Michael Balfour, "Another Look at 'Unconditional Surrender'", International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944–), Vol. 46, No. 4 (Oct., 1970), pp. 719–736
- ^ Deane, John R. 1947. The Strange Alliance, The Story of our Efforts at Wartime Co-operation with Russia. The Viking Press.
- ^ Wheeler-Bennett, John W. (1954). The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics, 1918–1945. London: Macmillan. p. 559.
- ^ "Fall of Afghanistan: Taliban seek unconditional surrender at palace". NZ Herald. 15 August 2021.
- ^ Gabriel Hernandez, Michael. "Blinken on Afghanistan withdrawal: 'We inherited a deadline,' not plan". www.aa.com.tr.
- ^ Whitlock, Craig (16 August 2021). "Afghan security forces' wholesale collapse was years in the making". Washington Post.
Those fears, rarely expressed in public, were ultimately borne out by the sudden collapse this month of the Afghan security forces, whose wholesale and unconditional surrender to the Taliban will go down as perhaps the worst debacle in the history
- ^ "Taliban Seizes Power, Says 'War is Over'; President Ghani Flees Afghanistan". TheQuint. 14 August 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-85115-357-5
- ISBN 978-0-19-969362-7
- ^ Prince Charles at Glasgow and surrender of Stirling, electricscotland.com
- ISBN 978-0-8032-7902-5
- ^ s:Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court#Article 8 – War crimes
- IV Hague Convention The Laws and Customs of War on Land October 18, 1907. Article 23 Archived 2015-05-25 at the Wayback Machine
- Nuremberg War Trial judgment on The Law Relating to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity held, "The rules of land warfare expressed in the [Hague Convention of 1907] undoubtedly represented an advance over existing international law at the time of their adoption. But the Convention expressly stated that it was an attempt 'to revise the general laws and customs of war,' which it thus recognised to be then existing, but by 1939 these rules laid down in the Convention were recognised by all civilised nations, and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war....",(Judgement: The Law Relating to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity contained in the Avalon Project archive at Yale Law School).
External links
- German Surrender Documents of WWII (US Historical Documents)