Unconditional Surrender: Victory's Embrace, The Triumph of Resolute Resolve

By Fouad Sabry

What is Unconditional Surrender

An unconditional surrender is a surrender in which no guarantees, reassurances, or promises are given to the surrendering party. It is often demanded with the threat of complete destruction, extermination or annihilation.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Unconditional surrender

Chapter 2: War crime

Chapter 3: Fort Donelson

Chapter 4: Victor's justice

Chapter 5: Simon Bolivar Buckner

Chapter 6: End of World War II in Europe

Chapter 7: Battle of Fort Donelson

Chapter 8: Gideon Johnson Pillow

Chapter 9: Camp Jackson affair

Chapter 10: Battle of Appomattox Court House

(II) Answering the public top questions about unconditional surrender.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Unconditional Surrender.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Jun 2, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Unconditional surrender

Unconditional surrender is a surrender in which the side surrendering receives no guarantees. It is frequently required under fear of total devastation, extinction, or annihilation.

In current times, international law guarantees are most frequently included in unconditional surrenders. An announcement that only unconditional surrender is acceptable places psychological pressure on a weaker opponent, but it may also prolong conflicts.

After the Battle of the Trench, in which the Muslims tactically defeated their foes with few deaths, efforts to destroy the Muslims failed, and Islam came to dominate the region. As a result, the Muslim army attacked the Banu Qurayza tribe's neighborhood, resulting in their unconditional surrender.

When Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from his forced exile on the island of Elba, one of the steps taken by the delegates of the European countries at the Congress of Vienna on 13 March 1815 was to issue a proclamation declaring him an outlaw. The text contains the subsequent paragraphs::

By breaking the agreement that had established him on the island of Elba, Bonaparte destroyed the only legal basis for his existence. By reappearing in France with plans for chaos and disorder, he deprived himself of the protection of the law and signaled to the world that neither peace nor truce could exist with him.

As a result, the powers say that Napoleon Bonaparte has removed himself from the realm of civil and social relations, and that, as an enemy and disturber of world peace, he has exposed himself to public retribution.

— Plenipotentiaries of the high powers who signed the Treaty of Paris (1814).

Due to the fact that Napoleon was considered an outlaw when he surrendered to Captain Maitland of HMS Bellerophon at the end of the Hundred Days, he was not protected by military law or international law as a head of state, and the British had no legal obligation to accept his surrender or spare his life. To keep him from becoming a martyr, they exiled him to the distant island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.

During the Battle of Fort Donelson in 1862, the word was used for the first time in American Civil War history. Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union Army received a request for conditions from the fort's commanding officer, Confederate Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner Sr. Grant's response was, No terms other than an instant, unconditional surrender are acceptable. I offer to immediately begin working on your projects. When news of Grant's triumph, one of the Union's first in the war, reached Washington, D.C., newspapers commented (and President Abraham Lincoln endorsed) that Grant's initials, U.S., meant for Unconditional Surrender, which became his nickname.

However, surrenders to Grant that followed were not unconditional. In 1865, after Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, Grant allowed the men under Lee's command to return home on parole while retaining their sidearms and private horses. John C. Pemberton was likewise granted generous conditions at Vicksburg, while Grant's lieutenant William Tecumseh Sherman extended generous terms to Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina.

Grant was not the first officer to utilize the phrase during the American Civil War. During the Battle of Fort Henry, the first incident occurred when Confederate Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman requested terms of surrender. No, sir, said Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, your surrender will be unconditional. Even at Fort Donelson, earlier in the day, a Confederate courier contacted Brigadier General Charles Ferguson Smith, Grant's subordinate, for surrender conditions, and Smith said, I'll have no talks with Rebels holding guns; my terms are unconditional and immediate surrender. Grant received the message, but there is no proof that Foote or Smith affected Grant's choice of words.

Ambrose Burnside compelled the unconditional surrender of Cumberland Gap and 2,300 Confederate soldiers in 1863, and Union General Gordon Granger compelled the unconditional surrender of Fort Morgan in 1864.

During World Struggle II, during the Casablanca conference in January 1943, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt reintroduced the word as the purpose of the war against the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan). Roosevelt used General Grant's use of the word during the American Civil War when he made the statement in Casablanca.

The phrase also appeared in the Potsdam Declaration, which was issued to Japan on July 26, 1945. Near the end of the declaration, it was said, We call on the government of Japan to immediately declare the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, with the alternative being immediate and complete destruction.

It has been asserted that it prolonged the war in Europe due to its usefulness to German domestic propaganda, which used it to encourage further resistance against the Allied armies, and due to its suppressive effect on the German resistance movement, since even after a coup against Adolf Hitler, it continued to repress the German resistance movement:

those Germans, and especially those German generals, who may have been willing and able to overthrow Hitler were dissuaded from doing so by their inability to extract from the Allies any type of assurance that such action would ameliorate their country's treatment. In addition, it has been asserted that it prolonged the conflict with Japan or contributed to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (see debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

The Allies wanted to avoid a replay of the stab-in-the-back myth, which had emerged in Germany after World War I and blamed Germany's defeat on betrayal by Jews, Bolsheviks, and Socialists, as well as the fact that the war ended before the Allies