STRATEGIC SURRENDER THE POLITICS OF VICTORY AND DEFEAT

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• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 154
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 27, 2013
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: July 26, 1957
• Content Type: REPORT

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AIR FORCE
?
STRATEGIC SURRENDER
The Politikcs, of ? Victory and Defeat ?
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PROJECT RAND
STRATEGIC SURRENDER
The Politics of Victory and Defeat
PAUL KECSKEMETI
July 26, 1957
R-308
The views, conclusions and recommendations ex-
pressed herein do not necessarily reflect the offi-
cial views or policies of the United States Air Force,
74p_nnDe-
1700 MAIN ST. ? SANTA MONICA ? CALIFORNIA
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STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA
LONDON: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
? 1958 BY VIE RAND CORPORATION
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 58-7840
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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PREFACE
The following study deals with strategic surrender
as a problem in political theory. The context in which
this theoretical problem arises is that of the transition
from war to peace when one side is completely victorious.
Such a transition sometimes involves strategic surrender,
that is, the orderly capitulation of the loser's remaining
forces; sometimes it does not. It is the theorist's task to
specify the general conditions that determine whether
or ,not the winding up of hostilities will 'involve sur-
render. Since the shape of events depends both on stra-
tegic constraints and on the political objective and beliefs
of the belligerents, the task is not an easy one.
The theoretical analysis of strategic surrender is pre-
sented in a-. historical context, that of World War II.
Four major cases of strategic surrender are examined in
order to show the interaction of strategic constraints and
of political desires and beliefs in shaping the concluding
stage of hOstilities. I have made no attempt to present
an exhaustive narrative of the four surrenders. My pur-
pose was rather to sketch the broad outlines of the story
in each case and to interpret the major decisions made by
the protagonists. Interpretation turned out to be insep-
arable from evaluation; when analyzing the past in po-
litical terms, one cannot avoid asking whether the means
adopted were suitable to the ends in view, whether the
111
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iv PREFACE
people concerned made errors of judgment which can
be traced to a common source, and so on. For this reason
the study is frankly critical of the surrender policy of
the Western Allies in World War II.
I am aware of the pitfalls involved in attempting to
criticize political decisions in retrospect. One of these
is the temptation to overestimate the freedom of action
possessed by the policymakers; another is the danger of
paying insufficient attention to the adverse consequences
that might have resulted if some policy other than the
one rejected by the critic had been adopted. I can only
say that I have tried to avoid the shortcomings which
might make this study a gratuitous exercise in hindsight.
I extend my warmest thanks to Bernard Brodie, Her-
bert S. Dinerstein, Raymond L. Garthoff, Alexander L.
George, Joseph M. Goldsen, Leon Goure, Victor M.
Hunt, and Hans Speier for the extremely valuable ad-
vice, criticisms, and suggestions I received from them
during the preparation of this study.
P. K.
CONTENTS
Preface, iii
Summary, viii
Introduction,
PART ONE: GENERAL STRATEGIC
AND POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS
One Surrender as a Strategic COncept
? The Strategies of Rout and Attrition 5
Surrender and the Trend of Attrition 8 .
Tactical and Strategic Surrender 10
Two Surrender as a Political Concept
Political Considerations Affecting Surrender 13
Total and Nontotal War xi
Total War and Strategic Surrender 21
Political Interaction during the Terminal
Stage of Total War 23
PART TWO: FOUR CASE STUDIES
Three ;-The French Surrender (June 1940)
The Strategic Background 31
The Political Strnigle in France 35
The Antiwar Party at Work 35
Armistice oi Exodus? 40
France and Her Al1ieit'4.5,
German Motivations 48
5
13
31
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'-;
vi
CONTENTS
Evaluation of the Armistice 50
The Psychological Background of the
Armistice Policy 58
The Aftermath of the Armistice 66
Conclusions 69
Four The Italian Surrender (September 1943) 71
The Strategic Background 71
The Allied Surrender Policy toward Italy 74
Surrender or Cooperation? 85
The Rome Disaster 90
Beyond Surrender 97
Surrender of the Fleet 104
Evaluation of the Allied Surrender Policy
toward Italy I 13
Conclusions I17
Five The German Surrender (May 1945) 119
The Strategic Background I 19
The Precedent of 1918 121
Negotiating from Strength 125
Selective Surrender 132
An Eastern Solution? 133
The Dilemma of Timing 135
The Final Surrenders 137
Selective Resistance 137
Piecemeal Surrenders 141
Efforts of Nazi Leaders to Surrender 144
The Diinitz Regime and Global Surrender 146
Evaluation and Conclusions 152
Six The Japanese Surrender (August 1945)
The Strategic Background 155
United States Surrender Policy toward Japan 157
155
CONTENTS
Japanese Peace Policies 169
Peace Efforts before V-E Day 169
The Road to Moscow 176
. The Atomic Bombs and Surrender 191
Evaluation of United-States Surrender Policy 206
Conclusions 210
PART THREE: ,UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
vii
Seven? TheAllies' Policy in World War II 215
The Meaning and Rides of Unconditional
Surrender 215
Appli?cation of the Rules of Unconditionality 219
Assessment of the Unconditional-Surrender
Policy 223.
The
'
The Role of the Unconditional-Surrender
Formula in Prolonging the War 223
The Rules of Unconditionality and the
-Duration of the Terminal Stage 228
The Fallacies of Unconditional Surrender 232
PART FOUR: SURRENDER IN FUTURE STRATEGY
Eight Away-from the Siege Strategy
The Changed Outlook for Strategy 245
Surrender in Nuclear War 247
Nine Nuclear Strategy and Limited War
'Conclusion: Survival in the Nuclear Age 258
? , ,
Notes, 259 ,
Bibliography, 273
Index, 2-77
245
249
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SUMMARY
The subject of the study is strategic surrender, that
is, the ending of hostilities by the orderly capitulation of
significant forces on the losing side. This phenomenon,
which is only one of several ways in which complete vic-
tory may terminate a war, is analyzed both from the stra-
tegic and the political point of view. ,.
Two introductory chapters (One and Two) deal with
the subject in general terms. It is shown that surrender
is apt to be the terminal act of hostilities, especially in
those wars whose strategic outcome is determined by
differential rates of attrition inflicted upon the contend-
ers' forces. When the trend of attrition is seen to go
irreversibly against one side, both adversaries have an
interest in dispensing with a final round of fighting that
would merely increase their losses without changing the
outcome. This is ensured by orderly capitulation. Since,
however, the loser still possesses a significant residual
capability, he is induced to use this as a bargaining point
so as to obtain some political concession in return for sur-
render. The winner, on the other hand, may refuse to
entertain any idea of a political bargain and -insist upon
CCunconditional" surrender.
The theoretical discussion in Chapters One and Two
is followed by four case studies dealing with major stra-
tegic surrenders in World War II.
Chapter Three is devoted to the French surrender
viii
SUMMARY ix
of June 1940. The main theme herd is the debate in
France between the partisans of prolonged resistance and
the advocates of surrender. The Germans were willing
to pay k political price for speedy capitulation;- to the
proponents of the armistice policy, this political payment
(the recognition of a nominally. sovereign French re-
gime). was sufficient compensation for the non-use - of
such residual fighting capabilities as France still possessed
in her overseas territories. The adversaries of. the armi-
stice policy held that surrender was unjustified, since the
strategic trend could still be reversed. While latei-, de-
velopments.showed that the trend indeed was reversible,
the advocates of the armistice policy could argue in retro-
spect that the Allied comeback would have been more
difficult if French resistance had continued overseas and
German forces had been sucked into French North Africa
as early as 1940.
Chapter Four, about the Italian surrender of 1943,
shows the Allies' policy of unconditional surrender in
operation. When the Italians offered. to change sides,
the Allies refused to entertain this offer and insisted uf3son
unconditional surrender pure and simple. The- author
maintains that.this demand did not fit the.realities of the
situation and that unconditional surrender as a basic pOlidy
toward Italy had to be abandoned soon after it was en-
forced.
Germany's unconditional: Surrender .is treated in
Chapter Five: It is shown that German resistance became
selective during the dosing weeks of the war; the. Ger-
mans liquidated active resistance on the western, front
and devoted all their residual .strength to stopping the
Soviet troops' advance into Germany. Before that stage
was reached, certain German conspiratorial groups Sought
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X SUMMARY
to eliminate Hitler and offer a negotiated peace to the
Allies. The policy of unconditional surrender ruled out
the acceptance of such offers, but it is doubtful whether
the war could have been ended earlier on such a basis
even if the unconditional-surrender policy had been
abandoned. Negotiations with a German antiwar regime,
the author argues, would have threatened to disrupt the
East-West coalition, a risk which the Allies were unable
and unwilling to take. On the other hand, Germany's
technique of piecemeal surrender, while satisfying the
requirements of unconditional surrender, did enable- the
Germans to derive some political advantage from the se-
lective use and non-use of residual forces.
The successful exploitation of residual forces as bar-
gaining assets is the main theme of Chapter Six, dealing
with the Japanese surrender. The Japanese, toward the
end, were capable of one last operation: a hopeless but
costly resistance in the home islands. They were able to
trade off the abandonment of this operation for an im-
portant political gain, the maintenance of the monarchy.
This outcome, however, was unduly delayed both by
the Allies' reluctance to depart explicitly from the prin-
ciple of unconditional surrender and by Japan's ill-ad-
vised and ill-fated policy of seeking Soviet mediation to
end the war on favorable terms. The author maintains
that the timing and the terms of Japan's conditional sur-
render were determined by the collapse of the effort to
seek peace through Moscow's mediation rather than by
the dropping of the atomic bombs. It would not have
made a significant difference in either timing or terms if
the bombs had not been dropped.
Chapter Seven presents a critical assessment of the
Allies' policy of "unconditional surrender" in the light
SUMMARY xi
of the material contained in the four case studies. It is
shown that the policy involved specific rules of conduct
designed to make sure that the losers could not use their
residual forces as political bargaining assets. The author
argues that these rules on the whole were not in keeping
with the realities of the situation, and that the uncon-
ditional-surrender policy must be considered fallacious
on this score. The criticism usually leveled at the policy,
namely that it needlessly prolonged the war, is, how-
ever, rejected, mainly because it cannot be squared with
actual German behavior during the terminal stage.
Two concluding chapters (Eight and Nine) deal with
the probable effects of new weapons developments upon
basic strategies and hence upon dominant strategic ob-
jectives. It is suggested that the strategic concept of
gradual, divergent attrition has become obsolete in the
nuclear age. The powers may seek to develop winning
strategies of unilateral, total destruction; failing this,
they may becofne interested in limiting the destructive
effects of nuclear warfare. Strategic surrender as a domi-
nant objective is likely to be inappropriate in either case,
although securing the surrender of residual nuclear
forces may well be an important problem.
The main- conclusions emerging from the, analysis
may be formulated as follows:
(i) Complete victory is not synonymous with the
enemy's strate-gic surrender. Victory assumes this form
only in wars of a certain type, a type exemplified by
World Wars Land II.
(2) All surrender involves an element of bargain-
ing, of mutual concessions. No surrender-can be literally
unconditional.
(3) In World War II, Germany's surrender came
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Xli SUM MARY
dosest to being unconditional, but even the Germans
were able to exact some political payment for the non-
use of their residual capability.
(4) Against Japan, the principle of unconditional
surrender could not be enforced; against Italy, it was
irrelevant.
(5) In settling conflicts, it is better to assess the
enemy's bargaining position realistically than to concen-
trate one's efforts upon reducing it to zero.
(6) In possible future conflicts, strategy is not likely
to be based upon attrition; hence, surrender will prob-
ably not be an appropriate final objective, although the
surrender of residual atomic capabilities may well be an
important problem.
(7) The need for limiting nuclear devastation is
likely to impose restraint upon political objectives.
INTRODUCTION
Allied strategy in World War II was dominated
by the concept of surrender. In the Western belligerent
countries, both the leaders and the populations took it
for granted that the enemy's final defeat would take
the shape of mass surrender of his forces.
In most earlier wars of the modern era, the image
of surrender did not play a similar role in strategic think-
ing; there were other suggestive images of the victorious
termination of wars, such as the "battle of annihilation"
or the conquest of the enemy's capital, followed by the
dictation of peace terms. Mass capitulations did occur
in European wars of the nineteenth century (Ulm in
18?35, Sedan in 1870, but those were fortunate wind-
falls rather than preconceived objectives in terms of
which victory was defined in advance, and in fact neither
of those capitulations ended the wars then in progress.
"Unconditional surrender," the Union's predesigned ob-
jective in the American Civil War, was an exceptional
war aim in the nineteenth century. It played no role
in the international conflicts of that period.
The armistice accord that concluded hostilities in
World War I was indeed in the nature of a final mass
surrender, but the strategy that led to it emerged only
gradually by trial and error, and the terms imposing
capitulation came as a surprise. It was only in World
War II that surrender, and unconditional surrender at
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2 INTRODUCTION
that, was adopted in advance as the final objective of
one side.
One of the purposes of the present study is to throw
some light on the question of why surrender became
such a dominant concept in the last War. From the point
of view of the basic strategic constraints under which a
war is waged, surrender appears as a strategic (or tacti-
cal) concept related to certain distinct types of campaigns
or operations. Allied strategists conceived of World
War II as one of those types of military activity; that
is why they expected it to be terminated by surrender.
It is not sufficient, however, to look at surrender
only from the military point of view. Acts of surrender
do more than liquidate military operations; they initiate
new, nonviolent cydes of mutual dealings between win-
ners and losers. Surrender as a goal concept, therefore,
serves to shape ideas of the political relations between
states after the termination of hostilities.
A second purpose of the present study is to show
how planning for postwar political arrangements was
influenced by the Allies' preoccupation with surrender
as the epitome of victory.
PART ONE
GENERAL
STRATEGIC AND POLITICAL
CONSIDERATIONS
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One
SURRENDER AS
A STRATEGIC CONCEPT
THE STRATEGIES OF ROUT AND ATTRITION
Surrender (capitulation) occurs when a military en-
gagement or a war is terminated by an agreement under
which active hostilities cease and control over the loser's
remaining military capability is vested in the winner. In
such cases one side achieves a monopoly of armed
strength and the other is reduced to defenselessness,
thus accomplishing the classic objective of total victory,
the "annihilation" of the enemy's military power. ,An-
nihilation does not mean the physical extermination of
the enemy, but merely neutralization of, his combat
strength.' In surrender agreements, immunity of life
is expressly guaranteed to members of the surrendering
force.
The objective of annihilating the enemy's military
power, however, Can be achieved- in ways, other than
formal surrender. If a belligerent, succeeds in routing
the enemy's foices in pitched battle, he also achieves a
monopoly of armed strength, but without a formal
agreement transferring control over the loser's residual
capability to the winner. Rout in battle renders the
loser defenseless because the organizational structure of
his force is disrupted. In cases of surrender, on the other
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GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
hand, the loser's forces retain their organized structure.
They admit defeat only because they are deprived of
the essential means of waging war, either as a result of
relentless attrition inflicted upOn their sources of strength
or because they are surrounded and besieged by an enemy
who succeedsin -cutting off their supplies.
Total victory, then, can be -accbinplished by means
of '-either. Of two basically different- strategies: that of
disruption, and that of siege or attrition. Which of
these strategies will be employed depends on the stra-
tegic constraints under which the war is waged. If the
enemy's entire strength is concentrated in a field army,
disruption is the proper strategy for a belligerent who
hopes to achieve total victory. If the .enemy is en-
trenched behind a strong fortification, depriving him of
supplies is a far more promising strategy than disrupting
the structure of his forces.
A somewhat. similar distinction between two basic
strategies is familiar from the writings of Delbrikk,
according to whom "all strategic thinking and action
[is] necessarily dominated by the problem of the duality
of the strategy of the rout and that of exhaustion."'
According-to Delbriick and his school, however, only
the strategy of disruption is appropriate to the objective
of total victory: if a belligerent aims at annihilating the
enemy's forces, he must defeat him in pitched battle.
The strategy of exhaustion, according to this school, is
suited only to wars of maneuver in which no radical cle-
Cision is 'sought. In a war of maneuver, the enemy can
be bested by the capture of his stores, and it is expected
'that heavy losses of this kind will make him amenable
to conduding a negotiated peace on moderate terms.
'The strategy-of 'exhaustion, however, cannot reduce the
enemy to total defenselessness.
,t
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SURRENDER AS A STRATEGIC CONCEPT 7
WorldWat I exploded the. theory bf:two basic strat-
egies as these were, defined by ,Dellirtic.k, Lfor it.:1e,d, to
the emergence of a third type. of strategy based, neither
on the concept of rout .(disruption) nor on. that of 'ma-
neuver. Within the framework of Delbriick's theory;
siege operations securing capitulation are only incidents
within a war, but a war as such is not visualized as a
kind of siege operation directed against the' entire-war-
making strength of the enemy nation; hence, total stra-
tegic victory is not equated with the enemy's surrender.
In World War I, however, decision-was sought and
attained by gradual attrition of the; enemy's entire man-
power and :materiel reserves, and by choking off- ,his
supplies. The war was essentially a,gigantic siege: oper-
ation,, in Which a radical strategic decision was, reached
while the enemy's forces still retained their organiza-
tional structure. Hostilities, then? had ,to be liquidated
by what was essentially a capitulation agreement, 'i.e.,
by. the surrender of the loser's residual military capa-
bility. ? i
Western strategic thinking in World War, II was
guided by this experience:- the.strategic. task was defined
in terms of reducing Germany, by siege: Attrition of
the economic base of the enemy, however; was no longer
merely a matter of throwing a blockade ringiaround,him
to prevent his, replacing the materiel used-up in, static
warfare. Strategic bombing added -a new dimension, to
attrition, exposing the enerny's population and industrial
centers, to destrlictive blows. This_ new itype of war .of
attrition turned out to be more, destractiVeonore ,total;"
than were previous wars governed by the strategy of
annihilation. The contrast with the Delbrikk concept
of "e3thaustion'?: as the less extreme form .'of warfare ,is
obvious.
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8 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Technological developments since World War II
have introduced further momentous changes into the
strategic picture. The "classic" attrition strategy of both
world wars and the concept of victory based on it have
become obsolete.
SURRENDER AND THE TREND OF ATTRITION
Surrender means that winner and loser agree to dis-
pense with a last round of fighting. Military necessity
sometimes requires exposed units (e.g., the garrison of
a fortress) to prolong fighting even when it appears
certain that they will eventually be overwhelmed; but,
apart from such cases, surrender is indicated when an
operation or campaign having the characteristics of a
siege enters its final stage. The critical point is reached
when prolongation of fighting would inevitably break
up the structure of the besieged unit. What the loser
avoids by offering to surrender is a last, chaotic round
of fighting that would have the characteristics of a rout.
Surrender is then the only rational decision for the loser,
since it means that the losses that would be involved in
the last battle are not incurred. By the same token,
accepting surrender is a rational decision for the win-
ner: he can obtain his objective without paying the costs
of a last battle.
Belligerents involved in an attrition situation, of
course, will not always _act strictly in accordance with
military rationality. The information available to mili-
tary leaders in the course of operations is in general too
fragmentary to enable them to make optimal decisions.
Nations or military units faced with defeat sometimes
assume superfluous losses, either because they refuse to
admit that the situation can no longer be reversed or
SURRENDER AS A STRATEGIC CONCEPT 9
because they wish to avoid the risk of too early surrender,
when additional effort could still save the situation.
With perfect foresight, the potential loser would
know before the conflict started that he must lose, even
if his forces were initially superior. In this case, if he
were rational, he would not initiate hostilities. In the
absence of _perfect foresight, however, the belligerents
have to make the best estimates they can about the future
shape of the war. Early in the conflict, the data permit
of many different estimates. The actual outcome reveals
itself only gradually, so that there is no way for the
loser to guarantee himself against superfluous losses: he
cannot know in advance whether further resistance may
not reverse the trend. What the loser can certainly
avoid, if he is rational, is that amount of attrition that
he would suffer by fighting on when the available evi-
dence definitely exdudes everything but defeat. In wars
dominated by the strategy of attrition, the supreme stra-
tegic question at any given time is whether the curves
of the attrition suffered by the two sides have become
divergent and, if so, whether the nascent divergence can
still be reversed. From a purely military point of view,
surrender is definitely indicated when the loser in such
a war is forced to conclude that the trend of divergent
attrition has become irreversible. But he cannot be sure
about this without having already absorbed a certain
measure of attrition that was objectively unnecessary.
So far, we ,have considered surrender as an act by
which one side renounces any further use of a residual
fighting capability. Seen in this light, surrender is a
matter of choice; in fact, it is this choice character of
surrender that makes this concept an interesting one in
the theoretical analysis of warfare. But it should not be
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10 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
assumed that all actual cases of surrender involve a sig-
nificant element of choice between two practically feasi.
ble courses of action, fighting on and offering surrender.
If soldiers survive after fighting until their last round
of ammunition is spent, they have no choice between
surrendering and fighting on; their only alternatives
are running away, deliberately committing suicide by
walking into the enemy's fire, and surrendering. If they
surrender, the "residual capability" they yield up is zero;
the surrender agreement does not cut short a possible
last round of fighting, and hence it has no practical mili-
tary significance.
In cases of this sort, one may speak of "enforced'?
surrender; since such surrenders lack military signifi-
cance, they will remain outside the scope of the present
investigation. Cases in which prolonged resistance is not
literally impossible but would be wholly meaningless
also may be called "enforced" in a wider sense; such is,
for example, the case of an isolated armed soldier sur-
prised by an enemy party. Such a soldier could achieve
nothing by trying to fight except being killed on the spot.
TACTICAL AND STRATEGIC SURRENDER
Surrender of less than the loser's total existing
forces can be called tactical surrender, as distinct from
strategic surrender, in which the surrender of the loser's
entire force brings hostilities to an end.
Tactical surrender is often a matter of individual
soldiers or small units cut off from the main fighting
body. From the operational, or strategic, point of view,
such incidents may be entirely trivial. Tactical surren-
ders of major scope, however, can have strategic impor-
tance. After the tactical surrender of large forces, those
SURRENDER ASA STRATEGIC CONCEPT II
remaining in the field may be so inferior, that the, weak-
ened side must eventually acknowledge defeat.
Indeed the line separating tactical frOm strategic sur-
render may be altogether blurred.' The strategic surren-
der of 'Germany's forces in World War II; for example,
was a graduarprocess, assuming the form of a- series of
tactical surrenders preceding a final strategic surrender:
The mass capitulations which occurred in several thea-
ters prior to V-E Day were strategic M essence though
tactical in form: taken together, they added up to stra-
tegic surrender, consummated in piecemeal fashion.
Other ambigUities concerning the tactical or strategic
nature of surrender arise in coalition warfare. If there
are only two belligerents, the strategic surrender of one
ends the war, but in coalition warfare individual coali-
tion members may surrender separately. From the point
of view of the coalition as a whole, or from that of its
leading member, the strategic surrender of a partner
still has only tactical scope. And even the total capitu-
lation of the partner need not mean the end of the war
for him, since belligerency may be maintained by a
government-in-exile.
In other .words, what we call strategic surrender, as
distinct from tactical surrender, is an act that concerns
not merely the belligerent role of military units but the
maintenance of belligerency itself. In tactical surrender,
troops lay down their arms but the state of belligerency
remains. In strategic surrender, the disarming of troops
is merely one phase of a more comprehensive act by
which a sovereign abandons or loses belligerent status.
Thus strategic surrender is a political act as well as a
military act. In the present study we examine only the
conditions and constraints governing strategic surrender.
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I2 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
Strategic surrender is both the terminal act of a war
and the initiating act of the new postwar relationship
between the belligerents. The military act of surrender
strips the losing sovereign of his war-making capability.
It is followed by a political act that provides for the bel-
ligerents' postwar status and relationship on the basis
of this one-sided military outcome.
Two
SURRENDER AS
A POLITICAL CONCEPT
POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS AFFECTING
SURRENDER
Strategic surrender necessarily involves decisions
other than purely military ones based on an appreciation
of the trend of attrition. The propensity to offer sur-
render will be decisively influenced by the nature of the
terms the winner is expected to impose after achieving
a monopoly of armed strength. The very concept of
surrender implies that the loser's life will be spared.
But even so, the loser may have reason to think that the
new, nonviolent cycle of relationships initiated by sur-
render will be totally destructive of all his values, in-
cluding those he holds dearer than life itself. In that
case the loser may decide that a last, hopeless fight or
even deliberate self-destruction is preferable to sur-
render.
The earliest- surrenders known to history often re-
sultedin the enslavement of the defeated peoples.' For
groups to which slavery was unacceptable, collective sui-
cide was the only way out when armed resistance became
impossible. An example of this is described by Xeno-
phon as follows:
Then there was a fearful spectacle: the women threw their
children down the precipice and jumped after them; the men
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14 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
did the same. . . . They [the Greeks] captured hardly any
people [in that village]; all they got was cattle, donkeys, and
sheep.=
On the other hand, the loser's motives for offering
surrender may .be greatly reinforced if he is optimistic
about the use the winner 'will 'make of his monopoly of
strength.. Such optimism may take various forms We
have alreadyreferred to the ro.l o. f personal and social
values in influencing surrender decisions. The loser may
decide to quit beca:use he feels that his core values will
not suffer, even if the winner has his way completely
and permanently. Disaffected groups within a bellig-
erent society often feel that it is the enemy's victory,
rather than their own society's, that will bring their ccire
values to fruition. It is normal for the members of such
groups to surrender spontaneously when the circum-
stances permit. Extreme war-weariness sometimes leads
to such behavior even in groups that were not disaffected
at the outset. Such politically motivated surrenders may
be partial (tactical) 'in Scope, but if the disaffected or
war-weary element seizes political control, it will adopt
the policy of strategic surrender.
In certain circumstances surrender may appear ad,
visable as a means of conserving strength for a future
encounter under more favorable conditions. In. such
cases, the loser expects no real peace; he surrenders, not
because he considers the winner potentially benign and
friendly, but to gain a breathing spell, during which he
expects the balance of power to shift in his favor.
Political considerations may overrule military ones.
In extreme cases they may rule out surrender altogether,
regardless of whether defeat can still be warded off, or
SURRENDER ASA POLITICAL CONCEPT 15
they may rule out _Continued resistance,. regardless of
whether it could ensure victory. Suicidal -resistance- has
seldom, if ever, occurred in history except in primitive
societies. Eagerness to surrender, which can be ,fOund
in both: early and modern war, may be the result of dig-
affection, war-Weariness, or a generally unwarlike orien:-
tation:
In modern war, extreme language is often used in
propaganda. dealing with the problem of quitting or
continuing to fight. Propagandists tend to speak as if
the question ought to be decided on moral, or political
grounds, independently of the military situation. HenCe
the occasional vogue of such slogans, as "No surrender
in any circumstances," or "Better death than dishonor,"
in belligerent sOcieties doomed to defeat. Counterpropa-
ganda or "psychological warfare," on the other hand,
sometimes proceeds on theassumption that antiwar argil-
ments can sway the enemy in the direction of quitting,
regardless of the military trend. The record of modern
wars indicates, however, that modern belligerent -nations,
unlike small primitive groups, do not willingly commit
suicide in defeat-,. The warring-societies are tob large and
too heterogeneous for that. Defeatist behavior, on the
other hand, can become generalized in a losing society,
as it did in Russia in 1917 and in France in 1940; but
this is likely to happen only in conjunction with over-
whelmingly strong military pressure. In modern times
societal decisices` about surrender tend to reflect both the
military rationale of avoiding superfluous losses and the
participants.' expectations about .the political aftermath
of surrender. When the actual decision has to be made,
it does not present itself to the loser in all-or-nothing
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i6 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
terms. The question is not merely whether or not to
surrender, but on what political conditions the surrender
is to be based.
Even if the loser knows that he cannot escape total
defeat and that prolonged resistance can only make his
losses heavier, he cannot give up without satisfying him-
self that there is some political justification for surrender
beyond mere survival and loss-cutting. For losers who
identify themselves with the winner's aims and who
therefore count on benevolent treatment, this is not dif-
ficult. They offer and expect friendship (and more often
than not are rebuffed). Losers who have no such ex-
pectations (or illusions) at least make an attempt at
bargaining as long as they believe that they have even
a minimum of bargaining power left. But then it may
happen that the winner refuses to enter into bargains
of any sort. For the prospective winner of a war of
attrition, the central aim is the monopoly of strength
that he feels he has the power to achieve. This, he is
apt to think, will enable him to dictate any terms he
pleases. At the same time, the prospective loser takes
refuge in the thought that his residual strength still gives
him a bargaining asset that he can exploit before he
becomes completely defenseless.
This discrepancy of views?the winner's conviction
that the loser's bargaining strength is nil, the loser's
conviction that it is real?regularly arises at the end of
wars of attrition. And the curious fact is that it is not
always the loser who is deluded. Losers sometimes suc-
ceed in establishing a final bargaining position, even in
the teeth of the winners' explicit refusal to enter into
anything smacking of concessions or negotiation. The
Allies' policy of unconditional surrender in World
SURRENDER AS A POLITICAL CONCEPT 17
War II, which will be discussed below, led to some strik-
ing situations of this sort.
TOTAL AND NONTOTAL WAR
A military calamity, whether it takes the form of a
rout in the field-or of surrender due to exhaustion, need
not always have disastrous political consequences. To
be sure, moderate peace settlements are more likely when
war ends in stalemate than when one side achieves de-
cisive military. superiority. But even in the latter case
the peace settlement may fail to reflect the winner's mili-
tary dominance: In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866,
Austria's army in the field was routed, but the peace
imposed by Prussia was extremely moderate. In other
cases, however, such as the American Civil War and
World Wars I and II, military defenselessness had cata-
strophic political consequences for the loser. These three
wars were far costlier in terms of human life and ma-
terial resources than the Austro-Prussian War or the
other limited wars of the nineteenth century. We might
say that they were more "total." The losers acknowl-
edged defeat and offered strategic surrender only when
they were dose to total exhaustion; and the winners,
too, were obliged to assume enormous losses and to
expend a considerable portion of their national resources
before they Could win.
The above remarks suggest that wars may be classi-
fied according to three criteria: (i) the symmetry or
asymmetry of the final military outcome, i.e., the degree
to which one belligerent succeeds in enhancing his mili-
tary position at the other's expense; (2) the degree of
"totality," which may be defined as the proportion of
a belligeren-t's total human and material resources mobi-
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8 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
lized, consumed, and destroyed in war; and (3) the sym-
metry or asymmetry of the political outcome, i.e., the
degree to which one belligerent succeeds in enhancing
his political position at the other's expense. This last
criterion may also be described in terms of advantage
and disadvantage: the question is whether the political
advantages accruing to the winner, and the political dis-
advantages accruing to the loser, are large or small.
It is clear that the first criterion is independent of
the second: total and nontotal wars alike may end sym-
metrically or asymmetrically. One of the fundamental
conditions on which the degree of totality depends is
the belligerents' willingness or unwillingness to end hos-
tilities while their losses have not yet exceeded a certain
moderate level, no matter which side has the military
advantage at the time.
The degree of totality of a given war depends in
part on technological and organizational conditions.
Where only a small proportion of national resources
can be made available for military use, and where no
highly destructive methods and instruments for waging
war exist, wars necessarily remain nontotal. Conversely,
highly developed techniques of destruction and capa-
bilities for mobilization tend to make war more total.
But within the limits set by these underlying conditions,
the degree of totality is a matter of choice for the bel-
ligerents. To the extent that such choices exist, wars
become more total when belligerents who are militarily
frustrated at a given stage, either by defeat or by stale-
mate, refuse to consider a peace settlement that would
reflect this disadvantage and continue the struggle in the
hope of a more favorable outcome. Such conduct is
likely when the belligerents' estimate of the political
SURRENDER AS A POLITICAL CONCEPT 19
gains and losses involved in an asymmetrical outcome is
very high, supposing that they have not lost all hope of
reversing the trend of war. If a frustrated belligerent
feels that he can expect nothing but more defeats, he will
end the war rather than make it more total, even if he
sees in a losing eace a great disaster.
If, however, the belligerents' estimate of the po-
litical value of the asymmetrical military outcome is low,
the losing side will not try to reverse an early defeat
or to break an early stalemate. Thus wars in which the
political values at stake are given a relatively low esti-
mate tend to remain nontotal, even when possibilities
exist for committing or mobilizing fresh forces in order
to achieve something better than defeat or stalemate.
The risks, costs, and losses involved in further fighting
will then appear to outweigh the advantages of the better
political outcome that a prolonged war might be expected
to achieve. Conversely, such costs and risks will appear
worth while if the "political stake" is very highly valued.
Getting victory rather than defeat or stalemate, or stale-
mate rather than defeat, will then seem worth any cost.
It is not suggested here that decision makers, frus-
trated by the early military outcome, can make a neat
comparison between two well-defined quantities: the po-
litical stake on the one hand and the additional cost of
a possible better outcome on the other. No such com-
parisons can be made because war costs and political
stakes cannot be measured in homogeneous units.
Rather, the weighing is done in an instinctive and re-
active fashion; the ultimate decision depends on the
emotional impact of the alternative courses. In tense
war situations, the decision. maker is likely to feel that
he is acting from necessity rather than from deliberate
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20 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
choice. (This consideration applies not only to decisions
about ending wars but also to decisions about starting
them.) By the same token, the course that is rejected
appears to be impossible, unfeasible, or unthinkable: -In
nontotal conflict, it is the continuation of hostilities
beyond a certain point that is likely to appear unfeasible
for political or economic reasons. On the other hand,
if the political stake is high enough, making peace might
appear unthinkable and the war might become total.
The point to be stressed in this connection is that the
terms "victory," "defeat," and "stalemate," when used
to characterize the final outcome of wars rather than the
outcome of military engagements, are not absolute, but
relative, concepts. If a war ends asymmetrically, this is
because the loser regards as final the asymmetrical out-
come achieved at a certain time. The same applies to
stalemate. The decision to accept a given military out-
come as final is not necessarily imposed by the nature
of the outcome as such. It also depends on political
constraints.
It is obvious that, other things being equal, a win-
ning peace is better than a compromise peace or a losing
peace. But depending on the over-all political and mili-
tary circumstances in which a war is being fought, the
optimal final outcome for a belligerent may be one that
falls short of the best military outcome he could achieve.
It is possible to pay too much for victory and even for
stalemate. One may safely say that the maxim that "in
war there is no substitute for victory" is totally erro-
neous.
Decisions about ending or continuing wars may be
said to depend on the belligerents' evaluation of their
"political stake" and on their appraisal of military pros-
0,
SURRENDER-AS A-POLITICAL CONCEPT 2,1
pects and the co-?t of prolonged warfare. ' These factors
are subject to re-evaluation as the, war proceeds. It is
obvious that estimates of military.prospects (e.g., of the
likelihood that a better final military outcome is attain-
able) must be revised in the light of developing experi-
ence. But the political factor is also variable. War events
may induce belligerents to modify their estimate of the
political advantages of various military outcomes. In
coalition war, for example,.it may happen that the weak-
ening of the enemy gradually becomes less attractive to
a coalition partner as he becomes aware of conflicts of
interest with another partner. In such cases, one or the
other member of the winning coalition may revise the
estimate of his political stake more or less drastically,
possibly to the extent of withdrawing from the war or
even changing sides.
TOTAL WAR AND STRATEGIC SURRENDER
When the loser in nontotal war acknowledges defeat,
his military position is not necessarily hopeless. He may
have additional potential resources that he could press
into combat if he were really desperate. In total war,
on the other hand, defeat is acknowledged only when
all possibilities for reversing the trend by the mobiliza-
tion or commitment of fresh resources are exhausted.
This is to say that strategic surrender is characteristic of
total wars in which the final outcome hinges on diver-
gent attrition of the belligerents' mobilizable potentials,
rather than on disruptive military action. A war midst
end in strategic surrender if (a) the warfare is total,
(b) resources are mobilized progressively, and (c) a
final asymmetrical outcome is brought about not by dis-
ruption but by attrition.
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2.2 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
(Yr the: other' hand, total wars' need not end in stra.-
tegfc surrender. If the: loser of a crucial engagement in
totallicrar canna fall back on uncommitted forces or fresh
resources,, that engagement will end the war without
formal military capitulation. In the past, total wars'were
often: decided early by battles in the open field, since
the possibilities for raising fresh forces- were, limited or
nonexistent."?Classical" strategic theory, based on. the
Napoleonic experience and worked out by Clausewitz,
was dominated by the concept of the battle as the pri-
mary means whereby total war could be decided,' De-
cisive superiority was achieved by "total" mobilization
at, the beginning of the war, and the superior side could
thus smash and "disrupt" the forces of the inferior side.'
In modern times, however, inequality of initial mo-
bilization has no longer represented decisive, strategic
asymmetry. The significant relationship has been that
of total resources. Hence, the outcome of battles has
tended to become less important than the security of the
belligerents' mobilization bases.
These generalizations apply with particular force
to World Wars I and II. The existing German (and
Japanese) armed forces were so tough that the Allies
found it extremely difficult to disrupt them. Depriving
them of resources was relatively easier, although the
Allies, too, had to absorb enormous attrition of man-
power and economic resources in the process of wearing
down the enemy. Both sides persisted because of their
high estimates of the political stakes in the war; both
pushed on until there was no longer any doubt about
whose force level would sink to zero first. At that point,
even the losers had to admit that their residual forces
could escape superfluous losses only by capitulation.
That is the pattern of strategic surrender in total war.
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SURRENDER AS A POLITICAL CONCEPT 2.3
These basic considerations, however, determine only
whether surrender will be offered. How this is done
depends on a set of different factors, to which we now
turn.
POLITICAL INTERACTION DURING THE TERMINAL
STAGE OF TOTAL WAR
When a war is in its terminal stage, factors that make
it more or less total are no longer dominant. It is under-
stood on both sides that further efforts can no longer
change the outcoine, and that the losing side cannot avoid
accepting the political cost of defeat. The motive of
cutting losses, rather than that of securing the best pos-
sible military outcome, therefore becomes dominant. As
surrender nears, even total wars become nontotal, and
the final act of capitulation itself is a completely orderly
and nonviolent one.
During the terminal stage of total war, the political
process shows great variation in detail from one case to
another, but some of its aspects are fairly constant. For
one thing, the basic total-war orientation of the bellig-
erents usually changes in an asymmetrical fashion: it is
the loser who reorients himself first. The winner moves
straight on toward his objective, the final achievement
_
of a monopoly of strength that can be used to dictate
terms. The loser, however, goes through a process of
political reorientation. He gives up his total-war objec-
tive as unattainable and sets himself more modest aims.
He adopts a new basic policy, the central element of
which is the decision to "disarm" the winner's hostility
by a thorough political reorientation, setting the stage
for mutual adjustment.
This revision of policy may be imposed by a com-
plete collapse of the loser's authority structure: the war
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GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
must come to a stop because the rank and file no longer
obey orders. In such cases strategic surrender,' the or-
derly capitulation of residual forces, represents no prob-
lem for the winner.
More interesting cases are those in which channels
of military authority are not dissolved, and in which
cohesive residual forces remain on the losing side. This
condition was fulfilled in every defeated country in
World War II: it was characteristic of that war that
defeat was not associated with the breakdown of mili-
tary discipline and the revolutionary disruption of the
social fabric. But there did occur, as in most presurrender
situations, a split within the political leadership of the
losers, with "defeatist," prosurrender elements remOv-
ing the war-committed leaders from their positions of
authority. The French surrender in 1940, as well as the
later Italian surrender, was preceded by political re-
shufflings amounting to a coup eetat, even though the
forms of legality were observed. But these surrenders
were nonrevolutionary in the sense that they were adopt-
ed and carried out, not by counter-elites surging from
below, but by decision makers who had occupied positions
of authority during thewar. The German and Japanese
surrenders of 1945 were not preceded by any change in
the political complexion of the two governments.
These nonrevolutionary surrender situations created
a dilemma for the winners. The survival of the loser's
authority structure was a necessary condition for the
orderly surrender of his remaining forces. No radical
political transformation had taken place in the losing
countries, however, and consequently the winner could
achieve a substantial abridgment of the dosing stage of
hostilities only if he did not insist on immediately im-
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SURRENDER' AS A POLITICAL CONCEPT
posing his ideological and political war aims the removal
Of the enemy's ?.evil" authoritie's, and their replacement
by ideologically acceptable ones. - . ): ?,,
To be sure, there'was.no reason to assUine that recog-
nizing thefenemfs war regime for the purpose of ob-
taining its surrender implied lasting renunciation of the
winner's ideological war aims. The winner could: wait
until surrender was accomplished and then usehis md-
nopoly of strength- to transform the loser's political and
social order according to his wishes. This is ho* Soviet
Russia handled the surrender of the satellite state's, Ru-
mania and Hungary. The Russians had no compunction
about- conduding armistice agreements with representa-
tives of the King of Rumania and the Regent of Hun-
gary. In theirLeyes, these acts in no way compromised
their ultimate objective, the sovietization. of thelosing
countries. To the Western Allies and the United States
in particular, however, even temporary, dealings: with
spokesmen of enemy regimes were ,a serious, stumbling
block. All such,acts seemed:to compromise the political
objectives for .which the war had'been fought.
This- differencein handling surrender situations may
be. traced to different fundainental attitude. toward the
role of power ininternational politics. The traditional
American view is: that in the normal, -healthy state- of
international affairs there is no 'need for the actual or
threatened use of coercion. All issues that arise can,be
settled by negotialiOn between equals or by judicial ii.ro-L
cedures. The use of coercion is justified only when-the
international system' is .not in a healthy state, i.e., when
someone commits. aggression; in that case, the dpholderS
of a peaceful world order must use force until the roots
of aggresSion are destroyed. Wars against 'aggressors
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24 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
must come to a stop because the rank and file no longer
obey orders. In such cases strategic -surrender,' the or-
derly capitulation of residual forces, represents no prob-
lem for the winner.
More interesting cases are those in which channels
of military authority are not dissolved, and in which
cohesive residual forces remain on the losing side. This
condition was fulfilled in every defeated country in
World War II: it was characteristic of that war that
defeat was not associated with the breakdown of mili-
tary discipline and the revolutionary disruption of the
social fabric. But there did occur, as in most presurrender
situations, a split within the political leadership of the
losers, with "defeatist," prosurrender elements remov-
ing the war-committed leaders from their positions of
authority. The French surrender in 1940, as well as the
later Italian surrender, was preceded by political re-
shufflings amounting to a coup eetat, even though the
forms of legality were observed. But these surrenders
were nonrevolutionary in the sense that they were adopt-
ed and carried out, not by counter-elites surging from
below, but by decision makers who had occupied positions
of authority during the war. The German and Japanese
surrenders of 1945 were not preceded by any change in
the political complexion of the two governments.
These nonrevolutionary surrender situations created
a dilemma for the winners. The survival of the loser's
authority structure was a necessary Condition for 'the
orderly surrender of his remaining forces. No radical
political transformation had taken place in. the losing
countries, however, and consequently the winner could
achieve a substantial abridgment of the closing stage of
hostilities only if he did not insist on immediately im-
SURRENDER AS A POLITICAL CONCEPT 25
posing his ideological and political war aim, the removal
of the enemy's "evil" authorities and their replacernent
by ideologically acceptable ones.: . ?
To be sure, there 'was no reason to assume that recognizing the 'enemy's war regime for the purpose of ob-
tainink its surrender implied lasting renunciation of the
winner's ideological war aims. The winner. could wait
until surrender was accomplished and then -use .his mo-
nopoly of strength- to'transform the loser's political and
social order according to his wishes. This is ho* Soviet
Russia handled the surrender of the satellite states,' Ru-
mania and Hungary. The Russians had no compunction
about: concluding armistice agreements with,representa-
tives of the King of Rinnania.-and the Regent- of Hun-
gary. ;In their eyes, these acts in no way compromised
their ultimate' objective, the 'sovietization. of the. losing
countries: To: the Western Allies and the United States
in particular; however, even temporary dealings with
spokesmen ,of enemy regimes were .a serious stumbling
block. Air such acts seemedrto compromise. the political
objectives for which the war had-beeri fought.
This difference in handling surrender situations may
be. traced to different fundainental attitudee7toward the
role of power in international politics. The traditional
American view is that in the normal, healthy state of
international affairs' there is no need for the actual .or
threatened 'use of-coercion. All issues that arise can 'be
settled by negotiation between eqUals or by judicial pro-
cedures. The use of coercion is justified only :when the
international system" is not in a healthy state, .i.e.,,when
someone commits aggression; in that case, the uphOlderS
of a peaceful world order .must use force until the roots
of aggresSion are destroyed. Wars against aggressors
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26
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
have but one political objective, the elimination of all
political forces responsible for aggression; and this task
must be completed before peace is restored. To obtain
this political objective in peacetime by the use of coercive
methods would be a contradiction in terms. At the same
time, noncoercive methods may well be ineffective
against germs of aggressiveness that have survived in
the postwar situation. The only safe and legitimate
policy is to destroy these germs before the conclusion
of hostilities.
Wars waged in the spirit of the traditional Ameri-
can approach, as outlined above, are essentially crusades.
The conflict is seen as one of good pitted against evil.
The enemy is the very personification of violence and
strife, whereas one's own side fights for universal peace
and harmony. This crusading concept of war has been.
vigorously criticized in recent years as lacking in realism.
Indeed, it is easy to see that the two total wars of the
twentieth century have failed to banish the danger of
conflict and aggression, although the particular aggres-
sors have been defeated. It must be recognized, how-
ever, that the concept of war as a crusade is particularly
adapted to the mentality of the public in modern West-
ern democracies. Democratic cultures are profoundly
unwarlike: to them, war can be justified only if it is
waged to eliminate war. It is this crusading ideology
which is reflected in the conviction that hostilities cannot
be brought to an end before the evil enemy system has
been eradicated.
Soviet Russia's attitude toward the termination of
World War II was in sharp contrast to that of the United
States. Her war aim, of course, was also an ideological_
political one: expanding communist rule as far as pos-
SURRENDER AS A POLITICAL CONCEPT 27
sible. The Soviet doctrine, however, was far from
excluding the massive use of coercion once the interna-
tional war was over. According to the Soviets, political
ends can be pursued by the methods of the "class strug-
gle," for whiCh international war creates favorable con-
ditions, but which can also be carried on in peacetime.
In fact, according to the Soviet view, the class struggle
is the normal state of all societies until socialism is
achieved. Hence it was easy for the Russians to deal
with the dilemma created by a nonrevolutionary surren-
der situation._ _To them, the temporary survival of "re-
actionary" authorities constituted no serious political
threat, since they felt free to use their vastly superior
power against them later.
The German attitude toward power was similar to
the Russian. When France offered surrender, a pro-
fascist coup dltat was in the making, but it was by no
means completed. Still, the Germans did not insist on
complete Nazification before accepting surrender. They
had the necessary- coercive instruments to effect it, once
monopoly of military strength was achieved.
Part Two of the present work contains four case
studies dealing with major strategic surrenders that oc-
curred in World War II: those of France (1940), Italy
(i943), Germany- (1945) , and Japan (i45). These
provide factual illustrative material relating to the theo-
retical points-set forth in the preceding pages.
Part Three is devoted to an analysis of the policy
of unconditional surrender as applied by the Allies in
World War II.
Part Four deals with the problem of strategic sur-
render under conditions of nuclear warfare.
7
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1
PART TWO
FOUR CASE STUDIES
a.
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Three
THE FRENCH SURRENDER
June 1940
THE STRATEGIC BACKGROUND
When Marshal Petain became head of the French
government and sued for an armistice, the Allied forces
fighting in France were completely routed, so that the
military developments leading to France's strategic sur-
render did not correspond to the strategic model set forth
in the foregoing introductory analysis. The "Battle of
France" of May?June, 194.0, was not waged according
to the forniula of divergent attrition. It was a campaign
of disruption, conceived and conducted along classic,
Clausewitzian lines. Hitler's grand strategy was orient-
ed toward disruption. Hitler did not plan for the kind
of total war tharWorld War I had been, and World
War II was to become. He expected to reduce his ene-
mies to defenselessness by routing their armies. The
blitzkrieg strategy did allow for field operations of the
siege type?i.e.,-for battles of encirclement, which were
supposed to culminate in mass surrenders like the Bel-
gian capitulation of May 1940?but not for the strategic
surrender of cohesive residual forces as an essential final
objective.
There had been no final act of strategic surrender
at the end of the Polish campaign of 1939. Surviving
r.
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32
FOUR CASE STUDIES
elements of the Polish army dispersed, or fled into neu-
tral territory, or surrendered individual 1 y or in small
groups. Conditions were similar in France. British ele-
ments surviving the rout were evacuated across the Chan-
nel without their equipment, and the French armies lost
their cohesiveness and became incapable of mounting
any significant terminal operations.
Had the war been a pure land war fought only on
the Continent, and with Germany and France the only
major antagonists, the stoppage of military resistance
after the rout in the Battle of France would not have
represented an important service by the loser to the win-
ner, and France could not have expected to receive po-
litical counterconcessions. But the war was a coalition
war, and the resources of the Franco-British coalition
included, in addition to the forces engaged in the Battle
of France, navies and vast overseas territories. Hence
rout in the ground battle did not automatically reduce
Germany's adversaries to defenselessness. Since the
Franco-British coalition conserved latent, mobilizable
strength after the rout of its land forces in being, the
"relativity of victory" asserted itself: the coalition had
a choice between acknowledging defeat and making the
war more total.
In Britain, there was no controversy about the choice;
the political leadership did not split over the question
of ending or continuing the war, and no peace party arose
among the rank and file. In France, however, the war
was unpopular, and the impact of defeat extremely
strong. Even before the disastrous events of May Imo,
when the land front was dormant, there had been a
latent split between the "hard" and "soft" factions in
France, with the "hards" resolved to fight the war in
THE FRENCH SURRENDER 33
earnest and the "softs" hoping to wind it up before
serious damage was done. ?
The defeat convinced the soft faction that they had
been right all along: the war was a wrong war, started
at the wrong'place and at the wrong time. All one could
do was liquidate it on the best possible terms. The coali-
tion situation offered opportunities in this connection.
If France quit the coalition before Britain, too, was de-
feated, -France could hope to receive a political pay-
ment for the service from Germany. By reorienting her
policy, she could "disarm" the winner, in the sense of
making the Germans less willing to use their armed
superiority to impose extreme terms upon her. Such
elements of residual French strength as the overseas
territories and the undefeated navy could be expected
to reinforce the disarming effect by adding to the cost to
the Winner of any prolongation of hostilities. France
had to act quickly, before her bargaining assets dwindled
away. Sticking with the coalition until Britain was forced
to her knees could only result in a worse settlement for
her.
The French "War party" argued, against this, that
the outcome could be reversed by making the war more
total. By continuing the wan overseas, France could
keep the final outcome open, until the Anglo-Saxon de-
mocracies developed new strength in being, great enough
to re-engage and-defeat the Germans. This policy had
a strong patriotic appeal: from the point of view of
national self-esteem, aiming at victory is the only ac-
ceptable Position, and arguing for the acceptance of
defeat is invidious.
Yet the position of the 'war party was politically
weak. The hope it held out of a total and successful
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34 FOUR CASE STUDIES
Anglo-Saxon war effort was precarious in itself; Amer-
ica, whose contribution was essential, was still officially
neutral, and nobody could predict with certainty that she
would intervene. Moreover, the victory that the war
party contemplated could only be achieved by the efforts
of coalition partners. The policy of continuing the war
was seriously compromised by the fact that it entailed
French dependence on foreign powers. The French sur-
render party successfully exploited these weaknesses of
the prowar policy. It gained the ascendancy in the in-
ternal French debate, so that the only remaining question
was whether it could "disarm" the Germans sufficiently
to carry out qualified surrender.
In view of this strategic-political constellation, the
Germans had to take France's residual bargaining assets
into account in winding up hostilities. The rout of the
French armies did not decide the matter all by itself;
the German victory was total victory in the Clause-
witzian sense, but it did not dispose of the problem of
obtaining surrender and granting political incentives to
that end. The Germans did not hesitate to offer the
necessary incentives. Their political objectives in the
West implied nothing like unconditional surrender; they
did not even aim at total victory in the war against the
Anglo-French coalition. They hoped to end the war
with Britain by a negotiated peace. Total victory in
France was a means to that end. But to be politirn Ily
effective, the French victory had to be exploited quickly,
before Britain could build up new strength in being.
Hence speed in winding up hostilities with France was
essential, and the Germans were ready, in the interests
of speed, to meet France's minimum conditions in ar-
ranging a strategic surrender.
THE FRENCH SURRENDER
THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE IN FRANCE
The Antiwar Party at Work
The question of starting negotiations to end the war
was raised for the first time at the meeting of the French
War Committee on May 25, 1940. There "General
Weygand, supported by Marshal Petain, sought to ob-
tain a decision authorizing immediate discussions with
the British government on the question of continuing
the war." On March 28, 1940, representatives of the
British and French governments had signed a common
declaration pledging-both governments not to conclude
a separate armistice or a separate peace, and to discuss
peace terms with the enemy only after having reached a
mutual accord.' Hence France could not start armistice
negotiations with the Germans without a previous con-
sultation with the British. Immediately, therefore, the
question of France's coalition obligations became the
nucleus of the issue separating the prowar from the anti-
war group.
To Premier Paul Reynaud, who was the main expo-
nent of the prowar ii-osition in the government, the ful-
fillment of France's coalition pledge was absolutely
imperative; nothing could void the obligation. The Brit-
ish could oblige France to continue the war as long as
physically possible, -Provided they themselves remained
at war.. Weygand arid Petain found this thesis unaccept-
able. According to them, the military situation in France
could nullify France's obligations. Petain said at the
meeting that "Fran?ce had no duties toward England ex-
cept in the measure of the help received, and this help
had been very weak."' Later Weygand told Reynaud:
"The country will not forgive you if, in order to remain
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36 FOUR CASE STUDIES
faithful to England, you reject an opportunity for
peace."4 Petain, in a discussion with Reynaud, found a
classic formulation of this idea: "You put yourself on
the international plane, and I on the national plane."5
Reynaud's answer was that France's "independence
'and honor" were primarily "national" questions. He ex-
plained during a later discussion that once France had
violated the pact of March 28, she could no longer count
upoiBritish diplomatic support; she would be isolated?
"bound hand and foot and delivered to Hider."6 Of
course, that argument could have no force if it were as-
sumed that Britain, too, would be defeated, for then
British "support" would have no value. What Reynaud
had in mind was that it was extremely dangerous for
France to desert a potentially winning coalition. (He was
thinking of a later American intervention that would
reverse the situation.) For, if the British and their allies
should win the war after France had capitulated, her
interests would not be considered in the peace settlement.
To Weygand and Petain, however, it was far more im-
portant to settle with Germany before the end of the war
with Britain, thus assuring France a good position at the
peace table facing a victorious Germany.
According to Reynaud, Weygand's calculations dur-
ing the period preceding the armistice were based on the
assumption that Britain could not long survive the loss of
the Battle of France. He recalls the dictum widely at-
tributed to Weygand (but later disavowed by him) that
"in three weeks, England will have her neck wrung like
a chicken," adding that it was "very much in character."'
Weygand, Reynaud says further, told Jean Borotra,
who came to see him after the armistice to announce his
intention of going to England to continue the struggle:
THE FRENCH SURRENDER 37
"No use, England will capitulate in two months." And
in July 1940, at Vichy, Weygand told an automobile
manufacturer who asked him whether he should start
manufacturing gazogne apparatus (for converting auto-
mobile engines to charcoal fuel) : "I guarantee to you that
in two weeks England will sue for peace."'
In his testimony at the Petain trial, and in his auto-
biographical book, Rap pole au service, Weygand denied
that his stand on the armistice had been based on an ex-
pectation of British defeat. His theory was that the
armistice was necessary not only in the French but also
in the Allied interest. It stopped the Germans at a line
far from the Mediterranean and gave the Allies time to
organize the North African invasion. The Allies could
not have defeated Germany, said Weygand, if France
had refused to condude an armistice.'
It seems improbable that Weygand, Petain, and the
other exponents of -the antiwar policy had the interests
of the Anglo-French coalition primarily at heart in the
summer of 1940. They did not then seem to have ex-
pected Germany's final defeat. Under the impact of
military catastrophe, Germany's victory loomed large,
and Britain's continued belligerency seemed just one
factor among others that France could utilize to get better
conditions from the German victors. Petain certainly
did play this card after the armistice." But the antiwar
party ruled out continuing hostilities after the collapse
of the front in France. It challenged the prowar party on
this issue, and won its point.
The positions were defined at the dramatic cabinet
and Supreme War Council meetings in June, after the
government had left Paris, which had been dedared an
open city. The Supreme War Council met twice at
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38 FOUR CASE STUDIES
Briare, on June II and 122 and a third time atTours, on
June 13. Reynaud, Petain, Weygand, General Georges,
General de Gaulle, and two other officers were present
on the French side, and Britain was represented by
Churchill, Eden, General Sir John Dill, and General
Sir Edward Spears. From the accounts given by the par-
ticipants, the discussion seems to have been tangential
rather than straightforward. The French military lead-
ers insisted on the hopelessness of the military situation,
but Reynaud did not pose the question of a separate
armistice. Churchill stressed that Britain would continue
the struggle even if the country were invaded, but at the
same time gave only vague assurances about continued
aid to France. Four divisions could stay in France, and
if the French army could hold out until spring, twenty to
twenty-five British divisions would be available."
In view of the critical position of the Allied forces,
this promise of later aid did not impress the French mili-
tary leaders. They saw no possibility of. stopping the
Germans anywhere in France. Eden and Dill suggested
that French and British forces might retreat to Brittany
and try to hold a bridgehead there until Britain could
send substantial reinforcements. Weygand rejected this
plan out of hand as impracticable. According to Spears,
de Gaulle also was a proponent of the "Brittany
and considered considered the plan feasible. He gives the follow-
ing report of a talk he had with de Gaulle on June :
De Gaulle was angry. He had been in Brittany the day be-
fore, had seen General Altmayer, and was convinced Brittany
could be held. It was evident from the way he spoke that his
hope of defending the peninsula was meeting much opposition.
He was suffering from frustration and exasperation. His
criticism of Weygand was devastating.22
kW,
THE FRENCH SURRENDER -39
In any cise,-Weygand's Positibn made illusory any
further .planning4or stabilizing the' front in France'.
According to the French version of what happened at
Tours, Churchill finally seems to have understood that
it was useless to count on maintaining any front in France.
He immediately- raised the.question of the French fleet:
"I understand 'thatyou, may be; obliged to yield. But if
the French army -found 'itself .compelled to break off
fighting,,what.wouldfiappen 16 the navy? This is a real
nightmare:""
The British. records differ on this_ppint.. According
to Spears, Baudouin" twisted the serise, of Churchill's
statement that he "uncle-rstiiod" that France might, be
obliged to sue for a separate armistice. 'When questioned
about what he said,. 'Churchill categorically confirmed
that "at no time had he given.tb.anYOne the least incilL
cation of his consenting 'to 'the French,Cdnduding a sepa-
rate armistice." _
"When I said (Je comprendsi that filleant I. understood. Com:-
pr endr e' means understind hi French, doesn't it? Well," said
Winston, "when for:Once I,use exactly the right word in their
own language, kis going rather,far to assume.that I intended
it to mean someihing quite,differeni. Tell them my French is
. . ? ?
riot SO bad as that:"i
The point is that Churchill,' according to his' own, in-
terpretation, merely indicated that he understood what
Reynaud was telling him about the possibility that France
might not 'be able to. go on fighting, 'without implying
approval, or "understanding" in the' sense of sympathy,
for such a course. But there is no doubt that Churchill
did gather, from what Reynaud and the other French:.
men were telling him, that the French land forces might
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FOUR CASE STUDIES
have to be written off, and that he immediately focused
his attention on the possibility of salvaging the French
fleet.
Armistice or Exodus?
Another issue soon crystallized within the French
war leadership. The main question was whether the gov-
ernment should quit metropolitan France and continue
the struggle in North Africa (or, possibly, as a govern-
ment-in-exile), or whether it should conclude an armi-
stice and thereby cease to be a belligerent. At the cabinet
meeting at Cange, on June 12; Reynaud advocated "war
from bases in the Empire"; Petain and Weygand re-
jected this with the utmost vehemence. They declared
that an armistice, concluded with the Germans while the
French armies still had some sort of cohesion, was the
only solution. Weygand said that "unless France asks
for an armistice without the slightest delay, disorder will
engulf the armies and the civilian population as well as
the refugees. After this, the armistice would no longer
do any good, since the damage would be done?"' But
the cabinet supported Reynaud's position.
On the following day, the cabinet met again at Cange,
and Weygand defended his thesis with extraordinary
vigor. He heaped scorn upon the "verbal heroism" of
the Premier and his civilian supporters in the cabinet. It
is easy, he maintained, to speak of resistance from a safe
refuge in provincial chateaux or overseas. The cabinet's
place was in Paris: it should have stayed there to receive
the German victors; that is what the Roman senate would
have done."
Petain also declared that it was the government's duty
to stay in France, whatever happened. To go abroad,
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THE FRENCH SURRENDER 41
even to the colonies, would be "desertion"; it would
"kill the soul of France." Also, the country would not
recognize a government-in-exile. The government had
to share the sufferings endured by the people. At any
rate, he, Petain, would not leave."
In this discussion, ultimate political attitudes played
a decisive role. Weygand insisted on the importance of
quick action, because to him the conditions that the Ger-
mans would impose were not the main threat; social
chaos and the possibility of a communist seizure of power
were the real dangers. Petain also appears to have been
thinking in terms of domestic policy: a government that
stayed in France and worked out a modus vivendi with
the Germans could go about the task of reforming the
French "soul." Defeat and the acceptance of defeat were
the conditions for moral regeneration.
The war party did not see things in this light. To
those who wanted to transfer the government to the colo-
nies to continue the struggle, acceptance of defeat was
the thing that would "kill the soul of France"; the chief
moral values at stake could be defended only by com-
bating the national enemy and all he stood for.
It seems in retrospect that Weygand's preoccupation
with the communist danger was unfounded: Although
the agreement between Germany and Soviet Russia was
firm at that time, and the Communists did everything in
their power to impede the French' war effort; it would
still have been impossible for them to turn French defeat
to their advantage; the German conqueror would not
have stood for a communist regime in a defeated France.
The Communists probably had some illusions on that
score, but they were quickly dissipated."
On the other hand, a counterrevolutionary overturn
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Of the institutions of the Third Republic was indeed an
inevitable consequence of the acceptance of defeat. .Not
only was the domestic and foreign policy of the republi-
can regime discredited by the defeat; it was also certain
that Nazi Germany, installed as the supreme power in
Paris, would effect a political reorientation by which
French institutions would acquire a basically fascist tinge:
Since the French political scene had been "polarized" for
some time, with an influential rightist group clamoring
for "salvation" along fascist lines, it was obvious that the
profascist element would rally behind the peace move-
ment and use defeat to impose its domestic conceptions
on the nation.
What the war party wanted to avoid was, among other
things, the emergence of an indigenous French fascist
regime supported by German bayonets. Hence its efforts
to transfer all the elements of legitimate authority?the
President, the government, the .legislative bodies?to
territories not invaded by the German army. If the, Ger--
mans could not be, prevented from overrunning and con-
trolling France, they should at least find a political
vacuum there. If they then imposed their own methods
and principles in administering France, they would do
so as' 'foreign conquerors, without legitimate politieal
authority. "France," as represented by her lawful au-
thorities, would still be at.war with them.
In order to dear.the way for such a solution, Rey-
naticl. tried, td liquidate military operations by a purely
military capitulation. After the government-had moved
to Bordeaux, he gave orders to Weygand to arrange a
military cease-fire?a de facto capitulation?with the
German armies, as the Duteh commander-in-chief had
done after the Queen and the government had left Hol-
THE,FRENCit SURRENDER 43
land. ,But Wekgand flatly refused 'to consider capitula-
tion "a la Hollandaise." That, hs said, would.bein in-
tolerable blot on the ariny'shoncir.IReynaud decided. to
take the issue before the cabinet.
At the cabinet meeting held on June is at Bordeaux,
Reynaud's majority collapsed. Vice-Premier Camille
Chautemps proposed an "exploratory" course:, the Ger-
mans, he said, should be asked to make their armistice
conditions known; If those conditions?as expected?
turned out to be unacceptable, the people would "under-
stand" that the government could do nothing but leave
French territory. Of course, Britain should also' be asked
to relieve France of her obligations and to, authorize. a
French request for a 'separate armistice. This. proposal
was favored by thirteen cabinet members; with , six op-
posed. Reynaud offered his resignation, but President
Lebrun persuaded -him to yield .to the majority of the
cabinet. Reynaud thereupon decided to ask for Britain's
authorization to request .an armistice. The British an-
swer arrived on June 16, refusing authorization unless
the French fleet was Sent to British waters, and the French
undertook to consult again.with Britain after the German
terms were received: At_the same time, Britain proposed
a feder-al, union-of Britain and France." According to a
French historian, that- plan was suggested to Churchill
by General de Gaulle-and two members ,of the French
Economic Mission in7London; Rene Pleven and Jean
Monnet." - ?
The French cabinet was never officially informed of
the British answer to Reynaud's query; the British Am-
bassador, Sir Ronald Campbell, took back the telegram
that he had:handed Reynahd (probably' under the im-
pression that Prance would not ask for armistice terms)
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44 FOUR CASE STUDIES
when Reynaud told him that it had been decided that the
President and the main body of the cabinet would go to
Africa, leaving Petain behind with a committee charged
with liquidating military operations within France. In
those circumstances, it would not be necessary to send the
French fleet to Britain.
At the cabinet meeting on June 16, the discussion
centered on the union plan. It was supported by Reynaud
and the most resistance-minded ministers (Mandel,
Marin, Dautry, Rio, and Georges Monnet), but the ma-
jority was against it. Ybarnegaray argued that the plan
showed Britain's intention to reduce France to the rank
of a second-rate power," and Petain declared that France
could not merge "with a corpse." Chautemps renewed
his plea for an "exploratory" request for armistice terms.
Reynaud held out for the union plan, but was outvoted.
Thereupon he resigned and recommended that Lebrun
appoint Petain as his successor. Petain was appointed,
despite the advice of the Presidents of the Chamber and
the Senate, Herriot and Jeanneney, who were consulted,
as required by tradition."
Reynaud later explained that he had preferred Pe-
tai to Chautemps because Petain had assured him that
he would not accept "dishonorable" armistice terms, and
particularly that he would in no circumstances agree to
surrender the fleet to Germany. Reynaud was convinced
that this was a condition on which Germany would in-
sist, since she wanted to invade Britain. Thus, in Rey-
naud's mind, Petain, while asking for terms, would not
actually conclude an armistice, whereas Chautemps
would."
Late at night, immediately after the formation of the
THE FRENCH SURRENDER 45
Petain cabinet, the Spanish Ambassador, Lequerica; was
asked to transmit the French demand for armistice terms
to Berlin.
FRANCE AND HER ALLIES
The internal French debate ended with Reynaud's
resignation. After that, the French surrender becam' e
mainly a diplomatic problem debated among France,
Britain, and the United States. Britain sent a note ask-
ing that the French fleet be handed over for safekeeping
( June 7). The United States associated itself with that
demand in the most forceful fashion. On June 18,
United States Ambassador Biddle was instructed to tell
Admiral Darlan and the new French Foreign Minister
(Baudouin)
. . . that in the opinion of this Government, should the French
Government, before concluding an armistice with the Ger-
mans, fail to see that the fleet is kept out of the hands of lier
opponents, the French Government will be pursuing a policy
which will fatally impair the preservation of the French Em-
pire and the eventual restoration of French independence and
autonomy. Furthermore, should the French Government fail
to take these steps and permit the French Fleet to be surrendered
to Germany, the French Government will permanently lose the
friendship and good will of the Government of the United
States.
This note was handed to Admiral Darlan as he was on
his way to a meeting of the Petain cabinet; Foreign Min-
ister Baudouin was called out of the meeting and given a
copy of the note. Baudouin was greatly irritated by its
tone, but he laid it before the cabinet at once. It was de-
cided that the fleet would not be turned over to the Ger-
mans; should they insist, the s armistice would be re-
fused."
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46 ? FOUR CASE STUDIES'
On'theother hand, the French leaders'were alsb dp
posed to sending the &al() British waters for safekeep-
ing. At the Tours meeting of the Supreme War Council;
on June 13, Petain and Darlan had already vetoed that
measure, arguing that the Germans would. refuse. to, con-
clude an armistice unless the fleet remained under French
control." For Peiain, Darlan, and the antiwar group, the
question was whether a "common basis" could be found,
fir an armistice agreement with the Germans: They felt
that, if the Germans demanded the fleet,, France could
not sign an armistice, whereas if the fleet were turned
over the British, the Germans would not grant one. This
reasoning Seems to have been realistic. In fact, the value
of an armistice with France would have been, critically
lessened in German eyes unless the French could guar-
antee that their naval potential would not be used against
Germany, while outright surrender of the fleet to Ger-
many would have been incompatible with French
"honor'"? and would have exposed France to political
reprisals on the part of the Anglo-Saxon powers.
Everything depended on whether the Germans
would push France into continued belligerency by insist-
ing on the surrender of the fleet. To everybody's sur-
prise, they did not. Their armistice terms expressly
stipulated that the Warships of the French fleet, disarmed
in their home ports, would not be used by the Germans
for their own ends. Article VIII of the Armistice Con-
vention read as follows:
The German Government solemnly declares to the French
Government that it intends to make no use for its own ends of
the French war fleet stationed in ports under German control,
save for units necessary for coastal patrol and minesweeping
operations.
Furthermore, the German Government makes the solemn
THE FRENCH SURRENDER 47
and formal declaration that it does not intend to present any
claims regarding the French war fleet at the conclusion of
peace."
The French leaders thought that this made it possible
for them to conclude an armistice without antagonizing
Britain and the United States, since the "nightmare"
of an active French fleet operating on the Axis side was
thereby dissipated.
But Churchill did not see it in that light. He was so
convinced of the importance of naval strength as an ele-
ment of victory that he could not imagine that Hitler had
sincerely renounced the objective of enlisting French
naval cooperation sooner or later; to him, the armistice
stipulations were a smokescreen and a ruse, not a real
reassurance. The result was the attack on the French
warships at Mers-el-Kebir. Actually, however, the armi-
stice stipulations were genuine. Strange as it seems, Hit-
ler did write off the possibility of seizing the French
fleet. He seems to have known that the French would
reject the armistice unless surrender of the fleet was omit-
ted from the terms; and he was interested above all in
a quick armistice with. France, without further compli-
cations.
Ribbentrop, in fact, indicated this to Ciano, whom he
met at Munich on June 19 while the French request for
an armistice was under consideration. Here is Ciano's
account:
He [Ribbentrop] said that it was the Fiihrer's intention to avoid
putting conditions to the French that might lead to a refusal to
conclude the negotiations and to the transfer of the Petain gov-
ernment to England or Algeria, where it could proclaim a
"holy war" and continue hostilities for an indefinite period. He
was particularly concerned over the French fleet, an unseizable
unit [element? inaff errabile] which would certainly go to Eng-
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48
FOUR CASE STUDIES
land or America, from where it could again enter action at the
opportune moment, rather than let itself be handed over to the
enemy."
Hider did not relish the prospect of an indefinite
prolongation of the war. He preferred to think that,
with the victorious conclusion of the French campaign,
the entire conflict would be liquidated. Ciano was struck
by the change he noticed in Ribbentrop's use of words:
the expressions used were "mankind's need for peace,"
((necessity of reconstruction," "necessity of a rapproche-
ment of the peoples separated by the war," and so on.
"I asked him point-blank: Does Germany prefer peace
or the continuation of war at this moment? Without
hesitation, Ribbentrop answered Peace.'
Ribbentrop, it is safe to assume, did not indulge in
giving vent to his own preferences: then, as always, he
was nothing but a mouthpiece for the Fiihrer, a mirror of
Hitler's moods.
GERMAN MOTIVATIONS
At the time of the French armistice, the German war
leadership acted on the assumption. that large-scale mili-
tary operations were over.
After the collapse of France the German Army relaxed with
a happy feeling that the war was over and that the fruits of
victory could be enjoyed at leisure. Blumentritt's account of the
sequel conveys a vivid impression of the prevailing attitude. Im-
mediately following the armistice with France, orders came
from O.K.H. to form the staff for the victory parade in Paris,
and to dispatch the troops that were assigned to take part in the
parade. Spirits were high, as everyone counted ,on a general
peace. Preparations for demobilization had already begun, and
we have received a list of the divisions that were to be sent home
for disbanding.'
THE FRENCH SURRENDER 49
Britain, of course, was still at war; but Hider con-
sidered it unthinkable that Britain would not listen to a
reasonable peace offer. He sent such an offer through
the Swedish legation."
After the victory in France, Hider believed that he had at-
tained his goal. The invincibility of the German war instru-
ment seemed to have been demonstrated.. Once more, as after
the Polish campaign, Hider attempted to get into a talk with
Britain. "At this hour," he said in his Reichstag speech on
July 19, "I feel bound in conscience to appeal to the good sense
of the British people. I see no justification for the continuation
of this struggle." At the same time, German propaganda was
indefatigable in proclaiming, through official announcements
as well as in the newspapers and over the radio, that the British
had lost the war. All they had to do was to recognize this and
draw the necessary conclusions."
When Hider made this public offer to the British,
however, he knew it would be rejected and that the war
would go on. As early as July 7, he told Ciano that he
was sure the war with England would continue, and that
the German General Staff was working on the plans of
attack." The feeler put out through Sweden before the
French armistice had produced no results; and although
Hider still believed in the eventual possibility of liqui-
dating the war by some sort of a compromise with Brit-
ain, he came to the conclusion that military action, includ-
ing an invasion, was necessary to "bring the, British to
their senses."
The Germans realized that control of the Mediter-
ranean would be essential for successful operations
against the British. On July 16, Hider -demanded a
modification of the armistice agreement with France,
providing for "eight bases for the Luftwaffe in Morocco;
the railway from Tunis to Rabat to be placed at the serv-
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50 FOUR CASE STUDIES
ice of the German army; the right to use the Mediter-
ranean ports of metropolitan France, as well as those of
Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia; and the requisitioning
of French merchantmen with their crews to transport to
North Africa the air force units and their accessories, as
well as their protecting troops.""
When Weygand informed Baudouin, then Foreign
Minister in Petain's cabinet, of these German demands,
they were "at once agreed that these demands must be
rejected, whatever might be the consequences of this
refusal." According to Baudouin, not only Petain but
also Laval adopted the same view when the question was
put to them."
When Vichy gave a dilatory answer amounting to a
rejection of the German demand, Hider did not press
the matter further. He could only have made things
worse by precipitating a break with the Vichy govern-
ment, for Petain would then have declared the armistice
agreement void and ordered the resumption of resistance
in North Africa." And in order to occupy North Africa
in that event, Germany would have needed Spain's co-
operation. But diplomatic efforts to persuade Spain to
enter the war on the Axis side had not disclosed any great
Spanish willingness to help Germany without consider-
able rewards. This was confirmed in October, when
Franco promised intervention but posed stiff conditions
before he would move."
EVALUATION OF THE ARMISTICE
Evaluation of the French armistice policy involves a
moot problem, since nobody can say what would have
happened if the policy of the war party had prevailed.
The critics of the armistice maintain that it prolonged the
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THE FRENCH SURRENDER 5!
war; Hider, they say, could have been defeated more
quickly and at less cost if the French fleet had continued
the war at Britain's side, and if the French government
had retreated to fight the Axis from North Africa. The
fullest exposition of this thesis is found in the memoirs
of J. Paul-Boncour. He argues that the continued par-
ticipation of the French fleet in the war would have been
very effective, since the-Sea was the main theater of war
for several months after the fall of France. Further,
according to Paul-Boncour, the French military leaders
would not have advocated the armistice had they fore-
seen that Britain would not be crushed and that both the
United States and Russia would be at war with Germany
by the end of 1941."
The main argument of the defenders of the armistice
is that it stopped the German armies at the French de-
marcation line, thus giving Britain the breathing spell she
needed to consolidate her Mediterranean position and
making the North African invasion possible. A defender
of Marshal Petain, du Moulin de Labarthete, puts this
thesis in the following terms:
We thought that, if Paul keynaud had not resigned on June
16, the Wehrmacht would have crossed Spain within a week,
got a foothold in Spanish Morocco, destroyed our North Afri-
can divisions overnight, and rounded up our Senegalese troops
in six more weeks. All these "redoubts" would have disinte-
,-
grated in the hurricane one after another."
It must be admitted that, had these things happened,
the Allied position would have been placed in extreme
jeopardy. But the question is whether these things would
have happened if the French had decided to continue the
War.
According to the advocates of the war policy, the
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French and British fleets together could have prey' ented
a German descent in force on North Africa, even if Spain
had made common cause with Germany. This view,
however, probably overestimates Allied naval capabili-
ties. Baudouin notes on June 13, 1940:
In fact I have asked Admiral Darlan if the French warships
and the English ones at Gibraltar could stop a German force,
moved rapidly to the Cadiz area in the south of Spain, from
crossing the sea and reaching Spanish Morocco. The Admiral
told me that his staff had already examined the problem; their
definite conclusion was that ships based on Gibraltar would
at this time of year only be able to make the enemy pay a certain
price for crossing these thirty kilometres of sea, for in the day-.
time he would be covered by an air force which was mistress
of the sky, and at night he could slip across from one shore to
the other. He added that both in Norway and at Dunkirk the
British Admiralty had had cruel experience of the considerable
losses inflicted on its ships by the Luftwaffe. It had decided to
equip its fleet with a great many more antiaircraft guns, but
until this had been done, the ships would be exposed to attack
from the air. Furthermore, the British aeroplanes at Gibraltar
were negligible."
These conclusions seem sound enough, but would
Spain have allowed the German troops to pass, thus be-
coming a belligerent against Britain? We know from the
documents made public since the end of the war that
Franco had declared his readiness in principle to join the
Axis powers as a belligerent. Franco would have justi-
fied his intervention by Spain's historic grievance, British
control of Gibraltar: entering the war would have served
to expel the foreigner from Spanish soil. Expansion of
Spanish holdings in Morocco was another of Franco's
war aims.
As mentioned earlier, however, Franco's decision to
enter the war was not unconditional. He intimated in
Berlin that, in order to subdue Gibraltar, he needed
THE-FRENCH SURRENDER 53
heavy artillery; he also foresaw that the British navy
would throw a blockade ling around Spain, and he asked
for grain supplies and other strategic materials t6 enable
Spain to hold out. Hitler thought that Franco's demands
were excessive, and he failed to give Spain immediate
satisfaction." The discussion was resumed in October,
when Hitler met Franco at the Spanish frontier. Franco
then was presented with a bill of particulars, about which
he again refused to commit himself. As the Allies grew
stronger and stronger, Franco's diffidence increased, and
intervention was finally shelved for good.
This sequence of events can be interpreted in various
ways. To advocates-of continued French belligerency
it proves that Hitler would not have been able to overrun
Gibraltar and enter Africa. They argue that there was no
reason to fear Spanish intervention, since Spain did not
have the means required for success, and Germany was
not in a position to grant the necessary help. But this con-
clusion is by no means inevitable. It is not at all Certain
that Hitler turned down Franco's demands because he
could not spare the war materiel and the grain. Had he
considered Spanish intervention necessary to win the war,
he could have found a way to make the necessary supplies
available. But, after the fall of France, he did not think
that such additional costs were unavoidable. North
Africa, he believed, was effectively neutralized: he was
the master there 1:?1 remote control, since he had the
French government under his thumb.
Furthermore, he did not like Franco's bargaining
for territorial expansion. He wanted to take certain ter-
ritories for himself, and the problem of getting enough
for Germany?while also satisfying Italy without thor-
oughly alienating France?Seemed arduous? enough
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FOUR CASE STUDIES
without the further complication of Spanish demands.
It is probable, therefore, that Hider said no to Franco
primarily because he did not think Spanish help was
really necessary.
But the whole situation would have appeared in a
very different light if France had not concluded an armi-
stice. It seems altogether likely that in that case Hider
would have complied with Franco's demands in order to
liquidate French resistance in North Africa, and it is by
no means fantastic to assume that the German-Spanish
forces could have taken Gibraltar. That would have
changed the Mediterranean situation radically, and it is
extremely doubtful that the French fleet's continued
participation in the war would have overbalanced the loss
of Gibraltar. We cannot assume that Allied naval supe-
riority would then have been sufficient to prevent the
Germans from landing their troops and equipment in
North Africa. The landing itself would not have pre-
sented a problem; ports in Spanish Morocco would have
been available. It would also have been easy for the Ger-
mans to establish complete air superiority.
Continued French resistance would have been ex-
tremely unpalatable to Hider, and he decided on lenient
armistice terms precisely to forestall this. This fact
strengthens the case of the critics of the armistice: if con-
tinued French resistance was "bad" for Hider, then it
was "good" for the Allied cause. But the argument is
not decisive. It seems likely, after all, that Hider wanted
to avoid further operations against the French not be-
cause he despaired of getting the better of them after
they retreated to Africa, but because he thought there
was no need to incur the costs of such a campaign in order
to bring Britain to terms. In other words, he thought that
THE FRENCH SURRENDER 55
a cheap victory in the Western war was possible, and he
preferred that to a costlier victory. He wanted to show
the world (and in particular his "timid" generals) not
only that he could win, but that he could win in "light-
ning" fashion, without-total mobilization. He staked his
prestige and his reputation as a politico-strategic genius
on the proposition that Western resistance was not a seri-
ous thing, but only -a bubble that he could prick with one
deft stroke, to the plaudits of his amazed and enraptured
audience.
Hitler's political thinking was a curious mixture of
uncanny political insight and immature adolescent fan-
tasy. He knew that victory was not the only thing that
mattered in war, and particularly in a war unleashed in
cold blood. What mattered was the cost of victory and
the stability of the peace founded on military success.
His real interest was in German domestic policy, i.e., in
the establishment of his own image as the infallible
leader and sole arbiter in all matters. With his real in-
stinct for the realities of political power, he knew that the
best way to achieve his supreme ambition was to offer the
Germans victory and domination at little cost, i.e., with-
out total mobilization and without the radical interrup-
tion of peacetime patterns of life. The more quickly he
could send his soldiers home and point to cloudless skies,
the greater would be his prestige and authority.
This seems to have- been a sound conception. The
domestic position of i War leadership after the war de-
pends not only on whether victory has been won but also
on whether the sacrifices made for victory are felt by the
people to have been bearable and commensurate with the
success achieved. 'Victorious war leaders-are likely to be
repudiated by their people if they have achieved victory
...?
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56 FOUR CASE STUDIES
only at the price of total exhaustion. Such revulsion from
costly heroics could be observed, for instance, in the vic-
torious countries after World War I, particularly in
Italy, but also in France and even in the United States.
(Churchill's electoral defeat in July 1945 was another
dramatic illustration of the same tendency.)
Hitler knew why he had to produce a lightning vic-
tory. He wanted to return to "business as usual" quickly,
and to give the Germans tangible proof that they could
cash in on the fruits of the efforts he had forced them
to make. It is erroneous to think that "guns instead of
butter" was an absolute principle with the Nazis. It was
a prewar maxim; it was valid for the period when the
capability necessary for winning a lightning victory was
being assembled. But there was nothing wrong with the
butter acquired by using the guns.
The adolescent, immature streak in Hitler's thinking
consisted in his lifetime daydream that such success was
indeed attainable. He believed that only he and his gang
were "men," that all the others, and particularly those
who opposed him, were either contemptible nobodies or
degenerate madmen. The Polish, Norwegian,, and
French victories seemed to confirm this assessment of
the value of Western resistance. What did the West
oppose to him? Words, empty words. The guarantee
to Poland was not worth the paper it was written on.
And were not the German generals ridiculous who trem-
bled for the Ruhr when the German front-line divisions
wheeled through Poland? Had there been any risk in
snatching Norway from under England's nose? Had
the French army proved to be a serious military force?
These lessons, Hitler thought, were surely sufficient to
TilE.FRENCH SURRENDER 57
convince England that the "reasonable" Englishmen,
those who preached nonresistance, had to be recalled
from political exile. When the bubble of Western re-
sistance was pricked, the "strong man" would be recog-
nized for what he was: deadly when opposed, benevolent
when appeased- This iVould,be the triumph of the ado-
lescent, the rejected son, who finds the secret of invinci-
bility and, returns from his labors to receive the homage
of those who have despised him.
The defenders of-the French armistice policy argue
that conduding, the armistice was a blunder on Hitler's
part." French agreement to the armistice, then, was sim-
ply a shrewd move to exploit the blunder, whereas, by
going to Africa, the French government would only have
rescued Hitler from the consequences of his mistake.
This last point has some merit. What is not estab-
lished, and seems indeed doubtful, is that the French
peace party acted chiefly on this premise rather than from
other motives. Petain, Weygand, and their supporters
seem to have been convinced of Germany's final vic-
tory and the inevitability of Britain's surrender. They
thought iturgent for France to surrender while she could
obtain something for not using her residual capacity. To
them, the chief value-of the armistice lay in its being a
s'eparate, arrangement; predicated upon the rupture of
the coalition. There was a great deal of cold calculation
in this, but also a certain amount of emotionalism: re-
sentment against the earlier orthodox coalition policy
that led France into an impasse; hope for the "rebirth"
of the French nation once it could turn its back on the
left-wing, revolutionary, progressive, and secular cur-
rents of its historic tradition.
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THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF THE
ARMISTICE POLICY
It is not easy to separate the realistic and the enio,-
tional strands in the French peace party's policy. Its
apologists today stress the realistic element in Vichy's
thinking and action and minimize the spontaneous ideo4
logical element. Its critics, on the other hand, see only
the political preferences of the Vichy group and call the
armistice policy treasonable; they see it as deliberately
sacrificing national independence for the sake of po-
litical transformation along fascist lines:
For a long time past the fifth column had been firmly entrench-
ing itself in France. . . . The traitors did not show them-
selves, they worked in the deepest shadow, so that the eye. of
justice should not surprise them. . . . One common 'thought
possessed them: "The Christian regeneration of impious
France." This purpose involved the destruction of the exist-
ing political regime, and to attain it any means would be justi-
fied, whatever they might be. Even defeat? Yes. Without
defeat could the goal be reached?"
There is some evidence that the French Right was
lukewarm in its determination to push the war effort and
to win at any price. Moreover, the feeling that "Hitler
was better than Blum" was widespread among the French
bourgeoisie. The more the ideological component of
France's war policy--antagonism toward Nazism as such
?was stressed in war propaganda, the more the French
bourgeoisie felt alienated. They could see some sense
in a nonideological war (Germany, of course, had to be
cut down to size), but they found no justification for a
war waged in order to consolidate the rule of the Left.
In many bourgeois quarters, the struggle against the
socialism" ranked higher than
Left with its "creeping
the struggle against Germany. Such feelings were no
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THE FRENCH SURRENDER. 59
doubt treasonable arid incompatible with French patri-
otism. But the bourgeoisie was not alone in putting par-
ticular group interest above the national interest in win-
ning the war.
The most extreme antiwar stand was taken by the
Communists: to them, fighting was a sacrilege once Mos-
cow had hurled its anathema against the "imperialist"
war." In the French Socialist Party, too, there was a
strong faction, led by Paul Faure, which opposed the war
on pacifist and Marxist grounds. This group believed
that the war would arrest social progress and enrich the
bourgeoisie while placing all the burdens on the lower
dasses. The domestic dass struggle was an absolute; to
suspend it in favor of the war effort was to betray the
workers. Here, too, domestic political objectives took
precedence over the patriotic motive of winning the war
at any cost.
This deavage along dass lines prevented real na-
tional unity behind the war effort. On the international
plane, the situation was no better. To Frenchmen who
had lived through World War I and its aftermath, it
was obvious that France was unable to withstand another
massed German onslaught alone. Only a coalition could
save France. But where was the coalition in 1939?
Britain, of course; could still be counted on; she was the
only great power who had an active interest in support-
ing France. But this also Meant that France became more
and more dependent on Britain; and British support and
solidarity, as the interwar years had shown, were by no
means complete. Britain was willing to stand by France
if Germany attacked her directly. But further than that
she was unwilling to go.
The Locarno treat-y_ amounted to a British guarantee
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60 FOUR CASE STUDIES
of assistance to France against Germany. By concluding
that pact, Britain had abandoned her traditional policy
of avoiding unconditional commitments to continental
powers. But the Locarno pact guaranteed France's west-
ern frontiers only. It was in no way connected with
France's treaty commitments to East European powers.
In order to neutralize a possible German military
threat, France had also concluded alliances with Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Yugoslavia, and had
vetoed the absorption of Austria by Germany. But these
alliances and guarantees could be made effective only
by a united Franco-British stand, and Britain refused to
be drawn into a conflict with Germany simply in order
to protect France's eastern allies. The result was the dis-
integration of the eastern flank of France's system of
security. Deserted by Britain, France had to look on as
Poland drifted away from the coalition, as Austria was
absorbed, and as Czechoslovakia was dismantled.
By the middle of 1939, the coalition was reduced to
its western core; and even so there was a critical gap,
since Belgium refused to join the western security system.
A last-minute attempt to enroll Soviet Russia as a sub-,-
stitute for the lost eastern allies had failed, and France
was in a precarious position indeed. If Germany wanted
to go to war, she could throw her undivided strength
against the West. This meant a single front, manned by
France virtually alone, since Britain had neglected to
build up a peacetime army.
In these circumstances many Frenchmen could see
hope only in appeasing Germany. The entire logic of
the British policy had pointed in that direction. As the
French saw it, Britain had hoped to buy peace at the
price of sacrificing AuStria and Czechoslovakia and let-.
frtr
?
THE FRENCH SURRENDER 6i
ting the other East European countries slide into the
German orbit. The logic of this policy was that a con-
flict between Germany and the West could be avoided
if the West did not hinder Germany's eastern rampages.
But Britain suddenly reversed her position. She made it
clear in the spring of 1939 that further German expan-
sion in the East, at _the expense of Poland, would mean
war. In this way, the French decided, Britain made
the worst of two worlds. The chance of buying peace
through appeasement -(if it existed) was thrown away,
as had been the chance of containing Germany by means
of an East-West coalition. It is small wonder that many
Frenchmen were utterly critical of British leadership of
European coalition affairs. From the French point of
view, that leadership _was shortsighted, egotistical,, and
reckless. First it forced France to abandon the eastern
power position which, inadequate as it was, gave her a
measure of strategic security, and then it forced her to
forgo the only possible benefit that such a policy might
have secured, the avoidance of a large-scale conflict.
What made things worse, Britain's policy of appease-
ment did not apply only to German eastern expansion.
Britain was also complacent about Germany's growing
military strength. Hitler's unilateral repudiation of the
disarmament clauses of the Versailles- treaty in the spring
of 1935 had drawn ,no protest from Britain; the British
government pointedly sanctioned the German policy of
nullification shortly afterwards by concluding a' bilateral
treaty with Germany on naval armaments ( June 1935).
In the following year, when Gerthany put garrisons in
her western frontier provinces in open defiance of the
Locarno pact, the British flatly refused to intervene.
Thus British policy had made it more and more certain
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62 FOUR CASE STUDIES -
that the West would not have a decisive military su-
periority if and when a showdown with Germany became
inevitable. From the French point of view, a policy that
had such implications was suicidal.
From the British point of view, of course, things
looked different. Britain, though disarmed, had vast
mobilizable resources. The British people had been
averse to continental entanglements: a conflict "for the
sake of" allies would have had no popular support. On
the other hand, there was no doubt that, in case of a
German westward thrust, the people would be rallied
to the cause of resistance. It made sense to the British
to see if Hitler could be appeased by "reasonable" con-
cessions, and to make a stand against him if he could not.
Such a detached, experimental attitude was impossible
for the French. Their sense of security could not be
bolstered by the hope of falling back on vast mobilizable
resources. Their first stand would be the last; and with
Germany's full strength hurled against them, the first
stand seemed hopeless.
In spite of all that, there was no despair in France
when the war broke out. This was due, in part, to igno-
rance of the true strategic situation. People think by
analogies; the French on the whole were confident that,
if the worst came, there would be another miracle of the
Marne. -But they did not believe at first that the worst
would come. They believed that this time the war would
not cut into the vital tissue of France: the Germans
would be stopped on the Maginot Line. There would
be no dreadful bloodletting, no close combat, no in-
vasion. The Germans would be strangled by the sheer
weight of the Anglo-French coalition; naval blockade
would force them to their knees. How could they con-
THE -FRENCH SURRENDER 63
tinue to wage war without access to key strategic mate-
rials, such as oil and iron ore (which, it was assumed,
they could get only by the sea route)? French morale
was maintained during the "phony war" by large pos-
ters showing a map of the world on which British and
French possessions appeared as huge red expanses, con-
trasting with the puny black spot that was Germany.
The legend was "We shall conquer because we are
stronger."
Internal dissension and the frustration of French
coalition policy notwithstanding, morale could be main-
tained as long as the war involved no mass bloodletting
and no large-scale combat. One may speculate whether
the war could have been won in 1939, had the French
divisions invaded Germany while the German forces
were engaged in Poland. There may have been a
chance;" but the French were entirely unwilling to ac-
cept big risks and losses. It is also true, of course, that
the Franco-German frontier along which the armies
were deployed offered no suitable terrain for a decisive
attack on the Ruhr. The German industrial region could
be attacked only throdgh Belgium, which was not a
member of the coalition. In effect, the Belgian gap in
the western security system both shielded the industrial
heart of Germany and permitted German forces to be
used elsewhere. Later, when the German armies ap-
peared in the West, they swept through the same gap
into the fields of France.
After the German breakthrough, with mass combat
a grim reality, French morale collapsed quickly. It was
then that the French people realized the unsoundness
of the political and strategic basis on which the war pol-
icy of the coalition had been built. The issue was not
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64 FOUR CASE STUDIES
simply one between patriotism and treason.'. It was;
rather, that the war itself had become problematic, for
it was not what the French had bargained for. It was
extremely difficult for Frenchmen; regardless of their
various political attitudes, to face another all-out war
that would demand the sacrifice of entire generations:
If such a war had been unambiguously forced upon
them by an out-and-out attack, they might have re-
garded it as unavoidable. But to wage such a war "for
the sake of" treaty obligations, and in Britain's wake at
that, made little sense. It became evident during the
tragic weeks of May and June, 1940, that the war had
not been well prepared either politically or strategi-
cally. Resentment on this score led to further -discon-
tent with France's dominant political orientation and
with her coalition partner.
These "realistic" reasons for the r eject ion of
France's traditional coalition policy reinforced the emo-
tional and ideological disaffection referred to above.
Still, the war policy might have withstood the test of
the German attack if the Franco-British forces had
adopted suitable countermeasures against the German
breakthrough. It was not German superiority of man-
power and materiel that led to the collapse of the front
but bad tactical and logistical planning by the Allies.
The armistice policy of 1940 was the joint product
of all these factors. For those who took the lead and
supplied the decisive impulse?such military leaders as
Petain and Weygand; and politicians such as Laval and
Marquet?stopping a hopeless struggle was not the only
consideration. They also wanted to use the opportuni-
ties provided by the defeat to take revenge on the poli-
tical system of the Third Republic, with which they
THE 'FRENCH SURRENDER 65
were profoundly-- disenchanted. For them, ecrasez
Pinfame was a dominant motive, but many Frenchmen
who did not share- their animosity toward the Republic
could go along with the policy of armistice, since it
seemed to be the only policy consonant with the require-
ments of the situation. There is no doubt that the.armi-
stice had the support of the great majority of French-
men in 1940.
This majority,- it must be stressed, was a purely neg-
ative one. It was a majority against the continuation of
the war, not a =Majority for the counterrevolution
preached by Petain and Laval. Vichy was never able-to
work out a positive program and rally the majority' of
the people to it. -It was only able to establish a stably-
functioning administrative system, in which the repre-
sentatives of several radically different ideological cur-
rents were yoked together. The authority of the regime,
however, was not-seriously questioned, since no better
alternative was in sight.
The Vichy regime ended France's belligerency and
broke with the coalition policy of the Republic, but it
stopped short of total commitment to the German side.
Avoiding armed conflict with France's former ally and
the collaboration with Germany that it entailed were
as fundamental to Vichy's foreign policy as was the ar-
mistice itself. This-policy of neutrality was accepted
by the majority of:the people. A noisy, radical group
of Pro-German extremists, operating under the benev-
olent eye of the German authorities in occupied Paris,
clamored for active-French participation in the war on
the German side, but there was no popular support for
the idea. What mattered to the immense majority of
Frenchmen was to -avoid fighting; ending hostilities a-
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66 FOUR CASE STUDIES
gainst one side only to resume them against the other
made no sense at all. The policy of neutrality was an
element of strength for Vichy, in so far as popular ac-
ceptance was concerned. But it became increasingly dif-
ficult to maintain that line, for the Germans could not
be satisfied with it.
THE AFTERMATH OF THE ARMISTICE
Relations between winner and loser were profoundly
ambiguous. For the Germans, the armistice agreement
was a point of departure. It gave them overwhelming
means of pressure against the Vichy government; when
it became evident that the British would not make peace,
the Reich proceeded to use these means in an effort to
obtain France's active participation in the war. The July
16, 1940, note on the North African bases referred to
above was the first move the Germans made in this di-
rection. Tenacious efforts in the same direction followed.
In August, the Reich appointed Otto Abetz Ambas-
sador to France. Abetz was an "old France hand" and
a specialist in manipulating press campaigns. Immedi-
ately on assuming office, he launched a number of press
organs in Paris for the purpose of undermining Vichy's
policy of neutrality." More than a year later, in Janu-
ary;1942, Abetz thought that the time was ripe to broach
the question of cobelligerency with the Vichy govern-
ment directly." But Petain gave a negative response to
Jacques Benoist-Mechin, the French secretary of state
who had negotiated with Abetz on the problem. "I took
France out of the war," he said. "I did not do this to
make her reenter the war on the German side.""
Thus, as far as Vichy was concerned, the armistice
treaty was a terminal point, determining a maximum
THE FRENCH SURRENDER 67
beyond which collaboration with the Germans could not
go. Yet, since the Germans had overwhelming means of
pressure at their disposal, Vichy was slowly obliged to
retreat. The high point of defiance was reached in De-
cember 1940, when Laval was deprived of office and
put under arrest. But the Germans quickly forced Petain
to release Laval and patch up relations with him; after
along tug of war, Laval was back in office in April 1942.
During this whole period, however, the policy of
neutrality was maintained. Vichy was careful not to
cut diplomatic contacts with the Western world. After
the attack upon Mers-el-Kebir, diplomatic relations with
Britain were severed, but relations were continued with
the Dominion of Canada. In January 1941, Admiral
Leahy arrived at Vichy as American Ambassador. He
immediately established close relations with Petain and
soon became convinced that Vichy by no means had both
feet in the German camp."
What enabled Vichy to pursue the policy of neutral-
ity was a covert means of pressure that prevented the
Germans from crossing the demarcation line in force.
This was the implicit threat that the seat of government
_
would be transferred to Africa. That policy seems to
have been laid down in explicit terms in August 1940.
According to Baudouin, it was then agreed that, if the
southern zone were invaded, Petain would appoint Dar-
lan as his successor,- and Darlan would go to North Af-
rica with the goyernment and the fleet." The agreement
was a verbal one, but Petain considered it binding.
When the Germans did invade the southern zone
after the Allied landing in North Africa (November
1942), Darlan wa? at Algiers. Yet he did not assume
governmental functions as stipulated by the decision of
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68 FOUR CASE STUDIES
August 1940. He gave orders to resist the landings,
and he concluded an armistice only when a new author-
ization to do so was received from Petain; even then,
the fleet was not instructed to join him, but was scuttled
instead. Aron concludes from this that the 1940 agree-
ment was no longer in force in November 1942:
When Petain gave this instruction to Darlan in August 1940,
he meant it as a momentary expedient corresponding to the
situation as it existed at that time. It was not a permanent pol-
icy that could remain in force for years to come."
An alternative interpretation seems more plausible.
The instruction of August 1940 was still in force, but
it did not cover situations of the kind that arose in No-
vember 1942. Had the Germans crossed the demarca-
tion line at a time when Vichy's sovereignty over North
Africa was uncontested, the instruction would have been
put into effect automatically. The Allied landings, how-
ever, created a new situation. From Vichy's point of
view, they constituted an attack on French territory.
The official policy for such eventualities was that of
armed resistance." The landings in effect deprived
Vichy of the only element of political strength it had
retained, and thereby sealed the collapse of the regime.
The French government that subsisted after the German
occupation of the southern zone was an essentially new
entity, without any trace of independent political exist-
ence.'
The political basis of the Vichy regime was inher-
ently unstable. The armistice with the Reich to which
it owed its existence expressed a momentary balance of
bargaining factors, but that balance was bound to shift
in one direction or another. Had the Germans been
victorious, Vichy would have been replaced by a French
THE FRENCH SURRENDER 69
regime fully integrated into the New Order planned
by the Nazis. With the Germans defeated, a French
regime fully committed on the Allied side was due to
take over. None of the three essential elements in.
Vichy's policy?armistice, collaboration, neutrality?
had permanent value. The armistice could not be trans-
formed into a peace settlement. Collaboration compro-
mised Vichy in- the eyes of the French without entirely
satisfying the Germans. Finally, a neutral position be-
tween the two camps could not be indefinitely main-
tained as hostilities gained momentum.
CONCLUSIONS
The French surrender shows a considerable "dis-
arming" effect resulting both from the loser's "reorien-
tation" and from his latent threat of using elements of
residual strength. On the winner's side, it is an example
of the importancc of political incentives in facilitating
and hastening surrender.
When. concluded, the French armistice represented
a successful bargain for both sides. The French suc-
ceeded in surrendering on a qualified basis and salvag-
ing partial sovereignty; the Germans avoided time-
consuming terminal operations. The bargain, however,
would have produced satisfactory long-term results
only if it had been transformed into a permanent settle-
ment. As it turned out, no permanent settlement was
possible. The Franco-German war was only part of a
bigger conflict, and the later progress of that conflict
subverted the basis on which the armistice had been
concluded.
In the armiitice situation, both sides operated on a
predominantly power-oriented basis. Since no perma-
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70 FOUR CASE STUDIES
nent settlement could be reached, both sides endeavored
to exploit the temporary balance created by the armi-
stice to promote their power objectives. Both were com-
mitted to the principle of cooperation, but they could
cooperate only with mental reservations, having diver-
gent ultimate goals in mind. This conflict of objectives
was never resolved, since the German defeat swept away
the actors on both sides.
THE ITLIAN SURRENDER
_September 1943
THE STRATEGIC BACKGROUND
The Allied strategy in World War II was predomi-
nantly a strategy of attrition. The Mediterranean the-
ater played a peripheral role in that strategy. Mastery
of the sea and increasing mobilization of latent resources
enabled the Anglo-American coalition to bring over-
whelming pressure to bear on the Axis forces operating
in North Africa. By May 1943, all German and Italian
forces in the African theater had been driven into a small
pocket in Tunisia and forced to capitulate. This enabled
the Allies to launch an amphibious assault on Sicily in
preparation for a landing on the Italian peninsula. From
the point of view of over-all strategy, however, the Op-
erations against Italy had a diversionary and probing
character.' No strategic decision was expected from
them, since only an assault from- the Channel coast of-
fered an opportunity to engage the bulk of the German
forces and to paralyze them by strategic attrition.
For Italy, however, the Mediterranean theater was
not peripheral. She had entered the war in the hope of
profiting from the liquidation of British and French
power positions in that area. The German victory . in
France forced Mussolini's hand in this respect. He be-
lieved that it set the stage for a new political?settlement
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72 FOUR CASE STUDIES
in Europe, in which Germany would replace Britain and
France as the dominant power in the West. Italy was
not prepared for a full-scale war, but intervention ap-
peared to Mussolini to be the only correct decision. He
saw no need for a total war effort, since the strategic de-
cision seemed already achieved. On the other hand, he
believed that Italy could claim a major part in the spoils
only if she became an active belligerent. Intervention
was a gamble, but it seemed safe enough.
When the initiative in the Mediterranean passed to
the Allies, the war became a defensive one for the Axis;
but there was no natural defensive partnership between
Germany and Italy. The German-Italian alliance had
been a purely offensive one, dictated by desires of ag-
grandizement. The Italian Fascists had believed that the
West was weak and decadent and that German "dyna-
mism" would make short shrift of it, and they had en-
gineered the alignment with Germany because it prom-
ised considerable profit without total effort. When their
calculations were upset by the course of the war, they were
not able to demand a total effort from the Italian people
for a purely defensive action alongside Germany. The
very basis of the alliance had been the belief that Ger-
many was stronger than the West. When it became evi-
dent that she was weaker, only severance of the coalition
made sense.
With the Allied armies poised for the assault on
Sicily and Italy, it was obvious that the Italian armed
forces were not in a position to offer effective resistance.
As the German Military Attache in Rome, Enno von
Rintelen, put it,
The backbone of the Italian armed forces was broken. The
army was in the throes of agony. The best divisions had been lost
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER
73
or routed in Africa and Russia. The metropolis was practically
devoid of troops. . . . In Sicily there were four operative di-
visions, in Sardinia and Corsica another four. In the Apennine
peninsula, .the number of operative divisions amounted to twelve.
. . . The long coastline of the peninsula and of the big islands
was unprotected. . . . The navy continued to suffer from lack
of oil. . . . The air force had inadequate numerical strength
and equipment and could operate only in conjunction with Ger-
man air units.'
The Italian army chiefs desperately begged Germany
for reinforcements. On July is, however, the German
Supreme Command informed the Italians that their re-
quests (in particular for air reinforcements) could not
be granted.-This made it clear to all Italians, including
Mussolini and the other fascist leaders, that Italy was
not in a position to continue the war.
Mussolini planned to make this dear to Hitler at
their conference at Feltre on July 19. But Hitler, ap-
parently sensing Mussolini's intention, did all the talk-
ing at that conference. For two hours, he lectured the
Italians on the necessity of waging war in total fashion.
After the tirade, Mussolini remained silent. On the
following diy,- the chief of the Italian general staff,
General Ambrosio, resigned because Mussolini had
failed to make the expected declaration that Italy would
sue for peace.'
The _iinniediate consequence was Mussolini's fall)
when the Grand Council of Fascism turned against him
at a meeting on July 24, 1943. A resolution was intro-
duced, according to which the King was to resume su-
preme command over the armed forces (which had been
vested in Mussolini since the beginning of the war) and
make all politiCal decisions necessary to save the country.
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FOUR CASE STUDIES
This was tantamount to an injunction to Mussolini to
resign. He did so on the following day, convinced that the
King would ask him to form a new cabinet. The King,
however, told Mussolini that he was dismissed, and that
Marshal Badoglio would head the new government.
Mussolini was taken into custody "to protect his safety,"
and the Fascist Party was immediately dissolved.'
It was understood that the new government's task
was to liquidate the war. Its position was precarious,
however, because of the presence of German armed
forces in Italy. Hitler, thoroughly mistrustful, ordered
preparations for the occupation of Rome and the arrest
of Badoglio and the King. The Italians thereupon con-
centrated five divisions around Rome, and the Germans
decided to avoid an open break. Badoglio also was deter-
mined to postpone a break until he had come to definite
agreement with the Allies. He announced that Italy
would continue to wage war alongside the Germans, and
he maintained normal contacts with them.?
Simultaneously, Badoglio tried to conclude an armi-
stice with the Allies, who were prepared to accept noth-
ing but unconditional surrender. Badoglio could not
treat with the Allies on that.basis because it was obvious
that a separate capitulation would immediately lead to
hostile acts by Germany. He therefore tried to reach an
agreement with the Allies on the basis of cobelligerench
but his proposal was rejected.
THE ALLIED SURRENDER POLICY TOWARD ITALY
This stiff Allied stand represented a departure from
earlier policy decisions. In his report to the British War
Cabinet on the deliberations at Casablanca in January
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER
75
1943,' Churchill wrote that it had been decided to con-
tinue the war against Germany and Japan until "uncon-
ditional surrender," but not to press the same demand on
Italy; "the omission of Italy would be to encourage a
break-up there."' -The War Cabinet objected to any ex-
ception, however, and the final statement issued at the
conference included Italy among the enemy nations that
would have to surrender unconditionally.' ?
Apparently the Allied decision makers did not under-
stand the hidden implications of the change in the Italian
government. Mussolini's fall caught them unawares.
No plan had been laid down in advance to deal with such
a contingency.
What was the reason for this lack of preparation?
Field intelligence seems. to have had some inkling of
the trouble brewing in Italy. Admiral Franco Mau-
geri, head of Italian naval intelligence, writes as follows
in his memoirs:
Some two months before Mussolini's fall, I had received a
report through my Swiss agents that British and American
undercover operators had been trying to learn who would suc-
ceed the dictator when he was overthrown. At first, I did not
take this too, seriously. . . . But the inquiries persisted and I
began to realize that the Allied High Command must have
'some reason to suspect, if not to know, that a change in the
government might be on the way. . . . If this was true and
the Allies had advance knowledge of Mussolini's downfall,
ihen there is little excuse for their failure to act immediately
after it took place.?
But whether the Allied operatives knew something or
were merely playing hunches, it is clear that no plan was
based on their dispatches. A plan was developed on the
spur of the moment, and the approach that was adopted
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76 FOUR CASE STUDIES
was highly characteristic of the political warfare concepts
current at that time in the American (and British) lead-
ership.
General Eisenhower's first reaction, as reported by
Captain Butcher, was to exploit the news by launching a
propaganda campaign, using broadcasts and leaflets, to
give "the House of Savoy and the Italian people their
obviously much-needed 'white alley' to get out of the
war."' The General was apprehensive about the neces-
sity of conducting his campaign under the dose super-
vision and direction of President Roosevelt and Prime
Minister Churchill:
Ike regretted existence of rapid communications. If we were
still in the day of sailing ships, he thought he could deal more
quickly and advantageously with the Italians than is possible
when he has to communicate to both Washington and London
and wait for the two capitals to concur or direct."
Presumably, Eisenhower's uneasiness was due to fear
that the "politicos" (Butcher's word) would prevent him
from adopting the only approach that, according to him,
promised success: giving Italy generous assurances about
"peace with honor" in general, and providing as many
immediate, positive inducements as possible in particular.
As the psychological warfare "operator" in this situation,
Eisenhower apparently felt that a psychological appeal
could be effective only to the extent that it was positive
and steered dear of fundamental quarrels about princi-
ples and long-range political considerations. He was
aware of the discrepancy between the operator's perspec-
tive and the policymaker's, a discrepancy that actually
emerged at every point during armistice negotiations.
About the instrumentalities, methods, and immedi-
ate objectives of political warfare, however, there was
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 77
no difference of approach between the operating and the
policymaking centers. Overt propaganda appeals to the
Italian people were to be the chief instrument used.
Eisenhower, according to Butcher, wanted to build up
"public opinion -amongst the Italians which would en-
courage King Victor Emmanuel to send an emissary to
negotiate quickly for peace."" It is characteristic of the
dominant American approach that "pressure of public
opinion" was deemed necessary and sufficient to push the
King onto the right path. One is reminded of Hans
Speier's category of the "democratic fallacy" :" whatever
we want to happen in politics can be made to happen if,
and only if, public opinion is mobilized behind it.
As we now know, the King and Badoglio did not
need to be pushed by public opinion: their minds were
made up; what_they needed was physical protection
against the Germans. This does not mean to say that a
psychological campaign would necessarily have been
futile. In the Italian case, overt appeals to leaders and
people could have been more than pointless exhortations
to do the impossible, precisely because the political lead-
ership had already; in principle, adopted the policy that
the Allies wanted to promote. If such a campaign had
been timed correctly and coordinated with a direct ap-
proach to the elite, its psychological effects might have
been very great._
In order to be effective, however, overt appeals had
to stress things other than "peace" and "honorable
capitulation? The Allies were not in a position to offer
"peace" to the Italians; the Germans had seen to that.
What the Italians needed was sufficient motivation to
make another military effort, this time against their for-
mer ally. Such a motivation could have been based only
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78 FOUR CASE STUDIES
on I'mlian national objectives, such as the preservation of
Italy's independence, which was threatened by the Ger-
mans. But even an appeal to fight for independence
would not have been enough. It is always a hard problem
of conscience for a military elite, as well as for sublead=.
ers and rank and file, to turn against a former ally. In
spite of widespread friendliness toward the. Allies and
hatred of the Germans, this problem of honor weighed
upon the Italians' consciences, and the Allies would?have
been well advised to provide the best possible psycho-
logical support for making the transition. But such con-
siderations were far from Allied minds at that time.
Badoglio-1--rightly or wrongly?considered that he
could not show his hand until the Allies had fifteen divi-
sions in Italy," which was more than the Allies had in the
entire region. Badoglio's concept of political strategy
was the exact antithesis of the Allied one. He saw noth-
ing to be gained through mass appeals. He thought that
political and military arrangements from elite to elite
had to be completed before it was safe to let the masses
know about any new policy. Fear of German retaliation
played a large part in Badoglio's avoidance of contact
with the public. But its effect was deplorable. Maugeri
depicts in vivid colors the disappointment and despair of
the Italian masses when, following the overthrow of
Mussolini, no clear national policy was announced:
Badoglio was execrated for not coming to terms with the Allies
at once. I must confess that I condemned him as vehemently
as any. I, too, cried out: "Basta! Basta! Enough! Let's end
this senseless struggle! Let's make peace!'
There is no doubt that popular response to the im-
mediate announcement of a break with the coalition
would have been very favorable. Just such a course had
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER
79
been advocated by the antifascist political leaders with
whom Badoglio had consulted before Mussolini's over-
throw. These leaders (Bonomi in particular) proposed
to enter into the cabinet (with Badoglio as Premier and
Bonomi as Vice-Premier) and at once denounce the Ger-
man. alliance. The, Germans, whose best units were still
tied down in Sicily, could not react strongly, according
to this view; moreover, Italy could hope to win the con-
fidence of the Allies and obtain lenient treatment only
if she made a complete and voluntary break with the
Germans.
On July 14, Badoglio agreed with these arguments
and adhered to the plan put forward by the civilian lead-
ers. But the King vetoed the agreement on the following
day because he feared German vengeance." Badoglio
bowed to the King's decision; he decided to include only
military men and functionaries in his cabinet, and his
main endeavor thereafter was to lull German suspicions
and stall off German occupation in force until his nego-
tiations with the Allies bore fruit. He even went through
the farce of a military conference with Hider at Tarvis
on August 6, in which he gave his word of honor that he
was not negotiating a separate peace. (This was, of
course, literally true at that time, since only "explora-
tory" contacts had been made.) In his public statements,
Badoglio continued to stress Italy's determination to go
on with the war.
On the Allied side, the preparatory consultations for
the propaganda offensive were completed within a few
days; Eisenhower's message, approved by the Combined
Chiefs of Staff, was broadcast on July 30. It offered the
Italians "peace under honorable conditions," and a "mild
and benefident" occupation regime. A passage, inserted
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80 FOUR CASE STUDIES
at Churchill's insistence, demanded that no Allied pris-
oners of war be turned over to the Germans. Even this
message, although it made dear that the Allies in fact
intended to impose complete surrender, was too "posi-
tive" to suit the guardians of the political purity of Allied
goals and methods. As Butcher says, "immediately there
was a murmur in the press corps because the message in-
dicated permission to retain the House of Savoy."'
Another Eisenhower message gave offense in high
political quarters. To Eisenhower's dismay, Churchill
complained to Roosevelt about a broadcast sent out in the
General's name, in which a lull in serial bombings was
explained to the Italians as having been designed to give
them a breathing spell during which they could reorient
their policy. (Actually, the pause was for technical rea-
sons.) Churchill was highly incensed by this "psycho-,
logical" use of military facts: only the political leaders,
he thundered, had the right to make announcements
about such matters."
Apparently, Eisenhower had unwittingly violated
one of the rules of conduct which Churchill had laid
down concerning the Allies' Italian policy; namely, that
until Badoglio showed his hand, "the war should be car-
ried forward against Italy in every way that the Ameri-
cans will allow."" Churchill's wording suggests that he
felt the Americans might slacken the pace of the Italian
campaign as a result of the emergence of the Badoglio
regime; this may have been why he was so sensitive about
what he considered a symptom of the American military
leadership's intention to substitute "psychological" in-
ducements for hard military blows.
Allied political warfare was handicapped by the lack
of reliable intelligence about Badoglio's true intentions.
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 8
The Allies apparently decided to wait until the public
appeals for "honorable capitulation" (a euphemism for
"unconditional surrender") bore fruit. Badoglio, on the
other hand, concentrated his efforts on hoodwinking and
placating the Germans. He also put out a few cautious
feelers to the Allies early in August, but his emissaries
were merely charged either to explain to the Allies that
his dedarations about continuing the war were just a
deceptive smokescreen serving to put off the Germans
(d'Ayeta mission to Lisbon, August 3) or at most to sug-
gest a negotiated peace rather than surrender (Berio mis-
sion to Tangier; August 6)." Such feelers, of course,
could produce no tangible results. It was only on Au-
gust 15 that a military envoy, General Castellano, finally
arrived in Madrid with instructions to start negotiations
for an armistice based on the general idea of surrender.
In the meantime, the Germans had been pouring
more and more troops into Italy: Allied intelligence put
the number of divisions at thirteen by August 18, fifteen
by August 2.1, and nineteen by September 3."
Badoglio's slowness in acting was due in part to tech-
nical difficulties. He was so impressed with the omnis-
cience of German intelligence in Italy that he dared not
send a military envoy until a more or less plausible pre-
text could be found for such a move. The official justifi-
cation for General Castellano's mission was, in fact, fan-
tastic enough: he was to proceed to Lisbon under a false
name, as a member of an Italian delegation welcoming
the Italian Ambassador-returning from Chile. This cau-
tious, conspiratorial maneuver was both time-consuming
and unavailing. By the middle of August, Hitler knew
from intercepted broadcasts that Badoglio was negotiat-
ing with the A11ies.2F-7
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82 FOUR CASE STUDIES
The Allies, in the meantime, could do nothing but
wait. According to the dominant doctrine, public appeals
were the preferred instrument of political warfare; they
could furnish the essential results all by themselves.
Moreover, according to the "rules of unconditionality,""
there was nothing to negotiate about. All that was re-
quired of the enemy was an act of submission: when the
surrender delegation came, its sole task was to sign on the
dotted line. The Italian government had to show its
good faith by executing the terms imposed, and, above
all, by making a public announcement of surrender.
Nothing else needed to be considered, according to the
Allies, in connection with Italy's severing her coalition
ties with Germany.
In the meantime, military strategy was governed by
rumor and impeded by political inaction. Air Chief Mar-
shal Tedder called Eisenhower to an urgent conference
at Tunis on August 2. He wanted permission to resume
the heavy aerial bombardment of Naples and of the
marshaling yards of Rome because he had word that
"Badoglio was actively trending to the Germans."
Whatever military justification there may have been for
hitting Naples and Rome at that time, the justification
that Badoglio was "actively trending to the Germans"
was not ?an eil?ergetic attempt to get in touch with
Badoglio and rouse him from his torpor might have pro-
duced far better results than the further destruction of
Naples and of the railroad facilities in Rome. Given a
suitable inducement, Badoglio might have found a way
to put Naples and Rome at the Allies' disposal, although
that is not certain, since Badoglio insisted on complete
protection .against the Germans, which the Allies were
in no position to provide. But it is not impossible that a
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 83
better result could have been achieved in Italy if contact
with Badoglio had been made earlier, to induce him to
help the Allies make unopposed landings in places where
he had strong or undisputed control. Bombing as a
political strategy, as a means to influence Badoglio's be-
havior, was dearly pointless.
As time passed and Italy did not send a surrender
delegation, Allied headquarters conduded that Eisen-
hower's propaganda campaign had failed. On August 12,
Captain Butcher notes gloomily:
What appeared to be a quick collapse of Italy has disappeared
into uncertainty, with the definite knowledge that the Italians
are solidifying their opposition to us and are really fighting.
Around headquarters, we are inclined to attribute this to the
hardboiled attitude of the Prime Minister and the President,
who publicly insisted upon "unconditional surrender" as soon as
Mussolini was out. No surrender ever was made without some
conditions; the main thing is to have the Italians realize, admit,
and act as if they've been defeated.25
Later developments revealed that this appraisal of
the situation was wrong. Granted that a more positive
propaganda approach would have produced better psy-
chological results, it is dear now that insistence on uncon-
ditional surrender was not responsible for ? Badoglio's
failure to sue for peace. That demand did not deter the
Italian antiwar group from going through with its pol-
icy; it could do nothing else. The actual explanation for
Badoglio's failure to sue for peace was simply that he was
unable to solve the technical problem of establishing con-
tact with the Allies. -
The Allied headquarters' assessment of the signifi-
cance. of stiffening Italian resistance at the front also
seems to have been in error. That stiffening implied, ac-
cording to Butcher, that the Italians had not recognized
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84 FOUR CASE STUDIES
that they were beaten, that surrender was out, and that
the situation called for a psychological campaign to con-
vince them that they were defeated. What this theory
overlooked was that it is possible for a military leader-
ship both to plan for strategic surrender and to order and
obtain stiffer tactical resistance from its troops. Badoglio
probably felt that a systematic slackening and collapse
of Italian tactical resistance would merely attract Ger-
man troops to all sectors manned by Italians, a develop-
ment that had to be avoided at all cost. But such con-
siderations apart, it is characteristic of military surrender
that the loser wants at least to salvage his honor, and to
obtain the largest possible compensation from the win-
ner for stopping resistance. For that reason, stubborn
resistance, particularly during the closing stages of a war,
is a frequent prelude to surrender.
Allied thinking about the problem of surrender over-
looked these finer shadings of the problem and treated
tactical "resistance" and "will to surrender" as mutually
exclusive. Allied leaders apparently expected the Italian
admission of defeat and readiness to surrender to take
the form of an abrupt stoppage of all resistance and a
completely supine acceptance of Allied dictation of no
matter what terms. This mechanical application of the
_"unconditional surrender" formula was faulty, not be-
cause it compelled the Italians to fight on (they sur-
rendered in spite of Allied "harshness"), but because a
sudden and total transition from fighting to complete
nonresistance was technically impossible. Italy could not
just subside like a punctured inner tube; her surrender
forcibly entailed continued military action against her
former ally. Yet the Allied negotiators neither foresaw
that the surrender talks would be dominated by this prob-
? THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 85
lem nor were allowed to conduct the conversaticins on
that basis.
SURRENDER OR COOPERATION
The political-strategic objective of securing the mili-
tary cooperation of the Italian government was com-
pletely outside the scope of Allied calculations at that
time. When the armistice negotiations actually started
at Lisbon, the Allied negotiators, Brigadier General Ken-
neth Strong and Lieutenant General Bedell Smith, were
apparently taken completely by surprise when the Italian
side offered, not just unconditional surrender, but.active
military cooperation against the Germans. They were
not empowered to?agree to such an arrangement, and
they had to return to Algiers to consult with Eisenhower.
Butcher noted on the state of negotiations on August 21:
"The main difference seems to be that the Italian Gen-
eral Staff wants to execute a complete flip-flop and join
the Allies to fight the Germans. To this Beetle [Smith]
was not authorized to agree, but he thinks Ike will insist
on collaboration with us.'26
Eisenhower also, it seems, had not foreseen that the
Italians would propose a "flip-flop," although the situa-
tion in Italy was such that they could in fact propose noth-
ing else. But he was in favor of exploiting the oppor-
tunity, as might be expected of an "operator" anxious to
achieve the best possible result, and in i good position to
doubt the miraculou-? virtue of the unconditional-sur-
render formula. The political center, however, did not
see things in the same light.
The instructions that Roosevelt and Churchill sent
to Eisenhower for dealing with the Castellano mission
at Lisbon enjoined him to accept nothing but uncondi-
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86 FOUR CASE STUDIES
tional surrender, and to do so without discussion. "These
terms," the orders stated, "do not visualize the active
assistance of Italy in fighting the Germans."
That statement did not mean that the Allied lead-
ers excluded the possibility of Italian military activities
against the Germans. It meant only that such activities
were expected to develop automatically after the an-
nouncement of the armistice, on the sole responsibility
of the Italian leadership and population. They were to
be a different phase from the surrender as such. The
Italians were to be encouraged to hope that, by fighting
the Germans after the surrender, they would create a
situation in which the Allies would be willing to recon-
sider and modify the armistice terms. Any agreement
that the Italians would fight the Germans in return for
Allied concessions was to be excluded from the armistice
talks proper. As Churchill wrote to Roosevelt on Au-
gust 16, immediately on receiving news of Castellano's
arrival in Madrid,
We, the Allies, for our part cannot make any bargain about
Italy changing sides, nor can we make plans in common at
this stage. If, however, serious fighting breaks out between
the Italian Army and German intruders, a new situation would
be created."
This seems a strange way to conduct a war. Military
operations involving Italians on our side were foreseen,
but planning for them was strenuously ruled out. More-
over, the Allies insisted on surrender terms designed to
break the spirit of the Italian armed forces and deprive
them of their effective striking capacity. The Italian war
fleet and merchant shipping were to be turned over to
the Allies; all military aircraft were to be flown to Allied
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 87
airfields or destioyed." Surrender of the fleet (for
which, characteristically, Churchill began to press the day
he learned about Mussolini's fall), although psychologi-
cally hard for the Italians to take, at least did not pre-
dude its being used in later naval operations. But taking
the air arm away fr6m the Italian army was tantamount
to rendering those already inferior and overmatched
forces wholly ineffectual.
Thus the Allied political strategy of calling for com-
plete surrender first and cooperation later was obviously
ill conceived, for the first stage could only jeopardize
successful implementation of the second. A different,
more elastic political strategy could not even be envis-
aged, because any agreement involving military coopera-
tion would have departed from the fundamental prin-
ciple of unconditional surrender. It would have smacked
of "negotiated peace" rather than complete "victory."
In the eyes of the Allied leaders, as well as of the public,
such an agreement would have seemed an inexcusable
compromise, nullifying the supreme goal for which the
war was being waged. If any enemy came to us suing for
peace, we could?only insist on surrender, ruling out nego-
tiated terms. That principle alone could have precluded
discussions about military cooperation with the Italian
surrender delegation'.
But there was, in addition, the fact that the King and
Badoglio, along with all the other leading men of the
armistice regime, had a record of full connivance and co-
operation with Mussolini and fascism. They could not
be considered bona fide democrats. Harry Hopkins' re-
action, noted down immediately after Mussolini's over-
throw, may be considered typical:
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88 FOUR CASE STUDIES
I have grave misgivings about both the King and Bidoglio.
Certainly neither of them, by any stretch of the imagination,
can be considered to represent a democratic government.
It is very easy to recognize these people, but it is awfully
hard to throw them overboard later. I surely don't like the
idea that these former enemies can change their minds when
they know that they are going to get licked and some over to
our side and get help in maintaining political power."
To people who were thinking along such lines (and
that was the dominant mode of thought in the Allied
camp), it was imperative that enemies who wanted to-
come over to the Allied side should still be treated as
enemies, no matter what advantages their defection
might confer on the Allied effort. The advantages were
dear, but to accept them was unthinkable because it was
immoral. Sherwood describes the resulting dilemma' in
the following terms:
The merest suggestion of recognition of the Badoglio goverp-
ment brought down more and more opprobrium on the State
Department which by now was regarded in liberal circles as
the very citadel of reaction and of the policy of "doing busi-
ness" with the avowed enemy. However, the State Department
was by no means the predominant policy-making instrument
in consideration of the new situation in Italy. It was a matter
of cold, hard military calculation. General Eisenhower and
the Combined Chiefs of Staff were conscious of the enormous
possible advantages of having any Italian government, regard-
less of its political coloration, which would have the author-
ity to deliver an immediate surrender."
That military pressure put Roosevelt and Churchill
in a difficult position. They knew they had to "use" the
King and Badoglio, and that it would have been supreme
folly not to exploit the split within the enemy coalition
for all it was worth. At the same time, it was impossible
to make an open "deal," with the King and Badoglio as
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 89
partners. Roosevelt and Churchill solved the dilemma
by imposing unconditional surrender upon the Italian
armistice regime, and then deciding to give that sur-
render a maximally elastic implementation. In that way,
they felt, it was possible to keep Allied morale 'high and
satisfy public opinion, as well as meet the requirements
of the objective situation: This "manipulative" ap-
proach, while successful in neutralizing the psychological
stresses created on the Allied side by the split in the Axis
coalition, was not effective in quickly liberating Italy
from the Germans.-
Other more immediate considerations also pre-
vented cooperation with the Italian 'armistice regime.
The Allied leadership thought it would be dangerous to
trust Badoglio and the King. We could' not know, the
Allies felt, whether they really meant to play ball with
us. We could not confide in them until they gave unmis-
takable proofs of their sincerity. The act of submission
that we demanded was seen as the first and essential
proof of trustworthiness: if the Italians went through
with it, we could gradually thaw toward them, and per-
haps let them in on some of our military plans. Accord-
ingly, the Allies steadfastly refused to reveal to Badoglio
the date of the -projected landing near Salerno, in ad-
vance of which the armistice was to be made public.
While Badoglio's own political strategy was firmly
rooted in the principle of "no overt dash with the Ger-
mans before substantial Allied forces land in Italy,"
Allied political strategy was equally firm in postulating
"no consultation or cooperation with Badoglio until the
surrender is sealed and announced." These divergent
conceptions finally precipitated a crisis of confidence that
had a disastrous effect on the whole Italian campaign.
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90 FOUR CASE STUDIES
THE ROME DISASTER
Badoglio, having no information about the Allies'
plans, simply did not prepare any military action; he
merely watched the German build-up in Italy and the
arrival of German units in the Rome area with mounting
despair. The Italians managed to assemble six divisions
around Rome; the Germans had about two in that region,
including an armored one. Badoglio, of course, did not
contemplate anything so rash as an attempt to eject the
Germans from the Rome area, in spite of his numerical
superiority. For that, he needed the presence of Allied
troops.
The Allied High Command, in fact, was ready and
willing to put some reinforcements at Badoglio's dis-
posal. The final armistice terms, signed at the Allied
forward base near Cassibile in Sicily on September 3,
contained one term that departed from the integral un-
conditional-surrender line. This departure satisfied
Badoglio's demand that Allied troops be present before
he publicly denounced the German alliance and accepted
the Allies' surrender terms.
The Allies undertook, as part of the armistice terms,
to drop parts of the American 82nd Airborne Division on
airfields near Rome. The action was to precede the main
landing at Salerno by a day or two; it was to be synchro-
nized with the announcement of Italy's surrender,
planned for September 8. But General 'Maxwell D.
Taylor and Colonel William T. Gardner, the American
officers charged with arranging the details of the para-
chute drop, did not arrive in Rome to get in touch with
Badoglio until that very day, September 8. It was im-
possible to work out the details on such short notice.
Contemporary Italian accounts about the Taylor mis-
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 9
sion are conflicting. According to Maugeri, General Car-
boni (commander of the Italian troops in Rome), whom,
Taylor and Gardner met first, "vetoed" the whole plan:
the Germans were too strong around Rome, he argued,
and they had managed to deprive the Italian forces of
ammunition and gasoline. Both the Italians and the
Americans would be "massacred" under such conditions.
The whole operation had to be called off for that reason,
according to Maugeri, but the situation would have ap-
peared to the Italians in an entirely different light if they
had been told by the Allies that the main landing at
Salerno was to take place almost simultaneously. For
then they would not have been afraid of German rein-
forcements arriving from the south.
But Taylor and Gardner confided nothing. They couldn't.
In fact, at no time were we taken into the confidence of the
Allies, and General Eisenhower has since declared that this
was one of the greatest blunders committed by the Allies in
the entire war."
Badoglio's version of the episode is entirely differ-
ent. He says the American emissaries did tell him that
the main landing was to take place immediately, and adds
that Carboni merely asked for more time to issue ammu-
nition and gasoline to the Italian troops. This would
have taken some time; but, according to Badoglio, Tay-
lor and Gardner had indicated that the landing of the
parachute troops?would take four or five days. Bado-
glio's understanding was that he would not be required to
announce the surrender before the Allied reinforcements
had been landed near Rome; hence he sent a telegram
to General Eisenhower asking for permission to postpone
the announcement of the armistice until September 12
"in the interest of military operations.'32
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FOUR CASE STUDIES
The result was an explosion on Eisenhower's part:
Badoglio's request, it was felt at headquarters, simpl);
indicated that he wanted to change the signed agree-
ments unilaterally; his trustworthiness immediately ap-
peared highly dubious. Eisenhower decided to crack the
whip and sent a blistering telegram to Badoglio, telling
him that the Allies would broadcast the surrender agree-
ment, as originally scheduled, at 6:30 P.M. on Septem-
ber 8; that Badoglio was expected to do his part; "and
that if Badoglio, or any part of his armed forces, failed
to co-operate as agreed, he would publish, to the world
a full record of the affair." But Eisenhower "agreed",
to suspend the airborne operation since it could no longer
be launched prior to announcement of the armistice."
Badoglio, of course, had to "go through with his part
of the agreement": he announced the armistice, "in fear
and trembling," as Eisenhower recorded, an hour and
a half after he received the telegram.
The result of the announcement was disastrous. That
night, Badoglio, the other military chiefs, and the King
and his household withdrew to the Ministry of War.
They were awakened at 4:00 A.M. by General Roatta
with the news that the Germans were moving into Rome
and that it was necessary to leave. Thereupon they all
left for the south, hoping to find safety on the Allied
side of the front." They thus escaped capture, but their
departure ended all chance of organizing any activity
against the Germans. There was nobody at the minis-
tries or at military headquarters who could have given
orders. Italy's military apparatus just collapsed.
The Germans' reaction was swift and efficient: they
simply ordered the disarmament of all Italian military
units in the area under their control. This was done in
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 93
most cases without any resistance on the part of the Ital-
ians; only at-La Spezia did Italiantroops cover the de-
parture of the fleet for Malta. It is impossible to blame
the Italian troops and troop commanders for this be-
havior. They simply had no orders; there was no leader-
ship; the Rome ministries did not even answer the
telephone. In his broadcast announcing the surrender,
Badoglio inserted a cryptic phrase to the effect that the
Italian forces would have to stop hostilities against the
Anglo-Americans but should resist possible attacks
((from whatever quarter." That was all. The troop coni-
manders were not told what to do if the Germans de-
manded their disarmament; nor was there anybody to
diredt their movements if and when conflicts with the
Germans developed. Resistance to the Germans under
such conditions would have been senseless and suicidal.
Moreover, the armistice announcement merely said that
Italy had cc surrendered" and was out of the war; recog-
nition of Italy as an ally, or even as a cobelligerent, was
studiously-avoided. All this certainly was not calculated
to spur organized military resistance to the Germans
after the armistice.
One may- ask why Eisenhower. was so_ insistent on
publishing the armistice agreement on September 8. Ac-
cording to one theory, he held that the announcement
could not be postponed; in view of the possibility that the
Germans might succeed in oVerthrowing the Badoglio
regime at the last moments' But this theory does not
seem convincing.
The danger that Badoglio would be overthrown (or,
rather, captured) by the Germans surely existed; in fact,
this danger was rendered acute by the precipitate publica-
tion of the surrender agreement. But it was certainly
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94 FOUR' CASE STUDIES
impossible to hold that the agreement would have repre-
sented a positive asset in the hands of the Allies, provided
only that it was duly published, no matter what happened
to Badoglio and his regime in the sequel. Had the Ger-
mans overthrown or captured Badoglio and the King, the
agreement would have ceased to be of any value, whether
it was published beforehand or not.
The real explanation seems to have been different.
It was obviously impossible to cancel the Salerno landing
when Badoglio's request for a postponement arrived.
And in Eisenhower's mind, announcement of the sur-
render was inseparably tied to the landing; it was incon-
ceivable to him that the landing could take place before
the announcement had been made. It was possible to
renounce the Rome operation, but it was not possible to
postpone the announcement of the armistice until the
Rome operation was completed.
Why did Eisenhower consider it imperative to syn-
chronize the landing with the publication of the armi-
stice (in fact, to make the announcement some time in
advance of the landing) ? This is what Butcher notes on
September 2:
If the acceptance is bona fide, the announcement of the armi-
stice following unconditional surrender is to be made 24 to 48
hours prior to our landing in Salerno Bay. This will be the
signal for all Italian services to turn against the Germans, to
seize and protect aerodromes, to menace and, if possible, stop
movement of German troops and for the Italian fleet and prob-
ably other vessels to seek safety in ports which we control."
This, in fact, was the whole tenor of the instructions
Eisenhower had received from the political leaders. He
could not question the correctness of the forecast. The
only real problem was whether the Italian acceptance of
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 95
the armistice was "bona fide."" If this were shown by
publication of the agreement by Badoglio, all the rest
would follow immediately: the Italian troops would
start action against the Germans the moment they
learned that they had surrendered unconditionally to the
Allies. It is _easy, then, to see why Badoglio's behavior
on the 8th appeared heinoiis to Eisenhower. The land-
ing was imminent and could not be canceled; this made
it imperative for the Italian forces to turn upon the Ger-
mans immediately. And yet Badoglio was refusing to
do the only thing that was needed to unleash Italian mili-
tary action against the Germans, namely, broadcast the
armistice. It was clear to Eisenhower that Badoglio had
to be forced.
It is extremely strange that such consequences were
expected from the publication of "unconditional sur-
render." Even granting that a complex and difficult
military action could be touched off by a public announce-
ment, without previously worked out plans, what was
there in the agreement that would have stimulated Ital-
ian belligerency against the Germans? The Allies did
not recognize Italy as a cobelligerent; all the Italians
were given was a crushing set of terms depriving them
of all_ authority, all independence, and even their basic
means of defense. Eisenhower himself had found the
terms "unduly harsh"; he suspected that the Allied
home governments wanted "to make a propaganda
Roman holiday by publicizing to the entire world the
stern restrictions of surrender." But then, how could
anyone expect that terms good enough for a "propa-
ganda Roman holiday" at home would also be good for
Italian morale?
What would have been necessary to get the Italian
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96 FOUR CASE STUDIES
tfoops to initiate resistance against ' the Germans was,
above all, a functioning leadership, giving clear orders.
For technical reasons, such a military leadership could
operate only from Rome, where all lines of coinmunica-
tion were centralized. Hence, the possibility of Italian
military action hinged on the preservation Of Rothe.
Eisenhower does not seem to have expected that the "sils-
pension" of the parachute drop would lead to the pre-
cipitate abandonment of Rome by the heads of the armi-
stice regime; he knew that the Italians, after all, had
superior forces in the area, and he could not imagine that
all the military chiefs would simply leave the troops
without making the slightest 'attempt to defend Rome.
One can only speculate about what would have hap-
pened if Allied military liaison men had been sent to
Rome, not on the eve of the landing, but before, while
conversations in Sicily were still going on. It might have
been possible then to work out joint operations while
there still was time. The Allies' unreasoning refusal
even to consider a cobelligerent status for Italy certainly
hampered any action toward that end, however. Eisen-
hower was not permitted to work out a joint military
plan; he had to smuggle in a partial, though all-impor-
tant, detail?the parachute drop near Rome?by way of
the armistice negotiations. By the time the parachute
drop was approved, it was too late to put the plan into
effect.
Badoglio's precipitate flight from Rome dashed all
Allied hopes for Italian military cooperation. Italian
troops rendered no help whatever to the Allied opera-
tion, either in the rear zone or in the invasion battle of
Salerno bay (which almost ended in disaster). Durink
the crucial Salerno days the political and military lead-
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER
97
ers were wandering aimlessly around in southern Italy,
out of touch with the military units.
BEYOND SURRENDER
One of the outstanding characteristics of the Italian
armistice agreement was that it began to be obsolescent
on the very day it was signed. That, of course, was pre-
cisely what was intended by the Allies: loyal execution of
the terms by the Italians would prepare the way for miti-
gating them. The surrender was to be nothing but a first
step; it would be followed by concessions granted purely
as acts of grace; Italy would be restored to a "respectable
place in the New Europe.""
Clearly, Roosevelt and Churchill interpreted uncon-
ditional surrender for Italy in a special sense. For Ger-
many and Japan, the main enemies, unconditional sur-
render had long-term implications: it had to ensure that
these powers were deprived of any chance to commit fur-
ther aggression. They had to be eliminated for an indefi-
nite period as independent factors in international life.
In Italy's case, unconditional surrender had no such im-
plications; it was conceived as a stage quickly to be left
behind, but one that had to be gone through nevertheless
in order to obviate the psychological difficulties involved
in. making a.deal with the enemy.
In addition, insistence on surrender enabled the
Allies to ease the terms in the exact measure that the Ital-
ians cooperated with them. In Churchill's phrase, "Italy
must work herpassage. Useful service against the enemy
will be recognized by us in the adjustment and the work-
ing of the armistice terms. . . . Our principle will be
payment by results.""
This way of handling unconditional surrender looks,
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98 FOUR CASE STUDIES
at first glance, like a hard-headed, realistic way of ex-
ploiting complete victory. Roosevelt and Churchill
probably felt that the solution was ideal, since it ensured
that any concession granted to Italy would be fully
earned by actual services. The Italians would be maxi-
mally motivated to render active help to the Allies, and
public criticism of concessions granted to them would be
disarmed. Actually, however, the conception of paying
by results was not well suited to the problem that faced
the Allies in Italy.
The premise of the Allied policy was that whether
Badoglio and the King were friend or foe remained an
open question until Italian behavior settled it. In war,
however, such a skeptical, open-minded approach is
likely to be self-defeating. If a group is actually
friendly, it is to the winner's interest to strengthen it as
much as possible; if it is hostile, it is to his interest to
weaken it as much as possible. If, during a probationary
period, he fails to strengthen a friendly group, or weaken
a hostile one, he hurts his own cause. Hence, a wait-and-
see attitude is risky, and should be adopted only if there
is no alternative.
In the Italian case, there was no reason to consider
the friend-or-foe question as entirely open. The very
fact of dissolving the Axis coalition placed the Italian
armistice regime in the Allied camp. Once that was
done, there was no way back for Badoglio ; it was im-
possible for him to double-cross the Allies. By inter-
posing a probationary period between surrender and
active cooperation, therefore, the Allies only weakened
their own side.
Moreover, the Allies were not right in thinking that
holding out hopes for future concessions was the most
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER
99
effective way of stimulating active Italian cooperation.
The presence of the Germans in Italy was the depriva-
tion that was uppermost in the Italians' minds; they had
to look at the situation, not merely from the point of
view of pleasing or not pleasing the Allies, but from
that of ejecting or not ejecting the Germans. The mili-
tary problem implied a community of interests between
the Allies and Italy, and the Italians could not therefore
be made to feel that pleasing the Allies was their only
objective in life. Willy-nilly, they had to criticize Allied
moves that in their eyes were not adapted to promoting
the common objective of defeating the Germans; and
establishment of "good conduct" criteria in the midst
of war belonged in that category.
Badoglio's memoirs are full of the traces of Italian
bitterness over the treatment his regime received from
the Allies. The Italians, he complains, were held to a
subordinate role in the war.
We furnished many supply columns which carried mu-
nitions and food up to the front lines, many divisions to pro-
tect the lines of communications, and more than 100,000 men
who served in a "Pioneer Corps," but we were not allowed
to increase our armed forces.
I said we were not given arms: it would be more accurate
to say that many Were taken from us to be sent to the Balkans.
It was an extra-ordinary way to treat us. The Heads of the
Allied Governments called on the Italians to increase their
forces, suggesting that the mitigation of the terms of the armi-
ttice depended on the part we played in the war. At the same
time the Allied Headquarters in Algiers and the Allied Com-
mand in Italy prevented, by every means in its power, our tak-
ing any share in the fighting.'
This complaint is psychologically understandable.
Since it had been suggested that mitigation of the ar-
mistice terms depended on Italy's contribution to the
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100 FOUR-CASE STUDIES
war, the Allied policy of not entrusting any sector of
the front to Italian forces looked like a deliberate way
of minimizing Allied moral obligations toward Italy.
Such a course was not apt to raise Italian morale.
But the Allies could not adopt a different policy
after the Italian armed forces were allowed to collapse.
The principle of payment by results fully justified their
hands-off attitude, because the Italian army had largely
been prevented from "earning" any different treatment.
It rendered no service either at Salerno or at the rear
of the German forces during the crucial period of the
invasion. The upshot was that Italy could contribute
no batdeworthy unit to the Allies. An effective Italian
force could only have been raised from scratch and out-
fitted with Allied equipment. This was dearly impos-
sible while the battle was raging, and thus, objectively,
the Allied position made sense. But given the objective
situation, it was pointless to impress upon the Italians
that mitigation of the terms of surrender depended on
their actual contribution to the war.
Granting cobelligerent status to the Badoglio regime
was a terrible stumbling block to the Allied leaders, who
were afraid of the psychological repercussions of any
such move. The King and Badoglio were undesirable
partners because of their past roles in the fascist regime.
Therefore, the Allied leaders were anxious to put off
recognition until the King and Badoglio had built up a
record of active repentance. But the war could not wait.
Headquarters was pressing for Italy to be allowed to
dedare war on Germany, and instructions to that effect
had actually been drafted prior to September 20. The
opponents of recognition succeeded in holding up the
decision for several weeks, however, so that instructions
to authorize Italy's entry into the war were not sent to
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 101
Eisenhower until October 5, and the actual declaration
was not made until October 13."
There were obviously very urgent reasons why the
Allies had to abandon their opposition to recognizing
the Badoglio regime-and why they were unable to await
"results" before granting it cobelligerent status. The
reasons can perhaps be surmised from a memorandum
from Hopkins opposing recognition of Badoglio. Sher-
wood quotes the memorandum in full:
On September zo, Hopkins read a copy of the proposed
agreement whereby Italy would be permitted to enter the war
not as an "ally" but as a "co-belligerent," and he wrote the
following memorandum and sent it to the President:
"I hope you will not encourage Eisenhower to recognize
Italy as a co-belligerent. This will put them in exactly the
same status as the rest of our allies. Nor do I think there is
enough evidence that ?Badoglio and the King can be trusted
for us to arm any of their divisions. I should think that Eisen-
hower could quietly look the other way if some of the armi-
stice terms are being violated, such as Italian naval ships being
used to transport our troops, or Italian bombers from Sardinia
fighting the Germans.
"Would it not be better in paragraph 2 to cut out the words
'to wage war against Germany' and substitute 'to assist us in
the war'?
"I cannot see that a declaration of war by Badoglio gets
us anywhere except a precipitated recognition of two men who
have worked very closely with the Fascists in the past. I think
we should get every possible advantage out of them, but I don't
think we are under any -obligation to them. I don't see why,
if Eisenhower wants to use Italian crews and ships, he does
not go ahead and do it, providing he thinks he can trust them.
I simply hate to see this business formalized until we have
had a much better look-at Badoglio and the King. McFarlane,
the British general's 'report on them was certainly none too good.
"I would not throw out Badoglio but recognition would
be an inevitable [?] step. Could you not tell Eisenhower to
keep on as he is for the present and make the decision in an-
other week ?"43
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102 FOUR CASE STUDIES
This memorandum dearly suggests one reason why
it was necessary to recognize the Badoglio regime as
cobelligerent: the urgent necessity of using part of the
Italian fleet in actual operations. Hopkins thought Eisen-
hower could "go ahead" and use the fleet, provided
he considered it reliable. What Hopkins overlooked
was that something more than Eisenhower's confidence
was needed to make the ships move. Naval officers in
general will carry out missions only on orders from their
superiors, and the Italian naval commanders were no
exception in this respect. They needed orders from the
Badoglio government before they could engage in oper-
ations. That is why the Allies were compelled to "treat"
with the Italian government, and to conclude a special
agreement about the fleet. This was the so-called
Cunningham?de Courten agreement; it was signed at
Taranto on September 22 by the Allied naval comman-
der, Admiral Sir Andrew (later Viscount) Cunningham,
and the Italian Minister of Marine, Admiral Raffaele
de Courten."
This was a stopgap agreement. It was not possible
to conclude the agreement with the government as such,
because the Allies were not yet ready to recognize the
Badoglio regime; even the so-called longer instrument,
containing the long-term and nonmilitary clauses of the
armistice, was not yet signed. Hence the curious method
of making a treaty with an individual member of a
government that one did not recognize.
Even so, this agreement made Italy a cobelligerent
in fact, and formal recognition of the fact could not be
delayed much longer. As soon as ships flying the Italian
flag engaged in naval operations, Italy was in a state of
undeclared war with Germany--an anomalous situation
from the point of view of international law. Full naval
_
THE :ITALIAN SURRENDER 103
cooperation logically demanded a formal declaration of
war; it was actually effected only after the granting
of cobelligerency. Badoglio writes:
As soon as co-belligerency was declared the Navy was
treated as an Allied fleet. All the light craft and the cruisers
(except five, three of which were later returned to us) took
part in operations in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, win-
ning the admiration of the English and the Americans.
Our Air Force was at once used in the Balkan sector where
it carried out not only many bombing raids and machine gun
attacks but also took_ orders and supplies to our detachments
fighting with the Partisans."
It is impossible to see what advantage the Allied
cause gained from- strenuously excluding the policy of
cobelligerency in August and imposing it in October.
It was obviously never necessary to grant the Badoglio
?
regime cobelligerent status unconditionally: the Italian
emissaries could have been told that the regime would
be recognized as cobelligerent only after having fulfilled
certain specific conditions. But it was precisely a "bar-
gain" of this kind .that the Allies had ruled out during
the armistice talks. By doing so, they maneuvered them-
selves into a situation in which the granting of cobellig-
erency necessarily had to appear like a reversal on their
part. _
That was the decisive defect of the policy of "pay-
ment by results": it -conveyed the impression that trea-
ties conduded by the Allies, and terms imposed by them,
were not to be taken seriously. The chief policymakers
on the Allied side did not appreciate the fact that great
powers have an overwhelming interest in establishing
the inviolability of pledges granted or received by them.
Hopkins' reference- to "looking the other way" while
a treaty imposed by-the Allies was being violated, indi-
cates a recklessness, a lack of seriousness, which was only
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104 FOUR CASE STUDIES
too characteristic of Allied policymaking during the war.
It was fully realized that the Italian situation called
for something different from unconditional surrender,
yet concluding a meaningless, obsolescent treaty was
deemed better than abandoning the unconditional-sur-
render fetish.
The hope that such a treaty would at least confer
upon the Allies the benefit of complete freedom of
action was also futile._ The Allies did not achieve com-
plete freedom of action, since they were not in reality
free to grant or withhold cobelligerency once Italy had
surrendered. It would have been possible to refuse co-
belligerency only to an Italian regime that had been
completely deprived of fighting potential. The Italian
land forces very nearly were in this state by October,
thanks to Allied and Italian bungling; addition of the
substantial navy to the Allied forces, however, inevi-
tably implied cobelligerency. This could have been fore-
seen in August, and it would have been if the Allied
leaders had not been addicted to the fantasy that military
operations could start on a spontaneous impulse at a
moment's notice, requiring neither technical staff work
nor legal and political allegiance.
SURRENDER OF THE FLEET
The surrender of the Italian fleet immediately gave
rise to a myth concerning the efficiency of "psychological
warfare" stunts. Wallace Carroll records the origin of
the myth:
Messages from Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham asked Ital-
ian sailors to bring their ships to Allied ports. In Algiers,
Maurice Pierce, an OWI engineer serving in the Psycholog-
ical Warfare Branch, shifted the wave-length of one of the
Allied radio transmitters to an international distress frequency
to which the naval vessels of all nations listen at all times.
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THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 105
Over this station a -message was broadcast to the Italian ? fleet
every fifteen minutes for many hours. Three days later, when
the Italian fleet from Spezia steamed into the British naval
base at Malta, Admiral Cunningham turned to one of his
aides and said: "Tell General McClure . . . that they've ac-
complished in one day with propaganda what I've been try-
ing to do for three years with the Navy." General McClure
took this as a pleasantry, but OWI, which was at that moment
fighting hard to get enough money from Congress to keep the
Psychological Warfare Branch going, decided it should be ac-
cepted as the literal-truth and inserted it in the records of the
Congressional budget hearings, whence it will certainly find its
way into every psychological warfare manual of the future.?
This myth, tic), reflects the feeling that military
actions are a matter of impulse and can be unleashed
by suitable verbal stimuli from the enemy. Actlinl ly,
however, the Allied broadcasts had nothing whatever
to do with the sailing of the fleet. The fleet sailed 'on
orders issued by the appropriate Italian naval authori-
ties. Samuel Eliot Morison gives the following account
in his history of American- naval operations:
The procedure for the Italian Navy to follow when the
armistice was announced had been carefully worked at Cas=
sibile and brought by General Castellano to Rome. Admiral
Sansonetti telephoned instructions to.the appropriate naval com-
manders on the night of 8-9 September. All warships on the
west coast of Italy were to proceed to Corsica and pass down its
western coast and that of Sardinia; thence sail to Bone in North
Africa for orders: Those in Taranto and on the east coast were
to sail directly to Malta; those in the Aegean, to Haifa. Mer-
chant shipping was to make for Gibraltar or Alexandria. All
were given recognition signals, and assured that they would be
received honorably in Allied ports.
The main battle fleet was at Spezia. Admiral Bergamini,
the commander; a few minutes after receiving word from
Rome, summoned his commanding officers to a conference.
"Tell your men," he said, "to accept this great, sacrifice. . . .
Our ships, which an hour ago were ready to sail against the
enemy, are now able, because the country requires it, to meet
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106 ? FOUR CASE STUDIES
the victors with the flag flying; .the men can hold their heads
high. This is not what we imagined would be the end, but
this is the course by which we now must steer, because what
counts in the history of a people is not dreams and'hopes and
negations of realities, but the consciousness of duty carried
out to the bitter end. . . . The day will come when this liv-
ing force of the Navy will be the cornerstone on which the
Italian people will be enabled to rebuild their fortunes."4T
For the circumstances in which the order to sail was
received and executed at Taranto, we have a dramatic
account by Admiral Alberto da Zara, who was in com-
mand of the division stationed there.
Da Zara reports that all commanding admirals were
called to Rome to attend a meeting at the Ministry of
Marine on September 7. They did not know, of course,
that the armistice had been signed four days before and
would be announced the next day. At the meeting, the
Minister, Admiral de Courten, declared that, "in the
event of a German attack, we must- react as strongly as
possible, without pulling any punches." Da Zara con-
tinues:
Had I not been so tired from the long and strenuous motor
journey from Taranto to Rome, and had I not been obliged
to start on my trip back the next day, perhaps I could have
pierced the secret of this, strange sibyllic utterance before the
facts had spoken. At any rate, I was completely taken by sur-
prise on the evening of the 8th, when, coming aboard the [Caiol
Duilio, I heard from the commanding officer, Morabito, that
we had asked for [sic] an armistice. I 'immediately, called
the commander of the "Cadorna" Group on board and listened
with him to Badoglio's proclamation: the war was over."
This report casts a revealing light both upon Bado-
glio's method of operation and upon the state of mind
of the Italian naval officers. Even after the armistice
was signed, and when it was obviously necessary to pre-
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 107
pare for an inevitable dash with the Germans, Badoglio
did not disclose the situation to the top,officers; he merely
handed them the cryptic information that, in case the
Germans attacked, they would have to defend them-
selves. Da Zara was unable to puzzle out what this in-
formation meant, nor does it seem that the others present
discussed it with" him during the evening. Apparently,
the idea that Italy- might change sides during the war
was so remote from the minds of the officers that they
could not anticipate such a move even when the signs
were there.
After the announcement of the armistice, da Zara
tried for hours to get Rome on the phone for explana-
tions and orders. When the call did not go through, he
was not too surprised; telephone connections between
Rome and Taranto had never been good. On the morn-
ing of September 9, da Zara was called out of an officers'
meeting; one of his officers was on the phone, telling
him of a telegraphic order that had arrived from Rome
that morning: all the ships that could sail were to pro-
ceed immediately to Malta! Da Zara was not satisfied;
the telegram was truncated and could have been 'forged.
He decided to put inanother call to Rome (not knowing,
of course, that the government no longer was there),
and also to wait fora complete duplicate version of the
telegram. In the meantime, he made arrangements on
his own for the scuttling of the ships. Two of his sub-
ordinates tried to argue him. out of it; a third pleaded
with him to carry out the order. While this discussion
was going on, the complete text of the order arrived,
signed by de Court-en.
It specified clearly and precisely that sailing the ships to Malta
meant neither that they would be handed over nor that the flag
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108 FOUR CASE STUDIES
would be hauled down. In this way, although I did not have
the comfort of hearing the thief's voice, my change of mind
was quick and complete; I detected in the telegram de Cour-
ten's spirit and style. The absurd hypotheses my distracted
mind had conjured up suggesting that the telegram might be
apocryphal evaporated."
The admiral returned to the interrupted meeting and
announced his decision to obey Rome's orders uncondi-
tionally.
I detected in my subordinates' eyes a certain amount of
doubt and perplexity; I therefore continued my announce-
ment and went on to explain my point of view before asking
them to make a declaration of loyalty.
In the end, all gave me what I asked except Giovanni Gal-
ati and Alberto Banfi. Among my commanders, these two
had the most brilliant professional and military record."
After the arrival at Malta, Admiral Cunningham
asked da Zara:
"Do you know the text of the armistice?"
"No," I replied. "I know only one thing: I shall not haul
down the flag?or hand over the ships."
"There is absolutely no question of that," he said. "What
is more, I'll tell you that I have decided to withdraw our armed
guards from your ships. They will definitely leave at sun-
down this evening."51
It is dear from this account that the surrender of
the Taranto fleet (the only one that eventually reached
an Allied port) might easily have failed to take place.
The Italian government was in a state of dislocation
when the orders went out, and everything hinged on the
arrival of de Courten's telegram to da Zara. Had the
telegram been held up or had de Courten's orders failed
to make dear that the ships would remain under the
Italian flag in spite of the surrender, the ships would
certainly have been scuttled.
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 109
De Courten apparently knew that it would have been
difficult or impossible to induce the naval commanders
to carry out the unheard-of order to sail to the enemy's
base in the absence of assurances about the fleet's honor.
It was possible for de Courten to give such assurances
because the text of the armistice contained no clause about
the final disposition of the Italian fleet. He was thus
able to interpret the order to sail the ships to Malta in
a sense compatible with traditional concepts of honor.
Had. "unconditional surrender" been spelled out in spe-
cific terms as regards the fleet, it is doubtful whether the
order to sail would have been given, or obeyed if given.
The Italian government knew, of course, that its
existence depended on sending the fleet to Allied parts:
had this crucial dause of the armistice agreement not
been carried out, the Allies would have broken off all
contact and treated the King and Badoglio as enemies.
Even so, it was touch and go whether the Badoglio
government would be able to assert its authority over
its naval commpnders. As it turned out later, de Cour-
ten's interpretation of the terms of surrender was not
correct. The Allies did expect that the big Italian units
would be handed over to them; only small craft, de-
stroyers, and some of the cruisers would remain under
the Italian flag. These demands, however, were not dis-
dosed to the Italians until several weeks after. the ships
had sailed to Allied harbors; Badoglio protested against
the Allied interpretation, but to no avail."
The Allies' "psychological" campaign clearly played
no role whatever in the surrender of the Italian fleet.
Da Zara does not mention the Allied broadcasts at all;
they do not seem to_have been intercepted on the ships
under his jurisdiction, and one may assume that the ships
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110 FOUR CASE STUDIES
at the other bases did not listen to them 'either. ' This
was probably all to the good, for their effect might have
been quite unfavorable if they had been received.
- The broadcasts amounted to an invitation to Italian
crews and commanders to renounce their allegiance to
their own government. It is not dear what advantage
was expected from such a psychological-warfare objec-
five three days -after the armistice. Perhaps the "psy-
chological warriors" on the Allied side believed that it
was safer to bank on a wholesale naval mutiny against
the King and Badoglio than on Badoglio's compliance
with the terms he had signed; were the King and Bado-
glio not eminently "unreliable"? But such a hypothesis
could have been seriously entertained only if there had
been some evidence that wholesale mutiny was ripe in
the Italian fleet; i.e., either that the naval commanders
were anxious to renounce their allegiance to the King,
or that' mutinous crews were prepared to depose their
commanders and sail the ships to democratic shores.
But there was no evidence of either tendency. Luck-
ily for the Allies, subordination and discipline on the
Italian ships were quite unimpaired. There was no
reason to assume that any Italian sailors would heed the
broadcasts. As for the officers, they could not but have
been very unfavorably affected by the Allied psycho-
logical campaign, if they had known about it. Their re-
sentment at the Allied attempt to disrupt the fleet by
psychological means would have increased their opposi-
tion to orders to sail for Allied ports, and would prob-
ably have strengthened their suspicions that the orders
to sail, purportedly issued by the Rome government,
were not genuine. It is very possible that the Allies were
THE 'ITALIAN SURRENDER III
saved additional woe by the fact that the Italians did not
listen to broadcasts on the international wave lengths.
The propaganda campaign directed at the Italian
fleet was a Model of how not to wage psychological war-
fare. It violated two cardinal principles of the art: (i)
feasibility of the objective and (2) coordination with
over-all policy. The- objective (to make the ships come
over without orders) was not feasible, because the target
audience had no motivation to engage in the 'behavior
desired by the propagandist. Moreover, the objective
was incompatible with the policy pursued by the Allied
governments at that time: obtaining the services of the
Italian fleet through an agreement concluded with the
Italian government.
The incompatibility of the two methods does not
seem to have been realized by the Allies. Appeals to
the Italian rank and file and a surrender agreement con-
cluded with the Italian government were considered as
having independent, mutually compatible utilities. The
positive objective of inducing active Italian cooperation
- _
against the Germans was to be promoted primarily
through appeals to the rank and file; the Allies, pre-
ferring to see such action arise spontaneously by impulses
working from below, were reluctant to associate the
Italian government's authority with these appeals. The
agreement with the Italian government, on the other
hand, was primarily intended to serve a negative objec-
tive: the government's role was to be limited to an act
of surrender pure and _simple.
If this analysis is correct, it explains why the Allied
command authorized-a- "psychological" campaign to get
the fleet to sail to Malta and other ports after having
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112 FOUR CASE STUDIES
already signed an agreement to that 'effect with the
Italian government. It would have fitted the 'Allied
conception better if the Italian ships had sailed on their
own; it would then have been possible to limit Badoglio's
role to that of performing a pure act of surrender, with-
out any admixture of cooperation. Actually, however,
the psychological conditions for stimulating spontaneous
pro-Allied action by the Italian fleet did not exist. The
psychological problem was, rather, how to make sure
that the fleet would obey surrender orders if and when
the government did issue them. The problem was, in
other words, how to avoid a conflict between military
discipline and patriotism (or sense of national honor).
The solution of that problem was not helped by the
amateurish psychological campaign initiated by the
Allies. By seeking to induce spontaneous action in pref-
erence to disciplined action, the Allies risked getting no
action at all. This is exactly what happened with the
Italian land forces; a similar collapse of Italy's naval
potential was just barely avoided.
While the psychological problem of getting the fleet
to surrender was thus solved in spite of the exertions of
the Allies' psychological warriors, the actual execution
of the surrender maneuver ended in disaster. No air
protection could be provided for the surrendering fleet,
and the main Italian naval force that sailed from La
Spezia and Genoa was decimated by the Luftwaffe.
At 0230 Sept. 9 battleships Roma, Vittorio Veneto, Italia, and
light cruisers Attilio Regolo, Montecuccoli, Eugenio di Savoia,
sorted from Spezia with eight destroyers, just as German sol-
diers were breaking into the city. Off Calvi in Corsica, they
were joined by ships from Genoa?light cruisers Abruzzi,
Aosta, and Garibaldi, and two more destroyers. All headed
for Maddalena, Sardinia, to pick up other ships. Just as they
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 113
were about to enter the Strait of Bonifacio, Adm. Bergamini
received word that the Maddalena base had been occupied by
German troops. He reversed course and headed for sea. He
had no air cover; the Italian Navy possessed none and Allied
air forces were too busy covering the Salerno landings to fur-
nish any. So, when a heavy squadron of German bombers at-
tacked at 1552, the ships had, only their antiaircraft batteries
. . . of little use against-the new guided bombs that some of
the German planes carried. Roma was sunk with a loss of 66
out of 71 officers, including Bergamini, and over 1,300 men."
EVALUATION OF THE ALLIED SURRENDER
POLICY TOWARD ITALY
The progress of the Italian campaign was deter-
mined in its essential aspects by the limited means at the
Allies' disposal. First, Italy was a secondary theater
from the point of view of Allied ground strategy;
second, the supply lines were inordinately long. Lo-
gistics presented no comparable problem for the Ger-
mans. Although their lines of communication were sub.-
jected to constant air attacks, there was never a serious
interruption in the flow of their reinforcements and sup-
plies. As General Clark put it,
The theory was widely held at the beginning of the Mediter-
ranean campaign that the German armies could not fight effec-
tively in Italy. It was believed that our superior air power
could quickly destroy the enemy's supply lines through the Al-
pine passes and down the long, mountainous spinal column of
Italy, and that, being unable to maintain himself logistically,
he soon would find it unprofitable if not impossible to give
battle.
This was wishful thinking."
Given this situation, it is very likely that Italy would
have had to be occupied the hard way no matter how the
surrender situation was handled. It would have been
hazardous for the Allies to land their main force beyond
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114 FOUR. CASE STUDIES ?
fighter range, and the Italian forces were not strong
enough to secure Italy and hold it on our behalf. Never-
theless, it would seem that the Allies could have achieved
a far greater disruption in German defense arrange-
ments than they did if they thad handled the problem
of taking Italy out of the German coalition in a more
efficient way. Even if the main feature of the strategic
plan (the landing at Salerno on September 8) could not
have been altered, its sequel would probably have been
different if there had been a concerted plan for Italian
diversionary operations in the German rear.
But the Allies' reluctance to negotiate with the Ital-
ians on the basis of cobelligerency prevented such plan-
ning. It was believed that the more sensible course was
out of the question because Of the strength of the moral
feelings condemning all cooperation with fascists, but it
may be doubted whether the policy of cobelligerency
would have led to a serious moral crisis if it had brought
tangible results.
The "Darlan deal" in North Africa, which did set
off a moral crisis of considerable proportions, is not fully
comparable." The situation in North Africa was com-
plicated by the presence of two rival French factions.
One had sided with the Allied cause from the beginning,
and the other, made up of erstwhile collaborationists,
now proposed to leave the German camp. Since the
former collaborationists, headed by Admiral Darlan,
actually controlled the French military and administra-
tive machinery in North Africa, they alone could render
us immediate help, but de Gaulle had much the better
daim to our support on the strength of his record. This
posed a real dilemma for the Allied policymakers.
In Italy, however, there was no such political rivalry.
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 115
The King and Badoglio_were not challenged or opposed
by the majority of Italian antifascists. It is understand-
able that the Allied leaders were reluctant to face an-
other Darlan crisis, but if liaison had been established
with Italian circles, they could have found out that rec-
ognition of the royal regime would not have antagonized
the Italian antifascists. -Had the Allied policymakers
recognized the potential importance of cooperation with
the Badoglio regime, they could have disarmed in ad-
vance the inevitable attacks on the policy of recognition,
not only on the grounds of military expediency, but also
with political arguments based on the domestic situation
in Italy.
The fact is, however, that the Allied leadership had
no high estimate of the military expediency of concerted
action with the Badoglio regime. The North African
situation had been quite different in this respect. There,
the necessity of coming to terms with the people who
controlled the local forces was imperious and unmistak-
able. Whatever "hostility" had existed regarding the
collaborationist Vichy regime, the "disarming" factor
was stronger. Also, Allied emotions toward the two
French factions were by- no means neatly polarized.
De Gaulle, though committed to the struggle' against
the Germans, had been a. singularly difficult and un-
manageable ally for _Britain and the United States,"
whereas Vichy, though committed to collaboration with
Germany, also had a record of quiet cooperation with
the Allies. This complicated psychological situation, in
addition to the imperative military considerations, facili-
tated the "deal" with Darlan.
The Italian surrender regime lacked the bargaining
assets that the Darlan group possessed in Africa. Its past
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116 FOUR CASE STUDIES
record had been one of unmitigated hostility, and the
contribution it promised did not seem indispensable.
This resulted in the dominance of ."hostility" over "dis-
arming." There was a complete emotional block on the
Allied side regarding any rapprochement with Badoglio.
The policy of unconditional surrender, applied ,to
Italy, had been based on the premise that it would enable
the Allies to preserve their moral integrity without sacri-
ficing military expediency. Its actual result was the loss
of both. The neglect of liaison and consultation im-
paired the military conduct of the campaign without
enabling the Allies to avoid entering into partnership
with the royal regime. The aftermath has shown that
neither damage was irreparable. The Italian campaign
was eventually won, and the recognition of the royal
regime did not prevent the advent of democracy in Italy.
The problem was never expediency versus morality.
The more expedient course was also the more moral one,
whether we define morality in a broad general sense or
in a narrow political sense. It is clear that military ex-
pediency, in the sense of reaching a strategic goal with
a minimum, of loss and destruction, has a high moral
value in the general sense of according with the dictates
of humanity. But the same conclusion emerges if we
identify moral integrity with the promotion of democ-
racy as against totalitarianism. The greater the amount
of destruction imposed upon a society, the more difficult
it is to establish a democratic regime in it. The long-
range stability of Italian democracy is still menaced
primarily by the impoverishment of Italian society, in
which wartime destruction was a factor. The gradual
transition from fascism has not inhibited the emergence
of democracy. A full-fledged revolution would have
THE ITALIAN SURRENDER 117
more thoroughly eradicated the "past," but it would also
have been most unlikely to produce a democratic order.
The position of cobelligerency finally reached in
Italy was as expedient and moral as anypolicy could have
been in the prevailing circumstances. What we have to
regret is that the position was arrived at in a roundabout
way; the policy of unconditional surrender first had to
be scrapped before the Allies could proceed in a way
consonant with the exigencies of the situation.
CONCLUSIONS
In one respect, the Italian surrender of 1.943 was
analogous to the French surrender of 1940: in both cases,
a subordinate coalition member decided to stop fighting
at the side of a coalition leader who seemed headed for
defeat. In nearly every other respect, however, the two
surrenders were antithetical.
The French surrender was a neat, professional job,
transacted by seasoned practitioners of the political
power game. It was consummated with a minimum of
delay, with both sides showing remarkably good insight
into the maximum they could obtain in view of the
immediately prevailing distribution of strength. As
against this, the initial handling of the problem of end-
ing hostilities between the Allies and Italy was charac-
terized on both sides by bad judgment, misinformation,
and blundering. Yet, considered from a broader per-
spective, the French surrender was a snare and delusion
for both sides, whereas the Italian surrender was po-
litically and historically justified. This was true beyond
the immediate context of the war. Since the Allies were
the final winners, Italy had to surrender in any case,
whereas the French surrender was nullified by the final
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118 FOUR CASE STUDIES
outcome. But apart from that, restoring Italy's tradi-
tional ties with the Atlantic powers was the only policy
consonant with Italy's geographic and political position,
whereas France's alignment with Germany against the
Atlantic world had had no basis in French history.
Relations between winner and loser developed in
opposite directions in the two cases. Germany was will-
ing to pay a political price for surrender, whereas the
Allies adopted an unreasonably rigid and negative posi-
tion in this respect. After surrender, however, relations
between Italy and the Allies moved toward coalescence
and harmony; Franco-German relations became increas-
ingly uneasy and ambiguous.
The Italian surrender also permits us to observe the
actual working of the unconditional-surrender policy, to
be discussed in more detail in Part Three. The demand
for unconditional surrender as such did not prolong
Italian belligerency, nor did it imply a really destructive
attitude on the Allies' part. As a method of handling
the terminal phase of the war, however, it was inept.
The Allies' refusal to pay any political price for sur-
render merely made the job of extricating Italy from
the German dutches a more expensive one.
Five
THE GERMAN SURRENDER
May 1945
_ THE STRATEGIC BACKGROUND
The Allied grand strategy of attrition had achieved
decisive "divergence long before Germany's strategic
surrender on May 8, 1945. The fall of 1942, with El
Alamein, the Allied landing in North Africa, and the
Soviet encirclement of Stalingrad, may be considered the
turning point iii the war. After these events, the trend
went inexorably against Germany. The defeats of 1942,
however, did not yet constitute final proof of "divergent
attrition." Germany had not yet mobilized her resources
on a total basis; her total effort began only in the spring
of 1943, after the fall of Stalingrad. The armies lost in
Africa and Russia were not irreplaceable. There was a
chance of stabilizing the eastern front, and the bulk of
the German fottes had not yet come into contact with
the Allies in-the- West. It was by no means certain that
the Allies would succeed in landing in force on the
Continent. Until that happened, the war was essentially
a one-front war, if we consider ground operations only.
Although the air war impinged on Germany from two
sides, she could hope to sustain a prolonged siege as long
as she was subjected to pressure by land on only one
front.
Her situation took a critical turn only when the
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120 FOUR CASE STUDIES
Allies established a second land front in the west, thus
setting up a drain upon German manpower and materiel
resources that could only result in their total exhaustion
within a foreseeable time. After the landing, or at least
after the breakthrough at Avranches on July 30, 1944,
it was no longer possible to restore equilibrium: victory,
or even a strategic stalemate, was beyond hope. After
Avranches, military operations could merely result in
superfluous losses; strategic surrender was the only
rational decision the military leadership could make.
In terms of our theoretical analysis, then, Avranches
marked the beginning of the "terminal stage" of the
war. During such a stage the only meaningful use that
a loser can make of his residual forces is to "disarm" the
winner. If his possession of residual assets is, to make
possible any bargaining, the loser must radically reorient
his war policy.
Germany, however, did not take this course after
the breakthrough at Avranches. Given Hider's rigid
views, the first step, "reorientation" of war policy, could
only occur after a comp d'etat against the Hider regime.
The celebrated plot of July 20, 1944, occurred after the
Allied landing but before Avranches, and moreover it
failed. After the loss of France, a second attempt at
reorientation was no longer feasible. Hence, German
operations during the terminal stage were simply carried
along by the momentum built up during the preterminal
period of the war. Besieged from all sides, Germany
was forced to give up one line of defense after another
in both east and west. It was only after the siege perim-
eter had shrunk to encircle a tiny area in North Germany
that the military leadership initiated strategic surrender.
This surrender abridged the final stage only in the sense
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 121
that there Was an orderly capitulation of residual forces
instead of a chaotic and futile last battle inside the perim-
eter. Wholesale capitulations of German forces had
already occurred several days earlier in northern Italy
and southern Germany. They formed part of the process
of winding up hostilities and thus were "strategic" in
essence if not in form.
Germany's strategic surrender, then, was character-
ized by a prolongation of the terminal stage until no
further coherent operations were possible. It must be
stressed, however, that this prolongation of the terminal
stage was by no means accompanied by all-out resistance
to the limit of the physically feasible. The postpone-
ment of strategic surrender until the German "fOrtress"
was stormed and occupied was due to several specific
reasons, some of which we shall discuss in Part Three
in analyzing unconditional surrender. This delay re-
tarded the formal termination of hostilities, but actual
resistance had collapsed in the west weeks before formal
surrender. The abridgment of the terminal stage was
somewhat greater than the date of the final surrender
would indicate.
We shall now take up in some detail several salient
_.aspects..of the political process that culminated in the
strategic surrender act of May
THE PRECEDENT OF 1918
The problem of strategic surrender had already
faced Germany it the end of World War I. The Allied
offensive of August 1918 convinced the German mili-
tary leadership that final defeat could no, longer be
averted. From that moment on, the chief concern of
General Ludendorff, the "strong man" who wielded
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I22 FOUR CASE STUDIES
decisive influence politically as well as militarily, was
that the armistice offer should not be made too late. It
was essential for Germany to conclude an armistice while
her armed forces still remained cohesive. But time was
pressing; any day could bring a catastrophe. Ludendorff
said that "he felt like a gambler, and that a division
might fail him anywhere at any time."
Ludendorff argued for the utmost speed in the fol-
lowing terms:
The German Army is still strong enough to stand against its
opponent for months to come, to achieve local successes and
to exact new sacrifices from the Entente. But each day brings
our opponent nearer his goal, and will make him less inclined
to conclude with us a peace which is tolerable. Therefore, no
time must be lost.2
Ludendorff, then, realized that Germany was stra-
tegically defeated, and that assuming further losses
would be unwarranted from the military point of view.
Cutting losses, however, was not the chief consideration
making him press for utmost speed in initiating armistice
talks. Speed appeared to him essential mainly because
the maximal political exploitation of Germany's last
bargaining asset, the possession of a cohesive residual
--foreeT depended-- on-it?Thc?idea-of_exploitin
sidual asset for what it was worth was by no means un-
sound, but Ludendorff expected too much from it. He
believed that the enemy, even after consummating Ger-
many's strategic defeat, could still be expected to con-
dude a moderate, negotiated peace, if only armistice
talks were started while Germany still possessed a co-
hesive residual force. This was a serious misjudgment
of the political bargaining situation between winner and
loser during the terminal stage of total war.
THE GERMAN SURRENDER I23
As our theoretical analysis has shown, complete vic-
tory in total war implies that the winner will end hos-
tilities only after establishing a monopoly of armed
strength. In such a situation armistice talks can be con-
ducted only on the principle of strategic surrender. A
further implication is that the peace settlement will be
essentially a dictated one: the loser, stripped of war-
making capability, has no alternative but to accept the
terms on which the winner insists. All the loser can do
during the terminal stage is to obtain a political payment
in return for the service he renders the winner by re-
nouncing the use of his residual strength. Had Luden-
dorff seen the situation in this light, he would have
realized that in forcing the government to act quickly
he was not giving it a last opportunity to condude a ne-
gotiated peace but was merely pushing it into surrender.
After the war, Ludendorff and the German nationalists
claimed that Germany could have ended the war as an
undefeated power, if there had been no revolutionary
outbreaks in the hinterland before the armistice talks
started. This theory was wholly unwarranted: mutiny
and revolution were a consequence rather than a cause
of defeat. But the legend of the "stab in the back" had
considerable success in Germany, since it was flattering
to-the-national- amoiw?propre.
The circumstances in which World War I ended
were such that neither the leadership nor the people at
large came face to face with the problem of defeat in
total war and its concomitant, strategic surrender. On
the one hand, there were those who, like Ludendorff,
admitted only two possibilities?victory for Germany
or, at the worst, a negotiated peace. When surrender
was imposed, it did not fit into their preconceived scheme,
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I 2.4 FOUR CASE STUDIES'
and hence they blamed it on foul play. On the other
hand, there were those to whom war itself was an abomi-
nation, so that its outcome did not matter to them; they
were impatient to get on with revolutionary socialism,
which would make an end of such horrors as militarism
and war. Both groups refused to recogniie the 'reality
of Germany's defeat or, indeed, that defeat is one of
the eventualities that have to be faced in war.
After the war, the mystique of a complete social
renovation, with its gospel of nonviolence,' antimilita-
rism, and antiauthoritarianism, flickered briefly and then
died. There was no place for it in the postwar world.
The totally disaffected were won over by the Commu-
nists, who profited by the prestige of the victorious Rus-
sian revolution, and were quick to develop their own
brand of violence, militarism, and authoritarianism..
This was rejected by the vast majority of the German
people.
The nationalist denial of the reality of defeat fared
much better. Not all Germans accepted the crude alibi
of the "stab in the back," but the legend was believed or
half-believed by many, and its appeal grew as memories
of the war faded away. Hindenburg's election as Presi-
-dentin-iviarch -*2.-5-manifested-t-he victory of the myth
of an "undefeated" Germany.
To be sure, the supporters of the Republic?Catho-
lics, Social Democrats, and other moderate groups?did
not accept that myth. But they could not combat it
effectively, since they had no counterphildsophy. They
had to compromise with the traditionalists who con-
trolled the army and the presidency, just as the tradi-
tionalists had to compromise with the representatives of
republican legality, who were still indispensable in the
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 12,5
making of coalition governments and had a firm control
over the administration of Prussia. The existence of the
Weimar Republic depended on this balance between a
traditionalist and nationalist mystique, on the one hand,
and democratic and republican legality, on the other.
The balance was destroyed by the economic crisis of
1929-33 and the rise of Hider.
NEGOTIATING FROM STRENGTH
The refusal of the Germans to realize and digest
defeat in World War I decisively influenced their think-
ing about ending hostilities in World War II. There
was, for example, the official Nazi doctrine that defeat
and capitulation were impossible. But the anti-Nazi op-
position, too, started from the premise that the only
alternative to victory was a negotiated peace. The oppo-
sition, however, rejected not only defeat but also victory.
To them, victory was not only unlikely in view of the
potential strength of the adversary, but unthinkable on
moral grounds.
Among those who regarded a Nazi victory with
moral revulsion were General Beck, Ambassador Ulrich
von Hassell, Carl Gordeler (the former mayor of Leip-
zig), and their associates.' Early in the war, they
des-
perately soughTio esablish contact --with--British__(and_
American) circles, suggesting that they were ready to
remove Hider and then to conclude a moderate peace.'
Germany was to retain Hitler's "peaceful" conquests
such as Austria and the Sudeten region; even the Polish
Corridor was to remain in German possession; but the
"new" Germany would observe international law and
would be a trustworthy partner for the West. The first
feelers of this type were put out in the period of the
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124 FOUR CASE STUDIES
and hence they blamed it on foul play. On the other
hand, there were those to whom. war itself was an abomi-
nation, so that its outcome did not matter to them; they
were impatient to get on with revolutionary socialism,
which would make an end of such horrors as militarism
and war. Both groups refused to recognize the reality
of Germany's defeat or, indeed, that defeat is one of
the eventualities that have to be faced in war.
After the war, the mystique of a complete social
renovation, with its gospel of nonviolence, antimilita-
rism, and antiauthoritarianism, flickered briefly and then
died. There was no place for it in the postwar world.
The totally disaffected were won over by the Commu-
nists, who profited by the prestige of the victorious Rus-
sian revolution, and were quick to develop their own
brand of violence, militarism, and authoritarianism..
This was rejected by the vast majority of the German
people.
The nationalist denial of the reality of defeat fared
much better. Not all Germans accepted the crude alibi
of the "stab in the back," but the legend was believed or
half-believed by many, and its appeal grew as memories
of the war faded away. Hindenburg's election as Presi-
dent in March 1925 manifested the victory of the myth
of an uund-ef et-ed.? -Gernrany ? - - -
To be sure, the supporters of the Republic?Catho-
lics, Social Democrats, and other moderate groups?did
not accept that myth. But they could not combat it
effectively, since they had no counterphilosophy. They
had to compromise with the traditionalists who con-
trolled the army and the presidency, just as the tradi-
tionalists had to compromise with the representatives of
republican legality, who were still indispensable in the
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THE GERMAN SURRENDER 125
making of coalition governments and had a firm control
over the administration of Prussia. The existence of the
Weimar Republic depended on this balance between a
traditionalist and nationalist mystique, on the one hand,
and democratic and republican legality, on the other.
The balance was destroyed by the economic crisis of
1929-33 and the rise of Hider.
NEGOTIATING FROM STRENGTH
The refusal of the Germans to realize and digest
defeat in World War I decisively influenced their think-
ing about ending hostilities in World War II. There
was, for example, the official Nazi doctrine that defeat
and capitulation were impossible. But the anti-Nazi op-
position, too, started from the premise that the only
alternative to victory was a negotiated peace. The oppo-
sition, however, rejected not only defeat but also victory.
To them, victory was not only unlikely in view of the
potential strength of the adversary, but unthinkable on
moral grounds?
Among those who regarded a Nazi victory with
moral revulsion were General Beck, Ambassador Ulrich
von Hassell, Carl Gordeler (the former mayor of Leip-
zig), and their-associates.' Early in the war, they des-
perately sought to establish contact with British (and
American) circles, suggesting that they were ready to
remove Hider and then to conclude a moderate peace.'
Germany was to retain Hitler's "peaceful" conquests
such as Austria :and. the Sudeten region; even the Polish
Corridor was to remain in German possession; but the
new Germany would observe international law and
would be a tru-stworthy partner for the West. The first
feelers of this type were put out in the period of the
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126 FOUR CASE STUDIES
phony war." Since no trial of strength had as yet taken
place between Germany and the Anglo-French coalition,
it is doubtful whether the Allies would have negotiated
on such a basis, even if the opposition had succeeded in
overthrowing Hitler. Neville Chamberlain, who knew
about the ideas of the German opposition, expressed his
interest in purely academic terms.
More than a year later, after France had been
knocked out of the war and Britain isolated, a similar
offer was drafted by Carl GOrdeler and forwarded
through Swiss channels to London. This draft, dated
May 30, 1941, contained the following main peace
terms: Germany was to keep Alsace-Lorraine, the Cor-
ridor and Danzig, Austria, the Sudeten region, and
Memel; all other territories overrun by the German
army were to be evacuated and returned to their prewar
status; Germany was to be given colonies under an in-
ternational mandate system.*
At the time this draft was written, Hitler's position
seemed impregnable. He controlled Europe from the
North Cape to the Aegean and the Pyrenees, and he was
knocking at the gates of Suez. In this situation, Garde-
ler's proposals were moderate enough.' But the war soon
took a fateful turn for Germany with the invasion of
Russia and the attack on Pearl Harbor, which ended
Britain's isolation. A succession of defeats followed the
string of early victories, but the opposition's peace plat-
form remained substantially the same.
A second peace draft by Gordeler, written in the
summer or fall of 1943 (but presumably never trans-
mitted to the West), has been preserved. Its terms
hardly differ from those of the first. Austria, the
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 127
Sudeten region, and the Polish Corridor are still to re-
main German, and even South Tyrol is to be reannexed;
the only major differences are that colonial demands are
dropped and Alsace-Lorraine is to be either divided
along linguistic lines or made independent.'
It appears strange that, at a time when Germany was
dearly losing the war. Gardeler still considered it pos-
sible that the Allies would accept a "Greater Germany."
The explanation for this lies partly in the Great German
mystique that gripped Gordeler and his generation. To
these Germans, it was axiomatic that no German-speak-
ing population could remain outside the national domain.
But Gordeler's terms are further explained by the fact
that he was convinced that the Reich's political bargain-
ing position was still strong enough, despite looming
strategic defeat, to ensure acceptance of his program by
the Allies. Moreover, a new factor had now gained
prominence in the thinking of the opposition: they be-
lieved that the threat of massed Soviet legions in the
east would bring it home to the Western Allies that they
needed Germany as a bulwark against Russian and com-
munist expansion.' Now that military strength alone no
longer afforded _Germany a strong bargaining position,
Gordeler and his group put their hopes in the latent
tension between Russia and the West.
The logic of the situation made it impossible for the
Western powers to insist on Germany's "unconditional
surrender," once Hitler was removed. If Germany
could not expect a negotiated peace on the basis of mili-
tary strength alone, she could still reach the same ob-
jective as a result of the latent tension within the Allied
camp. But this would be possible only if Hitler were
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128 FOUR CASE STUDIES
removed quickly and peace overtures made while the
German military position was still outwardly strong.
After Stalingrad, G8rdeler circulated a memoran-
dum among the German generals whose support he
sought to win for his plans. The main argument of this
paper follows Ludendorff's thesis that when victory
appears impossible, residual military strength must be
used to obtain a negotiated peace, but Got-deler thought
that Ludendorff erred in waiting too long. This mistake
must not be repeated. Referring to the deterioration of
the war situation, Gordeler wrote:
These developments show a fateful parallel with the course
of events from the early summer of 1918 onwards. At that
time, responsible circles in Germany were slow to take this
trend of developments into account. . . . No rationaliza-
tions, no moral alibis [this refers to the "stab in the back"
theory, which Gordeler discusses in a pcsage omitted here],
can relieve a responsible leadership of the duty to draw the
conclusions while there is still time. The example of 1918
teaches us what one must do to avoid missing the right mo-
ment. When a conscientious weighing of the facts leads to
the conclusion that the war can no longer be won and that a
more favorable situation for negotiations can no longer be
brought about, then political action must take the place of
military effort. If the existing political leadership has blocked
all avenues in this direction, it must obviously yield its place.?
If peace were proposed immediately, Gordeler assured
the generals, Germany could count on retaining "the
frontiers of 1914, enlarged by the addition of Austria
and the Sudeten region," on recovering South Tyrol,
and even on exercising hegemony on the Continent.
Only colonies could no longer be bargained for."
In a passionate letter of July 25, 1943, Gardeler
implored Field Marshal von Kluge to strike against
Hitler:
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 129
'Obviously the chances [for a favorable peace] are more diffi-
cult to realize .now than they were a year ago. They can be
exploited only if the politician has sufficient time to act, that
is, if he is not confronted again, as in 1918, with a sudden
military declaration of "no further action possible."
But the chances were definitely not lost.
I have ascertained anew, and assume responsibility for this,
that there is still a possibility of concluding a favorable peace,
if we Germans render ourselves capable of entering into ne-
gotiations.n
For the circle around Beck and GOrdeler, the action
for peace could not start early enough if Germany was
to negotiate from strength. But they were unable to
enlist the active support of the only group that was
strong enough to move against Hitler?the active mili-
tary leadership. Disaffected as the German generals
mostly were, they simply could not bring themselves at
this early stage to do anything that would diminish Ger-
many's chances of military success." For the old-line
generals, action-- against the political leadership became
possible only when they had no doubt that the continu-
ation of the war could only lead to strategic defeat.
In September 1943, Field Marshal, von Kluge, who
had formerly been reluctant to join the conspiracy
against Hitler, came around to this point of view. The
matter was discussed at a meeting in Berlin between
Beck,,Gordeler,.and the Marshal. The British, Gordeler
argued, would not insist on destroying Germany's
might; they must be aware of the necessity of stopping
Russian expansion. Kluge agreed: "It is high time,"
he said, "to act-so as to exploit the military situation.
. . . If an understanding is reached with the Anglo-
Saxons, it is still possible to stabilize the eastern front
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130. FOUR CASE STUDIES
east of the Polish borders and to make it impregnable."
In answer to Gordeler's suggestion that the generals
persuade Hider to resign, Kluge argued in favor of
assassinating the Fiihrer.
This conversation, however, had no practical conse-
quences. Shordy after his return to the eastern front,
Kluge had an automobile accident that immobilized him
for four months. A number of attempts on Hider's life
were made during this time, but none of them suc-
ceeded."
Readiness for action also crystallized among the mil-
itary chiefs on the western front during the weeks .pre-
ceding the Allied landing in Normandy. The landing,
as the generals recognized, would lead to a two-front
war; and in such a war Germany could only lose. To
forestall this, the generals worked out a program for
selective capitulation in the West only.
The details of this venture were described by Gen-
eral Speidel, Field Marshal Rommel's chief of staff."
According to Speidel, in May 1944. Rommel and Gen-
erals von Stillpnagel and von Falkenhausen held a series
of conferences at Rommel's headquarters. A plan was
worked out, outlining the following course of action:
In the West: Definition of the premises under which an
armistice could be concluded with Generals Eisenhower and
Montgomery without participation by Hider. Marshal Rom-
mel thought of sending as his negotiators General K. H. von
Stiilpnagel, General Baron Leo Geyr von Schweppenburg, Lt.-
Gen. Hans Speidel, Lt.-Gen. Count Gerd von Schwerin, Vice-
Admiral Friedrich Ruge, and Lt.-Col. Casar von Hofacker.
The bases foreseen for negotiating an armistice were:
German evacuation of the occupied western territories and
withdrawal behind the Westwall. Surrender of the adminis-
tration of the occupied territories to the Allies. Immediate
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 131
suspension of the 41lied bombing of Germany. Armistice,
not unconditional surrender, followed by negotiations for peace
to bring about order:and prevent chaos. Field Marshal Rom-
mel expected that the Allies would give them such an oppor-
tunity. Appeal to the German people from all radio stations
in the Western Command, frankly revealing the true political
and military situation and its causes, and describing Hitler's
criminal conduct of State affairs. Informing the troops of
the measures necessary to avert a catastrophe.
The Home Front: Arrest of Hider for trial before a
German court by the resistance forces in the High Command
of the Army, or rather by Panzer forces to be brought up for
this purpose. . . .
In the East: Continuation of the fight. Holding a short-
ened line between the mouth of the Danube, the Carpathian
mountains, Lemberg, the Vistula, and the Memel. Immediate
evacuation of Courland (Lithuania) and other "fortresses.'
The essential elements of this plan closely paralleled
Gordeler's conception. Here, too, the basic idea was
that, once Germany got rid of Hider, the Allies would
be ready to grant her favorable terms and would wel-
come active German assistance against the communist
peril. On the method to be followed, too, the generals
adhered to the Ludendorff-GOrdeler line. An armistice
was to be proposed before the invasion began. "For all
negotiations," Speidel says, "a firm western front was
a prerequisite. The stability of the western front was,
therefore, our constant concern.""
The generals' plan eventua lly came to nothing;
there is no evidence that they even attempted to contact
General Eisenhower, and they did nothing to arrest and
try Hider. All Roinmel did was to send an "ultimative"
memorandum to Hitler on July 15, calling on him to
"draw the conclusions" from the fact that the war was
lost." Kluge was now in the West, having succeeded
Rundstedt as commander in chief. As we have seen, he
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132 FOUR CASE STUDIES
had actively joined the conspiracy a few months earlier.
Summoned by the conspirators to act, he declined, saying
that he was not sure whether his subordinates would obey
him."
SELECTIVE SURRENDER
The military catastrophes of the summer of 1944.
(the Allied breakthrough in France and the simultane-
ous rupture of the eastern front in Poland) had a shat-
tering effect on the opposition. They destroyed the basis
of Gordeler's conception, negotiation from strength. In
terms of his theory, it was too late to act. On July 12
Beck told one of the conspirators, Gisevius, that he
thought the right moment for attacking Hitler had been
missed. Germany's total occupation could no longer be
prevented."
Before these military disasters it had been hard for
the Beck-Gordeler circle to recognize that hostilities
could only be ended on the basis of surrender. This had
been clear to Gisevius since long before mid-1944: he
did not believe that the Allied demand for "uncondi-
tional surrender" could be disregarded. For him, then,
the only possibility was to make the surrender as "selec-
tive" as possible, by sucking the Allies into German ter-
ritory before the Russians entered." In the spring of
1944, Beck and Gordeler finally came around to the same
position. They tried to find out through Gisevius, who
had contacts with Allen W. Dulles in Switzerland,
whether the Americans would accept unilateral surrender
from an anti-Nazi German government." The con-
spirators may have thought that the Allies' attitude
toward Germany would change after a new German gov-
ernment offered capitulation to them. They contem-
- ------- ------,
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 133
plated making an offer of active military help to the
Allies, including, assistance for the landing of parachute
troops in Germany. This is how Ritter sums up the situa-
tion:
It is dear that th?e.leaders of the opposition were now [spring,
1944] virtually ready to accept the formula of "unconditional
surrender" vis-?is the Western powers, confident, to be sure,
that sober political reason would overcome the stark will to
destruction in the latter's camp and that the common interest
in preserving Weiterzi civilization would assert itself and save
the German state from total destruction. They evidently had
in mind, not an armistice with a shortened western front line
. . . but a kind of merger of German and Anglo-Saxon units,
or at least immediate occupation of Germany from the west,
before the Red armies had overrun Poland and reached the
Reich's borders. Peace negotiations were then to follow be-
tween victors and vanquished, but with a new German govern-
ment to whom the victors would owe a substantial shortening
of the final phase of hostilities, and whom they had pledged
to recognize.
22
In the end, then, the German opposition did work
out a terminal strategy of "disarming" the winner. But
the strategy could not be applied because of the failure
of the coup against Hitler. Even if the coup had been
successful, it is uncertain how much the strategy of "dis-
arming" would have achieved. The Allies?were unwill-
ing to recognize any latent conflict of interests with Soy*
Russia. Their reaction to the German opposition's earlier
appeals, appeals that had made much of the danger of
bolshevization,. had been completely negative.
- AN EASTERN SOLUTION?
Because of this unyielding stand of the Western
Allies, the idea of offering selective surrender to Soviet
Russia instead emerged in the circles of the German op-
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134
FOUR CASE STUDIES
position. Adam von Trott zu Solz warned Allen Dulles
that the German opposition, if rebuffed by the West,
would seek to establish contacts with Russia." Gisevius
judged that part of the opposition movement was East-
ern- rather than Western-oriented: he considered Stauf-
fenberg, Trott, and some others to be exponents of the
pro-Soviet wing." According to Rothfels, however,
neither Stauffenberg nor Trott had in mind a rapproche-
ment with Soviet Russia. Rather, they were thinking
about a natural solidarity between oppressed Germans
and Russians, united in a common struggle against their
totalitarian masters (and also against the Western bour-
geoisie)."
On a more practical basis, some of the conservative
members of the opposition, such as Gordeler and Has-
sell, weighed the possibility of playing off Russia against
her Western partner. In the autumn of 1943, when
Ribbentrop's emissary, Peter Kleist, was having talks
with Soviet agents on Russian peace feelers," Gordeler,
Hassell, and Schulenburg, the former German ambassa-
dor in Moscow, had a conference in Berlin, where the
possibility of negotiating with Stalin was discussed."
Schulenburg said that the ties between Soviet Russia and
the West were not insoluble, and that Stalin was a cold
ca
lculntorwh would decide on. the basis of what was
offered him. In the end, however, the conspirators re-
jected the Russian alternative. For one thing, they did
not believe in the possibility of permanent cooperation
with the Communists." For another, their orientation
was basica Hy pro-Western.
In the eyes of the Social Democratic members of the
conspiracy, nothing but a pro-Western orientation was
acceptable. According to Allen Dulles,
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 133
Around'Christmas of 1942, Carlo Mierendorff, Theodor'Hati=
bach and Emil Henk, Social Democrats of long standing and
members of the Kreisau circle ,met at a spa in the Bavarian
mountains. . . . According to' Emil Henk, these Social Demo-
crats decided to influence their felloW.conspiratori to-Poapone
Hitler's assassination until the American and British armies
had established themselves:on the Continent and, at least, could
compete with the East for the domination of Germany. Mie-
rendorlif was delegated to persuade Lenschner[a Social Demo-
crat], and Moltke was -chOSen to talk the. matter Over with
Beck [formerly Chief of the ,General Staff]. Leuschner a-
greed, though he saw the danger of delay. . . Beck's re-
action is not known, but since an attempt was made on the
life of the Fiihrer early in 1943, it seems' likely that he aid
Giirdeler favored getting rid of Hitler andletting the chips fall
where they may."
THE DILEMMA OF TIMING
Looking back on the sequence of events that culmi-
nated in the ill-fated coup of July 2.01 1944, with its
frightful sequel of repression that wiped out virtually
the entire group of conspirators, we have to conclude that
the original platform of the conspiracy, peace without
victors and vanquished, had very little chance of succesS".
When the Reich was winning, it was too early to strike:
the old-line soldiers, as well as the bulk of the people)
would havebeen horrified at the idea of depriving the
Reich of a possible victory -because the regime was
morally-obj ectionable:?For?these_people,-action -to-stop _
the war was thinkable only when there could be no doubt
that further Military actioti' Could-not Ipi-eYent strategic
defeat. Moving in this.direction'while thereaS Stillthe
slightest chance- of establishing military equilibrium
could only expose the antiwar group to charges of high
treason. But on-the other hand, if Germany waited until
her last chance of averting defeat tvaS gone, it woUld.be
_
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136 FOUR CASE STUDIES
no longer possible to bargain for moderate .peace terms,
and the opposition would be saddled with the odium of
having obtained a destructive peace.
The opposition tried- various methods to escape this
dilemma. The Gordeler-Beck group sought originally
to obtain assurances from the Allies that favorable peace
terms would be granted to a new German government.
Had they been given such assurances, this would have
diminished the political risks of turning against the home
government in mid-war. But after 1941, the entire na-
ture of the war changed: it became so big that it could be
waged only in total fashion, with victory as the only pos-
sible objective. One of the go-betweens through whom
Gordeler maintained some liaison with British cirdes, the
Swedish banker Jakob Wallenberg, repeatedly told him
that it was futile to insist on coming to terms with the
Allies before attempting a coup. The only possible
course of action was to go ahead and then see how the
Allies would act."
An alternative course of action was to argue that in
the judgment of the military experts the war was already
lost. The Kluge-Rommel combination of 1943-44 was
based on this premise. The dissident generals of the
western front thought of acting on Clausewitz's advice
to avoid a battle that one was certain to lose. But the
psychological situation, as Kluge discovered, did not per-
mit such a rational procedure: the army was saturated
with Nazi elements who put Hitler's "intuition" above
sober military judgment. One could not argue, let alone
act, on the premise of defeat until it was an inescapable
fact.
The timing of the coup, it seems, was as bad as it
could have been. Had the conspirators launched a suc-
cessful coup before the landing, they would have been
THE GERMAN SURRENDER
137
more vulnerable to charges of a "stab in the back," but
their success might have had a considerable "disarming"
effect on the Allies. Had the coup been postponed until
after the breakthrough at Avranches, the opposition's
bargaining position with the Allies would have been very
weak and an armistice could have been negotiated only
on the basis of unconditional surrender, but at least it
would have been dear to the army and the people that
the war was already irretrievably lost.
THE FINAL SURRENDERS
Selective Resistance
Hitler's military orders during the last stage of the
war monotonously repeated the same slogan: no retreat,
no surrender, fight to the last man from fixed positions.
This was extremely galling to the army leaders, whom it
deprived of all freedom of movement. Runcistedt's
chief of staff described his superior's state of mind in the
following terms:
We have seen that Rundstedt, the oldest officer in the Army,
by no means possessed freedom of action; nor could he have
managed to gain it. Everyone who knew him knows how
much suffering this ca- used him, how it robbed him of rest and
sleep to have to stand by in impotent rage while blunder was
piled on blunder, while our last powers of aggressive action
were wasted in an offensive with the wrong objective. He
often trembled with emotion when his proposals, carefully
thought out and based on long experience, were turned down
by the OKW and he was forced into impracticable and damag-
ing action."
Rundstedtis?state of mind was far from unique. In-
deed all generals of the old school shared it. Relations
between Hider_and the German professional military
leaders had never been good. Throughout the war, Hit-
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138 FOUR CASE STUDIES
ler had inskted not only on laying down the lines of
Germany's grand strategy but also on prescribing opera-
tional and even tactical details. This created a good deal
of tension even while Germany's military situation was
favorable and relations between Hitler and the military
chiefs were outwardly correct." After the attempt on
Hidees life on July 20) I9447in which a number of high
officers were implicated, Hitler's hatred of the profes-
sional military erupted with destructive fury. From then
on, his attitude, even toward those who had not been in-
volved in the plot, was one of contempt and distrust; all
were incompetent, and potential traitors to boot.
As Germany's strength was ebbing away and enor-
mously superior forces were hammering at the Wehr-
macht from two sides, the military leaders found them-
selves in an unbearable situation. Hitler peremptorily
ordered them to carry out impossible operations with
none-rictent forces. To remonstrate was useless, if not
suicidal. All that the mortally wounded army could do
was to fight on against impossible odds. Even when the
defense lines of the Reich itself were breathed in east
and. west ( January 1945), Hitler would not recognize
that the time had come to liquidate military operations.
The High Comm2nd's orders to hold the line at all
costs made no distinction between the eastern and west-
ern fronts, and until the end of March the pattern of
resist-Pnre was SimilPr in east and west. After the begin-
ning of April, however, the picture changed. The Allies'
advance from the west into southern and central Ger-
mpny became a walkover, while the battered German
forces continued their all-out effort to stem the advance
of the Russian forces from the east and southeast.
The following excerpts from the U.S. Army's offi-
THE GERMAN'SURRENDER 139
cial history of the European theater thrcitv: light on what
happened on the -western front: '
The campaign from i April until' the end of the war is
likely to be cited frequently in the' future because it is replete
with perfect "book" solutions td military problems. It was
possible in most, cases for commanders to set missions for their
forces, allot troops and supplies, and know that their phase lines
would. be reached. Only when objectives were taken far be-
fore the hour chosen were the' timetables upset By its very
nature,, therefore, the great pursuit across central Germany
may mislead the student who attempts to draw lessons of value
for future campaigns. Allied superiority in quality of troops,
mobility, air power, materiel, and morale was such that only
a duplication of the deterioration of enemy forces such as that
which existed in April, 1945 would again make possible the
type of slashing attack that developed. . . .
The enemy fell apart but waited to be overrun. A Ger-
man high command virtually ceased to exist and even regimen-
tal headquarters had difficulty in knowing the dispositions of
their troops or the situation on their flanks. In those instances
where unit commanders still received Hitler's messages to hold
their positions, they tended to ignore them as having little re-
lationship to the realities of their situation. Expedients such
as the calling up of V olkssturm units proved futile. These
last hopes of Hitler's army readily laid down their arms except
in a few cases where their resistance was stiffened by SS ele-
ments. And the general public, which might have furnished
cadres for guerrilla warfare proved uninterested in partisan
activities. Near the war's end, civilians in many cities sent word
that they were ready to surrender and asked that bloodless-en---
tries be made into their towns. . . .
In the eighteen dais required to close and. destroy the Ruhr
Pocket the Allied forces north and south of that area roared
on to the Elbe, often against no opposition. . . . Apparently
feeling that they could not stem the tide, the Germans in most
sectors made a half-hearted resistance and then merely waited
until the flood rolled over them."
During the same period the situation on the eastern
front developed along different lines. The Russians
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140 FOUR CASE STUDIES
massed strong forces between the Baltic and the lower
Neisse for a final breakthrough. On April is near
Kiistrin they began to attack the German Ninth Army,
which they hopelessly outnumbered and outmatched in
heavy equipment. But the defenders, according to a
German war historian, "spent their last ounce of strength
to stop the assault west of the Oder." It took the Rus-
sians three days to complete their breakthrough. Fur-
ther south, on the lower Neisse, Konev attacked on
April 16; he achieved his breakthrough in one day and
moved on to envelop the desperately fighting Ninth
Army from the rear. In the north, the German Third
Panzer Army, anchored on the lower Oder, was attacked
by Marshal Rokossovski's troops on April 2 I . No break-
through was achieved for several days."
How can we explain the contrast in German military
behavior between the western and eastern fronts? For
one thing, the discrepancy in strength between the Ger-
man forces and their opponents was far greater in the
west. There the Allies had an abundance of every-
thing?fresh troops, weapons, transport, motor fuel, air
support. The Russian forces were exhausted from the
grinding offensives and forced marches of the preceding
months; their air arm was far weaker than that of the
?western Allies. But in addition to this, a psychological
factor played a significant part. Russian penetration ap-
peared as the supreme disaster to all Germans, soldiers
and civilians alike. Also, whereas at the end German
soldiers welcomed rather than feared Allied captivity,
they dreaded being taken prisoner by the Russians. As
Field Marshal Kesselring put it, "The German front-
line fighter, who was always fearless as long as he had
weapons in his hands, literally trembled at the thought
of falling into Russian captivity.""
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 141
It was pointless for Germany to continue military
operations once her strategic defeat had been consum-
mated. From a purely military point of view, holding
actions in east and west were equally irrational. More-
over, it was impossible for Germany to trade the aban-
donment of last-ditch resistance for political concessions
that would make her surrender something less than un-
conditional. Yet Hitler's orders forced the military to
continue resietance as long as the German command
structure remained intact. When this structure began to
disintegrate in April, military resistance became increas-
ing a matter of the soldiers' and officers' attitudes toward
the enemy. Stopping the Russians became a blind, des-
perate reflex action, imposed by the terrifying image of
Russian control. The Germans' image of the Western
Allies was not terrifying and hence did not generate such
reflexes. This distinction in the minds of Germans mani-
fested itself impressively in civilian behavior. In the
west, German civilians begged their military defenders to
let the Allies take their towns without resistance. In the
east, they fled en masse before the approaching Russians.
These civilian attitudes influenced local commanders and
contributed to the contrast between eastern and western
patterns of resistance.
Furthermore, during the terminal stage the highest
German officers in the west, the theater and army group
commanders, adopted a practice for which there was no
parallel in the east: they initiated the liquidation of hos-
tilities, mostly by capitulation agreements.
Piecemeal Surrenders
The first large German force to wind up resistance
en masse was Army Group B, commanded by Field Mar-
shal Model. This group, with a total strength of over
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?42 FOUR OASE'SruDIES
300,000 men,' was located in the Ruhr region; Germany's
industrial heart. A double envelopment by Allied forces
resulted in the encirclement 'of Army Group B on
April -I, 1945. The German commander, intent on pin-
ning down' large Allied forces as long as possible, refused
to capitulate, but he offered feeble resistance. On
April 14, the American Ninth Army cut the Ruhr pocket
in two. The' German High Command ordered Army
Group B to break out of the pocket, but this was dearly
impracticable in view of the military situation. What
followed is described in the official United States Army
history:
With defeat obviously a few days or hours away, the Germans
adopted a novel procedure to avoid formal capitulation. On
the morning of 17 April, they announced the dissolution of
Army Group B. The extremely young and the very old soldiers
were dismissed from the service and told to return home. The
remaining officers and men were told they could- stay to be
overrun and then surrender, could try to make their way home
in uniform or civilian clothes, and without weapons or try to
break through to another front. Field Marshal Model thus
did not have to take responsibility for a surrender. He disap-
peared from the scene shortly thereafter and no trace of him
was subsequently found, although members of his staff testi-
Red that he committed suicide.
Even before these events, however, Field Marshal
Kesselring, theater commander in Italy, had initiated
formal capitulation talks with the Allies. The account
he gives of this action in his memoirs shows that he found
a way to reconcile the principle of unwavering loyalty
to the Fiihrer with the military expediency of capitulat-
ing when the situation demanded it. Capitulation, he
says, is primarily in the domain of the political decision
maker. No army leader has the right to initiate the ter-
mination of hostilities as long as he has forces capable of
THE. GERMAN SURRENDER 143
fighting. On the other hand, he, Kesselring, was fully
justified in authorizing his subordinate, SS General
Wolff, to initiate capitulation talks with American rep-
resentatives in Switzerland in the autumn of 1944 with-
out informing the OKW (but reporting the, step to
Hitler after it was made). This had to be done, Kessel-
ring says, since he came to the conclusion that "the war
had to be terminated through diplomatic and political
channels." Wolff's negotiations were not meant to initi-
ate the surrender of Kesselring's front sector; nothing
so crude as that. -They constituted "help for the political
leadership in getting into a negotiatory situation."" ,
By the end of April, 1945, Wolff's negotiations were
concluded, and on the 28th Kesselring, now commander
in chief in the West, was summoned by his former sub-
ordinates to Innsbruck in order to approve the agree-
ments made. At a conference in the house of Gauleiter
Hofer of Tyrol, General von Vietinghoff, commander
in chief in the Southwest, and Ambassador Rahn put the
question of surrender to Kesselring. Wolff himself could
not attend: he had been detained by partisans. Vieting-
hoff apparently dared not tell the Marshal that the
agreements had already been initialed and that the ques-
tion of capitulation was no longer open; he argued
merely that capitulation was necessary. Kesselring, how-
ever, not being fully informed about the situation, for-
bade the capitulation. This led to tragicomic complica-
tions. Kesselring- relieved Vietinghoff and his chief of
staff of their command and ordered their arrest; the
deposed officers in their turn arrested their successors.
Finally, Kesselring restored Vietinghoff to his position
and authorized the signing of the capitulation agreement
to take effect on May 2, 1945."
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144 FOUR CASE STUDIES
Further piecemeal surrenders on the southern front
followed during the next few days. General Schulz,
commander of Army Group G, sent General FOrtsch to
Munich for capitulation talks with Generals Devers,
Patch, and Haislip. An instrument of surrender was
signed on May 5, to take effect the next day." Also on
the 5th, General Brandenberger surrendered his Nine-
teenth Army at Innsbruck."
Nothing resembling these piecemeal surrenders oc-
curred where the German forces faced Russians. On the
contrary, as we shall see, a German army continued to
fight in Czechoslovakia even after the official surrender
of all German forces on May 7.
Efforts of Nazi Leaders to Surrender
Hitler reportedly told Rommel some time before
February-, 1944: "The war is lost; nobody will conclude
Peace with Yet he ruled out the possibility of
capitulation. He adopted the position that the German
people, having suirered defeat, no longer had the right
to exist. The only alternative to complete victory was
complete annihilation. In his last public speech, on
November 8, 1943, Hitler expressed this idea quite
dearly.
Accordingly, when the enemy entered German terri-
tory, Hitler ordered the total destruction of all installa-
tions that might fall into enemy hands. Hitler's Min-
ister of Supplies, Albert Speer, challenged this order.
Hitler thereupon summoned him (March 18, 1945)
and told him:
If the war is to be lost, the nation also will perish. This fate
is inevitable. There is no need to consider the basis even of a
most primitive existence any longer. On the contrary, it is
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 145
better to destroy even that, and to destroy it ourselves. The.
nation has proved itself weak, and the future belongs solely
to the stronger Eastern nation.42
Now, it was characteristic of the last stage of the war
that practically nobody in Germany thought either of
putting into effect Hitler's peremptory order of national
suicide or of removing him from authority. The repres-
sion after the July 20 coup left the field to the Nazis and
their docile instruments. These people would never
have thought-of openly disobeying the Fithrer, still less
of combating or killing him. Almost to a man, how-
ever, they parted company with Hitler on the latter's
policy of national self-destruction. They chose survival.
Speer himself quietly sabotaged Hitler's scorched-earth
order. Others, closer to the center of power, took on
themselves the responsibility for preparing for surrender
behind Hitler's back.
On April 2) SS General Schellenberg, a member of
Hinunler's staff, asked Count Folke Bernadotte, head of
the Swedish Red Cross, who was then in Germany in
connection with matters concerning Scandinavian pris-
oners of war, whether he would transmit an offer of
capitulation to General Eisenhower. Count Bernadotte
was unable to act on this offer because Schellenberg
lacked the necessary authorizations. Later, on April 23,
Himmler himself_met Count Bernadotte at the Swedish
consulate at Liibeck. He made an offer of capitulation
on the western front only.. The offer was transmitted by
diplomatic channels to Prime Minister Churchill, who in
turn relayed it to Pres- ident Truman. The President
rejected the offer-on the grounds that only unconditional
surrender on all fronts simultaneously was acceptable."
Himmler's independent move for capitulation was
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146 FOUR CASE STUDIES
facilitated by the fact that Hitler had retired into the
bunker beneath the Reich chancellery in Berlin,?ivhence
he could not effectively supervise the dispersed Nazi
chiefs. GOring, who left Berlin on April 20 for the Ober-
salzberg near Berchtesgaden, assumed full governmental
powers on the 23rd as Hitler's designated successor. He
apparently thought that Hitler himself, in a message
conveyed by word of mouth, had expressly authorized
this step and empowered him to liquidate the war. But
when Goring demanded confirmation of his new status
by radio, Hitler exploded and ordered his arrest as a
traitor."
The Ddnitz Regime and Global Surrender
Germany's global surrender on all fronts was con-
summated on the basis of Nazi legality. Before com-
mitting suicide on April 303 Hider appointed as his suc-
cessor Admiral DOnitz, the head of the navy. Receiving
news of his appointment on the day of Hitler's death,
DOnitz, ignorant of the Fiihrer's suicide, replied by tele-
gram, pledging his unconditional loyalty and promising
to continue the war "to an end worthy of the unique,
heroic struggle of the German people."" On May I,
having been officially informed of Hider's death, DOnitz
addressed by radio a solemn proclamation to the German
people. Hitler had "fallen," "fighting at the head of his
troops." DOnitz, now commander in chief of all
branches of the Wehrmacht, would "continue the strug-
gle against 'Bolshevism until the fighting troops and the
hundreds of thousands of families in Eastern Germany
have been preserved from destruction." Against the
British and Americans, he said, he "must" wage war "as
long as they hinder me in the prosecution of the fight
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 147
against Bolshevism." The people, then, had to render
DOnitz "unconditional service." "He who now shirks his
duty . ? . is a coward and traitor?"'
The language used by Donitz dearly indicates that
he, too, had mastered the secret of reconciling impeccable
Nazi orthodoxy with a strong resolution to avoid self-
immolation. In his proclamation he spoke only of con-
tinuing the struggle, but the qualifying clauses he added
dearly indicated his real objective: selective surrender
to the West.
One of Diinitz's aides, Walter Liidde-Neurath, has
written an eyewitness account of the Admiral's one-week
regime." It appears that, on taking office, DOnitz and his
associates were thinking about the possibility of ending
resistance without a formal act of capitulation. Should
one offer surrender or just cease fighting? According to
Didde-Neurath, this question gave rise to "grave con-
flicts of conscience." Both unconditional surrender and
the cessation of combat without a formal agreement
would have the same practical consequences; they would
be "frightful."
But was it not possible to avoid giving our assent to what would
happen? Was it not our duty to raise a last solemn and empha-
tic protest against destiny? Had we not cried "Never!" time
and again, sometimes with passionate conviction? . . . What
did a few moi-e weeks, some additional sacrifices, matter?
Would History not render a magnificent and consoling homage
?a homage which ultimately would bear fruit?to our refusal
to capitulate? . . . Would the signing ?the act of surrender
not be interpreted as a manifestation of weakness, of personal
cowardice? Would the names of the signatories?as had al-
ready happened once before?not be forever dishonored in Ger-
man history? 48
These questions greatly worried DOnitz; he reached
his decision only after a "painful struggle." Lildcle-
-
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148 FOUR CASE STUDIES
Neurath's account of the factors that affected this deci-
sion is psychologically revealing. Donitz, he says, origi-
nally thought of seeking death in action. He never
thought of suicide; that would have been tantamount to
an admission of guilt. Had the end of the war still found
him at the head of the navy, he would have managed to
die in battle, ordering the fleet to surrender but person-
ally sailing against the enemy and firing away until he
was killed, thus expiating the "crime" of surrender. But
when he acquired "the right and freedom to decide on
general capitulation," he gave up the idea. For then
"personal" considerations could no longer interfere with
the performance of his duty." Apparently, then, under
the code to which Donitz subscribed, offering surrender,
or even the mere thought of it, was a fault for which
death alone could atone. But this principle applied only
to subordinates. It was not necessary for the supreme
leader to propitiate history by death, even when he de-
cided that capitulation was necessary. The leader could
determine with impunity that certain national objectives
could best be attained by capitulation; in subordinates,
such thoughts were criminal.
For Donitz, the problem was to achieve the painful
ascent from the underling's to the leader's mentality.
When he finally managed it, he also discovered some
national objectives to which explicit capitulation (but
capitulation to the West only) was relevant. To be sure,
the grand objective, that of splitting the enemy coalition,
was unattainable: the Allies would never stand by to let
him combat Bolshevism, no matter how hard he fought
them. But selective capitulation still offered a tangible
advantage. It made it possible for the German soldiers
facing the Russians and for the civilians fleeing from ter-
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 149
ritories occupied or threatened by Russian troops to readh
a haven behind the screen of the line of demarcation.
This salvaging action could be carried on only if hostili-
ties were terminated along the Anglo-American front
but not on the Russian front, so that a continuous stream
of fugitives could pass across the stabilized Anglo-
American lines. Hence, DEinitz hastened to end hostili-
ties with the West by explicit surrender before weapons
had to be laid down on the Russian front too.
With this in mind, D8nitz fully approved Kessel-
ring's capitulation talks with the Americans in the south-
ern theater. The U.S. Army history has summed up the
Admiral's viewpoint as follows:
Demitz said he felt the Germans should be pleased every time
U.S. and British forces, rather than Soviet forces, occupied a
part of Germany. He agreed that the over-all situation de-
manded capitulation on all fronts, but held that the Germans
should not consider it at the moment since it would mean de-
livering most of the forces east of the Elbe to the Russians."
On May 2, Donitz took the initiative for the surren-
der en bloc of the German forces facing Field Marshal
Montgomery's group of armies in northwestern Ger-
many. Although this was a large-scale capitulation, it
was still part of a piecemeal pattern. In keeping with
his basic idea of-saving as many German troops as pos-
sible from Russian captivity, Donitz wanted to yield to
Montgomery a-number of German units then fighting
the Russians east of the Elbe. Montgomery dedined
this offer and also refused to grant authorization for
civilian refugees to cross the Allied lines. He agreed,
however, that German soldiers of any unit would be ac-
cepted as prisoners of war if they surrendered individu-
ally. Otherwise, the surrender was to be unconditional."
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150 FOUR CASE STUDIES
Ail weapons, including naval ones, were to be handed
over in serviceable condition.
Characteristically, General Jodi, chief of staff of the
High Command, rebelled against this last provision: it
was incompatible with German "honor." He urged the
immediate destruction of all equipment. But Schwerin
von Krosigk, Donitz's foreign minister, counseled against
the destruction of weapons, arguing that it would cause
the negotiations to collapse, invite reprisals, and lead to
the dosing of the escape routes to the west." In Liidde-
Neurath's words: "With heavy heart, D8nitz decided to
accept this condition as well, realizing fully that he alone
would bear the responsibility for it before history, and
that no subordinate who, contrary to military tradition,
surrendered his arms intact would incur any blame.""
On May 4 the agreement for capitulation in the
northwest was signed, and it took effect the next day. It
then became necessary to start talks with General Eisen-
hower about the surrender of the entire Wehrmacht.
Donitz tried at first to make the surrender selective, af-
fecting only the troops facing the Western Allies. On
May 5, his emissary, Admiral von Friedeburg, made a
proposal in this sense when he arrived at SHAEF head-
quarters at Rheims. Eisenhower refused to discuss sur-
render on this basis. Only unconditional surrender on
all fronts simultaneously was acceptable. All arms, ships,
and airplanes would have to be handed over intact; the
troops would stay where they were. In case of violation,
there would be reprisals. Friedeburg, not authorized to
treat on this basis, radioed Donitz for instructions.
Donitz refused to give in and sent a new representative,
General Jodl, to continue the talks in Friedeburg's place.
Jodl's instructions were unchanged; Donitz flatly re-
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THE GERMAN SURRENDER 151
fused to "deliver the troops standing on the eastern
front to the Russians."" Eisenhower then threatened to
break off the talks and seal the zonal frontier against all
traffic. There was nothing D8nitz could do but comply
with the Allied demands. A capitulation agreement was
signed on May 6, with cease-fire fixed for midnight on
May 8.
The negotiation tactic followed by Donitz was
mainly designed togain time for his salvaging operation.
DOnitz ordered-all commanders on the eastern front to
"do everything possible short of violating truce terms
to reach the lines of the western powers.'85 Accordingly,
the few days preceding the Rheims meeting and the
forty-eight-hour delay between the signing of the capitu-
lation agreement and the cease-fire were feverishly ex-
ploited on the eastern front. For example, on May 4,
General Wenck, commander of an eastern front sector,
offered to surrender his troops, 100,000 strong, to the
American Ninth Army; he also requested permission for
civilian refugees to cross the Elbe. The American com-
mander, General Simpson, refused to sign a formal
agreement along these lines, but he agreed to accept Ger-
man prisoners qindividually." With this assurance the
main body of Wenck's forces crossed the Elbe and sur-
rendered. Many civilians also were able to cross the lines
(the ban was not strictly enforced)." All in all, two and
a half to three million German soldiers and civilians
escaped from the path of the Russians during Donitz's
brief tenure." -
No salvaging operation was possible before the cease-
fire for the German forces fighting in Czechoslovakia
under Field Marshal Schorner because there were no
western forces in the neighborhood. Accordingly, these
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152 FOUR CASE STUDIES
troops continued to fight even after V-E Day. On
May io, General Eisenhower ordered Donitz "to insure
prompt compliance of these commanders [i.e., those in
Czechoslovakia] to cease fire." Simultaneously, Eisen-
hower directed all troops under his command to imprison
German soldiers coming from the fighting area and hand
them over to the Russians as violators of the Act of
Capitulation." D5nitz thereupon had to tell the Ger-
man commanders involved that the salvaging operation
ordered by him could not go on once the capitulation had
entered into effect. This being the case, nothing re-
mained for them to do but to surrender to the Russians
after all. SchOrner, however, "warned that virtually no
order would make his troops leave their comrades behind
or voluntarily surrender to the Red forces, and that it
would also be difficult to control them if they were at-
tacked by Czechoslovak partisans."" Prague fell to
Czechoslovak partisans and Russian troops on May 12)
and after that German military resistance ceased.
EVALUATION AND CONCLUSIONS
Germany's surrender was the only surrender in
World War II that was strictly unconditional on the face
of it. The Germans were unable to achieve any "disarm-
ing" effect during the terminal stage of hostilities. A
revolutionary transformation of the German regime
might have achieved such an effect, but the Nazi ruling
group succeeded in warding off all efforts to this end.
Alternatively, the Germans might have tried to obtain
political concessions from the Western powers by using
their residual strength as a bargaining asset. This, how-
ever, was also impossible, not only because of the enor-
mous disparity of force between Germany and the West,
THE GERMAN SURRENDER 153
but also because' the Germans felt compelled to concen-
trate their last remaining strength on desperate attempts
to stem the Russian advance.
There was a third factor from which the Germans
expected to derive political advantage: the latent politi-
cal differences between Soviet Russia and the West. Ex-
ploiting these differences remained the focal point of
their surrender policy to the end. Their terminal objec-
tive was to liquidate hostilities in the west, in the form
of unconditional surrender if necessary, but at the same
time to obtain the tacit acquiescence of the Western Allies
to their continuing resistance in the east. It was expected
that the Western Allies would find this policy attractive
because they had every reason to oppose Russian pene-
tration into Central Europe.
This calculation by no means lacked foundation in
fact. The United Nations coalition was heterogeneous,
and losing powers facing heterogeneous coalitions some-
times do escape political disaster when the enemy coali-
tion falls apart before the war ends. But in Germany's
case, things did not work out this way. In spite of the
latent divergence of their interests, the Western powers
and Soviet Russia were anxious to maintain their coali-
tion. The Western Allies steadfastly resisted all tempta-
tion to countenance Germany's plan of limiting the war
to one front. This policy was greatly facilitated by the
Allies' ingrained habit of looking at the war from an ex-
clusively military point of view. Nothing was allowed
to interfere with the unique objective of defeating the
enemy.
If the Western Allies' realization of the latent con-
flict of interests within the United Nations coalition
played any role in the terminal stage, it must have rein-
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154 FOUR CASE STUDIES
forced rather than counteracted their determination to
weaken Germany as much as possible. Since each side of
the coalition feared that the other side might someday
capture Germany as an auxiliary, both sides agreed that
the weaker Germany became, the better. The terminal
political behavior of the coalition partners suggests a
tacit compromise of this kind.
Germany, then, was not able to exploit her enemies'
intracoalition difficulties in the grand manner. Yet her
attempt to surrender to the West alone had a measure
of success. The United Nations' formula that surrender
had to be global and simultaneous for Germany's eastern
and western forces could not be enforced. Instead, the
surrender was carried out piecemeal over a period of
weeks and remained one-sided until the cease-fire took
effect. The Germans thus succeeded in entering into
some sort of political interaction with the Allies during
the terminal stage. This interaction took place, not in the
form of negotiations, but purely in terms of behavior.
From the Western Allies' point of view, the final capitu-
lations of the German forces were a purely military mat-
ter, but for the Germans they had political significance.
Their purpose was to suck the Allied forces into German
territory, denying as much of it as possible to the Rus-
sians. Of course, how much German territory would
ultimately be occupied by the Russians had been deter-
mined at Yalta, and the Germans' military behavior had
no effect on this issue. But another political objective of
the selective surrenders?the rescuing of German com-
batants and civilians from Russian control?was largely
attained. Unconditional as it was, Germany's surrender
did produce a small political dividend.
Six
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER
August 1945
THE STRATEGIC BACKGROUND
In a war waged according to the formula of divergent
attrition, Japan's defeat at the hands of the United States
was a foregone conclusion. To such men as Marquis
Kido, Keeper of the Privy Seal (who later played a cru-
cial role in bringing the war to a conclusion), this was
dear almost from the beginning.' For civilian politicians
like Yoshida and Kido, the Battle of Midway ( June 7,
1942) was already an alarm signal.' Later, in 1943, the
armed services themselves began to be worried about the
trend of attrition. In September, Rear Admiral Takagi,
acting on orders, began a systematic study of the war
situation based_on material in secret army and navy files.
The study was- finished in March 1944, when Takagi
reached the crushing conclusion that Japan could not pos-
sibly win. Her losses of shipping, both naval and com-
mercial, were prohibitive. She could no longer import
essential raw -materials or defend her cities against air
attacks. Hencc, the only course open to the country was
to seek a compromise peace.'
Takagi's conclusions, of course, were known only to
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FOUR CASE STUDIES
a small cirde. In July 1944, however, the fall of Saipan
convinced even those who had been hitherto optimistic
that defeat was inevitable. One of the immediate re-
sults of the loss of Saipan was the resignation of Premier
Tojo, who had committed himself irrevocably to an all-
out pursuit of the war and would not tolerate any talk
about peace.
The fall of Saipan marked the beginning of the ter-
minal stage of the Japanese war, for after that event the
only question was when and how the war would be liqui-
dated. The process of ending the war, however, was
agonizingly long and arduous. The supreme political
leadership in Japan, unlike the Nazi leadership in Ger-
many, was willing enough to terminate the war on. al-
most any terms. But its efforts in this direction were con-
stantly hampered by a dose-knit and extremely powerful
group of prowar fanatics in the armed services, particu-
larly the army officers' corps. Members of this group
were determined to remove, if necessary by assassination,
any political officeholder who took steps to end the war.
The extreme war objectives of the United Nations con-
stituted another formidable difficulty facing the pro-
peace group. The Allies' refusal to offer any political
incentive for surrender had a paralyzing effect on the
group's policy.
The peculiar relationship between Japan and Russia,
too, helped lengthen the terminal phase of the war. The
Japanese government hoped to obtain a mitigation of
the unconditional-surrender formula from the Western
Allies by enlisting the good offices of Soviet Russia,
which was not yet at war with Japan. As we shall see,
this illusory hope, which the Soviet government deliber-
ately encouraged, had decisive and disastrous effects.
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER
157
UNITED STATES SURRENDER POLICY
? TOWARD JAPAN
The Cairo Dedaration of December I, 1943, stated
that "the three Allies [the United States, China, and
Great Britain], in harmony with those of the United Na-
tions at war with Japan, will continue to persevere in the
serious and prolonged operations necessary to procure
the unconditional surrender of Japan." But although
"unconditional surrender," the basic war objective of the
Western Allies, applied to Japan as well as to Germany,
the phrase was not interpreted identically for the two
countries.
As we shall see in Part Three, the hallmark of the
unconditional-surrender policy in its application to Ger-
many was the avoidance of specific (and therefore lim-
ited) peace aims. The political context of the war with
Germany made such avoidance necessary. In Japan's
case, political necessity worked the other way, and ac-
cordingly the Cairo Dedaration formulated certain spe-
cific territorial provisions:
The Three Great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and
punish the aggression of Japan. They covet no gain for them-
selves and have no thought of territorial expansion. It is their
purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pa-
cific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the
first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has
stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the
Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China. Japan
will also be- expelled from all other territories which she has
taken by violence-and greed. The aforesaid three great powers,
mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are deter-
mined that in dile course Korea shall be free and independent.
The situation in the Far East, in fact, required the
formulation of explicit territorial peace aims. China,
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158 FOUR CASE STUDIES
now recognized as a great. power, had territorial griev-
ances and claims that the Western Allies were morally
obliged to endorse. The recognition of these claims im-
plied that Japan would revert to her territorial bound-
aries in the period preceding the Sino-Japanese War of
1894-95. No such procedure was considered feasible
for Germany, since a unified German national state, even
stripped of all Hitler's conquests, appeared potentially
dangerous.
Moreover, Japan's position differed from that of the
European Axis powers in so far as the terminal aspect of
unconditional surrender was concerned. Japan possessed
a capital bargaining asset that Germany and Italy lacked;
a residual force capable of offering very strong resist-
ance to any attempt to invade her homeland. Whereas
the residual strengths of Germany and Italy had been
relatively small after the war reached their home terri-
tories, Japan seemed likely to become an extremely for-
midable opponent in her home islands. The Allies' very
high estimate of Japan's terminal capabilities decisively
influenced their political and military planning during
the last stage of the war.'
Our theoretical analysis implies that strong residual
capabilities on the losing side are apt to produce a sub-
stantial "disarming" effect on the winning side by in-
clining the winner to make political concessions to the
loser as incentives for surrender. The course of events
in the terminal stage of the war with Japan is fully con-
sonant with this hypothesis. In the end, Japan was able
to trade the surrender of her residual force for a political
concession, the sparing of the monarchy. But this out-
come was reached only after a considerable policy strug-
gle in the United States, where for a long time it was
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 159
believed that Soviet military help was the best means to
overcome Japan's terminal resistance.
In the years after Pearl Harbor, Soviet Russia's
forces were fully extended in the war against Germany.
In this period,-too, the Russians were bitter about the
Allies' failure to set up a second front. In view of these
facts, the Allies did not press for Soviet participation in
the war against Japan. It was Stalin who broached the
matter unexpectedly at a banquet that concluded the
Moscow conference (October 30, 1943). As Cordell
Hull recorded the incident, "Then . . . he [Stalin]
did make a statement of transcendent importance. He
astonished and delighted me by saying clearly and un-
equivocally that, when the Allies succeeded in defeat-
Germany, the Soviet Union would then join in defeat-
ing Japan."'
One month later, at the Teheran Conference,
Stalin talked-to Roosevelt in the same sense:
He said that up to now the Russian forces in Siberia were suffi-
cient for purely defensive purposes but that they would have to
be increased threefold before they could be strong enough to
engage in offensive ground operations against the Japanese?
and he added that when Germany was finally defeated the neces-
sary Russian reinforcements could be sent to Eastern Siberia
and then, he said, "We shall be able by our common front to
beat Japan."7
Later, at the Yalta Conference, it turned out that
Stalin had definite territorial and political aims in mind
when he proposed joining in the war against Japan.
As la counterpart to the Soviet Union's entry into the
war "within two or three months after Germany has
surrendered and the war in Europe has terminated,"
the United States and Britain had to agree in advance
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160 FOUR CASE STUDIES
to the Soviet annexation of Southern Sakhalin and the
Kuriles, the internationalization of the port of Dairen
with Russia's "pre-eminent interests" safeguarded, the
lease of Port Arthur as a Soviet base, and a few other
terms.'
The American acceptance of these conditions was
predicated on the character of American strategic plans
for the Pacific war at the time of the Yalta Conference.
These plans were settled: after the termination of the
Okinawa operation, there was to be an assult on Kyushu
and "the decisive invasion of the industrial heart of
Japan through the Tokyo Plain."9 Against this back-
ground, the Joint Chiefs of Staff saw the Soviet role
as follows:
Basic principles regarding our policy toward Russia's entry
into the war against Japan are:
a. We desire Russian entry at the earliest possible date
consistent with her ability to engage in offensive operations and
are prepared to offer the maximum support possible without
prejudice to our main effort against Japan.
b. We consider that the mission of Russian Far Eastern
Forces should be to conduct an all-out offensive against Man-
churia to force the commitment of Japanese forces and resources
in North China and Manchuria that might otherwise be em-
ployed in the defense of Japan, to conduct intensive air opera-
tions against Japan proper and to interdict lines of communica-
tion between Japan and the mainland of Asia."
Later some American leaders came to doubt the de-
sirability of Russia's entering the war against Japan.
Byrnes and Leahy, in particular, went on record against
it." The military, however, welcomed a Soviet contri-
bution as possibly indispensable for defeating Japan."
The American planners were much preoccupied with
the probable high cost of an invasion of the Japanese
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 161
home islands, a factor that induced some to look for
an alternative course of action. There was some dis-
cussion among strategists about whether Japan could
be forced to surrender merely by a stepped-up sea-air
blockade. The Navy thought that this could be done,"
but the finally dominant view was that the sea-air block-
ade could do no more than soften up Japan for the
final invasion."
Although the parties to this debate disagreed over
the means that would be sufficient to ensure surrender,
they shared the belief that surrender could result only
from military pressure. The possibility that surrender
could be hastened by offering political incentives to the
Japanese leaders received little attention. Among stra-
tegic planners, it seems that Admiral Leahy alone op-
posed the invasion. He did so not so much because he
believed that less costly and equally effective military
strategies were available as because he considered the
political approach preferable to the military one and
capable of achieving equivalent results. As he reported,
I was unable to see any justification, from a national-de-
fense point of view, for an invasion of an already thoroughly
defeated Japan. I feared that the cost would be enormous in
both lives and treasure.
It was my opinion at that time [June 1945] that a sur-
render could be arranged with terms acceptable to Japan that
would make fully satisfactory provisions for America's defense
against any future trans-Pacific aggression."
The possibility of hastening Japan's surrender by po-
litical moves came up only as an afterthought at the cru-
cial White House conference of June 18, 1945, called
to lay down the main lines of strategy for the final
phase of hostilities. The Joint Chiefs of Staff presented
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162 FOUR CASE STUDIES
their views, after which President Truman rendered
his decision. The attack on Kyushu was to take place,
but final decision on the invasion of Honshu was to be
kept in abeyance. What happened after this was de-
caibed by one of the participants, John J. McCloy, then
Assistant Secretary of War, in the following terms:
After the President's decision had been made and the confer-
ence was breaking up, an official, not theretofore participating,
suggested that serious attention should be given to a political
attempt to end the war. The meeting fell into a tailspin, but
after control was recovered, the idea appealed to several present.
It appealed particularly to the President, and to one member of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who, by the way, was the one member
of that body who had no responsibility to a particular service."
The proposal for political action carried the day;
it led within six weeks to the Potsdam Declaration, with
its implication that the Emperor would be allowed to
keep his throne." Those who favored the political ap-
proach, however, equated it with the issuance of a pub-
lic appeal combining military threats with political
blandishments. Another form of political action, back-
stage contacts with the enemy to determine whether
there was a mutually acceptable basis for surrender,
was never contemplated, since it ran counter to the
fundamental American belief that anything smacking
of negotiation would fatally detract from the complete-
ness of victory and thereby jeopardize future peace.
The American policymakers were desperately anx-
ious to hasten Japan's surrender and to cut terminal
costs as much as possible, but their basic concept of non-
negotiation" ruled out the one form of political stra-
tegy that was best suited to saving time. The only kind
of political strategy they would allow was a combina-
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 163
tion of military pressure and public declarations. In
this way, one of the basic corollaries of the uncondi-
tional surrender policy, nonnegotiation, interfered with
the speedy liquidation of the war.
The other corollary of the policy, nonrecognition
of the enemy government as the legitimate custodian
of national sovereignty, also caused difficulties. Some
American policymakers, particUlarly Joseph C. Grew,
the former Ambassador to Japan, recognized that an
orderly capitulation of all Japanese forces could be ob-
tained only through the agency of the Emperor: he
alone had the necessary authority to order the soldiers
to lay down their arms. Grew writes: "I knew very
well that when the time came for Japan's surrender,
the Emperor was the only one who could bring it about,
and that by issuing an Imperial Rescript, a document
sacred to all Japanese, he alone could put it into effect."
Grew argued that the maintenance of civil order
in Japan would also require the retention of the Em-
peror. He wrote in a memorandum to Secretary of
State Cordell Hull (April 1944):
If, after final victory, we wish to avail ourselves?as common
sense would dictate?of any assets that we find in Japan which
can be used for the maintenance of order as distingiushed from
the maintenance of the military cult, we would, in my judg-
ment, simply be handicapping the pursuit of our ultimate aims
by any attempts to scrap or to by-pass the institution of the
Throne. Should we insist on so doing, I can see only chaos
emerging from such a decision."
As it turned out, the maintenance of the imperial
institution, which Grew, held indispensable both for, the
orderly execution of a .surrender agreement and for
the preservation,- of civic order, was precisely the poli-
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164 FOUR CASE STUDIES
tical incentive necessary and sufficient to induce the Jap-
anese to surrender. This policy, however, was bitterly
opposed by the American public and by influential po-
litical leaders, who believed, often intensely, that a poli-
tical vacuum had to be created in the interests of a stable
peace.2?
Congress became a sounding board for this belief.
Representative Roy 0. Woodruff of Michigan inserted
in the Congressional Record of August 30, 1944, an
article by Captain Miller Freeman, U.S.N.R., casti-
gating Ambassador Grew and hinting that the O.W.I.
directive stopping personal attacks on the Emperor
was "sabotage." The maintenance of the "Emperor
myth," the article stated, "means a short-of-victory
war with Japan?and that, in turn, means another war
with Japan." The article concluded: "We need not
fear that war if we follow God and our conscience as
to what is right?instead of seeking to uphold a lone
human being who is the Japs' incarnation of God.""
Senator Russell of Georgia forcefully denounced
the "softness" of the final terms on which Japan was
allowed to surrender. In a speech delivered shortly
after V-J Day, he reviewed the efforts that he had
made in favor of a sterner policy. In his view, Japan
did not deserve better treatment than. Germany; on
the contrary, he said, "if there must be a difference in
the treatment accorded Germany and Japan we should
be sterner with the Japanese." He added:
Holding these views, Mr. President, I was naturally concerned
when I read the Potsdam declaration and saw the loopholes
which that document knocked in our previously announced and
oft-reiterated policy of unconditional surrender. On August 7,
before the Japanese ever offered their conditional acceptance of
the Potsdam declaration, I telegraphed the President from my
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 165
home in Georgia to enter my vigorous protest against accepting
any conditions offered by Japan in derogation of unconditional
surrender which might be likely to allow the well-known ag-
gressive spirit of the Japanese people to retain a breath of life."
In this telegram Senator Russell urged a revision of
the Potsdam terms and the continuation of air attacks
until the Japanese offered unqualified unconditional
surrender:
If we do not have available a sufficient number of atomic bombs
with which to finish the job immediately, let us carry on with
TNT and fire bombs until we can produce them. . . . Our
people have not forgotten that the Japanese struck us the first
blow in this war without the slightest warning. They believe
that we should continue to strike the Japanese until they are
brought groveling to their knees. We should cease our appeals
to Japan to sue for peace. The next plea for peace should come
from an utterly destroyed Tokyo."
The retention of the Emperor, Senator Russell
claimed, was generally disapproved by the people:
When the Japanese finally submitted their counter-proposals
and conditions with respect to retaining their Emperor and form
of government, the idea was generally disapproved. Reference
to the newspapers of those days will show many editorials in
leading publications warning against the dangers of keeping
Hirohito. Our allies in the struggle, with the exception of Eng-
land, were quoted as opposing any conditions in the Japanese
surrender. The wounded in the hospitals and the men in the
service, including many on their way overseas, were interviewed
by newspapermen, and the majority were opposed to accepting
the conditions. Here are a few headlines taken at random from
a daily newspaper of August II, just after the Jap offer was
announced:
"Russia and China Frown on Jap Offer."
"Australians Oppose."
"Romulo Calls for Elimination of Hiro."
"Servicemen Want Emperor Hirohito Deposed."
"'Blast Him Off Throne,' Say Wounded."
Admiral Halsey was quoted as saying that the terms of the
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166 FOUR CASE STUDIES
peace were a political question on which military men should
keep quiet, but that it was his own personal view that it would
be a mistake not to hang the Emperor."
In the view of Senator Russell and the other op-
ponents of .qualified surrender, the prospects for future
peace were directly proportional to the harshness of
the terms on which hostilities were ended and of the
deprivations meted out to the enemy:
The question of whether or not we can permanently preserve
the peace of the earth will be largely determined within the next
five years, even though the outbreak of war may be postponed
for a generation. . . . Nearly every report, whether over
Radio Tokyo; through the Domei News Agency; from Ameri-
can newspaper correspondents on the scene, or from our re-
turning military men, seems to indicate that the people of that
country, of all classes and positions in life, regard the present
situation as a mere armistice or interlude in warfare rather than
the utter defeat calculated to convince them of the necessity of
forever abandoning their dreams of world domination, . .
the Japanese are acting as though this were only a recess be-
tween two antagonists who will resume the fight?presumably
when and if Japan obtains the secret atomic bomb or other
equalizer. . . . Our present policy of politeness and respect
for the individual's property and security of person, while a&
mirable, is tending to confirm the Japanese belief that they have
not been conquered . . . I am thoroughly convinced that un-..
less the Japanese people?all of them from top to bottom?are
shown beyond question that they have really lost the war and
that the way of the aggressor is hard this time and will be much
harder in the case of future aggression, we shall lose the peace
in the Pacific. . . ?If we follow the easy course of a soft
peace, we are simply courting the disaster of a more terrible war
in the future.25
Although Senator Russell was convinced that soft-
ness toward Japan would breed a war of revenge and
that harsh terms would ensure peace forever,, he was
against assigning large numbers of American troops to
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 167
the?occupation-of Japan. Prompted by Senator Wherry,
he confessed -that he found "startling" General Mac-
Arthur's statement about the need to keep 2.00,000
American troops in Japan. Then there was the follow-
ing exchange:_
? Mr. Wherry. Will the Senator agree that the occupation
probably could be Carried out by policing, by Chinese soldiers and
the soldiers of other of our Allies,. just as well as by our own
soldiers?
Mr. Russell. I am in favor of using other soldiers so far
as possible, because any member of the Senate cannot fail but be
impressed with the overwhelming desire of the people of this
country to get the boys back home, and any member of the Sen-
ate can tell froth his mail each morning that the boys themselves
are just as enthusiastic as are their families, if not more so, that
they be returned home.
Mr. Wherry. I thank the Senator."
Senator Russell's speech and the exchange that fol-
lowed vividly illustrate a basic postulate of the doctrine
of unconditional surrender: that there is a causal con-
nection between maximum destructivenes? in war and
the perpetual peace that is to succeed it.2r
Such an idea strongly militated against offering a
political incentive to the Japanese in order to hasten
surrender, but it was not the only argument used by
American policymakers in opposing political incentives.
Secretary of War Stimson was at once in favor of mod-
eration hi dealing with the Japanese Emperor and op-
posed to letting the Japanese know it:
In the view of-Stimson and his military advisers, it was always
necessary to bear in mind that at least some of Japan' S leaders
would seize on any conciliatory offer as an indication of weak-
ness. For this reason they did not support Grew in urging an
immediate statement on the Empeior in May. The battle for
Okinawa was proceeding slowly and with heavy losses, and they
feared lest Japanese militarists argue that such a statement was
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i68 FOUR CASE STUDIES
the first proof of that American fatigue which they had been
predicting since 1941. It seemed possible to Stimson, in 1947,
that these fears had been based on a misreading of the situa-
tion."
In May, indeed, American government officials were
not iyet in a position to know what was the prevailing
state of mind in leading Japanese political circles. Had
they been, they would have known that the Emperor
himself and his close political advisers were ready to
capitulate on terms very severe to Japan," and that in
fact surrender negotiations could only be conducted with
this circle. Ironically enough, it follows that what to do
about the Emperor was not an open question at all if
the United States was interested in the orderly capitu-
lation of the Japanese forces. Without prior assurance
to the Japanese on this point, no surrender talks could
have been initiated at all.
This is not to say that a public statement about the
Emperor, delivered in May 1945, would have been
enough in itself to bring surrender. Although the Em-
peror and his advisers would have been encouraged by
such a statement, they had to reckon with fanatical offi-
cers who were determined to use every means, including
assassination, against anybody who talked about capitu-
lation. It seems that a moderate American statement
would not have been sufficient to enable the circle around
the Emperor to force the military group to give up its
opposition to the peace policy. On the other hand, such
a statement would not have been altogether useless, as
withholding it certainly was. It was illusory to believe
that extreme verbal intransigence, together with maxi-
mally destructive military blows, was needed to break
down the Japanese die-hards' desperate will to resist.
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER
JAPANESE PEACE POLICIES
Peace Efforts Before V-E Day
Robert J. C. Butow, in his Japan's Decision to Sur-
render, has traced lucidly and painstakingly, using all
the available documents, the history of the long and
arduous efforts for peace on the part of a group of
Japanese statesmen whose central figure was Marquis
Koichi Kido, Keeper of the Privy Seal. In what follows
we shall follow Butow's account.
According to Butow, the idea of a "peace mission"
was first discussed in this circle just four days after the
Battle of Midway, i.e., on June II, I942. On that day,
Shigeru Yoshida, the former Japanese Ambassador to
Britain, who was to become Premier after the war, called
on Kido to discuss a scheme that involved sending Prince
Konoye to Switzerland. The prince was to have no defi-
nite mission other than to keep in touch with influential
leaders of various nations so as to ensure that Japan
would not miss any opportunity that might lead to a
termination of the war."
Nothing came of this particular idea, however, and
a long time was to pass before Japan actually put out
peace feelers. But the topic of ending the war never
disappeared from the consultations that members of the
inner circle around Kido and the Emperor continued to
have among themselves, and as time went on, the theme
acquired greater and greater urgency.
The entries in Kido's diary relating to this period
(early 1943) reveal that he knew that the war was going
against Japan and that Konoye and Shigemitsu shared
this view. Early in February, 1943, for instance, Kido
had a three-hour discussion with Prince Konoye, who
169
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170 FOUR CASE STUDIES
was extremely pessimistic about the war situation. In
Butow's words:
During the course of this long conversation . . . Konoye re-
peatedly spoke of the necessity of terminating the conflict as
soon as possible lest unsettled internal conditions lead to an in-
tensification of Communist activity within Japan. The issue,
in Konoye's mind, was clear-cut: end the war now or be pre-
pared to see communism emerge as the ultimate victer.81
Talk along these lines, of course, was one thing, and
political action against the die-hard war party another.
General Tojo was still Japan's Premier, and he ruled
with an iron fist. The cabinet consisted entirely of Tojo
supporters, men who did not share the misgiving. of
the Kido circle and were determined to fight on to vic-
tory. The first overt political move of the peace party
was to break up the monolithic unity of Tojo's cabinet.
They succeeded in having Mamori Shigemitsu, one, of
their number, appointed Foreign Minister, in the ,Tojo
cabinet. This occurred a short time after. the conversa-
tion related above.
Plans for ending the war took. on, a more: specific
shape after the Cairo . Declaration, which called for
Japan's "unconditionallsurrender" and for het; expulsion
from all continental and island territories .other than the
home islands. Shortly after the Declaration wa,s,issued,
Marquis Kido worked out a territorial. plan on which ia
peace settlement might be based: the Pacific areas. under
Japanese occupation were to be placed unclera joint com-
mission in which Japan, the Soviet. Union, China, the
United States, and Great Britain would be represented..
Apparently Kido thought that, the Allies would mod-
erate the Cairo terms if Japan came forward with xpeace
offer soon enough, i.e., before Germany's collapse. Kido
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 171
aired these ideas to Shigemitsu and found him more pes-
simistic: "Shigemitsu . . . spoke of a need for 'great
determination' and frankly declared 'unconditional sur-
render, in eisence, will be unavoidable."'"
It appears, then, that at least one responsible Jap-
anese statesman stated explicitly, as early as January
1944, that Japan would have to surrender uncondition-
ally. Many other members of the peace group seem to
have felt the same way, even if they did. not say so.
Among the experts of the Japanese Foreign Office
the prevailing tendency was not to take the Cairo Decla-
ration at face .c71.ue. Toshikazu Kase, a high official of
the Foreign Office, whose Journey to the Missouri is an
important source for the history of the period,. describes
the official reaction to the declaration in the following
terms:
Upon word of the Cairo declaration a special Conference
was-held in the Foreign Office to study its significance. I lis-
tened, in silence to the discussion. The 'participants, without ex-
ception, appeared shocked.by the severity Of the terms. But most
of them did not take them too seriously; regarding them as only
an inducernent offered Chungking or as a diplomatic gesture to
forestall China's defection from the Allied camp. China was
then in a serious plight since the Allies, preoccupied Flsewhere,
could not help her effectively. Therc was a precedent.in April;
1915, during the First World War, when the Allies secretlY
promised C-onstantinople and the Dardanelles to Russia-in order
to prevent her from deierting them. Russia at that time was
reeling from a shattering ,defeat inflicted by Germany. The
Allies did not desire to pay such an exorbitant price and. keenly
regretted it soon afterward but they thought it essential at that
Critical juncture. Such was generally the toneof the argument.
I myself thought, however, that there was more than that
in the Cairo declaration. While in World War I the United
States offered Germany the Fourteen Points as an. inducement
for peace, this time 'the Allies announced the Cairo declaration
as terms to be meted out to Japan. . . . This I believed was
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172. FOUR CASE STUDIES
because of the unique character of the second World War,
which unlike the first was being fought on the basis of uncon-
ditional surrender. There was to be no halfway compromise, no
negotiated peace.33
Admiral Toyoda, former chief of the Japanese Im-
perial General Staff, told the U.S. Strategic Bombing
Survey (USSBS):
We looked upon [the Cairo declaration] as a declaration but
not as one whose terms would actually be applied to us. By
way of possibility of reducing these terms, if you should con-
tinue pushing the war, we would demand of you the heavy sac-
rifice when your landing operations should commence in Hon-
shu."
Apparently many Japanese leaders believed either
that the United States was not sufficiently interested in
crushing Japan to enforce the Cairo terms or that she
would be deterred from doing so by the heavy losses
involved in a landing operation. At any rate, they were
consistently thinking in terms of a negotiated peace.
In any case, the antiwar group was powerless to act
during the months immediately following the Cairo
Declaration, since it did not control the key political
positions. No action for peace was possible as long as
Tojo remained Premier. Tojo's cabinet, however,
finally fell on July i8, i944, under the crushing impact
of the loss of Saipan, an event which brought home the
irrevocable loss of the war even to those who had been
hopeful up to then.
When Tojo fell, it was generally understood that
the next cabinet would have the task of paving the way
for peace." The first solution considered was the curious
one of a cabinet headed jointly by General Koiso, mili-
tary governor of Korea, and Admiral Yonai, an out-
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 173
spoken antiwar man. The plans for a joint premiership,
however, did not work out, and, after a series of chaotic
consultations, Koiso emerged as sole Premier, with Yonai
as Navy Minister. Shigemitsu remained Foreign Min-
ister.
The Koiso cabinet was willing enough to explore all
avenues that might lead to ending the war. But that was
more easily said than done. Blocking the way from the
outset was the Cairo Declaration, a document so worded
as to rule out its voluntary acceptance by any Japanese
government no matter how few illusions it had about the
ultimate outcome of the war. The Declaration termed
all Japanese territorial acquisitions since 1895 as "theft"
pure and simple. This was an apt characterization, per-
haps, from the point of view of a Chinese patriot; but
the Japanese could not help remembering that the Jap-
anese procedure before 1914 was by no means out of
keeping with the international mores prevailing at that
time, particularly in dealings between the great powers
and China. According to Butow,
. . . the tenor of the Cairo Declaration as a whole was un-
acceptable to the Japanese and was considered by many as a
purposeful distortion of historical fact. The net result was that
the declaration immediately became a serious hindrance to those
who wished to exert themselves toward bringing the war to an
end."
Furthermore, the temper of the junior officers of
the army, a formidable group of fanatics, could not
be overlooked. In the fall of 1944, according to the
USSBS, a threatened revolt of the military prevented
the Koiso cabinet from making a move to end the war."
The only concrete action for peace of which we have
a record from this period was a curious, half-private
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174 FOUR CASE STUDIES
venture. A prominent Japanese journalist, Bunshiro
Suzuki (not to be confused with Kantaro Suzuki, the
last wartime Premier), approached the Swedish minister
to Tokyo, Widar Bagge, on behalf of Prince Konoye,
asking him to transmit Japanese peace overtures to Lon.:
don. The purpose of this move appears to have been
exploratory. The Japanese leaders wanted to ? obtain
some clarification of what "unconditional surrender"
actually meant. For them, the paramount problem was
to discover whether there was a possibility of ending the
war?on the Allies' terms, to be sure, but without corn-
plete self-abasement. and without the disruption of the
imperial institution on which all social order in Japan
seemed to rest." ?
As time went on, Japan's military situation grew
more and more hopeless: the war fleet all but ceased to
exist, devastating air raids got under way, and in De-
cember Leyte fell to the American forces., All the same,
it was impossible for the Japanese government simply
to throw in the sponge and accept the Cairo Dedaration
as the basis for surrender. Had such a move been made,
the extremist elements of the Army, among whom the
mystique of the "holy war" for Japan held unlimited
sway, would have staged*a coup d'etat. In this situatiOn,
the antiwar cirde reached the conclusion that the only
hope for ending the war lay in enlisting the good offices
of some third power for a "negotiated" peace. Even this
approach was fraught with danger, and people like Kido
and Konoye soon recognized that only the Emperor's
personal intervention could steer it through without a
violent explosion. But the chances for obtaining medi-
ation .were slim, and it was .very doubtful whether the
Allies would grant Japan any concessions even if some
third power transmitted a Japanese offer for peace talks.
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 175
The first tentative move through Bagge had fizzled
out. Another attempt to use this channel was made in
March 1945, when Bagge was about to return to Sweden.
In a conversation with a Japanese diplomat shortly be-
fore his departure, Bagge remarked that in his opinion
the Allies would not insist on removing the Emperor if
Japan made an offer to surrender. This was reported to
Shigemitsu, the Foreign Minister, who immediately got
in touch with Bagge. In the ensuing conversation, the
Foreign Minister avoided making a specific, official re-
quest for good offices. Instead, he remained on the plane
of generalities. He emphasized in the strongestpossible
terms the Emperor's desire for peace, adding that the
Emperor had always been opposed to the War, and
stressed that he himself entertained the same feelings;
along with the entire diplomatic corps of Japan. He con-
duded by requesting Bagge "very earnestly" to do what-
ever he could to determine Japan's chances of obtaining
a "negotiated peace."" The impression Bagge gained
from this was that Shigemitsu meant business; it seemed
to the Swedish diplomat that the Foreign Minister was
willing to end the war "even at great sacrifice to his
country."
-This action for peace through mediation, however;
eventually bogged down. The Koiso cabinet fell on
April-5, '945, and in the new cabinet, headed by Admiral
Kan-taro Suzuki, Shigemitsu was replaced as Foreign
Minister by Shigemori Togo. Togo was an extremely
dear-sighted man, fully committed to the antiwar policy
of his predecessor, but he was not conversant with what
went on between Shigemitsu and Bagge immediately
before he took office. When he learned about it on April
II, he wanted to see Bagge, but a meeting could not be
arranged because the Swedish diplomat was leaving.
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176 FOUR CASE STUDIES
Bagge thus returned to Stockholm without any offi-
cial communication from the Tokyo government on the
basis of which official action could have been taken. In
Stockholm, Bagge talked with the American minister,
Herschel Johnson, giving him a full account of his ex-
plorations in Tokyo and of the prevailing state of mind
in the Japanese Foreign Office. He also got in touch
with the Japanese minister. The latter, however, had no
formal instructions to press the peace action. When
Togo was asked to send formal instructions, he gave a
noncommittal reply. The Japanese government had ap-
parently decided to try a different approach.
The Suzuki cabinet in fact was skating on thin ice.
On April 15, shortly after it took office, the Minister
of War, General Anami, ordered the arrest of four hun-
dred persons suspected of harboring antiwar sentiments,
including Yoshida. Suzuki, though hand-picked by the
antiwar leaders, seemed anxious above all not to provoke
the extremists, and his first official statements after taking
office were warlike in tone. He spoke in terms of "fight-
ing to the very end," and avoided making any reference
to peace or mediation."
The diplomatic approach to the problem of ending
the war, temporarily suspended, was soon revived in a
new and fateful direction. The new diplomatic formula
saw a rapprochement with the Soviet Union as the most
promising method for getting Japan out of the impasse
in which she found herself.
The Road to Moscow
This disastrous "Moscow policy" went through two
stages. The first was an attempt to improve Japan's
diplomatic position by negotiating a new, favorable pact
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 177
with Soviet Russia after Stalin had denounced the
Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1945. The
second was a determined effort to enlist the Soviet
Union's good offices to obtain favorable surrender terms
from the Allies.
- Neither move had the slightest chance of success.
When the policy of trying the Moscow channel was ini-
tiated in April 1945, Japan's position was hopeless, and
there was no valid reason for assuming that the Soviet
Union could be tempted to make common cause with a
power that had nothing to offer. The Japanese policy-
makers, however, were hypnotized by the idea that it
was possible to exploit the "friendly" relations that still
existed between their country and one of the great
powers. One cannot blame the Japanese for trying this
approach; anyone in their desperate position would have
grasped at a straw. It is difficult, however, to under-
stand the obstinacy with which the Japanese government
clung to the mirage of a rapprocfrement with Moscow
and later to that of mediation by Moscow, even when it
became obvious that the Soviet Union did not have the
slightest interest in helping Japan out of the war.
;The policy of seeking a rapprochement took its de-
parture from an event that in ordinary logic would have
implied that Moscow was the last place from which
Japan could expect support. On April 5, 1945, the day
on which the Koiso cabinet fell, Stalin denounced the
? Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact. Even though Molotov
subsequently assured the Japanese Ambassador that neu-
tral relations would continue during the remainder of
the pact's life (it was to run for another year), the ges-
ture itself was plainly a hostile one. It indicated nothing
but Soviet Russia's desire to regain a free hand vis-a-vis
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178 FOUR CASE STUDIES
Japan at the earliest moment permitted by the existing
treaty. Actually, Stalin at Yalta had. assumed a commit-
ment to enter the war against Japan within two or three
months after Germany's surrender, a commitment in-
compatible with Soviet Russia's observance of even the
year's grace provided by the pact. To the Japanese, how-
ever, the denunciation of the pact seemed to open up
marvelous prospects. If Japan were to offer a new pact
on terms more attractive than the old, they thought,
Soviet Russia might well be willing to take Germany's
place as an effective ally. Japan would obtain political
and material help (for a hefty payment, to be sure),
enabling her to put up stiffer resistance to the Allies.
Should the Russians prove unwilling to go that far, how-
ever, Japan could at least try to enlist their help in nego-
tiating peace on a basis better than the Cairo Declaration.
Mediation was to be sought only if rapprochement
failed.
This diplomatic approach toward the problem of
ending the war was quite acceptable to the armed serv-
ices. In fact, it was first suggested (shortly after the
denunciation of the pact) by two military die-hards,
Army Chief of Staff Umezu and Vice-Chief of Staff
Kawabe, who were joined later by Vice-Chief of the
Naval General Staff Ozawa." It is a sign of Togo's
diplomatic astuteness that he was pessimistic about the
policy's chances of success from the very beginning: he
suspected that Soviet Russia already had committed her-
self to enter the war against Japan." But Togo, having
no evidence except the logic of political analysis to sup-
port his hunch, was not in a position to go against the
army's wishes. While the sands were running out, Japan
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THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 179
was forced to embark on a hopeless pilgrimage to Mos-
cow.
The "Moscow policy" was discussed in detail by the
Supreme Council for the Direction of War, an inner
war cabinet consisting of the Premier, the Foreign Min-
ister, the War and Navy Ministers, and the Army and
Navy Chiefs of Staff." It was. characteristic of the situ-
ation then prevailing in Japan that even this body could
not discuss the situation openly, since its meetings were
ordinarily attended by junior staff officers who were
quick to seize on "defeatist" talk and reveal it to like-
minded comrades, with disastrous results. Togo finally
succeeded in having the Council meet without the junior
secretaries, but even then he did not succeed in injecting
his own sober realism into the debate. The Council de-
veloped fantastic schemes, such as the plan, suggested
by Yonai, to offer Japanese cruisers to the Soviet Union
in exchange for Soviet oil and airplanes.
When the deliberations of the Council reached that
stage, Germany had already surrendered and Japan was
alone facing the most formidable military coalition in
all history. If her leaders had immediately decided to
try their luck with the second plank of the "Moscow
policy," mediation, that would have been understand-
able in the circumstances, though still hopeless. But the
Council. (in which the heads of the military services had
a very strong position) was not even in favor of seeking
mediation at once. Germany's surrender seemed to mean
to them, not that everything was irretrievably lost, but
that it was necessary to acquire a new ally in Germany's
place, that ally being Soviet Russia. This at a time when
Moscow's main worry was how to get into the war against
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80 FOUR CASE STUDIES
Japan before the latter had. a chince to surrender; in
order to participate in the making of the peace as a bel=
ligerent rather than as a neutral.
The first tangible move.to put the "Moscow polio)"
into effect came about the?middle of May. Togo 'asked
Hold Hirota, "a former Premier and Ambassador to Mos-
cow, to see Soviet Ambassador Malik and make over-
tures for a rapprochement. Hirota was instructed to sug-
gest talks for a renewal of the Neutrality Pact or for the
conclusion of a new pact, emphasizing Japan's desire for
friendship and good relations. The good offices of the
Soviet Union in ending the war were to be solicited only
if the suggestions for a rapprochement yielded no results.
Not until June 3 was Hirota able to see Malik, whose
response to his offers of friendship was decidedly sour.
The more Hirota talked about "friendly relations," the
more Malik harped on the "anti-Soviet" feelings of the
Japanese. Hirota was dismissed from Malik's presence
without the slightest encouragement."
This was the end of the rapprochement policy for all
practical purposes. The next logical step would have
been to try mediation. That step, however, could not be
taken immediately, for the army went over to the coun-
terattack and by a swift move torpedoed the peace policy
of the circle around the Emperor. The army's stratagem
consisted in calling, on June 6, a full -meeting of the
Supreme Council, with the junior secretaries present At
that meeting, the chiefs of the armed service? introduced
a Fundamental Plan for the further conduct of the was,
calling for a levee en masse. A hundred million jape:-
'nese were to rise from the ground'and strike the invader
dead." In support of this plan the army also submitted
memoranda giving facts and figures about the world
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 181
situation and the situation within Japan. The 'facts and.
figures cOntained nothing to prove that the plan would
have a chance to succeed; in, fact, they demonstrated be-
yond doubt that Japan lacked all essential means for con-
tinuing operations. Nevertheless, Togo was the sole
niember of the Supreme Council who dared to oppose
the army's. appeal for last-ditch resistance. The Funda-
mental Plan was adopted as Japan's policy., On the fol-
lowing day the Cabinet rubber-stampedit;and on June 8
it was imposed upon a silent Emperor at an Imperial
Conference. The peace group had to begin again from
the beginning. ?
It was the indefatigable Kido who again set the ball
rolling. On June 9, the day after the Imperial Confer-
ence, he saw the Emperor and suggested that the 'cabi-
net be sent an Imperial Letter, instructing it to take the
necessary steps to put the mediaiion plan into, effect:
Kido would have preferred the direct approach to the
United States and Britain (obviously the only practical
method), but in view of the attitude of the army he had
to settle for the revival of the attempt to secure media-
tion by Moscow. In eleven days of arduous discussions
with cabinet members (June 9-19), Kido secured their
agreement, including that of the War 'Minister, General
Anami. Thus the stage was set for another showdown.
This time the full Supreme Council with its eager yOung
war hawks was bypassed: After a restricted meeting of
the Couiicil on June 18, at which "mediation" was en-
dorsed," the initiative was again put in the Emperor's
hands. An imperial conference was called on June 2,7.
The Emperor' indicated that the decisions of June 6-8
had to be reconsidered. Togo thereupon-moved to-send
a representative to Mbscow to ask for mediation before
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182 FOUR CASE STUDIES
the Potsdam Conference convened. He stressed the need
for quick action. After some subdued opposition from
the army representatives, the proposal was carried: Togo
obtained the green light for approaching Moscow.
The execution of the plan, however, again miscar-
ried. Instead of sending a mission to Moscow iminedi-
ately, Togo decided to try the Hirota-Malik channel
again. On the day following the conference he saw
Hirota, informed him of the decision, and instructed him
to resume his talks with Malik. Hirota called on Malik
on the 24th and again on the 29th. On neither occasion,
however, did he mention mediation, nor did he bring
up the proposal to send a special envoy to Moscow. He
talked exclusively about a new pact and the concessions
that Japan would make in order to obtain it. In the sec-
ond talk with Malik, Hirota handed him a written pro-,
posal: Japan would be ready to recognize Manchurian
independence, to renounce fishing rights in Soviet waters,
and to consider any other Soviet proposals, if Moscow
were willing to enter negotiations for a new pact. Malik
pocketed the proposal, promising to send it to Moscow,
and that was the last Hirota heard from him. For two
more weeks Hirota tried again and again to see Malik,
but in vain; the Soviet diplomat was too "sick" to re-
ceive him."
While Hirota's ill-fated venture was under way, the
problem of the special embassy to Moscow was further
debated by the Emperor and the members of the Su-
preme Council. On June 29 the Emperor called together
the six members of the Council and "stated that, while it
was of course necessary to keep on pushing the war, it
was necessary at the same time, in view of the domestic
situation, to consider the possibility of bringing the war
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 183
to a conclusion. What did the members of the Council
think of that idea? "48
The Emperor finally having uttered the fateful
word, the ministers eagerly concurred. "Then the Em-
peror in turn asked when the Ministers expected to be
able to send a special Ambassador to Moscow. The reply
given was that the date was not certain but it was hoped
that he would be sent before the Potsdam Conference
should be he) d.""
This decision again produced no immediate results.
It was only on July 7?after the Emperor had sum-
moned Premier Suzuki and prodded him into action?
that Togo first got in touch with Prince Konoye, who had
been chosen to undertake the mission. And five more
days passed before Konoye was officially appointed and
a note was sent to Moscow informing the Soviet govern-
ment of Tokyo's decision to send the special envoy.
Moscow was informed that Konoye would carry with
him a personal letter from the Emperor, stressing the
latter's desire for a speedy termination of hostilities and
proposing immediate negotiations to that effect. The
note, radioed to the Japanese Ambassador in Moscow,
Naotake Sato, for transmittal to the Soviet government,
expressly repudiated "unconditional surrender," adding
that if Great Britain and the United States were to insist
on it, "Japan would be forced to fight to the bitter end
with all her might in order to vindicate her honor and
safeguard her national existence, which, to our intense
regret, would entail further bloodshed.""
In spite of its insistence on "negotiation," the note
clearly envisaged last-ditch resistance in certain circum-
stances, i.e., if the United States and Britain refused to
make concessions that would safeguard Japan's "honor"
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' :FOUR CASE STUDIES
and "national existence"?in other words, the imperial
institution itself. Japan was not to budge from this stand
to.' the very end, and the final surrender was actUally
made on this basis. Japan's diplomatic approach, how-
ever, was fundamentally vitiated by the delusion that the
Soviet Union would lend a hand to help Japan get out of
the war on these terms.
Having received- the message, Sato, who himself had
no hope that the action would succeed, immediately went
to 'the Kremlin ( July 13) but could not see Molotov.
He was received, instead, by Vice-Commissar Alexander
Lozovsky, who merely told him that Stalin and Molotov
were about to leave for Berlin and that no answer could
be given before their departure. An answer was prom-
ised as soon as the Soviet leaders could be reached, in
Berlin. Lozovsky accordingly received Sato again on the
i6th, but only to ask for clarification of the exact mission
entrusted to Prince Konoye. The clarification was sent
on July 2,r: Konoye would "solicit the good offices of the
Soviet government with a view to obtaining terms of
peace other than unconditional surrender."" This tele-
gram was delayed, and Sato could not proceed to the
Kremlin before the 25th. But the Soviet governinent
still gave no clear-cut answer. Sato continued to press,
explaining that all Japan wanted was to terminate hos-
tilities on an "honorable" basis, avoiding the formula of
unconditional surrender." But in spite of the most ur-
gent appeals, no answer came from the Kremlin. After
his return from Potsdam on August 6 (the day the atorn
bomb was dropped on Hiroshima), Stalin did not re-
ceive 'Sato, but he did see the Chinese Ambass'ador,
T. V. Soong. In`Kase's words,
When Sato again requested an interview with Molotov he re-
ceived an appointment for 5 p.m. on August 8. At this meeting,
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 185
without allowing?Sato to state his case, Molotov abruptly notified.
him that the Soviet Union would be at war with Japan as from
the following day."
It is dear from this sequence of events that the Soviet
government never had any intention of mediating be-
tween Japan and the Western Allies. At the same time,
Moscow did nothing to enlighten the Japanese on the
futility of their hopes. Moscow's objective, apparently
was to let the Japanese dangle at the end of the Moscow
wire as long as possible. This is understandable: had
Moscow let Tokyo know that it was not willing to medi-
ate, the Japanese might have approached the Western
powers with a direct offer to surrender. Moscow, how-
ever, had every interest in not letting this happen as long
as the Soviet Union was not at war with Japan. It was
essential for the Soviet Union to claim belligerent status
at the moment when the Japanese empire was liquidated.
After Yalta, the Soviet leaders were satisfied that the
Western Allies would not move to end the war with
Japan before the Soviet Union joined them. Even after
Japan's position had become desperate, Soviet procrasti-
nation in replying to Tokyo's request for mediation of-
fered a reasonable guarantee that Japan would not sur-
render prematurely.
It would not be true to say that Stalin kept the Japa-
nese peace feeler hidden. from the Western Allies. As
Butow tells?us,
On July 28, . Stalin personally told President Truman,
Secretary of Stlate Byrnes, and Prime Minister Attlee, that the
Japanese had requested Soviet mediation and proposed sending
Prince Konoye to Moscow. As if to allay any misgivings which
might, otheiv-vise have appeared, the master of the Kremlin
4uickly explained tht Japan's approach did not show a willing-
ness to surrender unconditionally but was, instead, a calculated
endeavor to obtain Soviet collaboration in the furtherance of
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i86 FOUR CASE STUDIES
Japanese policy. The Japanese had even indicated, Stalin said,
that although they wanted to end the war they would fight on
with all their strength as long as the Allies continued to adhere
to the unconditional surrender formula. As a result, the So-
viet government had unhesitatingly informed Japan that it
could not give a definite reply to her request in view of the
fact that the imperial message was general in form and lack-
ing in any concrete proposals."
Actually, Stalin's communication was by no means
the American government's first inkling of the Konoye
mission. American intelligence with its customary prow-
ess had intercepted and deciphered the coded messages
passing between Togo in Tokyo and Sato in Moscow
from July 2 1 on; Secretary Forrestal entered copious
extracts from them in his diaries for July 13, 15, and
24.55 The exchange revealed that the Japanese Emperor
had authorized the mission because he was extremely
anxious to end the war as soon as possible; it also con-
tained a poignant debate between the Ambassador and
the Foreign Minister. The former argued that it was
illusory to expect anything from Russian mediation and
that the only course open to Japan was to take direct steps
toward unconditional surrender; the latter insisted that
the decision to seek Moscow's good offices could not be
changed and that Japan would be compelled to fight to
the last unless she could get better terms than uncondi-
tional surrender. Although Japan's minimum terms
were not spelled out in so many words, the entire drift
of the communications strongly suggested that Japan,
though unwilling to surrender unconditionally, was pre-
pared to surrender on terms.
When Stalin brought up the Konoye mission at the
Potsdam Conference, Allied policy toward Japan had
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 187
moved away from strict unconditional surrender. The
Potsdam Declaration, issued two days before, made it
clear that the Allies would not demand the removal of
the Emperor. It restricted the demand for unconditional
surrender to the Japanese armed forces, stipulated tem-
porary occupation of the home islands while recognizing
Japanese sovereignty, and called for punitive measures
only against war leaders other than the Emperor himself.
The Declaration, which purported to give the full extent
of Allied armistice conditions, remained silent about the
Emperor and the imperial institution, thereby implying
that the head of the state would not be touched."
At that stage, the American government could have
decided to explore whether any substantial gap remained
between the surrender terms as laid down at Potsdam
and the terms of reference of the Konoye mission. A
channel for sounding out the Japanese was available:
Allen Dulles's group in Switzerland had been in contact
for months with the Japanese military attache at Berne,
General Okamoto, and a representative of the Japanese
navy, Commander Fujimura." No exploratory steps
were taken, however, either when the first reports about
the Konoye mission reached Washington or after the
drafting of the Potsdam Declaration. The American
position seems to have been that nothing was needed be-
sides the Declaration itself, broadcast urbi et orb. If the
Japanese were ready to surrender on the Potsdam terms,
they were free to say so. If they did not accept the ulti-
matum as it stood, this merely proved that they preferred
last-ditch resistance. In that case, only increased military
pressure could convince them that they were beaten and
had to accept the Potsdam terms. Since the Declaration
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i88 TOUR CASE STUDIES
itself expressly ruled out any bargaining, confidential
contacts were deemed superfluous.
According to this reasonirig, there could be only one
conceivable reason for a Japanese failure to surrender
without delay on the terms proclaimed at Potsdam,
namely, Japan's hope that 'prolonged resistance would
force the Allies to make further concessions. The Allies
ruled out the possibility that the Japanese might refrain
from bowing to the Potsdam ultimatum for a different
reason. Actually, such a reason did exist: the Japanese
expected last-minute diplomatic help from Soviet Russia.
As we have seen, the American government was fully in-
formed about Japan's move in this direction, the Konoye
mission. American policymakers did not, however,
reckon with the possibility that the Japanese might still
be waiting for Russian mediation even after the Potsdam.
Declaration had been issued. They assumed that the
Konoye mission was dead and buried, ; in 'so far as -the
Japanese government Was concerned, and Stalin's state-
ment about the Japanese feeler and the Soviet response
to it confirmed them in this belief.
What Stalin disclosed to Truman and Attlee was the
Soviet government's reply to the first communication
received fromTokyo: the imperial message *as too gen-
eral in form and the Soviet government could not act on
it unless more specific proposals were made. But Stalin
failed to tell Truman and Attlee thatwhen a clarification
was supplied by Tokyo on the 25th, the Soviet govern-
ment still did not tell the Japanese whether it would or
would not act as a mediator, but promised to give a defi-
nite answer on this point later. According to President
Truman's account, a summary of the clarification, trans-
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THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 189
mitted by Sato from Moscow, was read to Stalin in Tru-
man's presence on July 28. Having listened to it, "Stalin
declared that there was nothing new in it except that it
was more definite than the previous approach and that
it would receive a more definite answer. . . . The
answer would be in the negative, he said."" Stalin said
nothing about_ having encouraged the Japanese to wait
for an answer.
Even so, it is somewhat strange that the Western
leaders did not press Stalin for further details about what
he had told the Japanese. Had they been more alert,
they would have noticed that the information relayed
by Stalin did leave open the possibility of a deliberate
Russian tactic serving to keep Japan's hopes for media-
tion alive. But they paid no attention to this aspect of
the matter; they seem to have been satisfied with Stalin's
assurances tli-at Russia was in no way interested in help-
ing the Japanese escape unconditional surrender and left
it at that. Stalin thus was able to keep the Western lead-
ers convinced of his loyalty as an ally without giving
away his own diplomatic game.
Stalin's strategy was entirely successful: both the
Japanese and the Western Allies were hoodwinked. The
Japanese assumed that immediate acceptance of the Pots-
dam ultimatum was not justified as long as there was 'a
chance that Moscow would obtain a mitigation of its
terms. The Allies remained in the dark about the fact
that Moscow deliberately confirmed the Japanese in this
belief. The result was that the Japanese still ;were tem-
porizing after the Potsdam Declaration had been issued,
and that- the 'Americans attributed this to an unimpaired
Japanese will to fight:
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190 FOUR CASE STUDIES
Things were made worse by Premier Suzuki's in-
credibly inept handling of the situation. When the Pots-
dam ultimatum was received in Tokyo, the Vice-Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Shunichi Matsumoto, favored im-
mediate acceptance." Foreign Minister Togo, although
opposed to outright rejection, advised that, before Japan
accepted the terms, one more attempt should be made
with Moscow's help to obtain a clarification and, if pos-
sible, a mitigation of them." The representatives of the
army urged outright rejection of the ultimatum. The
cabinet, after listening to all these opinions, decided on
July 27 to give no answer for the time being but to ascer-
tain Soviet intentions. Since it was impossible, however,
to withhold the Potsdam Dedaration from the public,
the cabinet decided to publish it without comment, pend-
ing further contact with Moscow.
After the meeting, Premier Suzuki proceeded to in-
form the journalists of the cabinet's decision. He did not
content himself with saying that the Japanese govern-
ment would abstain from making any comment for the
time being. He used, instead, a colloquial expression,
mokusatsu, the literal meaning of which is "to kill with
silence."' This Japanese term carries a special connota-
tion: contemptuous dismissal of something as not worthy
of any attention whatever."
On July 28, "molcusatsu" got into the newspapers on
instructions from the government. At the same time,
War Minister Anami and his clique redoubled their ef-
forts to have the ultimatum rejected, and Premier Suzuki
at a press conference used the same expression again, add-
ing that Japan would "press forward to carry the war to
a successful conclusion." This did not correspond to the
decisions made by the cabinet. Suzuki apparently had
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THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 191
decided not to divulge these decisions but to mislead the
public. Such -behavior has been frequent in analogous
situations: Badoglio also talked in public about continu-
ing the war when his real intention was to get out of it,
and Donitz did the same. It is a delicate matter for a
government to tell the people that it has decided to
capitulate, for this involves the danger of an immediate
collapse of discipline. Moreover, an open announcement
that Japan was about to surrender, before the step was
accomplished and supported by the Emperor's authority,
would very probably have provoked a revolt by the ex-
tremists who headed the army, thus nullifying the gov-
ernment's peace policy. The Allied statesmen, however,
were not in a mood to make allowances for the difficul-
ties in which the Japanese government was entangled.
Suzuki's statement was taken at face value and led to the
decision in Washington that Japan would be brought to
her knees by the "full application of military power,"
meaning the dropping of the atomic bomb."
The Atomic Bombs and Surrender
The two atomic bombs that the United States had
available were dropped on August 6 and 9 on the cities
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. Japan's sur-
render offer, on the Potsdam terms interpreted as imply-
ing that the Emperor would not be removed, followed on
August io. Thus Japan surrendered without a final
battle on the beaches involving large Allied and Japa-
nese casualties, and, since the surrender occurred within
a few days after the atomic bombs were dropped, it
seemed plausible enough to assume that the saving of
these lives was due to the use of the bomb.
Several high United States officials stated after the
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war that the atomic bombs, by ensuring Japan's quick and
virtually unconditional surrender, shortened the war and
saved many lives that otherwise would have been lost
during the last stage. According to a British writer,
President Truman stated in a speech on August 9, 1945, three
days after the first bomb was dropped: "We have used it in
order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of
thousands and thousands of young Americans." Then, on Oc-
tober 3rd, in a message to Congress, he said: "Almost two
months have passed since the atomic bomb was used against
Japan. That bomb did not win thewar, but it certainly short-
ened the war. We know it saved the lives of untold thousands
of American and Allied soldiers who otherwise would have
been killed in battle.'
James F. Byrnes, who was Secretary of State at the
time of the Japanese surrender, also suggested that it
was necessary to drop the bombs in order to induce the
Japanese to surrender. He wrote:
Had the Japanese Government listened to Sato and surrendered
unconditionally, it would not have been necessary to drop the
atomic bomb. But his advice was ignored as the militarists
clamored for a negotiated peace. . . . The Japanese Cabinet
did not decide to surrender until the atomic bomb had been
dropped on Hiroshima."
In his article published in Harpe?s Magazine for
February, 1947, dealing with the same question," Secre-
tary Stimson similarly argues that the bombs had. to be
dropped in order to overcome Japanese reluctance to sur-
render. His main point is that before the dropping of
the bombs the Japanese leadership's behavior did not
suggest any readiness to renounce the use of Japan's still
formidable fighting capacity in a last, desperate struggle.
The Potsdam ultimatum was flady rejected by the Japa-
nese. The United States government could not know
how firm that attitude was or whether the Japanese
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 193
would have shown 'themselves more tractable Without
additional military pressure of a dramatic kind. .Accord-
ing to Stimson, in order to ensure Japan's "quick and
complete surrender," it was necessary to give the Japa-
nese an object lesson- 'in what was involved in the rejec-
tion of the Potsdam ultimatum:
On July 28 the Premier of Japan, Suzuki, rejected the Pots-
dam ultimatum, by announcing that it was "unworthy of pub-
lic notice." In the face of this rejection we could only proceed
to demonstrate that the ultimatum had meant exactly what it
said when it stated that if the Japanese continued the war,
"the full application of our military power, backed by our re
solve, will mean- the inevitable and complete destruction of the
Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devasta-
tion of the Japanese homeland." For such a purpose the atomic
bomb was an eminently suitable weapon..
This theory, however, was challenged by the report
of the USSBS, team that, interviewed many Japanese
policymakers after the war in an effort to determine the
role played by the bombs .and the Russian dedaration of
war in precipitating Japan's surrender. The Survey's
conclusion is presented in the following terms:
Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported
by the testimony -of the surviving Japanese leaders involved,
it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to December 31,
1945, and in all'probability priOr to November I, 1945, Japan
would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been
dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if
no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
The Survey's conclusion was based on evidence deal-
ing with the gradual -strengthening of the 'peace trend
among Japanese-policymakers. According to the Survey,
the compositioii of the successive Japanese cabinets after
1944 clearly re-vealed such a trend, and Suzuki Was ap-
pointed Premier On April 7, 194.5, for the sole purpose
of ending the war.' The attemptS to "negotiate"
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94 FOUR CASE STUDIES
taken by the Suzuki cabinet were mere pretense, the Sur-
vey suggests. Since there was a large contingent of die-
hards in the armed services, the cabinet was unable to
offer surrender openly, but would have agreed to it in
extremis if nothing better could be obtained. The policy-
makers were afraid of the die-hards, but they knew that
Japan no longer had the means to continue resistance and
had to end the war on whatever terms she could. The
atomic bomb was not needed to bring the hopelessness of
the situation home to them. Even without such an "argu-
ment," they would have admitted defeat.
This analysis, though correct in its main outline, fails
to mention an important point: although Japan's political
leaders were willing to capitulate, they neither could nor
would do so unless the United States expressly agreed
to spare the imperial institution. Kido, the "senior states-
man," the civilian members of the cabinet, and some navy
chiefs had long recognized defeat as an accomplished
fact, and they were anxious to end the war on almost any
terms. Yet even this group recognized no alternative to
a suicidal last stand within the home islands should the
Allies prove unwilling to spare the imperial institution.
As to the military extremists around Anami, the War
Minister, they talked until the very end as if they
thought that the "last battle" in the islands would turn
the tide. This seems to have been empty rhetoric: when
pressed, the military chiefs could offer no hard facts to
back up their claim. While talking about "victory in the
last battle," they quite probably knew that the "last bat-
tle" would be a quixotic, suicidal venture. But they were
absolutely determined to lead their army into such a holo-
caust if the Emperor gave the word, and as we shall see,
they were trying to the last to persuade the Emperor to
do that very thing. Thus the decision lay with the Em-
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 195
peror and his advisers. And, for this group, "admitting
defeat" was not the crucial factor on which their decision
depended. The decisive question was, rather, whether
the Allies would modify "unconditional surrender" to
the extent of sparing the imperial institution. This con-
cession required that the Emperor himself choose sur-
render and rule out resistance at the beaches, something
which, as we have seen, he was very willing to do. The
American policymakers unfortunately were not aware of
this and therefore thought that the solution of the prob-
lem lay in increased military pressure. This miscalcula-
tion was well-nigh unavoidable under the circumstances.
Everything conspired to mislead Washington on the real
nature of the problem of the Japanese surrender. The
Japanese government gave the impression of rejecting
the Potsdam Declaration, and the United States govern-
ment could hardly guess that the failure of the, Japanese
to accede immediately to the Potsdam terms meant sim-
ply that they were maneuvering to surrender through a
circuitous route.
Secretary Stimson, writing in 1947, admitted that,
since "a large element of the Japanese cabinet was ready
in the spring to accept substantially the same terms as
those finally agreed on," an early and unequivocal an-
nouncement of the concession dimly adumbrated at Pots-
dam might have been sufficient to ensure surrender.
It is possible, in the light of the final surrender, that a clearer
and earlier exposition of American willingness to retain the
Emperor would have produced an earlier ending to the war;
this course was earnestly advocated by Grew and his immediate.
associates during May, 1945."
Curiously, however, Stimson asserted in the same
article:csAll the evidence I have seen indicates that the
controlling factor in the final Japanese decision to accept
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196 FOUR CASE STUDIES
our terms of surrender was the atomic bomb."" In other
words, the Japanese would have surrendered without be-
ing bombed, if the United States had clearly declared its
readiness to retain the Emperor; in the absence of such a
declaration, the atomic bomb was needed to make them
surrender on the same basis.
Stimson argues, too, that the very nature of the con-
flict compelled the United States to persevere in the most
destructive warfare possible, including use of the atomic
bomb, as long as the Japanese failed to announce their
readiness to surrender. To be sure, there had been re-
ports about Japanese peace feelers.
But such reports merely stimulated the American leaders in
their desire to press home on all Japanese leaders the hopeless-
ness of their cause; this was the nature of warmaking. In
war, as in a boxing match, it is seldom sound for the stronger
combatant to moderate his blows whenever his opponent shows
signs of weakening. To Stimson, at least, the only road to
early victory was to exert maximum force with maximum
speed. It was not the American responsibility to throw in the
sponge for the Japanese; that was one thing they must do for
themselves. Only on the question of the Emperor did Stimson
take, in 1945, a conciliatory view; only on this question did
he later believe that history might find that the U.S., by its
delay in stating its position, had prolonged the war."
This argument suggests a very serious misconception
of the "nature of warmaking." It is true that exerting
"maximum force with maximum speed" is necessary in
order to reach a strategic decision. But once the strategic
decision has been reached, the "nature of warmaking,"
or, if you like, a rational economy of warfare, prescribes
the quickest and least costly transition from violence to
nonviolence, and this aim is not likely to be achieved by
intensifying the destructiveness of the war during its
terminal stage. In this context the analogy with a boxing
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 197
match is.quite misleading, for a boxing match lacks any-
thing comparable to the "terminal stage of such a war
as World War II. A boxer who is behind on points still
has a chance of knocking out his opponent with a lucky
blow, and the stronger boxer has good reason not to relax
lest his opponent take advantage of such an opportunity.
During 'the terminal stage of war, however, the loser
cannot change the strategic outcome. The victor's prob-
lem is to induce him not to engage in operations that are
strategically meaningless and will merely inflict super-
fluous losses on both adversaries.
That this was the problem facing the United States
in the summer of 1945 was dear to the American policy-
makers. -They were not concerned that Japan might find
an opening and knock out the United States. Their ob-
jective was to avoid a last battle whose outcome was a
foregone conclusion but which would have been ex-
tremely costly. The problem was not whether and how
Japan could be defeated but how she could be induced
to capitulate before an invasion battle.
There-might well be differences of opinion about the
best method for achieving this objective. It was not ab-
surd to suppose that more devastation of their home-
land might induce the Japanese die-hards to change their
minds about the final battle, even though it could be
doubted that more devastation would have a - decisive
effect on _people so desperate that they were ready to
sacrifice themselves anyway. But the human and mate-
rial cost of persevering in a maximally destructive form
of warfare during the terminal stage could be justified
only on the assumption that this course alone could lead
to surrender before invasion. Once it was recognized
that another method, that of accepting surrender on mini-
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198 FOUR CASE STUDIES
mal terms,'cduld achieve the same objective, the princi-
ples of strategy did not dictate the continuation of a
maximally destructive form' of Warfare. The victor
would incur no risk by exploring the possibility of obtain-
ing capitulation without an invasion by politicat'conces-
sions, or by forgoing attempts to achieve the same result
by maximal- destruction.
Now the path of maximal destruction was not the
only one open to the United States. On the contrary, the
data that have come to light since the war indicate that it
was the nonviolent method alone that could lead to
capitulation without invasion, and that the, alternative
method, that of stepped-up violence, could not do so:
The American government could not know this: the
Soviet maneuver of deception about the Japanese peace
mission, together with the inept Japanese reaction' to
Potsdam, thoroughly confused the picture.
Now that the facts are available, there can be no doubt
that the American readiness to spare the Emperor's posi-
tion alone induced the Japanese to surrender. The note
conditionally accepting the Potsdam- terms, sent by the
Japanese on August io, after the bombs were dropped
and after Russia entered the wax, still reserved last-ditch
resistance as the only course open to Japan unless the
Allies explicitly agreed not to remove the Emperor.
True, the note was sent the day after the second atom
bomb attack, but it would have been sent on or about
August 10 even if no atomic attacks had taken place. The
main factor that determined the timing of the surrender
note was the Soviet declaration of war. It finally dis-
pelled the illusions the Japanese leaders had entertained
up to that time concerning Russian mediation. We may
say in this sense that the Soviet declaration of war played
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 199
a bigger role in triggering Japan's final move to make a
direct offer of surrender than did the atomic bombs.
Not that the intervention of the Soviet armies was
needed to convince the Japanese that their situation was
militarily hopeless. The point is that until Russia's decla-
ration of war the Japanese government, anxious to obtain
the best possible surrender terms from the Allies, pre-
ferred acting through the Moscow channel to approach-
ing the Allies directly. After the sudden dosing of that
channel, the only possibility still open, was to ask Wash-
ington directly whether the Potsdam terms actually
im-
plied sparing the Emperor. Japan finally, surrendered
when Washingtonzave a favorable answer on this point.
The "end-the-war group," to use Butow's apt phrase
for the Emperor and his circle, obviously_ did. not need
the stimulus of the atomic bomb to offer surrender on
the Potsdam.terms. But what about the military extrem-
ists? Did they not need the atomic flash over Hiroshima
to see the light? Did they not filially abandon their un-
compromising stand because the atomic bomb softened
their &Air ,spirit?' -And was it not such a change' in the
army's:attitude that finally enabled the Emperor to offer
surrender?
We are now in a position to answer these questions
unequivocally. We know the details of the policy dis-
cussions that immediately :preceded the sending of the
surrender note.. Aftee the dropping of the bombs the
discussions show.no manifest change in the attitudes held
by either the; end-the-war group :or the military extrem-
ists. The deadlock in the Supreme War Council and the
cabinet persisted after. Hiroshima and .:Nagasaki, and
even.after the Soviet declaration of war.' It was not a
change in the attitude of the military leaders that enabled
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200 FOUR CASE STUDIES
the Emperor to offer surrender, but the fact that the
Emperor was the strongest factor in the political setup
then existing. He was not obliged to defer to the mili-
tary.
The decision to send the note offering conditional
surrender was made at an imperial conference" that con-
vened shortly before midnight on August 9, after Soviet
Russia had declared war. At that meeting Foreign Min-
ister Togo proposed that a note conditionally accepting
the Potsdam terms be sent immediately to neutral capi-
tals for transmission to Washington. The military chiefs,
asked for their opinion, passionately rejected this pro-
posal. Anami advocated continuing the war and fighting
a "decisive" battle in the homeland, in order to force the
enemy to grant Japan better terms than those of Pots-
dam. The Army Chief of Staff, Umezu, spoke- in the
same vein, and so did the Navy Chief of Staff, Toyoda.
In the course of the discussion, the question of the mili-
tary significance of Soviet Russia's entry into the war was
touched on, and Umezu said that even that event could
not change his mind. The atomic bombs were also men-
tioned only in passing, with an army spokesman suggest-
ing that further bombings could be stopped by antiaircraft
defense."
Stimson tells us that "all the evidence" he had seen
indicated that the atomic bomb was "the controlling
factor in the final Japanese decision to accept our terms
of surrender." (It would be interesting to know what
that evidence was.) Had this been true, the advocates
of capitulation presumably would have made much of
the atomic bombings in their arguments. In such a case
we can imagine either Togo or the Emperor himself
(who carried the ball for the antiwar group) arguing
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 201
with the militaryin some such terms as these: "Up to
now, a reversal of the unfavorable military situation,
though-me did not really believe in it, has been at least
conceivable. But now that the Americans are dropping
atomic bombs, even you must admit that resistance is
futile. We must surrender, and we must do it at once,
before they drop a third bomb on one of our cities." This
argument, however, was conspicuously absent from the
Emperor's case for surrender. What he said was some-
thing entirely different. He argued with the military on
their own level. "There are those," he declared, "who
say that the key to national survival lies in a decisive
battle in the homeland. The experiences of the past,
however, show that there has always been a discrepancy
between plans and performance. I do not believe that
the discrepancy in the case of Kujukurihama the "na-
tional redoubt" the army said it was readying] can be
rectified. Since this is the shape of things, how can we
repel the invaders? And that was that. The Emperor
made the army "lose face" once and for all, by using the
stock argument of the antiwar group that army perform-
ance never measured up to army talk. The Emperor's
specific point about the "redoubt" had been served up to
him by Kido in a memorandum submitted on July 25,
nearly- two weeks before the first ;atomic ;bomb was
dropped. - This strongly indicates that the political
strategy by which the army was to be outmaneuvered had
firmly crystallized before the bombs fell. The only rea-
son this strategy was not applied earlier was that direct
conditional surrender could not be envisaged before
Moscow gave an answer, one way or another.
It cannot be said, of course, that the atomic bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki played no role whatsoever
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202 FOUR CASE STUDIES
in the Japanese deliberations leading to the decision to
offer surrender: Togo, who reported to the Emperor on
the Hiroshima. bombing two days after the event, "im-
pressed ulion the Emperor the urgency of the situation
and the necessity of terminating the war at once on the
basis of the Potsdam Proclamation."" The Emperor
concurred. According to a statement by Kido, the Em-
peror said on hearing the news of Hiroshima: "Under
these circumstances, we must bow to the inevitable. No
matter what the effect on my safety, we must put an end
to this war as speedily as possible so that this tragedy will
not be repeated.""
Since the Japanese could not know that only two
bombs were available, they had to reckon with the possi-
bility that more bombs would be dropped, and this prob-
ably contributed to the extreme haste with which the
surrender note was prepared and debated. Had the
threat of further bombings not hung over Japan, the
imperial council might have been convoked at a more
convenient time than midnight. But this, effect on the
timing was trivial. In fact, even the speedy Japanese
answer involved a gamble, for the surrender offer was
still only conditional, and Tokyo could not be sure that
the United States was still willing to treat on the basis
of the Potsdam concession. Had Washington changed
its mind, the conditional Japanese offer would have en-
sured further bombings, supposing that more bombs were
available. But the Japanese government took this risk
because it could not do otherwise. The atomic bombs, far
from being the "controlling" factor, caused no significant
reorientation of attitudes, no manifest change in points
of view.
Can it be said that the atomic bombs made a difference
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 203
to the outcome of the final debates, in the sense that they
decisively weakened the moral position of the military
group? Butow suggests that this factor did play a part:
It was not that the military Men had suddenly become reason-
able in the hours following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki dis-
asters; it was rather that they . . . had momentarily been
caught off balance. They were also at a loss for words which
could make any lasting impression upon the end-the-war fac-
tion. Prior to the dropping of the two A-bombs they had been
able to pledge their belief in their ability to meet effectively
any action taken by the enemy, but now whatever they said
made them look foolish and insincere."
It may well be that the impression produced by the
bombings contribute& to pointing up the emptiness of
the army's pretensions, even though, as we have seen, the
clinching argument used by the Emperor made no refer-
ence to it. It is impossible, of course, to ascertain what
the attitudes of the military would have been if the
atomic bombings had not taken place. Nevertheless it
seems unreasonable to suppose that the imperial council,
had it been faced with the Soviet declaration of war but
not with atomic bombings, would have decided against
the direct approach and in favor of a last-ditch battle.
Another "if" question may also be considered:. What
would have happened if the bombs had been. dropped
on August 6 and 9 but no Soviet declaration of war had
occurred?- Would the Japanese government then have
decided in favor of the direct approach without wait-
ing further for Moscow's mediation? This question is
more difficult to answer than the preceding one. It may
be argued that the bombs would have provided a suf-
ficient stimulus for direct surrender, but the contrary
assumption seems more probable to the present writer.
As long as the hope for mediation by Moscow was not
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204 FOUR CASE STUDIES
dead, the Japanese government would probably have
dung to it.
Speculations about the timing of the surrender, how-
ever, are quite irrelevant. After all, the vital question
from the American point of view was not whether the
Japanese government surrendered in August or in Sep-
tember, but whether it could or could not be induced
to surrender without offering last-ditch resistance. From
this point of view, it was not the exact timing of the
surrender that counted, but the nature of the final choice.
The evidence shows that the final decision for or against
a last-ditch battle did not hinge on the atomic bomb or
any other military consideration. It was a political
matter.
The army chiefs were by no means as strongly com-
mitted to the last battle as may appear from what has
been said above. At bottom they recognized the futility
of such an operation, and those among them who still
possessed a scintilla of realism and a sense of responsi-
bility looked upon all-out resistance not as an end in
itself but as a means to get the best possible terms. In
this respect, the gulf separating them from the end-
the-war group was not very wide. The latter, too, saw
no alternative to a suicidal last stand in case the United
States refused to guarantee the Emperor's tenure. The
militarists' last argument against capitulation was that
the American guarantee was not dear and unequivocal
enough.
After the American answer to Japan's surrender
note was received, the army chiefs made a last, desper-
ate effort to drop the surrender policy and revert to that
of last-ditch resistance. But the argument they used
---THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 205
was not that surrender was unthinkable in principle.
They maintained, rather, that the American answer of
August I I did not meet Japan's minimum condition,
the retention_ of the imperial institution."
The American answer, indeed, conceded the Em-
peror's tenure only by implication, stating that "from
the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor
and the Japifiese Government to rule the state shall
be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied
powers," and even adding that "the ultimate form of
government of Japan shall, in accordance with the Pots-
dam Dedaration, be established by the freely expressed
will of the Japanese people."
The crisis caused by the American answer was once
again solved by the Emperor's direct intervention: at
another imperial council meeting, on August 13, he
"commanded" the cabinet to accept the American answer
as satisfactory."
As we have seen, the last supporters of last-ditch
resistance took their stand because they doubted whether
Japan's minimum terms for capitulation had been met.
This had been the crucial issue all along, and it remained
an issue after the dropping of the bombs. Whatever
effect the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may
have had on-the thinking of the Japanese political and
military lead'ership, the choice between last-ditch resist-
ance and capitulation did not depend on it. That choice
was governed by the political payment on which the
Japanese insisted and had to insist?the retention of the
Emperor. Had this not been conceded, the chances are
that the Japanese would have felt compelled to resist
to the last.' This This concession, rather than the dropping
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206 FOUR CASE STUDIES
of the bombs, saved the lives that would have been lost
in the invasion of Japan.
EVALUATION OF THE UNITED STATES SURRENDER POLICY
Could the Japanese surrender have been brought
about before August 10-14 if the United States had
applied different methods of political Warfare? Stim-
son, as we have seen, thought so after the Nqr: he 'be-
lieved that the American failure to offer assurances
about the Emperor resulted in a prolongation of the war:
According to the present analysis, this view oversimpli-
fies the matter: the war would have been prolonged un-
til Soviet Russia's entry into it even- if the. American
concession had been formulated unequivocally earlier,
since the Japanese were angling for. still better' terms as
long as the illusory Moscow channel was open.
Had direct and confidential channels of communi-
cation been established with the Japanese' government,
it is conceivable that the United States would have been
able to clarify the situation and, to disabuse the Japanese
of their illusions. The operational rules followed by
both sides, however, precluded the establishment of
such a direct channel. The Japanese put out many feel-
ers, but they- never sent anybody abroad with official
instructions to discuss. surrender terms with the United
States. Although direct, contacts with' the United States
were neceSsary to dispel the Japanese illusions about,
the Moscow channel, these very illusions prevented
Tokyo from even considering such contacts. On the
American side, on the other hand, confidential conver-
sations with the enemy for the purpose of determining
a possible basis for surrender were ruled out on princi-
ple. The prolongation of the war until August was the
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 207
result 'of these two rigidities. The Japanese attitude
being what it.wd-s, the United States could have broken
the log jam only if it had made a very determined effort
to establish contact with the beaten enemy.
But could a victorious power be expected to embark
on such a course? Was it not up to the loser to take the
initiative? One might argue that elementary consider-
ations of prestige necessarily prevent winners from tak-
ing the initiative for confidential surrender talks. But
this argument, echoed. b,r Stimson in his dictum that the
United States cOuld not do the surrendering for Japan,
does not seem to be absolutely valid. The closest anal-
ogy to the terminal situation- in the war with Japan was
not a "boxing match,'? as Stimson supposed, but the
siege of a fortress. And-in a siege situation it is natural
for the strong besieger to initiate contacts with the be-
sieged party with a view to securing surrender so as to
avoid the necessity of storming the fortress. Further,
such contacts should. properly be confidential. If the
besieger wants to avoid *having: to take the fortress by
storm, he is well advised not to limit himself to public
appeals for surrender while he waits for the commander
of the fortress to run up a white flag.
One may speculate on. what the-course- of events
would have been if the American government had han-
dled the situation On the "siege,'? rather than, the "box-
ing match," analogy. The author *believes that the for-
mer procedure would have led to. Japan's 'surrender
before the Soviets entered the war, resulting in a far
morelavorable postwar balance of power in the Far East.
But this apprOach was precluded by the prevailing rules
of unconditionality."
Another, more fundamental misconception also vi-
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dated the strategic and political handling of the last
stage of the war with Japan: the failure to distinguish
between defeating an enemy and obtaining surrender
from him. The United States acted as if the problem
were that of defeating Japan, when in fact the problem
was to avoid an unnecessary last battle after Japan was
defeated. The same misconception prevented the United
States from assessing the real significance of Japanese
last-ditch resistance. Since the American leaders could
not keep the concepts of "defeat" and "surrender" apart,
they saw in Japanese resistance at Iwo and Okinawa proof
that the Japanese did not recognize that they were de-
feated and needed convincing.
Some uncertainty, of course, is always involved in
estimating at any given time whether strategic victory
has been achieved or whether the enemy acknowledges
his strategic defeat and is ready to act accordingly. The
Allies' terminal policy toward Japan, however, did not
go astray because of faulty intelligence on these points.
Its basic flaw was, rather, a defect of doctrine. All ter-
minal resistance whatsoever was regarded as necessarily
incompatible with the enemy's awareness of his stra-
tegic defeat. (As we have seen above, even Italian ter-
minal resistance was interpreted along such lines.)
Not only does this fundamental error prevent the
winner from doing what the terminal situation requires;
it also warps his strategic plans by inducing him to treat
the question of strategic victory as an open one when it
no longer is so. This is what happened during the last
stage of the Pacific war, with disastrous consequences.
Impressed by the strength of Japan's residual capabili-
ties, the United States came to the conclusion that Rus-
sian help was needed to "defeat" Japan.
_ THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 209
Stalin was able to exploit this American feeling for
his own ends. When he told Roosevelt at Teheran that
"by our common front we shall defeat Japan," he
wanted to put it on record that Japan could not be de-
feated by the Western Allies' unaided effort. In 1943
there were still legitimate doubts about this. But by
the end of 1944, when Japan's fleet and air force were
practically nonexistent and all that the Allies faced was
terminal resistance, there was no justification for basing
strategy on. a joint effort to "defeat" Japan. It is true
that American belief in the necessity for Russian help
grew weaker as Japan's military position weakened, but
the agreements entered into earlier could no longer be
undone.
The fact that the preferred method for forcing
Japan into surrender was that of stepping up destruc-
tive warfare reflects the same misconception. That
method culminated in the dropping of the atomic bombs,
an act that constituted a heavy moral liability for the
United States and that, as now seems certain, made no
essential contribution to Japan's surrender without a last
battle. The American government, of course, could not
know at that time what we know now, and those who
made the decision were convinced that many lives,
American as well as Japanese, would be saved by it.
But this conviction would not have prevailed if the na-
ture of the problem of obtaining surrender, as distinct
from that of achieving defeat and impressing this fact
on the enemy, had been dearly realized.
The final American decision to spare the Emperor's
position, which made possible capitulation without the
final holocauit, shows that the American government
was by no means wholly blind to the nature of the prob-
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210 FOUR CASE STUDIES
lem of surrender. Although its strategic. doctrine was
deficient in this respect, it turned out to be impossible
not to be "disarmed" by Japan's residual strength.
Moreover, there were well-informed and intelligent
people in policymaking positions whose knowledge of
Japanese conditions enabled them to hit upon the right
approach. Thus American surrender policy avoided
what would have been the worst of the disasters toward
which the cult of "unconditional surrender" was press-
ing.
CONCLUSIONS
The Japanese surrender illustrates the use of a
defeated power's residual strength, combined with an
insular position and an extreme will to resist, for the
purpose of obtaining political concessions in return for
surrender. Although the minimum condition posed by
Japan was extremely unpalatable to the most vocal sec-
tion of American opinion, and although it challenged
an essential part of the American doctrine of uncondi-
tional surrender, Japan turned out to have a sufficiently
strong bargaining position to get the condition accepted.
American interest in cutting losses was the chief factor
in Japan's bargaining strength.
The reorientation of Japan, i.e., the redistribution
of political influence within Japan whereby the military
leadership was toppled from its dominant position, failed
to produce a notable disarming effect on the Allies, be-
cause they had no idea of the power struggle that had
taken place within Japan. The political complexion of
the group around the Emperor and the Emperor's own
attitude were totally unknown to all but a tiny number
of Americans. So far as the American public was con-
THE JAPANESE SURRENDER 21i
cerned, Japan, with the Emperor as her ruler, was still
unregenerate when she surrendered. In spite of this,
the disarming tendency became dominant over tenden-
cies toward hostility.
The Japanese surrender also illustrates the impor-
tance of communications during the "interaction" phase
preceding surrender. The defectiveness of channels, due
to extreme rigidity on both sides, needlessly dragged out
the process of liquidating hostilities that no longer had a
strategic meaning. The lack of communications was thor-
oughly exploited by the Soviet leadership, which was able
to inject itself as a controlling factor into the surrender
process, owing to the radically mistaken political strategy
adopted by the Japanese.
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PART THREE
UNCONDITIONAL
SURRENDER
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THE MEANING AND RULES OF UNCONDITIONAL
SURRENDER
It was axiomatic with the Allies that the war had to
be fought to total victory. Since the strategy employed
was that of attrition, this meant fighting until the enemy
was reduced to surrender. Moreover, the peace terms
were to be unilaterally imposed rather than negotiated.
All this, however, did not necessarily imply that sur-
render was to be unconditional. The Allies could de-
cide to announce their political terms while the war was
in progress and still insist on the enemies' capitulation.
This procedure, however, was ruled out. As Cordell
Hull put it,
We . . . concluded that it would be unfortunate were any
of these three governments [the United States, Great Britain,
and Soviet Russia] to express any willingness to, enter into
commitments regarding specific terms of the postwar sett1e7
merit. We would, of course, expect a continuation of discus-
sions among the several governments toward the fullest possible
agreement on basic policies and toward later agreements at
the proper time and with public knowledge. When Hitler was
defeated, the Soviet Government would participate no less than
Britain and the United States in an effort to restore peace and
order. But no commitments as to individual countries should
be entered into at this time lest they jeopardize the aims we all
shared - in common, looking toward an enduring peace. It
would be unfortunate if we approached the peace conference
thus hampered.1
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216 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
The belief that specific agreements among the Allies
on the peace terms to be imposed would jeopardize
lasting peace was one of the elements of the uncondi-
tional-surrender policy as it developed during the war.
There Was, however, more to that policy than the deci-
sion to leave the formulation of pre,cise terms until
after victory. According to President Roosevelt and his
advisers, the ultimate aim of securing a permanently
peaceful p. ostwar world was also bound uji with the
manner in which the enemy's surrender would be han-
dled. They considered this neither, a short-range nor
a technical problem. The entire political future hinged
on it, since the handling of surrender would determine
whether ,or not all the roots of aggression were pulled
up. The policy of unconditional surrender was specifi-
cally designed to make sure that the winners, in accept-
ing surrender, would not unwittingly permit the sur-
vival of potential forces of aggression.
We may distinguish two stages in the development
of the policy of unconditional surrender: (I) the pre-
terminal stage, concerned with psychological and po-
litical warfare on the theme of victory and lasting peace;
and (2.) theterminal stage, in which the Allies specified
rigid ruled governing their relations with the surrender-
ing enemy.
When President Roosevelt proclaimed the, princi-
ple of "unconditional surrender" at -the close Of the
Casablanca. Conference on January ,2.4, 1943, it struck
those present as a casual improvisation. Roosevelt him-
self told Hopkins later that the phrase just ."popped
into his minc15"2 and Churchill, speaking to the House
of Commons on July 217 1949, said that he first heard
the expression when Roosevelt used it at the Casablanca
ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 217
press conference. In a later Commons debate (Novem-
ber 17, 1949), andin his war memoirs, however; Church-
ill corrected this statement. Examining his papers, he
found that the Casablanca communique, including the
phrase "unconditional surrender," had been discussed
with the President beforehand (January 20), and even
submitted to the British War Cabinet, which approved
it.' The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff had discussed this
formula earlier, on January 7.4 These facts suggest
that the principle was not conceived On the spur of the
moment, but? was an organic part of Allied thinking
about the problems of war, victory, and peace.'
This policy of unconditional surrender represented
a studied contrast with President Wilson's political con-
duct of the war in 1918. Wilson had laid down the
principles on which the peace settlement was to be based.
The Fourteen Points proclaimed, in. essence, that all
self-aggrandizement was to be forsworn at the peace
table. The weakness of the losing powers would not
result in their losing territory unless justice and the
principle of national self-determination required it.
President Roosevelt and his advisers felt that the
Germans had been left with the impression that they
had quit in 1918 not because they had been defeated
but because they had been offered acceptable terms.
Moreover, within a few years the Germans considered
their- moral and material position strong enough to per-
mit them to reopen the issues of 1919 on the grounds
that the settlement imposed upon them at Versailles
was at Variance with the Fourteen Points. The Ameri-
can leaders were determined to prevent similar devel-
opments after World War II. Allied political warfare
had-to steer clear of all moral commitments toward the
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2 1 8 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
enemy; the role of superior force in deciding the war
must be made as impressive as possible. That, and that
alone, could ensure a lasting peace. In. view of these
requirements, the policy of unconditional surrender
seemed the most suitable basis for the conduct of
political and psychological warfare.' In addition, by
strengthening the Western Allies' determination to
pursue the war to total victory, it served to forestall
German attempts to split the United Nations coalition.'
The "anti-Wilsonian" aspect of the unconditional
surrender policy was negative rather than positive: the
Allies would refrain from committing themselves to any
postwar policy that would entail the slightest concession
to the enemy, although the possibility of such concessions,
freely granted by the Allies if and when they deemed
fit, was by no means excluded.'
As to a positive formulation of the aftermath of
unconditional surrender, there was broad agreement
among the coalition members on a number of the terms
to be imposed.' Stalin insisted that these be publicly
specified,' but Churchill and Roosevelt were unwilling
to go along with his proposal." They felt that publica-
tion of even severe terms would smack of surrender
"on terms" and had to be ruled out for that reason.
As the terminal stage of hostilities drew near, how-
ever, it appeared imperative not to leave the implica-
tions of the unconditional-surrender principle wholly
indeterminate, but to define some precise rules for deal-
ing with enemy governments suing for peace.
What were these "rules of unconditionality"? First,
there was the "no negotiation" rule, prescribing that
there could be no dealings with enemy leaders except
to instruct them about details of orderly capitulation.
ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 219
Second, there was the "no recognition" or "vacuum"
rule, prescribing that immediately after capitulation the
enemy leaders would cease to exercise any political au-
thority whatever, and that no other indigenous body
would be recognized as representing the losing society
?i.e., the enemy's acceptance of a political vacuum at
the top was made a necessary condition for ending hos-
tilities. The vacuum was to exist during a transitional
period, which would fill the gap between the termina-
tion of active hostilities and the establishment of normal
interstate relations, and during which top governmental
functions in the losing countries would be exercised by
military governments installed by the winners."
These rules made no allowance for any reorienta-
tion of the loser's policy by defeatist elements within
the existing war-making regime. To the morally ori-
ented Allies, any abatement from the strict rules of un-
conditionality meant that some element of the evil past
would survive after the loser's surrender and make
their victory meaningless and worthless. The Allies'
aim was to introduce democratic forms into the countries
that had been wrested from totalitarian rule, but this
could be done, they believed, only by first creating in
each of these countries a political vacuum.
APPLICATION OF THE RULES OF UNCONDITIONALITY
It was not easy to put the rules of unconditionality
into effect. Sooner or later the Allies had to face the
fact that the creation of a political vacuum could co-
incide with surrender only if surrender were delayed
until the losing nation was occupied. This happened in
Germany, which was fully occupied before it formally
capitulated. Italy and Japan, however, were summoned
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22,0 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
to surrender, and did so, before the Allies were in oc-
cupation, with the result that their surrender could not
be handled on the basis of the strict unconditionality
rules.
Neither Italy nor Japan could be occupied unless
the Allies first sacrificed the vacuum policy. In Japan's
case, occupation before the conclusion of a surrender
agreement, though certainly feasible, would have been
too costly. Japan was strategically defeated, but her
insular position and her possession of large, cohesive,
and determined residual forces would have enabled her
to inflict heavy losses on an invading force. The Allies
therefore had a strong interest in obtaining surrender
before occupation, and the Japanese were willing to
offer it, but only on condition that the Allies confirm
the Emperor as Japan's nominal sovereign. Renuncia-
tion of the political vacuum in return for avoiding heavy
losses during the terminal stage of the war- appeared
too advantageous a trade to reject. The service ren-
dered by the Japanese in capitulating was important
enough to outweigh the Allied reluctance to leave rem-
nants of the war regime in place.
Italy's surrender was demanded and accepted on
the basis of the strict unconditionality rule; the' Allies
refused to extend recognition to the surrender regime,
reserving their right to remove it after occupation, even
though that regime promised the Allies not only
to cease resistance but to enter the war on the Allied
side. Even this radical reorientation of policy failed
to move the Allies, who saw the Italian abandonment
of terminal resistance merely as leaving them all the
more free to proceed on the basis of their "vacuum
doctrine." Soon after Italy's unconditional surrender,
however, it became apparent that occupation could not
ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 221
follow immediately because strong German forces
barred the way up the peninsula. This made it impera-
tive for-the Allies to salvage -and utilize all they could
of the remaining elements of Italian military strength,
even though these were already weak and were deteri-
orating rapidly. To do so they had to employ the au-
thority of the royal regime. The Allies could neither
remove nor ignore the regime without depriving them-
selves of active Italian cooperation against the Germans.
Thus they were compelled to reverse their original posi-
tion, arid to recognize the Italian surrender regime as a
cobelligerent less than two months after its unconditional
surrender.
Germany's surrender contrasted sharply with Italy's
and Japan's. To begin with, no political reorientation
preceded it. Even if the 1944 coup elltat against Hitler
had succeeded, it is doubtful whether the Allies would
have made any allowances for a German reorientation;
they indicated no readiness to do so. The question did not
arise, however, since the German strategic surrender was
carried out by remnants of the German war regime that
neither: repudiated Hitler nor imposed the surrender in
opposition to an extreme prowar group.
The Germans' residual forces could not-be used as a
bargaining counter?i.e., they could not be invoked to
induce the advancing Allies to modify their uncondi-
tional surrender policy: In fact, German military be-
havior during the last Weeks of the war amounted to
throwing away any opportunities that might have existed
on this score. During the winter of 1944-45, the Ger-
mans had tried to maintain equal defensive pressure on
their eastern and western fronts. Later, however, re-
sistance.became selective. By April 18,1945, the entire
Army Group B and other elements in the Ruhr had
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222 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
capitulated, and surrender negotiations were in progress
on the southern front. Thereafter, the advance of the
Western Allies into Germany was only feebly opposed.
But German soil was still being stubbornly defended
against Soviet forces in the East."
Political considerations obviously influenced this se-
lective pattern of resistance. Although German military
leaders did not dare speak openly about surrender to
either East or West, their behavior indicated that their
real objective was to surrender to the Western Allies
alone, while continuing the fight against Russia. Perhaps
they thought that the Western Allies might recognize
that they needed Germany as an auxiliary against the
"common enemy of the West" and hence abandon the
coalition. Selective resistance offered the Allies time to
revise their coalition policy. Besides that, of course, it
demonstrated that the Western Allies were less feared
than the Russians."
The Allies accepted the tactical surrender of such
German forces in their path as laid down their arms. But
when it came to strategic surrender, they insisted on si-
multaneous action in East and West. The only tangible
result that the Germans achieved through their strategy
of selective resistance, apart from ,cutting losses, was the
opportunity to transfer military personnel and civilian
populations from Soviet- to Western-controlled terri-
tory. Stalling during the last few days, when German-
held territory had shrunk to almost nothing, gave the
Germans the time needed to carry out a considerable sal-
vage operation of that sort. Although they could not
split the coalition, they were at least able to use one enemy
as a shield against the other. It would have been impos-
sible for the Germans to obtain such a concession by overt
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ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 223
talks. The selective use of their residual force, however,
enabled them to obtain the desired end, as it were, sur-
reptitiously.
This sequence of events enabled the Allies to handle
the German strategic surrender on the basis of the strict
unconditionality rules, without having to pay a heavy
price in terms of military losses. Surrender occurred only
after occupation, but the prolongation of the terminal
stage was not costly for the Allies, since the Germans wel-
comed, rather than opposed, Western occupation. There-
fore the priority of the ideological objective over that of
cutting losses and securing quick surrender was not put
to a real test in Germany, for the two aims were achieved
together. When it was put to the test in Italy and Japan,
it did not survive.
ASSESSMENT OF THE UNCONDITIONAL-SURRENDER
POLICY
The Role of the Unconditional-Surrender.
Formula in Prolonging the War
The unconditional-surrender policy has been severely
criticized on.the ground that it needlessly prolonged the
war." The demand for unconditional surrender, it is
argued, rallied the German people behind the war regime
and induced them to fight to the last. Faced with the
demand for unconditional surrender, which was tanta-
mount to the annihilation of their national existence, the
Germans and the other Axis powers had no choice but to
fight as long as was physically possible. If -a less severe
formula had been used in Allied war propaganda, or even
if very severe but specified surrender terms had been
offered, resistance would have come to an end sooner."
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UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
This criticism dearly refers to the negative, "anti-
Wilsonian" phase of the unconditional-surrender policy.
It is undeniable that the formula, when it was launched,
furnished ammunition to Nazi war propaganda. Gobbels
made copious use of it to counteract the disastrous effects
on morale of the defeats Germany suffered in Africa and
at Stalingrad.' But this alone does not prove that the
unconditional-surrender policy prolonged German re-
sistance.
That the war would have been shorter if the Allies'
basic war aim had not been total victory is, of course, true.
Ending the war by a negotiated peace would have re-
sulted in a shorter war and possibly in a better political
situation after the war. But few critics maintain that this
would have been the correct policy." Most critics, rather,
take the objective of total victory for granted and argue
that it would have been attained more quickly and more
easily if a more positive formula than unconditional sur-
render had been used.
Fuller, for example, maintains that "the Allied pol-
icy of unconditional surrender, by deliberately prevent-
ing the surrender of Germany on terms, could mean but
one ,of two things to every German?either victory or
annihilation."
Actual German behavior during the latter part of the
war, however, cannot be squared with this judgment. For
Hider, annihilation was indeed the only alternative to
victory, but not because surrender on terms was ruled out
by the Allies. The Nazis' official doctrine of the war did
not allow for surrender on terms. On the other hand,
there were many Germans who saw. that the war was lost
but who refused to admit that this necessarily.meant total
national extinction. They looked to a third alternative,
-ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 225
recognizing that the solution lay in ending the hopeless
struggle by capitulation if necessary. Although it cer-
tainly cannot be said that they acquiesced in unconditional
surrender, it would be equally wrong to maintain that
CCsurrender on terms" was the only formula to which such
Germans would subscribe. As we have seen in the case
study of the German surrender, there was no German
last-ditch resistance inspired by the feeling, "If you ac-
cept surrender on terms, all right, but if you refuse to do
so, nothing remains for us to do but go down fighting to
the last:" This pattern was present in Japanese, but not
in German, behavior.
The major stumbling block in the way of an active
surrender policy was the fact that, as long as Hider was
commander in chief, no military leader could initiate sur-
render without becoming guilty of flagrant insubordina-
tion. To the typical officer surrender was well-nigh un-
thinkable, no matter how senseless and suicidal continued
resistance appeared to him. Germans had to choose be-
tween military rationality, which implied surrender, and
military loyalty, which involved continued resistance.
For the military leaders, the latter was a moral impera-
tive. In determining their choice, all purely political
questions, including unconditional surrender, played a
lesser role. The authors of the July 1944 plot certainly
hoped to obtain qualified surrender, despite the Allies'
verbal insistence on unconditional surrender. They. did
not conclude from the unconditional-surrender policy
that they had no alternative hilt to continue a hopeless
struggle, Those Germans who at that time chose to fight
to the end did so more because they could not bring them-
selves to break faith with the Fiihrer than because of
Allied statements. -
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226 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
As pointed out above, German terminal resistance
was selective?stubborn in the East, almost nonexistent
in the West. Had the sloganof unconditional surrender
made all the difference between last-ditch resistance and
surrender, this selective resistance could not have hap-
pened, especially since the Western Allies practically. had
a copyright on the slogan. The Russians used mostly
themes other than unconditional surrender in their propa-
ganda in Germany. Stalin used the formula in his order
of the day of May I, 1943, in order to allay Allied un-
easiness about his seductive propaganda to the Germans,
but later (notably in his speech of November 6, 1943)
he again reverted to an appealing language that was in
open contrast to the Allied handling of the theme of sur-
render. If use of the slogan was a propagandistic blun-
der, the Russians largely avoided it, but their sagacity in
this respect was by no means rewarded. It was the West-
ern Allies who obtained the advantage of slackening final
resistance by Germany.
This indicates that the generally assumed causal rela-
tionship between the formula of unconditional surrender
and the length of the war is illusory. The length of the
war was determined largely by other factors, including
the Allies' objective of total victory and Hitler's (and
the Japanese war extremists') refusal to admit the possi-
bility of any kind of surrender." The terminal behavior
of the Germans also indicates that unconditional sur-
render to the Western Allies was not unthinkable for
them; it was the loss of German territory to the Russians
that they viewed as the ultimate catastrophe. Lord
Hankey's statement, "Not one of the German leaders
was willing to sign such humiliating terms as uncondi-
tional surrender,"" is directly contradicted by the facts:
ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 227
both anti-Nazi dissidents and Nazi loyalists were willing
to do just that, as our case study of the German surrender
shows. ?
Fuller propoundsi the thesis?that the announced pol-
icy of unconditional surrender was the reason that hos-
tilities did not end quickly after strategic decision had
been reached in the West:
In a sane war, Rundstedes defeat in the Ardennes would have
brought hostilities to an immediate end; but because of uncon-
ditional surrender the war was far from being sane. Gagged
by this idiotic slogan, the Western Allies could offer,no terms,
however severe. Conversely, their enemy could ask for none,
however submissive.'
General Westphal, however, who was Rundstedt's
chief of staff during the war, reviewed the terminal situa-
tion as it appeared from the German side and made the
following comment:
Yet, it is said, at least he [Rundstedt] could have stopped the
fighting in the West and capitulated. He would have been
only too willing to make an end to the mounting losses of men
and the destruction of even more German cities from the air.
Should he then make contact of his own accord with Eisen-
hower? His military upbringing ruled, that out. Perhaps now-
adays these basic principles are thought to be out of date. But
no one can jump over his own shadow."
In the next sentence, Westphal mentions "uncondi-
tional surrender?" as an additional reason why Rundstedt
could not .offer capitulation. But this had nothing to do
with the harshness of the formula. The Western front
had to he held, Westphal says, in order to "defend the
rear of the army in the east." Capitulation_in the West
had to be ruled out, otherwise "the front against the Rus-
sians would necessarily collapse also." Had it not been
for this consequence, capitulation by the field command-
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228 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
ers would have been dearly indicated, where it was not
rejected out of loyalty to their superiors.
It remains true, however, that the war may have been
needlessly lengthened by the unconditional-surrender
policy, not because of the effect of the slogan, but because
the rules of unconditionality prevented the Allies from
handling surrender situations in the most efficient and
expeditious manner.
The Rules of Unconditionality and the
Duration of the Terminal Stage
As seen above, the two rules of unconditionality could
not be imposed simultaneously in the cases of Italy and
Japan. The "vacuum" requirement was abandoned prior
to Japan's surrender and shortly after Italy's, when
events made it dear that further insistence upon the rule
would be ruinous for the Allies themselves. The no-
negotiation rule, however, was strictly adhered to in both
cases. Prior to surrender, the Allies limited their dealings
with these countries to the transmission of unilateral ap-
peals to surrender and to instructions about how capitula-
tion was to take place.
The combination of adherence to the no-negotiation
rule and abandonment of the vacuum rule did result in
a certain prolongation of the terminal stage of hostilities.
How much more quickly hostilities could have been
liquidated if the Allies had proceeded on entirely differ-
ent rules is difficult to tell. In Italy, the delay caused by
adherence to the rules was only a matter of a few weeks;
whereas, in Japan, conversations on qualified surrender
might perhaps have been successfully initiated immedi-
ately after Germany's capitulation, if not before.
But the main damage done to the Allied cause by
- ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 229
insistence on the rules was not the delay as such; it was
that the delay enabled third parties to make gains at the
expense of vital Allied interests. In the Italian case, it
was Germany who profited by the unconditional-sur-
render policy; in the Japanese case, it was Soviet Russia.
The Allies overlooked the fact that, in both cases, speedy
qualified surrender would have been better from their
point of view than either strictly unconditional surrender
or delayed qualified surrender. Both situations, there-
fore, called for negotiated surrender without a political
vacuum, but that was preduded by the no-negotiation
and no-recognition rules.
In Japan the greatest damage was done by the no-
negotiation rule. The no-recognition (vacuum) rule was
not rigidly binding on American policymakers, and many
of them had opposed it all along. Thus, when a formal
surrender offer was made by Japan on a qualified basis,
the vacuum rule was not insisted on and no further delay
occurred on that score. Earlier agreement forestalling
Soviet intervention could have been reached, however,
had the Allies departed from the no-negotiation rule.
In Italy's case, on the other hand, it was the vacuum
rule that had the most disastrous effects. Several weeks
were lost after Mussolini's ouster because the new Italian
regime could not establish Contact with the Allies for
technical reasons. Even so, things might have gone more
quickly if the Allies had not acted on the principle, im-
plied in the no-negotiation rule, that all they could do
was to wait:until the enemy indicated his readiness to sur-
render unconditionally.
But the real damage, as noted above, was done after
the Italianoffer of qualified surrender had been received.
The offer waS rejected in the name of strict uncondition-
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230 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
ality. . The vacuum rule was later abandoned, and rela-
tions between winner and loser were put on the basis of
qualified surrender, as the Italians had proposed to begin
with. But by that time the Allies were no longer in a posi-
tion to derive much advantage from Italian cobelliger-
ency. Thus, while the unconditional-surrender policy did
not result in a significant prolongation of the war with
Italy, it certainly facilitated the German deployment in
that country, and this may well have contributed to a pro-
longation of the war as a whole.
No needless delay in winding up hostilities can be
attributed to the application of the rules of uncondition-
ality in Germany. Some last-minute stalling permitted a
surreptitious salvaging operation in the East, but the sur-
render behavior of the Germans in the West was almost
perfectly adjusted to the rules of unconditionality. Their
leaders recognized fully that, once surrender became un-
avoidable, it could only be unqualified, and they neither
threatened nor actually engaged in last-ditch resistance
in order to obtain something better.
Their last-ditch resistance on the eastern front cannot
be blamed on the unconditional-surrender policy. On the
contrary, had the Western Allies departed from that pol-
icy during the terminal stage, German resistance in the
East might have been greatly facilitated because Western
conversations with a German surrender regime or the
search for an alternative to a political vacuum would have
brought the latent tension within the wartime coalition to
the fore. The Russians were so suspicious that even the
military surrender negotiations with the Germans on the
Italian front in the spring of 1945 drew a sharp protest
from them." Later, when the Allies left Admiral Diinitz
in office temporarily in order to ensure the quick dis-
ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 231
armament of German forces, Soviet commentators vehe-
mently declared that "reactionary circles in the Allied
countries"..were trying to preserve "fascist governments"
in order to prevent the "victory of the democratic forces
of freedom-loving peoples."" It is easy to imagine what
the Russians would have said if the Allies had initiated
talks prior to surrender with a view to recognizing an
interim regime.
Such considerations precluded Western dealings with
the political and military opposition that tried to over-
throw Hider in July 1944. The problem of relations
with this dissident group was handled in accordance with
the rules of unconditionality,which embodied ideological
and political, rather than military, considerations. The
Allied leaders remembered that the sole purpose of the
German generals between the two wars had been to re-
build Germany's military strength in order to subvert the
peace settlement by force or by the threat of force. The
generals had thrown their influence behind Hider and
thus made-the Nazi regime possible. Was it not folly,
then, to allow the German military caste to dissociate
itself from Hider's doomed enterprise, maintain its in-
fluence behind a peaceful fa?e, and start the same game
over again?
Critics of Allied policy in. World War II argue that
this negative attitude was unwarranted. They maintain
that the postwar situation would have developed much
more favorably from the Allies' point of view if Ger-
many's military leaders had been encouraged to eliminate
Hitler and to make peace. In the light of hindsight, a
considerable case can be made for this position. But no
matter how desirable it might have been to encourage
Germany's political transformation and conclude peace
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232 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,
with a regenerate regime, the Allied governments could
not endorse such a policy, even if they had wished to,
except in concert with Soviet Russia. There was little
chance of such a concerted procedure, however, for basic
goals and interests were too far apart. The Russians were
interested mainly in promoting radical social changes in
Germany, so as to set the stage for a fundamentally anti-
Western reorientation of German society after the war.
Therefore, any Allied attempt to work out a common
platform would have risked splitting the coalition no
less than independent action by the West. The only sure
way of avoiding a split was by conceding the German
prize to Russia, but that, of course, would have been
suicidal for the West.
Substitution of a policy of negotiation or qualified
surrender for that of unconditional surrender during the
war with Germany would have threatened to split the
coalition. As the end was drawing near, however, no
mitigation of the formula was needed to cut short last-
ditch resistance by the Germans in the West; no such
mitigation could affect their determination to hold out in
the East as long as was necessary to save their people
from the Russians. In the West, the Germans, for rea-
sons of their own, chose to let military resistance subside;
in the East, no blandishments on the part of the Soviet
Union could induce them to abandon their last-ditch
resistance.
THE FALLACIES OF UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
What the record indicates is that the mere verbal
expression of Allied policy exercised no major influence
upon the stubbornness of enemy resistance and the dura-
ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 233
tion of the- war. The belief that the Allies could have
shortened the war appreciably if they had mitigated the
excesses of their verbal behavior is a myth. This myth
is readily believed because it is consonant with one of the
pervasive beliefs of our age, the belief in manipulation as
the main factor determining human conduct. Addicted
to a na? stimulus-response philosophy, we tend to take
it for granted that people's actions depend on nothing but
the momentary stimuli they receive, stimuli that we, the
manipulators, can control at will. Where this philosophy
holds sway, the possibility that conduct might also have
other sources is not even taken into consideration. There
is no room for the "autonomous" sources of conduct in
the simplistic philosophy that colors so much of our pres-
ent political thinking. Accordingly, during the war, the
enemy's own permanent and deep-rooted loyalties, his
own spontaneous assessment of his interests, and similar
autonomous factors were not taken into account when we
tried to foresee and influence his conduct in the terminal
situation. Nothing seemed to matter except what we did
to him and what we told him then and there. Even in
retrospect, we indulge in fantasies to the effect that every-
thing would have happened differently if our verbal
manipulation of the enemy's actions had been more skill-
ful. This line of criticism is worthless because it is based
upon the manipulative fallacy, a misconception that the
critics share. with the policymakers whose decisions they
scrutinize.
There is, however, an even more fundamental flaw
in this. kind of criticism of the unconditional-surrender
policy. The main question to which it is addressed,
namely, whether the policy of unconditional surrender
has "prolonged the war," is irrelevant. This sort of
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234 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
question was centrally relevant to the assessment of the
merits of basic strategic decisions in World War I, where
it turned out in retrospect that victory, though fully
achieved, had no real, lasting value for the principal win-
ners, France and England, because they had bled them-
selves white in pursuing it. The drain on their resources
involved in coming out of the war in possession of a com-
plete monopoly of armed strength turned out to be more
important in the long run than that monopoly itself. For
France and Britain, victory was Pyrrhic because the war
"lasted too long"; i.e., it was too costly in lives and, mate-
rial goods. The victory the West achieved in World
War II also turned out to be hollow, but not owing to the
length or costliness of the war as such. The war, of
course, had been tremendously destructive, and it may
well be argued that the political aftermath would have
been better if the Allies had been less adamant in ruling
out political concessions to new, regenerate regimes on the
enemy side. But it was not the undue prolongation of the
war that was primarily responsible for the hollowness of
the victory, nor was the excessive length and destructive-
ness of the war caused by the lack of a sensible strategic
concept on the eventual winners' side.
In World War I, the West's holding out for com-
plete victory .was ill-advised because it entailed exhaus-
tion. For this reason alone, a policy of compromise would
have been preferable. (It is not inconceivable, though. it
is by no means certain, that a compromise settlement
could have been worked out with Germany.), In. World
War II, however, the western conduct of operatic:ins at
least did not involve the insane strategic concept of sym-
metrical, mutual attrition, i.e., months and .years of al-
most uninterrupted. slaughter, "justified" by.the hope of
ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 235
still having some divisions left when the enemy had
none. The-West's attrition strategy in World War II
was more destructive than it need have been, but at least
it was, by and large, asymmetrical, as a genuine winning
strategy must be. For the United- States, politically the
leading power of the West; the war had not been total at
all, and if the postwar period found the West in a politi-
cAy disadvantageous position, it was not because the
human and economic substance of its leading component
had been drained away. Nor was the West's political in-
transigence_the chief reason why fighting. continued far
beyond the point where strategic victory was assured:
blindness -and fanaticism on the eventual losers' side
would Probably have led to this result even if the even-
tual winners had been less intransigent.
It seems, then, that fastening upon the "unnecessary
prolongation of the war as the maim criterion of weak-
ness in the Allied war leadership is just one more instance
of the well-known tendency of strategic thinking to lag
one war behind. As we have seen above, the, uncondi-
tional-surrender policy itself was conceived largely in an
effort to avoid a supposed mistake made in the previous
war; its critics, however, are apparently not above falling
into similar errors.
To find fault with many critics of the Allied policy 'of
unconditional surrender, however, is not to say that this
policy was,free from basic fallacies. We have seen that
in two cases, those of Italy and Japan, the policy could not
even be put into practice, while in a third, that of Ger-
many, it worked because it fitted in with German prefer-
ences and calculations of which its authors were not
aware. If leaders enjoying overwhelming military su-
periority nevertheless managed to set themselves objec-
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236 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
fives that cannot be attained, there must be something
wrong with their basic thinking and doctrine. It will be
useful at this point to identify the main fallacies of the
unconditional-surrender policy.
The first fallacy was the Allied policymakers' fail-
ure to distinguish between the problem of inflicting stra-
tegic defeat on the enemy and that of inducing him. to
surrender. Whereas the former problem involves only
violent interaction, the latter concerns the transition from
violence to nonviolence. At this stage, there must be some
give-and-take. A surrender agreement is essentially a
political bargain. To aim at obtaining surrender while
ruling out all bargaining on principle is a contradiction in
terms. It is quite true that belligerents strong enough to
impose surrender, and thus to obtain a monopoly of fight-
ing strength, need not condude a compromise peace; they
can dictate terms. Dictation, however, does not mean that
the winner, in fixing the terms, must act as if the loser had
no bargaining assets at all. The fallacy inherent in the
unconditional-surrender doctrine that we have described
consists in supposing that before the beaten enemy has
renounced the use of his last significant capabilities his
bargaining strength is exactly nil.
We should be dear about the penalties for acting on
this fallacy. These penalties do not include exhaustion
of the winner's resources, undue prolongation of the war,
or other major calamities of this kind. The winner will
find, rather, that his objectives, framed in the light of a
fallacious doctrine, are unrealistic. As he enters the ter-
minal stage of the Conflict he will discover too late that
he cannot avoid making payments proportionate to the
loser's residual bargaining strength. He must either re-
vise his original policy or make involuntary payments to
ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 237
the loser, to third parties, or to "nature" (as the game
theorists Would put it)."
It is poor policy in general to treat an enemy nation
as if it were a quantite negligeable. Victorious leaders
who impose a political vacuum on the defeated enemy act
on this questionable premise. Political nature no less than
physical nature, however, abhors a vacuum; imposing
one is bound to lead to ultimate disappointment. The
consequences of -the Allies' vacuum policy in World
War II were largely negative, where they were not posi-
tively harmful. Where, as in West Germany, the politi-
cal vacuum eventually gave way to the development of a
democratic regime, the same thing could also have hap-
pened had there been no vacuum. In this case only time
was lost, but in East Germany, communism rushed into
the vacuum. Japan might have fallen under communist
domination had the Allies succeeded in imposing integral
unconditional surrender there. In. Austria, where no
vacuum was imposed, the communists did not seize power
even in that part of the country that was under Soviet
occupation. -
Whereas the vacuum policy actually jeopardized
prospects for a democratic development in the defeated
countries, it recommended itself to the instigators of un-
conditional- surrender precisely because they saw in it an
indispensable preliminary condition for the healthy de-
velopment Of political democracy and thus for a peace-
ful future. This brings us to the second major fallacy,
or duster of fallacies, involved in the doctrine of uncon-
ditional surrender. The main inspiration behind the pol-
icy was the passionate belief that the more completely
the enemy was stripped of power at the end of hostilities,
the more securely peace would be established. The small-
z
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238 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
est shred of power and influence surviving on the los-
ing side was to be feared as a possible focus of infection
from which the disease of war might spread again. This
summed up the problem of war or peace.
This belief, preposterous as it is, was not pulled out
of a hat; there was seemingly solid historical evidence
behind it. World War II did grow out of Germany's de-
sire to. turn the tables on the powers that defeated her in
I 918; had she been more thoroughly stripped of power,
this could not have. happened. It could also be argued
that lasting peace might have been secured after World
War I by treating Germany not more sternly -but more
leniently. But it is impossible to settle this question one
way or another, and we must admit in any case that re-
venge by the defeated was one of the possible threats to
peace after World War I. The mistake Was only to be-
lieve that this threat would necessarily persist, and be the
dominant factor in international relations, after World
War II as well., The Western leaders and peoples over-
looked the fact that a vast transformation was taking
place in the political universe, completely overshadowing
the German-Western and Japanese-American differences
inherited from the era of the Baghdad railway, the Tir-
pitz fleet, and the Open Door in China. Instead of plan-
ning to settle the problems germane to World War II,
they resolved to end it by doing everything that would
have been needed to prevent it from breaking out.
Even on this premise, however, the approach em-
bodied in the unconditional-surrender policy was falla-
cious. Even if weakening the former enemies in order to
prevent them from ever again becoming threats to peace
had been a valid objective (which, given the very favor-
able outlook for their spontaneous "reorientation," was
ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 239
not the case) ,-unconditional surrender was not the key to
it. If the Western leaders' had read history correctly,
they would have realized how fleeting a thing is a war-
time monopoly of military strength. Dangers such as
revenge by a defeated power cannot be indefinitely
warded off by unilateral disarmament or even by occupa-
tion and the imposition of a political vacuum. There are
only two ways.in which such dangers can be nullified. A
defeated power, even if it does not reorient its policy, can
cease to be.dangerous either if it goes into decline by los-
ing vitality or:if an international grouping is set up facing
it with overwhelming odds. The main reason Germany
remained dangerous after World War I was not that she
had not been- given a stern enough lesson, but that the
coalition that might have been strong enough to discour-
age her plan forrevenge fell apart.
Two problems were germane to securing lasting
peace after World War II: Was German and Japanese
revenge the main danger to avert? And if so, was a firm
and stable countercoalition available? The Allied lead-
ers unfortunately answered the first question with "yes,"
although the correct answer was "no." As to the second
question, they did not even raise it, because they did not
recognize that peace was a matter of the international
balance. They put their faith instead in unconditional
surrender, in' going to the farthest conceivable limit in
dismantling the German and Japanese power structure.
They reduced the problem of forestalling further wars
to that of administering to the disturbers of the peace a
lesson they would never forget.
This pedagogic fallacy was perhaps the most salient
feature of the Western approach to the problem of war
and peace. Western leaders and their nations did not
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2 4? UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER ?
know, alas, how quickly people forget even the most pain-
ful lessons, how differently the same lesson can be inter-,
preted by those who administer it and by those who
receive it, and how soon it can become irrelevant because
of changed circumstances. Permanent peace rests on a
weak foundation indeed if it depends on the undying
memory of a just chastisement. This, however, was the
foundation we prepared for it by adopting the uncondi-
tional-surrender policy.
It is idle to debate whether the mistake was an avoid-
able one. In all probability it was not: as we suggested in
Chapter Two, the tendency to expect lasting peace from
the destruction of all germs of aggression located in the
enemy society has deep roots in the American tradition.
It would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible,
for Americans to sustain the war if they had not been
inspired by this expectation. From this point of view, the
pedagogic fallacy inherent in the policy of unconditional
surrender was a pragmatically valuable illusion during
the war. And this leads to a question of conscience: if an
illusion is pragmatically valuable, if it works, is one justi-
fied in corroding it by rational criticism?
The answer is that illusions of this sort do not col-
lapse merely because rational analysis corrodes them; our
experience of "losing the peace after winning the war"?
an experience repeated twice in the last fifty years?has
done more in this respect than any amount of abstract
analysis. We have never been slow to see the flaws in our
specific war ideologies after the event, but this has not,
so far, induced us to give up the habits of thought that
produce such fallacies.
There are some signs that as a people we are moving
away from the kind of fallacious thinking about the prob-
ALLIED POLICY IN WORLD WAR II 241
lem of peace and war that expressed itself in the uncon-
ditional-surrender policy. An indication of this is the
recent growth of a considerable body of literature, criti-
cally analyzing the traditional moralistic, all-or-nothing
American approach to the problem of war and peace.
Some recent political experiences, such as the Korean war
and the ups and downs of the cold war, also may have
contributed to the development of less rigid, more elastic
ways of thinking about the international conflict and in-
ternational harmony. But deeply ingrained emotional
patterns die hard, and old fallacies, no matter how thor-
oughly hindsight demolishes them, have a way of crop-
ping up again when a new challenge is to be met. Hence,
scrutinizing them is no wasted effort.
?.!
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AWAY FROM
THE SIEGE STWXTEGY ?
THE CHANGED OUTLOOK FOR STRATEGY
It is safe to assume that future armed 'conflicts will
not be dominated by the strategy of attrition that deter=
mined the character of World Warsrand IL The de-
structiveness of present (and, a fortibri, future) .weapons
is such that strategic decisions can no longer center upon
the gradual wearing down of the enemy's mobilizable
potential. Bence,' we no longer can -visualiie terminal
situations of. the "classic" World War I and II type, es-
_
sentially representing the last stage of a siege. The main
feature of that pattern was the unirnp aired cohesive struc-
ture of the loser's residual forces (and, inWorld War II,
eVen of his political and socialfabric), together with the
drying up of sources of supplies and'-reinforcements.
What Iresent weapons portend, however, i?an extreme
kist'uptive effect; which ioes far beyond the disruption
-aChieved by earlier "battle" strategies.' Full-scale nu-
clear warfare threatens it farget with a level.bf destruc-
tion so high?that coordinated activities Must largely come
t-O a stop. In such a situation, the lbser sinnot, Offer "stir
render" in the shape of handing to the Winner' control
Over cohesive residual capabilitie?and'over a societY that
is still a going concern.'" '
T
The strategic picturC i also bound to change in an
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246 FUTURE STRATEGY
even more fundamental sense. The immediate payoffs
of "victory" and "defeat," possession of unimpaired
armed strength on one side and lack of all defensive capa-
bilities on the other, will no longer circumscribe the major
strategic alternatives facing the belligerents. The worst
strategic outcome will no 'longer be defenselessness but
utter destruction of the entire society, and in full-scale
nuclear war this fate may overtake both sides. It is ques-
tionable whether an asymmetrical winning strategy can
be developed at all for unlimited nuclear war between
the two great world powers:8 such a war conceivably can
have only losers, although this is by no means certain.
With such changes in basic strategic factors, the politi-
cal aspect of international conflict is bound to change too.
Under the new conditions, maximally total war can no
longer serve such political aims as the dictation of terms,
temporary "pedagogic" occupation, or even outright con-
quest. All this presupposes that something worth dictat-
ing to, reeducating, or annexing survives on the losing
side. The only political objective appropriate to all-out
nuclear war is the elimination of the adversary, some-
thing that probably cannot be achieved except at the risk
of self-elimination.
Adopting such an objective, coupled with such risks,
is, of course, not strategy but lunacy. People, however,
sometimes act in an insane fashion. In the course of the
above analysis, we touched on "insane" strategies?those
which aim at complete victory without having the charac-
teristics of asymmetry that alone can make a strategy a
winning one. Insane or not, such strategies have been ap-
plied in the past. Where is the guarantee that even more
insane ones will not be applied in the future?
There can be no such guarantee, but the probability
AWAY FROM THE SIEGE STRATEGY 247
that any power will deliberately embark on such a suicidal
course must be considered extremely small. In World
War I, the belligerents stumbled into the strategy of
mutual attrition because past doctrine provided them
with no other possibility, and also because they did not
know what the consequences would be. What mutual
nuclear attrition would mean, however, is only too clear
to everyone. But if this course is extremely unlikely to
be chosen deliberately, it may nevertheless grow out of
miscalculation, for example underestimation of the
enemy's ability to hit back. If this happens, the political
outcome will not be strategic surrender of the World
War I and II type but mutual devastation, with whatever
political adjustment may subsequently be possible.
We must also mention the possibility that a power
might develop a perfect winning strategy for all-out
nuclear war, i.e., the strategy of a first strike that elimi-
nates all significant retaliatory capabilities on the adver-
sary's side. Needless to say, a power whose enemy devel-
ops strategic capabilities of this sort is in mortal danger:
the enemy can, if he chooses, eliminate that power with
,relative impunity. Once this happens, strategic surrender
(at least strategic surrender .of the classic type discussed
above) will be irrelevant. But this kind of situation
points to the possibility of surrender of a different sort:
surrender without fighting. If one power has a monopoly
of such a winning strategy, and its adversary knows it,
a mere threat of attack might induce the latter to sur-
render politically.
SURRENDER IN NUCLEAR WAR
- Strategic surrender may become germane to the ter-
minal stage of other possible variants of total nuclear
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248 FUTURE STRATEGY
warfare. For example, even without possessing a perfect
winning strategy, one side may achieve a victorious, asym-
metrical outcome, if it comes out of unlimited nuclear
war with much larger operational capabilities, and par-
ticularly in a much less disrupted state, than the other.
If the latter then still possesses even a small, residual
nuclear capability that is well protected, the surrender of
this capability will be important to the former. While the
victory itself will be predicated on differential disruption
rather than on divergent attrition, the characteristic ele-
ment of strategic surrender, dispensing with the use of a
residual capability, will still be present.
Similar terminal problems might arise in another con-
ceivable type of nuclear war, a war that is waged entirely
in the form of counter-force operations (the pure air-
counter-air war). This stratgy is, if course, one of pure
disruption. But if one side wins the battle, surviving
small units on the other side will be potentially dangerous
(as small units surviving after decisive non-nuclear bat-
tles were not), so that it will be important to secure their
surrender.
Although the nuclear variants of surrender just dis-
cussed necessarily differ in many respects from the older,
non-nuclear ones surveyed in this study, the permanent
characteristics of surrender specified in our analysis will
be present if strategic surrender becomes a factor in the
context of nuclear war. Thus, surrender will still be es-
sentially. a bargain, calling for. counterpayments; .it will
still not be synonymous with omnipotence for one side
and zero bargaining power for the other. Those who may
have to deal politically with surrender will have to keep
this in mind.
Nine
NUCLEAR STRATEGY AND
LIMITED WAR
The emergence of nuclear weapons not only changed
the possible significance of strategic surrender, but also
tendered questionable the compatibility of victory in any
meaningful sense with the waging of total war. The new
weapons are so destructive that, if they are used to the
full limit of their destructiveness, the losses they cause
must far outweigh any political advantage that might be
derived from'victory. If we disregard the asymmetrical
case in which one side can prevent any critically telling
use of the opponent's capabilities, we have to recognize
that the concept of strategic victory will be meaningful
in the future only in wars that are nontotal, i.e., wars that
end when a significant .part of destructive potential; of
both sides has not been put to Use.
- The concept of nontotal war has been: discussed: in
Chapter Two of this study. The essential condition for a
_ -
conflict's remaining nontotal, we suggested there, is that
the.beaigerent.who is frtstrated,by the outcome of early,
engagements nevertheless accepts their verdict as final.,
Such behavior; we Said further, presupposes the initial
losers .(or .at least nonwinner's) belief' that he cannot
secure for himself a better total payoff by prolonging the
w?ar, either because the later engagements Would end as
poorly for him as the early ones had, or because securing
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250 FUTURE STRATEGY
a larger slice of what is politically at stake, though feasi-
ble, would not be worth the additional cost. This analy-
sis was carried out with the known historical past in mind.
We shall now consider what the novel facts of the nuclear
age imply concerning the problem of the limitation of
war.
The first thing we have to recognize is that the pat-
tern of gradually mounting costs and losses, a pattern
that is central to classic nontotal war no less than to classic
attrition strategy, is alien to the nature of nuclear war.
One cannot keep such a war nontotal simply by cutting it
short; if waged in all-out fashion, it can become very
highly total in the first exchange of blows. This means
that any limitation of nuclear war, any holding back of
destructive capabilities for its entire duration, must be in
a sense artificial. It can only result from a decision to do
much less than one could from the very beginning, rather
than from a decision to quit after the first results of un-
limited efforts are in. One may say, in fact, that in the
classic pattern single efforts are unlimited, in the sense
that (given substantial equality among the contenders)
decisions about what forces to commit are based solely on
what the enemy has readily available: the only upper
limit is what is thought necessary to overmatch him. In a
nuclear war, however, the first exchange would lead to
total destruction if its vehemence were determined by this
criterion. Therefore, an "artificial" limiting criterion is
needed.
The necessity for an artificial limitation poses exceed-
ingly difficult theoretical and practical problems. How
can one determine the nature and extent of necessary and
sufficient artificial limitations? And supposing that this
NUCLEAR STRATEGY AND LIMITED WAR 251
is done, how can prospective enemies reach an agreement
on this basis? No attempt can be made here to answer
these questions; we must limit ourselves to a few general
remarks.
Strategies involving artificial limitations are not alto-
gether inconceivable: the classic principle of unlimited
single efforts in the above sense does not have the force
of a law: of nature. To be sure, the drafting of explicit
agreements about artificial limitations of single efforts
is an exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, task. But
artificiallimitations might come to be observed without
an explicit agreement; each belligerent might, for ex-
ample, spontaneously decide to pull his punches in cau-
tious fashion, hoping that his adversary will also do so.
Such a pattern can be quite stable as long as neither side
sees an opportunity for achieving a quick knockout by a
single unlimited blow that leaves the enemy no chance
for a telling riposte. Belief in the existence of such a win-
ning strategy, of course, would automatically wipe out all
limitations, regardless of whether or not they are ex-
plicitly codified in international agreements.
The artificial limitation of single blows, however,
does not in itself ensure that the whole war will be non-
total. The essential question in this respect is not whether
single blows are limited, but whether a peace settlement
is made on the basis of a military outcome achieved while
very considerable capabilities remain unused on both
sides. Whether this happens or not depends primarily on
the attitude of any belligerent who is dissatisfied with the
outcome of the partial use of capabilities. We have here,
indeed, an invariable principle valid for all nontotal war,
no matter how strategic patterns change. Novel nuclear
1.1
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252 FUTURE STRATEGY
capabilities, however, pose problems in connection with
keeping ,a war nontotal that do not exist in non-nuclear
war.
Even in nuclear war, acknowledging defeat (or any
other unsatisfactory outcome, such as stalemate) on the
strength of the result of a partial effort is not unduly
difficult when the political stake is low. Low-stake wars
tend to remain nontotal in any case.- The crucial problem
that arises in connection with limiting nuclear war is how
to conclude a high-stake war with considerable capabili-
ties held in abeyance on. both sides.
There is a ready solution of this problem in the classic
context. It is based on strategic foresight. Whatever the
stake, additional efforts are warranted only if they may
be expected to change the trend. Where this is ruled out,
i.e., where an adverse trend pointing toward defeat or
stalemate is clearly seen to be irreversible, the result of
partial operations mirrors that of more total ones. The
partial operations, in other words,.constitute a representa-
tive sample of any more complete cycle of operations:
Such judgments, however, can be made with cogency
only where the classic principle of unlimited single blows
holds. When the single blows are unlimited, there may
be a basis for concluding that the outcome will not change
when their number is increased. But when the partial
result is based on artificial limitations, such extrapola-
tions are necessarily problematic. The partial outcome
may -still cogently imply that one side is relatively
stronger, but it cannot prove that the stronger side would
be in a position to achieve a monopoly of military
strength if the war were to become more total. Hence,
even if the partial outcome strongly favors one side, it
cannot serve as a firm basis for setting peace terms pre-
NUCLEAR STRATEGY AND LIMITED WAR 253
dicated upon unimpaired strength-on one side, defense-
lessness on-the other. If the winner of partial operations
were to demand the surrender of the loser's significant
unused capabilities, yielding would mean that the loser
would be exposed in the future to the constant danger
of extinction, and to the certainty of continuous un-
bearable exactions. This he .can prevent as long as he
still has considerable unused capabilities; .by employing
them in a last, suicidal outbreak of despair, he can. at
least prevent the winner from enjoying the fruits of
his victory.
Under classic conditions, such possible despair re-
actions do not present A significant problem, because any
reasonable extrapolation from an irreversible losing
trend implies that the longer desperate, hopeless resis-
tance goes on, the less telling will be the blows that the
loser midlit still inflict- on the winner. Any small addi-
tional loss thatthe winner will be made to suffer will
have as its counterpart a large additional loss for the
loser. The gradualness characteristic of the classic stra-
tegic picture excludes any sudden and startling jump
in loss levels. Totally suicidal and murderous despair
reactions at the terminal stage can enter into thestrategic
picture only when capabilities are nuclear.
In dealing with the political -problem of securing
a settlement .on the basis of partial. nuclear operations,
the-winner-must take into account the loser's ability to
unleash a -last orgy of destruction, together with the
reasons hei-might have-for doing so. When it copes to
setting terms, the possibility ,of a last explosion of des-
pair must be counted as part of the loser's bargaining
strength. ,But this implies that in nontotal nuclear war,
the 'final political payoffs must be moderate: in general,
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254 FUTURE STRATEGY
such wars can leave no room for extreme settlements.
The logic of the situation cannot entail political terms
based on a monopoly of armed strength on one side,
with the other side reduced to defenselessness. Since
the loser has a desperate last recourse, he cannot be
treated as if he were defenseless. To be sure, it is not
an absolute certainty that the loser in nontotal nuclear
war will prefer a suicidal last battle to surrender; it is
only a possibility. But this is enough to make insistence
on total surrender prohibitively risky for the winner.
Now we can formulate the solution to the problem
under consideration: that of limiting nuclear war when
the political stakes are very high. The solution is that
in high-stake nuclear wars that are nontotal the politi-
cal payoffs must be small, in spite of the high stakes,
if the belligerents are rational. It is as if the belliger-
ents were playing poker for unlimited stakes, each hav-
ing a loaded revolver and ready to shoot his opponent
if he should try to collect very high winnings. In other
words, such wars cannot reasonably be expected to re-
sult in complete victory in the political sense. What
the winner can reasonably expect is only a relatively
modest gain, not departing significantly from the sta-
tus quo. Since nuclear war costs and losses are neces-
sarily very high even if limitations are observed, this
means that just keeping what one has is likely to be a
very costly proposition if there is any war at all. Just
leaving the status quo unchanged is infinitely cheaper
and cannot be much worse politically for either side.
This is, I think, instinctively recognized by political
leaders everywhere. Hence, no major challenge to the
existing status quo is likely, unless and until someone
develops a winning strategy that can, in his opinion,
NUCLEAR STRATEGY AND LIMITED WAR 255
overcome the dilemma. Crises of critical magnitude
may arise, unfortunately, even if no great power delib-
erately challenges the status quo: we must not forget
the totally unsettling effects that conflicts between minor
powers may have upon the international equilibrium.
But we cannot pursue this topic further here.
Belief in the possession of an asymmetrical winning
strategy predicated on unlimited strikes that also pre-
vent critically effective counterstrikes can, as we have
seen, prompt a power to start a war in the expectation
of eliminating its opponent. But it is conceivable that
there might be winning strategies that ensured great
political gains and also limited the destructiveness of
single blows. The pure air-counter-air strategy, men-
tioned above, is a case in point. This strategy involves
a considerable limitation of single blows, since it im-
plies that only air capabilities in being are attacked.
Since many such capabilities are located near population
centers, even such a "limited" strategy is bound to re-
sult in extremely heavy civilian losses. It is only rela-
tively less destructive than, say, a counter-industry or
counter-population strategy; but the limitation seems
sufficient to permit the survival of the society under
attack.
If one side achieves complete victory in such an
air-counter-air battle, it will reduce the other to prac-
tical defenselessness. At this point the winner can dic-
tate political terms, subject only to the necessity of
making ..political payments for the surrender of the
loser's residual capabilities. Such a victorious war, in
fact, would be limited only as regards single efforts;
it would not be a nontotal war by our definition, since
no significant capabilities would remain unused on the
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2-56 FUTURE STRATEGY
losing side. It is one of the novelties of nuclear stra-
tegy that it makes a type of war possible in which single
efforts are artificially limited' while the war itself is to-
tal. But it appears that the pure air-counter-air war
represents the only kind of artificial limitation that does
not necessarily result in nontotal war, and hence per-
mits large political payoffs even under nuclear condi-
tions. Other possible types of artificial limitations (such
as limiting nuclear weapons to tactical uses) do not have
this property. Wars in which such limitations are re-
liably observed but in which neither side has a totally
successful counterforce strategy are necessarily nontotal,
and hence permit only compromise settlements.
A war ending on moderate terms may nevertheless
have very far-reaching political consequences. For ex-
ample, it may result in considerable, or even revolu-
tionary, political changes in either of the war-making
societies. If one side is very pleased to see such changes
occur in the other, the former may reckon them as a
high net political payoff accruing to it. But we must
distinguish such payoffs from those that winners im-
pose on losers on the strength of the strategic outcome.
In a nontotal nuclear war, the imposed terms cannot
reasonably be expected to be other than lenient. One
has to approach the peace table in such a war in a spirit
of moderation to avoid the risk of total war.
A few words remain to be said about low-stake
wars in the nuclear age. Such wars obviously can end in
complete victory in a political sense: if the stake is low,
the military loser will give it up entirely without much
difficulty. If the stake is low, however, the means em-
ployed to achieve victory or to avert defeat must be
limited; and if the belligerents possess nuclear weapons,
NUCLEAR STRATEGY AND LIMITED WAR 257
this means that single efforts wine subject to stringent
artificial limitations, possibly to the extent of excluding
the use of nuclear weapons altogether.,
Are-Tow-stake conflicts possible in the nuclear age?
The creation of a small, insignificant fait accompli by a
big power may well give rise to such a .conflict. Such
incidents are unimportant by definition, but a great
power whose interests are hurt by them may prefer
taking active countermeasures, amounting to a low-stake
war, to acquiescence.
Meaningful counteraction, however, is possible in
such cases only if forces that can operate on a level of
low destructiveness are available. "Massive retaliation"
cannot undo a small fait accompli; it can only create- a
very large new one, changing the status quo to a con-
siderable extent. A power that has only large indivi-
sible packages of destructive potential at its disposal will
find that it is not in a position to counter minor breaches
of the status quo; nor will it be able to create small faits
accomplis offsetting those created by its opponent.
Everithough the stake involved in any single.minor
incident_ of this kind is small, it is unwise to treat it as
if it were nonexistent. Major challenges to the status
quo, as we haye seen, are unlikely in any case; even
nuclear wars waged for high stakes cannot result in-big
shifts in_the status quo unless they become_ total (in
whichsase-the shifts may well be ruinous to both sides).
Hence the principle that complete acquiescence and
nonviolence is the rule to be observed in all cases that
are not gave enough to call for all-out counteraction
cannot beTvalid. In the nuclear age the powers must
accustom themselves to thinking in terms of relatively
small political payoffs.
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258 FUTURE STRATEGY
CONCLUSION: SURVIVAL IN THE NUCLEAR AGE
The major political implications of the new stra-
tegic situation brought about by the emergence of nu-
clear weapons may be formulated as follows: powers
may seek to survive in the nuclear age, either by going
to extremes of inhumanity and malevolence never im-
agined before, or by drastically limiting their expec-
tations of gain from the application of armed power.
Adjusting to the new conditions is bound to be partic-
ularly difficult for the United States, because both of
the available alternatives are diametrically opposed to
traditional American political attitudes. Systematic ma-
levolence is as alien to the American makeup as over-
blown emotional expectations of unlimited gains are
congenial to it.
We must, of course, cherish our traditions of hu-
manity and benevolence. If the inhuman alternative
for survival opened up by the nuclear age is excluded
for us because of our nature, so much the better. Let
US hope that this alternative will not be open to others
either, for practical reasons if not for reasons of char-
acter. If we rule out the inhuman solution, then we must
act on the other alternative for survival. We shall have
to revise some of our deeply rooted traditional attitudes,
such as our rejection of compromise and our faith in ex-
treme, ideal solutions when the chips are down. In the
past, these propensities served us well in some respects
and played us nasty tricks in others. In the future, they
can only render us impotent to deal with political reality,
and thus jeopardize our very survival.
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NOTES
See Bibliography for full titles
and publication data.
Chapter One: SURRENDER AS A STRATEGIC CONCEPT
I. .Clausewitz, comments on annihilation of the enemy force
in the following terms: "The [enemy's] fighting ,force must
be annihilated; that is, reduced to such, a state that it can no
longer continue the struggle. We declare herewith that in what
follows we shall mean only. this by the expression 'annihilation
of the enemy's fighting force.'" Vom Kriege, p. 22.
2. Hans Delbriick, Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen
der politischen'Gesihichte, IV, 334. See alsO Gert Buchheit,
Vernichtungs- oder Ermattungsstrategie?, pp. II if.
Chapter Two: SURRENDER AS A-POLITICAL CONCEPT
c?
1. Cf. Gunnar Landtman, . The Origin .oi the' Inequality
of Social Classes, esp. pp. 248,1f.
2. Xenophon, Atylbasis,-IV, 7 (translation by the.author).
3. OrL,the rigidities of premodern military establishments
that prevented progressive, mobilization, see Hans Spele_r, "Mili-
tarism in the Eighteenth Century"; and "Class Structure and
Total,War,":Chapters 19 and 20, in, Social Order and the Risks.
of War:, . ?
4. tf...i_Cilausewite.,s dictum: "The Only effective #orm, of-
activity in war is the battle" (Vain Kriege, p. 31) ; and his 44,,,
nition of strategy: "Strategy . . . is the use of battle for the'
purpose pf,war"., (ibid? p.. 129) .
5. Cf.' ibid., pp: 149, 151 if. _
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260 NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE
II
Chapter Three: THE FRENCH SURRENDER (JUNE 1940)
1. Paul Reynaud, La France a sauve PEurope, II, 180.
2. Albert Kammerer, La Veda sur l'armistice, 2d ed.,
PP. 14 f.
3. Reynaud, II, 181 f.
4. Ibid., p. 303.
5. Ibid., p. 176.
6. Ibid., p. 303.
7. /bid., p. 340.
8. Ibid., p. 441.
9. Maxine Weygand, Recalled to Service (London,
1952), p. 226. (The French edition appeared in 1950.)
1o. At the beginning, the Marshal did not give British
resistance much of a chance. But after the Germans lost the air
battle over London, he understood that the war would last a
long time. This strengthened his interest in not concluding
peace. "The armistice," he often said, "the armistice with
whatever sauce you like, bland or sharp, but no final settlement,
no treaty. I shall never accept another treaty of Frankfurt."
(Du Moulin de Labarthete, Le Temps des illusions, pp. 195 f.)
Reynaud, pp. 297 f.
12. Sir Edward Spears, The Fall of France, June 19401
p. 193.
13. Kammerer, pp. 107 f.
14. See The Private Diaries of Paul Baudouin.
i5. Spears, pp. 219 f.
16. Reynaud, p. 315.
17. Ibid., p. 324. This outburst is characteristic in that it
reveals the stubborn survival of the French revolutionary habit
of basing political conduct upon classic models. Weygand, by
the way, later disavowed the stand he had taken; he conceded
that there would have been no point in the French cabinet's
letting itself be captured by the Germans. Another Weygand
outburst is reported by Kammerer: "Vous voulez aller jusqu'au
bout . . . mais vous y etes, au bout!" [You want to go to the
bitter end . . . but you are at the bitter end! 1, Kammerer,
p. no.
i8. Reynaud, p. 325.
19. Cf. A. Rossi, Les Communistes franfais pendant la
drole de guerre, pp. 322 if.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release
NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE 261
20. Reynaud, pp. 340 f.; Kammerer, pp. i8o 'ff. ?
21. Robert Aion, Histoire de Vichy '940-1944).p. 48.
22. Ibid.
23. Kammerer, p. 196.
24. Renaud, pp. 363 if.
25. William L. Langer, Our Vichy Gamble, p. 45.
26. Kammerer, p. 125.
27. According to Robert Aron, the cabinet was unanimous-
ly in favor of breaking off armistice talks if the Germans de-
manded any part of the fleet or of the colonial empire. The
military members of the cabinet took a number of measures in
preparation for last-ditch resistance in that case; two battleships
were sent to Africa, as well as nine hundred airplanes. (See
Aron, p. 62.)
28. Kammerer, p. 444.
29. Galeazzo Ciano, L'Europa verso la catastrofe, p. 562.
See also Aron, p. 74.
30. Ciano, p. 563.
31. B. H. Liddell Hart, The German Generals Talk, pp.
144 if.
32. Ciano, p. 562.
33. Kurt von Tippelskirch, Geschichte des zweiten Welt-
kieges, p.
34. Ciano, p. 567.
35. Diaries of Paul Baudouin, p. 172; Aron, pp. 240 if.
36. Diaries of Paul Baudouin, p. 173.
37. Ibid., pp. 190 f.
38. Ciano, pp. 591-94.
39. J. Paul-Boncour, Entre deux guerres, III, 222-38.
40. 'Du Moulin, p. 24.
41. Diaries of Paul Baudouin, p. 110. ?
42. Ciano, pp. 591-94.
43. Apparently some Germans thought so too; Guderian
said later that he had tried in vain to convince Hitler that it was
necessary to_occupy Northwest Africa after the fall of France.
(Langer, p. 60.)
44. Elie J. Bois, Truth on the Tragedy of France, pp.
iii f. (Italics in original.)
? .
45. See Rossi, passim.
46. Tippelskirch, PP. 83 f.
47. Aron, pp. 249'f.
48. OlYthis diplomatic offensive, cf. Aron, pp. 428
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262
NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR
49. /bid., p. 433.
5o. See William D. Leahy, I Was There, pp. 21, 24,
54-61.
51. Aron, pp. 246 if.
52. /bid., p. 247.
53. Cf. the Dakar episode of September 1940.
Chapter Four: THE ITALIAN SURRENDER (SEPTEMBER 1943)
I. See Mark W. Clark, Calculated Risk, p. 3.
2. Enno von Rintelen, Mussolini als Bundesgenosse, pp.
197 if.
3. Ibid., pp. 209 f.
4. /bid., pp. 213-15.
5. Ibid., pp. 216 if.
6. Ibid., pp. 236 if.
7. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. V:
Closing the Ring, p. 684.
8. Ibid., p: 686.
9. Admiral Franco Maugeri, From the Ashes of Disgrace,
p. 165.
10. Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower)
P. 371.
ix.Ibid., p. 372.
12 Ibid.
13. Hans Speier, "Psychological Warfare Reconsidered,"
Chapter 32 in Social? Order and the Risks of War.
14. Pietro Badoglio, Italy in the Second World War;
Dwight. D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 184.
15. Maugeri, p. 157. A similar feeling is expressed in
Oscar di Giamberardino, La Politica. bellica nella tragedia
nazionale, p. 226.
16. Maurice Vaussa d, Histoire de Phalle contemporaine,
pp. 282 f. - ? ?
17. Butcher, p. 375.
18. Ibid., p. 382; see also Wallace Carroll, Persuade or
Perish, pp. 171 if.
19. Churchill to Eden, August 7, 1943, in Churchill,
Closing the Ring, p. 102.
20. /bid.) pp. 99 if.
21. Butcher, pp. 391, 398, 405. (These figures seem to
have been exaggerated.)
NOTES?T0 CHAPTER FOUR 263
22. Cf. Tippelskirc.h, p. 371. ?
23. On this concept, see our discussion of the policy of
unconditional surrender in Chapter Seven, pp. 218 f.
24. Butcher, p. 375.
25. ibid., p. 386.
26. /bid., p: 394:
27. Chuichill, Closing the Ring, p. 103.
28. On the instructions to Eisenhower, see ibid., pp. 105 f.
29. Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 744.
30. /bid., pp.. 742 f.
31. Maugeri, pp. 178 f.
32. Badoglio; p. 72.
33. Butcher, p. 410.
34. Vaussard, pp. 293 f.
35. Badoglio, p. 73. Tippelskirch, p. 368, also gives this
explanation.
36. Butcher, p. 400.
37. On September-3, day of the signature of the ,armistice,
General Clark warned of the possibility that the Italians might
"welsh" on their agreement. (Ibid. p. 407.) ?
38. Ibid., p. 405.
39, Churchill, Closing the Ring,.. pp. ioi f.
40. Churchill to Roosevelt, September 2-1, 1943, ibid.,
p. 189.
41. Badoglio, p. 103. (Author's italics.)
42. 'Churchill, Closing the Ring, p. 201.
43. Sherwood, p. 752.
44. a Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of
Hyndhope, A Sailor's Odyssey, p. 572.. (In the book, de Cour-
ten's name is.consistently misspelled "de Courton.")
45. Badoglio, p. 103. Cf. also Churchill, Cldsing the Ring,
p.201.
46. Carroll, p. 174. The Italian fleet's surrender is flatly
attributed to the Algiers. broadcasts in Edward; W. Barrett,
Truth Is Our Weapon, p. 47. Actually,- the ships steaming into
Malta did not come from La Spezia- but from Taranto. On
the fate of ,the main naval force that set out from La ,Spezia,
see below.
47. S. E. Morison, History of U.S. Naval Operations in
World ,War II, IX, 242 f. The source, quoted for Admiral
Bergamini!s speech is Admiral Fioravanzo; The Italian avy's
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264 NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE
Struggle for the Country's Liberation, 1946 (not available to
the author).
48. Alberto da Zara, Pelle d'Ammiraglio, p. 418.
49. /bid., p. 419.
50. Ibid., p. 421.
51. Ibid., p. 425. The order to "treat the Italian navy
well" was given by Churchill (Closing the Ring, p. 115).
52. Badoglio, p.
53. Morison, PP. 243
54. Clark, p. 2.
55. Cf. Sherwood, p. 65.
56. For Cordell Hull, he was a near-enemy (cf. The Mem-
oirs of Cordell Hull, II, 1159 ff.).
Chapter Five: THE GERMAN SURRENDER (MAY 1945)
1. Von Griinau telegram to German Foreign Office, Octo-
ber 1, 1918, in Ralph Haswell Lutz (ed.), Fall of the German
Empire, II, 459.
2. Ibid., pp. 462 if.
3. Cf. Hans Rothfels, The German Opposition to Hitler,
p. 84.
4. On these contacts, cf. Allen W. Dulles, Germany's
Underground; The Von Hassell Diaries, 1938-1944; J. Lons-
dale Bryans, Blind Victory, pp. 60 if.
5. The text in Gerhard Ritter, Carl Giirdeler und die
deutsche Widerstandsbewegung, p. 569.
6. According to a statement by Carl Burckhardt, reported
by Hassell, this was recognized in London; cf. Ritter, p. 317.
7. The text in Ritter, pp. 570-76.
8. Ibid., p. 572.
9. /bid., pp. 577 f., 585 f.
1o. Ibid., p. 589.,
Ibid., pp. 589, 599.
12. On military attitudes, cf. Rothfels, p. 70.
13. Ritter, pp. 357 if.
14. Hans Speidel, Invasion
15. Ibid., pp. 72 if.
16. Ibid., p. 74.
17. Ritter, pp. 391 if.
18. Ibid., p. 394. For a different version of Kluge's re-
fusal, see Dulles, pp. 187 f.
1944.
NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE 265
19. Cf. Hans Bernd Gisevius, Bis zum bittern Ende,
2991322i
20. bid., p. 304*
21. Ritter, pp. 386 f.
22.' p. 387.
23. Dulles, pp. 131 if.
24. Gisevius, pp. 308 f.; cf. also Dulles, pp. 170 f.
25. Rothfels, pp. 154 if.
26. Dr. Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin, pp.
23o ff. _-
27. Ritter, p. 379 f.
28. Ibid., p. 381.
29. Dulles, p. 167.
30. conversation between GOrdeler and Wallenberg, No-
vember 1942, in Ritter, p. 314.
3x. General Siegfried Westphal, The German Army in
the West, p. 191.
32. Cf. Adolf Heusinger, Befehl im Widerstreit; Erich
von Manstein, Verlorene Siege.
33. Forrest C. Pogue, The European Theater of Opera-
tions: The Supreme Command, p. 448.
34. TiPpelskirch, pp. 658 f.
35. Albert Kesselring, Soldat bis zum letzen Tag, p. 410.
36. Pogue, p. 440; italics in original.
37. Kesselring, pp. 409, 423.
38. Pogue, pp. 477 f.; Kesselring, pp. 411, 418 if.
39. Pogue, p. 482; Kesselring, p. 421.
40. - Ibid.
41. Ritter, p. 390; the source of the story is Stuttgart's
Mayor Strolin.
42. Quoted in H. R. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of
Hitler, p. 82.
43. Pogue, pp.- 476 f.; Trevor-Roper, pp. 131, 165;
Walter Schellenberg, Tlie Labyrinth, pp. 392 if.
44. Trevor-Roper, pp. 130 f.
45: Ibid., p. 208.
46. Milton Shulman, Defeat in the West, p. 304.
47. The book as it appeared in Germany was Walter Liidde-
Neurath, Regierung Damtz (1951). For the present study,
the French edition was used (Les Derniers Jour: du Troisieme
Reich, Parisi ,1950).
48. Ibid., p. 85.
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266
NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX
49. Ibid., p. 86.
50. Pogue, P. 479.
51. Ibid., pp. 480 f.
52. Liidde-Neurath, p. 108.
53. /bid., p. ixo.
54. Ibid., p. 115.
55. Pogue, p. 505.
56. Ibid., pp. 481 if.
57. Liidde-Neurath, p. I2I.
58. Pogue, p. 505.
59. Ibid., p. 506.
Chapter Six: THE JAPANESE SURRENDER (AUGUST 1945)
1. Cf. Robert J. C. Butow, Japan's Decision to Surrender,
1313. 13 f.
2. Ibid., p. 14.
3. /bid., pp. 20 if.; U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey
(USSBS), Japan's Struggle to End the War, p. 3.
4. United States Relations with China, Based on the Files
of the Department of State, p. 519.
5. Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Oper-
ations Division, p. 339.
6. Memoirs of Cordell Hull, II, 1309.
7. Sherwood, p. 779.
8. Agreement of February II, 1945, cited in "The Con-
ferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945,"- in Foreign Relations of
the United States: Diplomatic Papers, p. 984.
9. Cf. Memorandum by the United States Chiefs of,Staff,
January 22, 1945, ibid., p. 395; Cline, p. 338.
10. Joint Chiefs of Staff 1176/6, January 18, 1945, in
Diplomatic Papers, pp. 389 f.
II. Cf. James F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, p. 208 ; Leahy;
PP. 369, 422.
12. Cf. Cline, p. 344.
13. Cf. Admiral Ernest J. King and Walter Muir White-
hill, Fleet Admiral King, p. 598.
14. Cf. Cline, p. 342.
15. Cf. Leahy, PP. 384 f.
16. John J. McCloy, The Challenge to American Foreign
Policy, p. 42. (The only member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
not identified with a particular service was Admiral Leahy.)
NOTES TO CHAPTER'SIX 267
I 7. See below, pp. 260 f.
18. On the "no negotiation" principle, see Chapter Seven;
p. 2 I 8.
19. Joseph C. Grew, Turbulent Era, II, 1406, 1411.
20. See below, pp. 312 if.
21. Congressional Record, Vol. 90, No. 139, 'August 30,
1944, PP. A4113-15.
22. Ibid., Vol. 91, No. 163, September 18, 1945, p. 8816.
23. Ibid.
24. iid
s:
25. Ibid., p. 8815.
26. Ibid., p. 8819.
27. See below, pp. 305 if.
28. Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, On Active
Service in Peace and Wari p. 627.
29. For a detailed treatment of this point see the section
entitled "Japanese Peace Policies," beginning on p. 169 of this
study.
30. Butow, p. 14.
31. Ibid., pp. 17 f.
32. Ibid., pp. 24 f. The above account is based on Marquis
Kido's testimony before the International Military Tribunal for
the Far East. Later in. his testimony, Kido added' that Shige-
mitsu told him "on several occasions" during the war that un-
conditional surrender would be inescapable.'
33. Toshikazu Kase, Journey to the Missouri, p. 91.
34. USSBS, OPNAV-P-03-100, Vol. II, p. 319.
35. Kase, p. 86.
36. _But'ow, p: 40.
37. USSBS, Japan's Struggle, p. 5. According to Butow,
Koiso's? position was unduly weakened by i fatal oversight: he
failed to secure appointment as Minister of War, in which posi-
tion-he would have had a better chance to control-the officers'
corps. (Butow, p. 37.) ,
38. Butow, pp. 40 f.
39. /bid., p.
,40. /bid., p. 69.
41. p. 77.
42. Ibid.
43. The political complexion of the Council was mixed:
the -War Minister and the two Chiefs of Staff were antipeace
die-hards; the Foreign Minister and the Navy Minister (Yonai)
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268
NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX
were antiwar; the Premier, Suzuki, was vacillating between the
two groups, but tended to defer to the prowar group.
44.Ibid., p. 91; Kase, p. 170.
45. Butow, p. 93.
46. Kase, p. 184.
47. Butow, pp. 121 f.
48. Ibid.
49. Testimony of Admiral Toyoda, USSBS, OPNAV-P-
03-100, Vol. II, pp. 318 f.
50. Kase, pp. 193 f.; Walter Millis (ed.), The Forrestal
Diaries, p. 74.
5I. Kase, p. 205.
52. Ibid., p. 222.
53. Ibid.
54. Butow, p. 129, with references to Byrnes, Speaking
Frankly, p. 205; Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 6:
Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 641-42; David H. James, The
Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire, pp. 329-30.
55. The Forrestal Diaries, pp. 74-76.
56. The text in Documents on American Foreign Relations,
1945-46, pp. 105-6.
57. Butow, pp. 103 if., 134.
58. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs, I, 396.
59. Butow, pp. 142 f.
6o. Ibid., p. 143.
61. Ibid., p. 145.
62. On "mokusatsu," see Kazu-Kawaii, "Mokusatsu," Pa-
cific Historical Review, November 1950, pp. 409-14, and Wil-
liam J. Coughlin, "The Great Mokusatsu," Harper's Magazine,
March 1953, pp. 31-40. For these references, the author is
indebted to Louis Morton's article, "The Decision to Use.the
Atomic Bomb," Foreign Affairs, January 1957, p. 350.
63. Cf. Stimson and Bundy, p. 625. On the background of
this decision, see Morton's excellent account in Foreign Affairs,
January 1957, pp. 334-39.
64. Quoted in P. M. S. Blackett, Fear, War and the Bomb,
p. 128. Professor Blackett also quotes an article by Dr. Karl
T. Compton in the December 1946 Atlantic Monthly, in which
the writer states: "I believe with complete conviction that the
use of the atomic bomb saved hundreds of thousands-perhaps
several millions-of lives, both American and Japanese; that
NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN 269
without its use the war would have continued for many months."
In a letter to Dr. Compton dated December 16,1946, Presi-
dent_Truman endorsed his conclusions and added: "I? imagine
the bomb caused them to accept the terms." (Blackett, pp.
128f.)
65. Byrnes, pp. 211 f.
66. Reproduced in Stimson and Bundy, pp. 617 if.
67. Stimson and Bundy, p. 625.
68: USSBS, Japan's Struggle, p. 13.
69.. Stimson and Bundy, p. 628.
70. /bid., p. 627.
71, Ibid., p. 629.
72-.- Cf. Butow, pp. 168 If.
73. /bid., p. 172.
74. /bid., p. 175.
75. /bid., pp. 152 f.
76. Ibid.
77. Ibid., p. 180.
78. Ibid., pp. 193 if.
79. Cf. Documents on American Foreign Relations,194.5-
1946, pp. 107-8; William Hardy McNeill, Survey of Inter..
nationalAffairs, 1939-1946 (America, Britain, and Russia),
PP. 637 f.
80. Butow, pp. 207 f.
81. On these rules, see below, pp. 218 if.
III
Chapter Seven: THE ALLIES' POLICY IN WORLD WAR II
=
I. Memoirs of Cordell Hull, II, 1166.
2._ Sherwood, p. 696.
3. Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. IV: The
Hinge of Fate, pp. 686 if.
4. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 489, fn. 7. See also
Chester :Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe, p. 122.
5. On the genesis of the unconditional-surrender policy,
see Ginter Moltmann, "Die Genesis der Unconditional Sur-
render-Forderung," Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau, Vol.
VI, Nos. 3-4, March and April, 1956.
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2'70 NOTES TO CHAPTER SEVEN
6. Cf. Sherwood, p. 697; Churchill, The Hinge of Fate,
pp. 690 f. (quoting his speech in the House of Commons, Feb!.
ruary 22, 1944).
7. Cf. Roosevelt on February 12, 1943, in Samuel I. Rosen:-
man (ed.), The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D.
Roosevelt, 1943 volume: The Tide Turns, pp. 71 'ff.
8. Cf. Churchill's explanation in the speech referred to in
note 6 above: "Unconditional surrender means that the victors
have a free hand. It does not mean that they are entitled to
behave in a barbarous manner, nor that' they wish to blot out
Germany from among the nations of Europe. If we are bound,
we are bound by our own consciences to civilization. We are
not bound to the Germans as the results of a bargain struck.
That is the meaning of unconditional surrender."
9. Churchill, pp. 689 f.
0. On Roosevelt's negative reaction to a Soviet proposal
on defining unconditional surrender, see Memoirs of Cordell
Hull, II, 1573 f. Later, American military leaders repeatedly
pressed for a specification of surrender terms in order to hasten
surrender: Carroll, pp. 306 f., 313 f., 319 f.; Butcher, p. 518.
These proposals also remained without effect.
1. Such a "vacuum rule" is appropriate when surrender
ends a war of secession: the very object of the war is to extin-
guish the sovereignty of the secessionist state once and for all.
In World War II, however, the rule was applied to interna-
tional conflict, where the vacuum, as it happened, was not in-
tended to achieve this end.
12. On this selective pattern, see Chapter Five, pp. 132 if.
13. Rothfels, p. 154.
14. Memoirs of Cordell Hull, II, 1581 f.; Wilmot, p.
122; J. F. C. Fuller, The Second World War, pp. 258 if.;
Lord Hankey, Politics, Trials and Errors.
15. As we have seen, this critique of the unconditional-
surrender policy was put forward not only in retrospect; the
policy of 'severe but specific" terms was vigorously supported
in high Allied quarters during the war.
16. Louis P. Lochner (ed.), The Goebbels Diaries 1942-
1943)P. 325.
17. This line is adopted by Russell Grenfell (Uncondi-
tional Hatred, pp. 166 if.) and F. 0. Miksche (Unconditional
Surrender).
I8. Fuller, p. 275.
-
NOTES TO.CHAPTER EIGHT 271
19. Cf. Hans Speier's!analysis in "War Aims in Political
Warfare," Chapter 29 in Social Order and the Risks of War.
20. Hankey, p. 45.
21. Fuller, p. 355.
22. Westphal, p. 192.
23. Cf. Stalin's cable to Roosevelt on April 3, alleging that
Marshal Kesselring "has agreed to open the front and permit
the Anglo-American troops to advance to the east . . . At the
present moment the Germans on the western front in fact have
ceased to wage war against England and the United States. At
the same time, the Germans continue the war with Russia, the
ally of England and the United States." On this incident, see
Leahy, pp. 386 If.
24. On Soviet comments in this vein, see Boris Meissner,
Russland, die Westmiichte und Deutschland, pp. 57 f.
25. In the theory of games, first developed systematically
by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, there is a con-
venient rule to the effect that losses accruing to one "player"
must be counted simultaneously as gains accruing to another.
The war losses of a belligerent, however, cannot be reckoned
as gains accruing to his opponent; to satisfy the rule, then, such
losses are treated as gains made by a fictitious third party, called
"nature."
IV
Chapter Eight: AWAY FROM THE SIEGE STRATEGY
1. For a similar argument, see Colonel Robert C. Richard-
son III, "Atomic Weapons and Theater Warfare," Air Uni-
versity Quarterly Review, Vol. VII, No. 3, Winter 1954-55,
pp. II, 14. The writer says: ". . . the limiting factor will
be that an atomic war of the future will not be a war of attri-
tion. D-Day will find both contestants armed with adequate
stocks of destructive power to permit hope of an early decision
if the power is properly employed. The situation points to a
short conflict in which the primary target system would consist
of 'quick pay-off' objectives."
2. On the disruptive effect of massive nuclear attack, see
Harrison Brown, "How Vulnerable Are We?," Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, Vol. XIII, No. 9, November 1957.
3. See Richardson, op. cit., pp. 9 f.
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272 NOTES TO'CHAPTER NINE
Chapter Nine: -NUCLEAR STRATEGY AND LIMITED' WAR
1. Complete defenselessness, of course, presupposes the de-
struction of all forces in being, including land and naval forces.
A pure counter-force strategy such as the one envisaged by Rich-
ardson (see note i to Chapter Eight) aims not only at the
enemy's air capabilities but at his other capabilities as well. But
victory in the air battle, eliminating the loser's missile as well as
manned aircraft capabilities, would mean that his other forces
could not survive for long.
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Aron, Robert. Histoire de Vichy, 1940-1944. Paris, 1954.
Badoglio, Pietro. Italy in the Second World War. New York,
1948.
Barrett, Edward W. Truth Is Our Weapon. New York, 1953.
Baudouin, Paul. The Private Diaries of Paul Baudouin. Lon-
don, 1948.
Blackett, P. M. S. Fear, War and the Bomb. New York and
Toronto, 1948.
Bois, Elie J. Truth on the Tragedy of France. London, x 94o.
Bryans, J. Lansdale. Blind Victory. London, 1951.
Buchheit, Gert. Vernichtungs- oder Ermattungsstrategie? Ber-
lin, 1942.
Butcher, Harry C. My Three Years with Eisenhower. New
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Butow, Robert J. C. Japan's Decision to Surrender. Stanford,
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Byrnes, James F. Speaking Frankly. New York, 1947.
Carroll, Wallace. Persuade or Perish. Boston, 1948.
Churchill, Winston S. The Second WorldWar. Vol. IV, The
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Ciano, Galeazzo. L'Europa verso la catastrofe. Milan and
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Clark, Mark W. Calculated Risk. New York, 1950.
Clausewitz, Karl von. Vom Kriege. Edited by Karl Linne-
bac.h. Berlin, 1937.
Cline, Ray S. Washington Command Post: The Operations
Division. Department of the Army, Washington, D.C.,
1951.
Congressional Record, Vols. 90 and 91.
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274 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cunningham of Hyndhope, Viscount. A Sailor's Odyssey. Lon-
don, 1951.
Delbriick, Hans. Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der
politischen Geschichte. Berlin, 1920. VOL IV.
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Vol. VIII in a series.
Dulles, Allen W. Germany's Underground. New.York, 194.7.
Du Moulin de Labarthete, Henry. Le Temps des illusions.
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Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers.
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Forrestal, James V. The Forrestal Diaries. Edited by Walter
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Fuller, J. F. C. The Second World War. New York, 1949.
Giamberardino' Oscar di. La Politica bellica nella .tragedia
nazionale. Rome, 1945.
Gisevius, Hans Bernd. Bis zmn bittern Ende. Zurich, 1946.
Vol. II.
Goebbels, Joseph Paul. The Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943,
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Grenfell, Russell. Unconditional Hatred. New York, 1953.
Grew, Joseph C. Turbulent Era. Boston, 1952. Vol. II.
Hankey, Lord. Politics, Trials and Errors. Chicago, I950.
Hassell, Ulrich von. The Von Hassell Diaries, 1938-1944.
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Hull, Cordell. The Memoirs of Cordell Hull. New York,
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James, David H. The Rise and Fall of. the Japanese Empire.
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Kammerer, Albert. La Verite sur Parmistice. 2d ed. Paris,
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Lutz, Ralph Haswell, ed. Fall of the German Empire. Stan-
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276 BIBLIOGRAPHY
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INDEX
Abets, Otto, German Ambassador to
France, 66_
Abound, Italian cruiser, 112
Aegean Sea,.zos, 126
Air-counter-air strategy, 248; and limi-
tation of war, zss f.
Alexandria, x
Algeria, 4.7, So
Algiers, 67, Ss, 99, 104
Allies, Western: landings in North
Africa, 68; surrender policies toward
74-104., 113-17; misjudge re..
quirements of Italian situation, 84f.,
99 f.; failure to prepare for mili-
tary cooperation by Italy, 86, to..;
distrust of Badoglio and King of
Italy, 89, 98, Ito; plan to send air-
borne troops to Rome, 90; policy on
Italian cobelligerency, too f.; moral
crisis over Italian cobelligerency,
114; agreement with Dalian, 114L1
Italian surrender policy evaluated,
113-17; and German opposition,
132 f., 135,_ 231; Germans' image
of, 141, 222; purely military con-
ception of surrender, 153 f.; policy
toward Japan, 157f.; estimate of
Japanese military strength, x58; and
Japanese efforts to enlist Soviet me-
diation, 185=-89; unconditional-sur-
render policy, 215-411 war aim de-
fined as total victory, 215 f., 224,
226
Allies, tension between Eastern and
Western 127; minimized by West,
133, 148, 153, 154, 222) Soviet
suspicion of :West, 230 f.; potential
split of ,coalition over Germany, 232
Alsace-Lorraine,--x 26
Altrnayer, French general, 38 -
Ambrosio, Vittorio, Italian. Chief of
Staff, 73
American attitude toward power and
aggression,. 25 f. .
American Civil War, x, 17
Anami, Korechika, General, Japanese
Minister of War, 176, 190, 194.
Annihilation policy of Hitler, 144 f.
Aorta, Italian cruiser, zzz
Appeasement, 6o f.
Armistice, French, 44 f., so f.
Armistice, Italian, 90, 92
Army Group B, German, 142
Army Group G., German, 144
Aron, Robert, on Vichy regime, 68,
26x n., 262 n.
Artificial limitation of war, see Limi-
tation of war
Asymmetry, strategic, t8 f., 22, 235,
246) 2491 255
Atomic bomb, z6s f., 184.; and Japan's
surrender, 191-206, 209
Aitilio Regolo, Italian cruiser, 112
Attlee, Clement, British Prime Min-
ister, i8, 188
Attrition, in strategy, 7-9, z3; diver-
gent, 9; and surrender, 21) in
World Wars I and II, 7, 71, 119,
234 f.; in nuclear war, 247
Australia, 165
Austria, 17; Anschluss to Germany,
60; German antiwar group's posi-
tion, 125 f.s no political vacuum im-
posed after. World War II, 237
Austro-Prussian War, 17
Autonomous 1110tIrCes of conduct, 233
Avranches, breakthrough in World
War II, 120, 137
Axis powers, 89, 156, 223
Badoglio, Pietro, Italian marshal and
Prime Minister, 112, 115; 191; as-
sumes government, 74; seek. to con-
clude armistice with Allies and to
hoodwink Germans, 74, 77-81; basic
policy of not announcing surrender
until Allies can give milttary
pro-
tection, 78, 89; consultations on
forming cabinet, 79; conference
with Hitler at Tarvis, 79; difficulty
in starting negotiations with Allies,
81; Allies' suspicions ' of double
? game, 82 f., 84, 89, 110, x16; rec-
ord of cooperation with Fascist .re-
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INDEX
gime, 87f., zoo f.; passivity, 90s
plan of airdrop of Allied troops near
Rome, 90 f.; requests postponement
of armistice, 92; flight from Rome,
92, 96; cryptic instructions 00 fight-
ing Germans, 93 f., zo6 f.; could
not go back to German side, 98;
complains about Allies' treatment of
Italy, 99; Hopkins memorandum op-
posing recognition, Ica ; on air and
naval cooperation with Allies, 103,
io6; protest about fleet, 109
Bagge, Widar, Swedish diplomat, 174-
76
Baghdad railway, 238
Balkan peninsula, 99
Baltic Sea, 140
Banfl, Alberto, Italian naval officer,
to8
Bargaining strength of losers, 16, 69,
ii5f., 127, 152, 158, 210, 236f.,
248, 253
Barrett, Edward W., 263 n.
Battle, in strategy, 5, 22, 245
Battle of France, 31 f., 63 f.
Baudouin, Paul, French foreign min-
ister, 45, So; at Supreme War Coun-
cil meeting, 38 f.; on chances of pre-
venting German invasion of North
Africa, 52; on decision to send Ad-
miral Darlan to North Africa, 67
Beck, Ludwig, German general, mem-
ber of anti-Hitler group, 125, 129,
132, 135, 136
Belgium: capitulation, 3 x ; remains
outside western security system, 6o;
strategic importance, 63
Benoist-Mechin, Jacques, French cabi-
net member, 66
Bergamini, C., Italian admiral, 105,
113
Berio, Italian diplomat, mission to
Tangiers, Si
Berlin, 44, 129, 134, 146, 184
Bernadotte, Count Folke, Swedish dip-
lomat, 145
Berne, 187
Biddle, Alexander J., U.S. diplomat, 45
Blackett, P. S. M., 268 n.
Blitzkrieg, 3z, 56
Blum, Leon, French Socialist leader, 58
Blumentritt, Mather, German general,
48
Bane, North African port, sos
Bonifacio, Strait of, z 13
Bonomi, Ivanoe, Italian Socialist
leader, 79
Bordeaux, temporary seat of French
cabinet, 42; cabinet meetings, 43 f.
Borotra, Jean, French cabinet member,
36
Brandenberger, Erich, German gen-
eral, 144
Briare, Supreme War Council meetings,
38
British War Cabinet, 75; on Italy's un-
conditional surrender, 75; on un-
conditional-surrender policy, 217
Brittany redoubt, 38
Burckhardt, Carl, Swiss diplomat,
264n.
Butcher, Harry C., on Eisenhower's
attitude toward Italian surrender,
76 f.; on press opposition to leni-
ency toward House of Savoy, 8o; on
fading hopes for Italian surrender,
83; on Italian "flip-flop," 85; on
Eisenhower's refusal to postpone an-
nouncement of Italian surrender, 94
Butow, Robert J. C.: on Japan's sur-
render, 169 f., 173, x85, 199; on
role of atomic bomb, 203
Byrnes, James F., U.S. Secretary of
State, 185; on Soviet intervention
against Japan, 160; on atomic bomb,
192
Cadiz, sz
"Cadorna," Italian naval division, 1o6
Cabo Duilio, Italian battleship, zo6
Cairo Declaration, 157, 170-74, 178
Calvi, in Corsica, ziz
Campbell, Sir Ronald, British diplo-
mat, 43 f?
Canada, diplomatic relations with
Vichy regime, 67
Carboni, Giacomo, Italian general, 91
Carroll, Wallace, on propaganda myth
concerning surrender of Italian fleet,
104 f?
Casablanca conference, 74 f., 216 f.
Cassibile in Sicily, armistice signed, 90,
'05
Castellano, Giuseppe, Italian general,
head of armistice mission, 81, 86,
105
Catholic party, German, 124
Chamberlain, Neville, British Prime
Minister, 126
Chautemps, Camille, French Vice-Pre-
mier, 43 f.
Chile, Si
China, 157, 165, z 70 f., 238
Chungking, 171
INDEX
Churchill, Winston, 145, 270 n.; on
military help to France, 38 f.; on
French fleet, 39, 435 electoral defeat
in 5945;56; surrender policy toward
Italy, 75, 80, 83, 85 f.; on Italian
fleet, 87; on recognition of Badoglio
regime, 88 f.; on "payment by re-
sults," 97 f.; on unconditional sur-
render, 216 f.
Ciano, Count Galeazzo, Italian For-
eign Minister, 495 on German pol-
icy regarding French armistice, 47 f.
Clark, Mark W., 263 n.; U.S. general,
on Italian campaign, 113
Clausewitz, Karl von?'22, 31, 34, 136,
259 n.
Coalition warfare, 11,21, 153 f.
Cobelligerency: proposed by Italy, 74,
85, 211; stumbling block to Allies,
zoo; granted, ba; Hopkins' opposi-
tion, 101; needed to permit use of
fleet, 0 and morality, /17
ColdwaIr,224;l
Combined Chiefs of Staff, 79, 88
Communists, and French war effort,
41, 59; German, after World War I,
124; and German opposition, 1271
134; in East Germany, 237
Constantinople, 171
Corsica, 73, ros, 112
Courten, Raffaele de, Italian Minister
of Navy, 102, z o6, 507-9
Cunningham, Sir Andrew (later Vis-
count), British admiral, io2, 104,
108
Cunningham-de Courten agreement,
102
Czechoslovakia, 6o, rst f.
Dairen, x 6o
Dakar, 262 n.
Danube, 131
Danzig, x26
Dardanelles, 171
Darlan, Jean Francois, French admiral
and cabinet-member, 45 f.; against
sending fleet to British ports, 46; on
chances of preventing German in-
vasion of North Africa, 52; to go
to North Africa if armistice vio-
lated, 67 f.; agreement with Allies,
114f. -
Dautry, Raoul, French cabinet member,
44
d'Ayeta, Italian diplomat, mission to
Lisbon, 81 -
Defeat, r, 17 f., 21, 23, 123, 125, 1353
279
problem of admitting defeat, 194 f.;
distinction between defeat and sur-
render, zo8; in future war, 246, 252
Defeatism, 15, 24, 41, 219
de Gaulle, Charles, tee Gaulle
Delbriick, Hans, on strategy, 6, 7
Democracy, in Italy, xx6
Democratic mentality, 26
Despair reaction in nuclear war, 253 f.
Devers, Jacob L., U.S. general, 544
Dill, Sir John, British general, 38
"Disarming" the winner, 23, 33; in
French surrender, 69; in Darlan
deal, 115; in Italian surrender, 116;
in German surrender, 120, 533, 537)
152; in Japanese surrender, 210, 211
Disruption, in strategy, 6, 21 f.
Divergent attrition, 9,25, 119
Domei, Japanese news agency, x66
DEinitz, Karl, German admiral, suc-
cessor 10 Hitler, 146-50, 191, 230
Dulles, Allen W., on German opposi-
tion, 132, 134, 187
Du Moulin de Labarthete, Henry, on
French armistice policy, 5z
Eden, Sir Anthony, British Foreign
Secretary, 38
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 102, 130 f.,
145; on political exploitation of
Mussolini's fall, 76; on close com-
munications with London and Wash-
ington, 76; on mobilizing public
opinion in Italy, 77; conflict with
Churchill on broadcast to Italy, So;
criticism of unconditional surrender,
83, 95; for accepting Italian military
cooperation, 85; on recognition of
Badoglio regime, 88, 91; rejects
Badoglio's plea for postponement of
announcement of surrender, 92-94;
instructions on Italian cobelliger-
ency, lot; surrender talks with Ger-
many, 150-52
Exodus of French government to North
Africa planned, 40-44, 47
Expediency vs. morality in Italian sur-
render, xr6 f.
Fait accompli, 256 f.
Falkenhausen, Alexander von, German
general, 130
Fascist party of Italy, 116 f.; foreign
political orientation, 72; turns
against Mussolini, 73 f.; dissolved,
74; Badoglio and King Victor Em-
manuel III, 87 f., roc, f.
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INDEX
Faure, Paul, French Socialist leader, 59
Fioravanzo, Italian admiral, 263 n.
Formosa, 157
Forrestal, James C., U.S. cabinet mem-
ber, on intercepted Japanese mes-
sages, x86
FOrtsch, Hermann, German general,
144
France, zz6, 132; defeatism, 15, 24,
27; surrender, 31-70; political di-
vision between "hard" and "soft"
elements, 32 f.; weakness of prowar
group, 333 debate on ending war,
35-403 problem of the fleet, 39,
43 f., 45 f.; debate on exodus of
government, 40 if.; debate on purely
military capitulation, 42?.; problem
of union with Britain, 43 f.; dip-
lomatic consultations on armistice,
45 ff.; evaluation of armistice, 50-
57; motives of French peace party,
57; domestic politics and war, 58 f.;
attitude of right wing, Socialists,
Communists, s8 f.; dependence on
Britain, 59, 64; eastern alliances,
6o; appeasement of Germany, 6o f.;
dissatisfaction with Britain as coali-
tion leader, 6x; morale in World
War II, 63; faulty strategic and
political preparation for war, 64$
opposition against Third Republic,
641.; armistice supported by ma-
jority, 65; Vichy regime, policy of
neutrality, 65 if.; pro-German ex-
tremists, 65; ambiguities in armi-
stice, 66 ff.; collapse of armistice
policy, 69 f.; strategy in World
War I, 234.
Franco, Francisco, 50; policy on inter-
ven?ion, 52 f.
French fleet: scuttled, 68; see also an-
der France
French War Committee, 35
Friedeburg, Hans von, German ad-
miral, 150
Fujimura, Yoshiro, Japanese naval
officer, 187
Fuller, J. F. C., on unconditional sur-
render, 224, 227
Galati, Giovanni, Italian naval officer,
108
Gardner, William T., U.S. army offi-
cer, 90 f.
Garibaldi, Italian cruiser, 112
Gaulle, Charles de: on Brittany re-
doubt, 38; on General Weygand,
38) suggests federal union with
Britain, 43; role in North Africa,
r44
Genoa, 112
Georges, Alphonse, French general, 38
German air force, 49, 52, 113
German attitude toward power, 27
German generals: and anti-war move-
ment, 129-31; relations with Hitler,
137f.3 military loyalty and sur-
render, 225 f.
German opposition to Hitler, 125-37,
231
Germany, 97, roo, 115, 159, 164,
x7o f., 179; surrender, 24, 119-54;
alliance with Soviet Russia, 41;
policy on French fleet, 46; motives
behind French armistice policy,
48 ff.; peace feelers to Britain,
49?.; efforts to control Mediter-
ranean, So f.; efforts to secure Span-
ish intervention, 50, 52, 59; pres-
sure upon Vichy after armistice, 66;
nature of partnership with Italy, 72;
no reinforcements to Italy, 73; re-
action to Italian surrender, 91 f.;
policy on French surrender, n8;
strategic position after El Alamein,
119 f.; surrender in World War I,
Izo if.; "stab in the back" legend,
123; response to defeat, x 24 f.;
anti-Hitler opposition, see German
opposition; selective capitulation in
World War II, 130, 132 f., 134.f.,
147-49) 222, 226; defeat, 138, 141;
efforts to end war, 145 f.; final sur-
render negotiations, 46-51; termi-
nal situation compared with Japan's,
157 f.; application of rules of un-
conditional surrender, 219, 221 f.,
230, 237; effect of unconditional-
surrender formula on behavior, 223-
27$ contrast with Japanese surrender
behavior, 225; in World War r,
234; Allies' fear of revenge, 239 f.
Geyr von Schweppenburg, Leo, German
general, 130
Gibraltar, 52-54, 105
Gisevius, Hans, member of anti-Hitler
group, 132, 134
Goebbels, Joseph, German propaganda
minister, 224
Goerdeler, Carl: leader of anti-Hitler
opposition, 125; memorandum on
peace terms, xt6 f.; seeks military
INDEX
support, it8; on parallel with
World War I surrender situation,
x28 LI efforts to end war, 128-36
Goering, Hermann, German Nazi lead-
er, attempts to surrender, 146
Great Britain, 72, XIS, 157; 159, 165,
170, 181, 183, 215; policy in 1940,
32; note to France on separate ar-
mistice, 43; note to France on fleet,
45, 47; German peace feelers in
1940, 48?.; coalition policy, 59 f.;
naval treaty with Germany, 6x; at-
titude toward remilitarization of
Rhineland, 6z; attitude toward Hit-
ler, 62; rupture of diplomatic re-
lations with France, 67) German
opposition's peace feelers, xt6; Ger-
man opposition's expectations, 129;
surrender negotiations with Donitz,
14.91 strategy in World War I, 234
Grew, Joseph C., U.S. diplomat, on
Japanese surrender, 163, 167, 195
Guderian, Heinz, German general,
26x n.
Haifa, 105
Haislip, Wade U.S. general, 144
Halsey, W. H., U.S. admiral, 165
Hankey, Lord Maurice, 226
Hassell, Ulrich von, German diplomat,
member of anti-Hitler group, 125,
134, 264n.
Henk, Emil, German Social Democrat,
member of anti-Hitler group, 135
Herriot, Edouard, president of French
Chamber, 44
Himmler, Heinrich, German Nazi
chief, 145
Hindenburg, Paul von, German Presi-
dent, 124
Hirohito, Emperor of Japan, 174
t86, 191, 194f., 199; U.S. policy
on tenure, 162-68, 187, 196, 198,
205, 209 f.; consultations about end-
ing the war, 169, 181; personal in-
tervention at Supreme Council for
peace move, 182 f.; intervention at
Imperial Conference, 200-202; atti-
tude toward war unknown to U.S.
public, tro f.
Hiroshima, 184, 191, 199, 205
Hirota, Hoki, Japanese diplomat, con-
ferences with- Soviet Ambassador
Malik, 18o, 182
Hitler, Adolf, 5x, 158, 215, 224f.,
231; strategy, 3!; policy on French
281
fleet, 47?.; peace feelers to Britain,
48 f.; demands modification of
French armistice terms, 49?.; meet-
ing with Franco, 53; interest in
cheap victory, 54?.; character, 551
attitude toward England, 56 f.;
French right-wing attitude toward
Hitler, 58; conference with Musso-
lini at Feltrei 73; with Badoglio at
Tarvis, 79; informed about Badog-
lio's contacts with Allies, 81; rigid
war policy, Ito; German opposition
to Hitler, 125-37; July to, 1944,
coup, 135, 138; forbids retreat Or
surrender, 137, 139, 141; admits
that war is lost, 144) orders national
self-destruction, 144; order dis-
obeyed, 145; retires to Chancellery,
146; orders Goering's arrest, 146;
appoints Matz successor, 146; sui-
cide, 146
Hofer, Andreas, Nazi Gauleiter, 143
Honshu, 16t
Hopkins, Harry, U.S. official, 103; on
Italian surrender regime, 87f.;
memorandum opposing recognition
of Badoglio, lox
Hull, Cordell, U.S. Secretary of State,
159, 163, 264 n.$ against specific
commitments on war aims, 215
Hungary, 25
Innsbruck, 143 f.
Intelligence, Allied: advance knowl-
edge on Mussolini's fall, 75; on Ba-
doglio's intentions, 80 f.; on Ger-
man troops in Italy, 8x
Intelligence, U.S., on Konoye mission,
,86
Invasion of Japan: high cost estimate,
160 f.; considered necessary, 198
Italia, Italian battleship, 112
Italian air force, 73, 86, tot
Italian army, 71 f., 83, 90 ff., 94.,
99f., /04
Italian fleet: condition
surrender, 86 f., 94,
agreement on, 102$ broadcasts to,
104f., xxof.
Italy, 24, 53, 158; after World War I,
56; surrender, 71-1 t 7; strategic
position after loss of North Africa,
71f.) maneuvering between Ger-
many and Allies, 74; offer of co-
belligerency to Allies, 74, 85,
zoo if., 114, x t6; need to be pro-
in 1943, 73;
tot, 104.-13;
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INDEX
tected against Germans, 77 f.; prob-
lem of honor, 78; undeclared naval
war with Germany, toz; occupation
after surrender, 113 1.1 evaluation
of surrender policy, 117 1.1 applica-
tion of rules of unconditional sur-
render, 219, 228-30
Iwo Jima, 208
Japan, 24, 97, 237; strategic situation
after 1942, 155 f.; surrender, 155-
; seeks alternative to uncondi-
tional surrender, 156, 174, 183-86,
195; conditional surrender; 164,
200; peace policies, 169-91; feelers
through Swedish channel, 174-76;
Moscow policy, 176-91; Hirota-
Malik talks, i8o-824 note to Mos-
cow, 183; atomic bombs and sur-
render, 191-206; Soviet interven-
tion and surrender, 198 1.1 political
payment for surrender, zos, 210 f.;
application of rules of unconditional
surrender, 219 1., 228 1.; contrast
with German surrender behavior,
225; fear of revenge by, 239
Japan, Imperial Institution, and sur-
render, 163-68, 174.f., 184, 194-96,
204 f., 209
Japanese army, policy on surrender,
176, 178, 180, 190, 194, 200, 204
Japanese military extremists, 156, x68,
173, 176, 179-81, 194, 197
Japanese Supreme Council for the Di-
rection of War, 179, 180-82, 194.f.,
199
Jeanneney, Jules, president of French
Senate, 44
Jodl, Alfred, German general, Chief
of Armed Forces General Staff, 150
Johnson, Herschel, U.S. diplomat, 176
Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S., operations
plan against Japan, 160-62; policy
on unconditional surrender, 217
Juliana, Queen of Holland, 42
July 20, 1944., coup against Hitler,
135, 138
Kase, Toshikazu, on Japanese reaction
to Cairo Declaration, 171; on Soviet
declaration of war, 184.
Kawabe, Torashiro, Japanese army offi-
cer, 178
Kesselring, Albert, German field mar-
shal, 149, 27! n.; on German sol-
diers fear of Russians, 140; initi-
ates surrender talks, 142 f.
Kido, Marquis Koichi, Japanese states-
man, peace efforts, 155, 169 1., 174,
x8x, 194.
Kleist, Peter, German diplomat, 134.
Kluge, Gunther von, German field mar-
shal, contacts with anti-Hitler oppo-
sition, 128-30, 132, 136, 264n.
Koiso, Kuniaki, Japanese general and
Premier, 272 f., 175, 177
Konev, Ivan, Soviet marshal, 14.0
Konoye, Prince Fumimaro, Japanese
statesman, z69 1., 173 1.; mission to
Moscow, 183 f., 185-88
Korea, 157, 172, 241
Kreisau circle, German opposition
group, 135
Kujukusihama (Japanese national re-
doubt), 20!
Kurile islands, i6o
KUstrin, 140
Kyushu, i62
La Spezia, 93, los, 112, 263 11.
Laval, Pierre, French Vice-Premier: on
rejection of German demands going
beyond armistice, so; pro-armistice
policy, 64f.; arrested, 67; back in
office, 67
Leahy, William D., U.S. admiral and
diplomat, 67, 266 n.; on Soviet in-
tervention in war against Japan,
16o; on invasion of Japan, z6z
Lebrun, Albert, President of French
Republic, 43
Lequcrica, Spanish diplomat, 45
Lightning victory, 55 f.
Limitation of war, 249-57; artificial,
250-52; and political payoffs, 253 f.
Lisbon, 81, 85
Lithuania, 131
Locamo, treaty of, 59 f., 6i
London, 76, x26
Lozovsky, Alexander, Soviet diplomat,
184
LUdde-Neurath, Walter, on Danitz re-
gime, 147 f., t5c,
Ludendorff, Erich, German general, on
timing of surrender, 21-23,
131
Lwow (Lemberg), 131
McArthur, Douglas, U.S. general, 167
McCloy, John, U.S. official, 162
McClure, Robert A., U.S. general, 105
McFarlane, British general, tot
Maddalena, iiz
Madrid, 81, 86
INDEX 283
Maginot line, 6z
Malik, Jacob, Soviet diplomat, 180,
182
Malta, 93, 105, 107-9, III
Manchuria, 157, i6o
Mandel, Georges, French cabinet mem-
ber, 44
Maneuver, in strategy, 6 f.
Manipulative fallacy, 233
Marin, Jean, French cabinet member,
44
Marquet, Adrien, French politician, 64
Massive retaliation, 257
Matsumoto, Shunichi, Japanese diplo-
mat, 190
Maugeri, Franco, Italian intelligence
chief: on Allied intelligence having
advance knowledge about Musso-
lini's fall, 75; on Italian public re-
action to Badoglio's government, 78;
on planned airdrop of Allied troops
near Rome, 91
Mediterranean, 5t, 54, 71; German
interest in control, 49
Memel, 131
Mers-el-Kebir, British attack on French
naval base, 47, 67
Mierendorff, Carlo German Social
Democrat, member of anti-Hitler
Opposition, 135
Miscalculation, in strategy, 247
Mobilizable resources, in strategy,
171., 21
Mobilization, German, in World War
II, 119
Mobilization bases, in strategy, 22
Model, Walter, German field marshal,
141 1-
Mokusatsu, 190, 268 n.
Molotov, Vyacheslav, Soviet foreign
minister, 117, 1841.
Monnet, Georges, French cabinet mem-
ber, 44
Monnet, Jean, French politician, 43
Monopoly of strength, in strategy, 5,
123; transitory, 239; in future war,
252, 254
Montecuccoli, Italian cruiser, 1/2
Montgomery, Sir Bernard (later Vis-
count), British field marshal, 130,
149
Morabito, Italian naval officer, 1o6
Morality and expediency, in Italian
surrender, ix6 f.
Morgenstern, Oskar, 271 n.
Morocco, 49, 51 f.
Moscow, 59, 134; conference, 1593
Japan's Moscow policy, 176-91;
Konoye mission to Moscow, 583 f.,
x85-88
Munich, 47
Mussolini, Benito, 87, 229; decision to
enter war, 7! f.; on Italy's inability
to continue at war, 73; overthrown,
73 f.; Allied reaction to fall, 75
Nagasaki, 19t, 199, 205
Naples, 82
Nazis, 156; attitude toward "guns or
butter," 56; plan New Order, 69;
in German army, 136; Nazi leaders
and surrender, 144f.; war doctrine
and surrender, 224, 227
Negotiated peace: expected by Luden-
dorff, 122; by German opposition in
World War II, 127-29, 131 1.; tim-
ing, 135 1.; rejected by U.S., x62;
sought by Japan, 174; possible con-
sequences in World War II, 224
Neisse, 140
Netherlands, capitulation, 42 f.
Neumann, John von, 271 n.
Nineteenth Army, German, 144
Ninth Army, German, 140
Ninth Army, U.S., 142, 151
Nonnegotiation rule, x62 f., 218,
228 f.
Nonrecognition rule, see Vacuum rule
Normandy, 130, 136
North Africa: plan of exodus to, 40-
44, 47; Germany seeks bases, 5o,
66; feasibility of German invasion,
52-544 threat of transfer of French
government, 67 f.; Allied landings,
68, x t9; Allied victory, 71, 2243
Darlan deal, 114.f.
North Cape, x26
Norway, campaign, 52, s6
Nuclear war, 246-58
Ohersalzberg, 146
Oder, 14.0
Okamoto, Seigo, Japanese military at-
tache, 187
Okinawa, 16o, 167, 208
OKW (German High Command),
137-39, 143
OWI, Psychological Warfare Branch,
104 f.; policy on Japanese Emperor,
164
Ozawa, Japanese naval officer, 178
Pacific, settlement, planned by Kido,
170
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INDEX
Paris, 37, 48
Patch, Alexander M., U.S. general, 144.
Paul-Boncour, Jean, on armistice pol-
icy, SI
Pedagogic fallacy, 239 f.
Pescadores islands, 157
Petain, Philippe, French marshal and
head of state, 31, 45, 260 n.; on
maintenance of coalition with Brit-
ain, 35-38; rejects exodus, 4o f.,
44.; rejects plan of union with Brit-
ain, 44; appointed Premier, 44;
against sending fleet to Britain,
46 f.; against accepting German de-
mands going beyond armistice, So;
motives, 57; pro-armistice policy,
64 f.; against cobelligerency with
Germany, 66; defies Germans and
yields, 67; policy on sending Darlan
to Africa, 67 f.
Piecemeal surrender, German, 121,
141-44, 154
Pierce, Maurice, OWI engineer, 104
Pleven, Rene, suggests union plan with
Britain, 43
Poland, 132; alliance with France, 6o,
61
Polish campaign in World War II,
31 f., 56, 63
Polish corridor, 125, 130
Political incentives to facilitate sur-
render: France, 69; Italy, ix 8; Ger-
many, 123, 222; Japan, 156, 16z f.,
205, 210 f., 220; in future war, 248
Political interaction in terminal stage
of war, 23 ff., 154, 211
Political reorientation of loser, 23, 69,
152, 210, 219 f., 238 f.
Political stake in war, 19, 22, 254-57
Port Arthur, t6o
Potsdam conference, 183-86
Potsdam Declaration, 162, 165, 187-
92, 195, 200, 205
Power orientation in international
politics, 25, 69 f.
Prague, 152
Propaganda: and surrender, 15; in
Italian campaign, 76 f., 79; to Ital-
ian fleet, 104 ff.; to Japan, z62.
Prussia, 17
Psychological warfare, against Italian
fleet, Ito if.
Rahn, German diplomat, 143
Relativity of victory, 20, 32
Residual strength of losers, 9, 34, 152,
210
Revolution, 24, 252
Reynaud, Paul, French Premier, 45,
51; on maintaining coalition with
Britain, 35 f.; at Supreme War
Council, 38 f.; on continuing war
from overseas bases, 40; for purely
military capitulation, 42 f.; sounds
out Britain on armistice, 43; over-
thrown on plan of union with Brit-
ain, 4.4; on Pitain as successor, 44,
45im, g5,50 f.
1; 2.6on., 26z n.
Rhc
Ribbentrop, Joachim von, German for-
eign minister, 47 f., 134
Richardson, Col. Robert 271 n.,
272 n.
Rintelen, Enno von, German military
attache, on military situation of
Italy, 72 f.
Rio, Alphonse, French cabinet mem-
ber, 44
Ritter, Gerhard, on German opposi-
tion, 133
Roatta, Mario, Italian Minister of
War, 92
ROIc010Iviti, Constantin, Soviet mar-
shal, 140
Roma, Italian battleship, 122 f.
Rome, 105, io6, 107, no; troop con-
centrations, 74, 90) proposed bomb-
ing, 82; air drop plan, 9o-97; Ger-
man entry, 92; consequences, 96
Rommel, Erwin, German field mar-
shal, 130 f., 136, 244
Romulo, Carlos, Philippine statesman,
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 159, 209,
270 n, 271 n.; Eisenhower's com-
ments on, 76, 83; instructions to
insist on Italy's unconditional sur-
render, 85 f.; on recognition of Ba-
doglio regime, 88 f.; special inter-
pretation of unconditional surren-
der in Italy's case, 97 f.; on future
peace depending on handling of en-
emy's surrender, 2.'6; on error in
V7ilson's peace policy, 217
Rothfels, Hans, on German opposi-
tion, 134
Ruhr: threatened early in World War
II, 56, 63; surrender of forces in
area, 139, 142, 22! f.
Rules of unconditionality, see Uncon-
ditional surrender
Rumania, 25, 6o
Rundstedt, Karl von, German field
marshal, 131, 137, 227
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release
INDEX
Russell, Richard, U.S. Senator, on Jap-
anese surrender, opposing retention
of Emperor, 164-67
Russia, 15, 119, 171; see also Soviet
Union
Russians, German fear of, 140 f., 249
Saipan, 156, 172
Sakhalin, i6o
Salerno, landing, 91, 94, 96, too, 113
Salvaging operation, in German sur-
render, 149-52, 154
Sansonetti, Italian admiral, 105
Sardinia, 73, tot, 105, 112
Sato, Naotake, Japanese diplomat,
183f., z86
Savoy, House of, 76, 8o
Schellenberg, Walter, SS general, 14.5
Scharner, Ferdinand, German field
marshal, 151 f.
Schulenburg, Friedrich von, German
diplomat, 134
Schulz, Friedrich, German general, 144
Schwerin, Gerd von, German general,
130
Schwerin von Krosigk, Baron Lutz,
German cabinet member, 150
Sedan,
Selective resistance by Germany in
World War II, 137-41, 146f.,
221 f.
Sherwood, Robert E., on recognition of
Badoglio regime, 88, tot
Shigemitsu, Mamori, Japanese foreign
minister, 170 f., 173, 175
Siberia, 159
Sicily, 72 f., 79, 90, 96
Siege, 245 f.; in strategy, 6 f.; anal-
ogy with last stage of war with
Japan, 207
Simpson, William H., U.S. general,
151
Smith, Walter Bedell, U.S. general, 85
Socialists: French, 59; German, after
World War I, 124; in German op-
position to Hitler, 134.f.
Soong, T. V., Chinese diplomat, 184
South Tyrol, 128
Soviet attitude toward power, 26 f.
Soviet Union, 25, 41, 193, 209, 211;
against "imperialist war," 59; West-
ern efforts to conclude pact, 6o, i26;
German opposition's view of Soviet
threat, 127, 133; pro-Soviet orienta-
tion in German opposition, 134f.;
military operations in Germany, 140
f.; relations with Japan, 156, 165,
285
176, 179; intervention in Pacific
war, 158, t60; neutrality pact with
Japan denounced, 177; declares war
on Japan, 185; handling of Japan-
ese offer of mediation, 185-89; in-
tervention and Japanese surrender,
198 f., 203 $ unconditional - surren-
der policy, 2'5, 226; suspicion of
Western Allies, 230 f.
Spain, si f.
Spears, Sir Edward, British general,
38 f.
Speer, Albert, German cabinet mem-
ber, 144
Speidel, Hans, German general, 130 f.
Speier, Hans, on "democratic fallacy,"
77
SS, Nazi corps, 139
"Stab in the back" legend, 123 f., t28,
137
Stalemate: in strategy, 18 f., no; in
nuclear war, 252
Stalin, Joseph, 134, 178, 271 n.; on
intervention in war against Japan,
159, 209; denounces Japanese neu-
trality pact, 177; policy on Japanese
mediation offer, z85-89; policy on
unconditional surrender, 218
Stalingrad, 119, 128, 224
State Department, Italian
cited, 88
Status quo, 254 f.
Stauffenberg, Count Claus von, mem-
ber of anti-Nazi opposition, 134
Stimson, Henry L., U.S. Secretary of
War: on Japanese Emperor, 167; on
atomic bomb, 192 f., 195; on Japan-
ese terminal resistance, 196, 206 f.
Stimulus-response philosophy, 233
Stockholm, 176
Strategic thinking, lag in, 235
Strategy: of disruption and attrition,
6, 245, 248; of rout and exhaustion,
6 f.; winning, a f., 22; in future
war, 246 f., 249, 251, 255; air-
counter-air, 248, 255 f.
StrOlin, Karl, mayor of Stuttgart,
265 n.
Strong, Kenneth, U.S. general, 85
Stillpnagel, K. H. von, German gen-
eral, 130
Sudeten region, 125 f., 128
Suez, x 26
Surrender: in World War I, ; in
American Civil War, 1; in nine-
teenth-century European wars, 1; in
World War II, t, to, 2,1s; see also
policy criti-
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INDEX
France, Germany, Italy, Japan; defi-
nition, 5; and attrition, 8 f.; and
abridgement of terminal stage, 8 f.;
enforced, lo; tactical, 10 ?., 222)
strategic, Io-12, 14, 1211 as politi-
cal concept, 13-16; in total war,
2!!.; selective, 130, 132 f., 1341.,
147-49; timing, 135 f., 203 f.; and
defeat, 208 f., 236; in future war,
245-48; in nuclear war, 247 f.,
253; unconditional, see Uncondi-
tional surrender
Survival in nuclear war, 258
Suzuki, Bunshiro, Japanese journalist,
174
Suzuki, Kantaro, Japanese Premier.
174 f., 183, 193 f., 268 n.; handling
of Potsdam Declaration, x90 f.
Sweden: German peace feelers, 48 1.1
Japanese peace feelers, 175
Switzerland, 126, 132, 143, 169, 187
Takagi, Sokichi, Japanese admiral, 155
Taranto, 1o5-8, 263 n.
Taylor, Maxwell D., U.S. general, 901.
Tedder, Sir Arthur (later Baron),
British Air chief marshal, 8z
Teheran conference, 159, 209
Terminal resistance, 83 f., 120, 183,
186, 192, 208
Terminal stage of war, 8, 23 if., 196 f.,
207, 209, 211, 223, 248
Timing of surrender, see Surrender
Tirpitz, Alfred von, German admiral,
238
Togo, Shigenori, Japanese foreign min-
ister, 175, 178, 180-83, 186, 190,
200
Tojo, Hideki, Japanese Premier, 156,
170, 172
Tokyo, 16o, 165, 176, 185 f., 188, zo6
Total war, 17-21; surrender in, zt ;
terminal stage, 23 if.; World War
II, 235; future, 249-5!
Toyoda, Soemu, Japanese admiral, 172,
zoo
Trott zu Sol; Adam von, member of
anti-Nazi opposition, 134
Truman, Harry S.: on unconditional
surrender, 145; decision on strategy
against Japan, x6z; on Soviet medi-
ation, 185, 188; on atomic bomb,
192
Tunis, 49 f., 8z
Tyrol, 143
Ulm, x
Umezu, Yoshijiro, Japanese Army chief
of staff, 178, 200
Unconditional surrender, 1, i6, 34,
2I5-4.1; differences on application
to Italy, 75; rules of unconditional-
ity, 82, 162 1., 218 f., 228-32, see
also Nonnegotiation, Vacuum; ap-
plication of policy to Italy, 84-87,
89, 951 97f., 104, 109, z x6 f., 219,
228-30; attitude of German oppo-
sition, 127, 131-33, 137; attitude of
Nazi leaders, x44 f.; integral appli-
cation of policy to Germany, 145;
attitude of Japanese leadership, 156,
174, 183-86, 195; mitigation of
policy toward Japan, 187; develop-
ment of doctrine, zx 6-18; anti-Wil-
sonian aspect, 217 f., 224; terminal
aspect, 218 1.; application of rules
of unconditionality to Italy, Germa-
ny, Japan, 219-23; and prolonga-
tion of war, 223-271 and cohesion
of the coalition, 232; fallacies, 232-
40
United Nations coalition, heterogene-
ous, 153 f.; war objectives, x56;
German attempts at splitting, 218;
potential split over Germany, 232
United States: attitude toward power,
25 1., 240, 258; neutrality in 1940,
34; note to France on fleet, 451 473
reaction to cost of World War I, 56;
problem of recognizing Badoglio re-
gime, 88; German peace feelers,
132; operations in Germany, 139,
149; surrender policies toward Ja-
pan, 157-68, 170-72, 181, 183, 187,
zo6-xo; desire for Soviet interven-
tion in Pacific war, 16o, zo8 f.; pol-
icy on Japanese Emperor, 187, 194,
204 f.; policy on atomic bomb, 192;
war aims, 215; World War II non-
total, 235
United States Army in Germany, 149
United States Congress and Japanese
surrender, 164-67
United States Navy, view on defeating
Japan, 16!
United States Strategic Bombing Serv-
ice (USSBS): on Japan, 1721.; on
atomic bomb, 193
Vacuum rule, 163, 219 f., 228 f.,
237 f., 270 n.
Versailles, Treaty of, repudiation of
armament clauses, 6x
Vichy regime, so; policy declared trea-
INDEX
sonable, 58; foreign policies, 65 if.;
rejects cobelligerency, 66; yields to
German pressure, 67; collapse of po-
litical strength, 68
Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy,
94, 98, 109 f., 115; dismisses Mus-
solini, 73 f.; record of cooperation
with fascism, 87 f., zoo f.; flight
from Rome, 92) recognition criti-
cized, rot
Victory: in strategy, i f., 19; relativ-
ity of, zo, 23; Allied doubts, zo8 f.;
total, as War aim, 216, 224, 226; in
World Wars I and II, 234; in fu-
ture war, 246, 249
Vietinghoff, Heinrich von, German
general, 143
Vistula, 131
Vittorio Veneto, Italian battleship, 112
Volkssturns, 139
Wallenberg, Jakob, Swedish banker,
136
War, total and nontotal, 17-2,; po-
litical stake, 19, 22, 254-57; as
crusade, z6; of revenge, how to
avoid, 239
War aims, Allies', 215 f., 224, 226
Washington, 76, 195, 200
Westphal, Siegfried, German general,
227
Weygand, Marime, French general, 35,
260 n.; on Britain's defeat, 36 f.;
comment on armistice policy, 37;
against Brittany redoubt, 38; criti-
cizes cabinet, 4.0; on communist dan-
ger, 40 f.; against purely military
capitulation, 42 f.; against accepting
287
German demands going beyond ar-
mistice, So; motives for favoring
armistice, 57, 64
Wherry, Kenneth S., U.S. Senator, 167
Wilson, Woodrow, 217
Wolff, Karl Friedrich, SS general, 143
Woodruff, Roy 0., U.S. Representa-
tive, 164
World War I, 17, 22, 31, 125, 238 f.;
attrition strategy, 7; strategic sur-
render, 12! f.; comment by Goerde-
ler, x28; reference in Cairo Decla-
ration, 157; Allied promises to Rus-
sia, 171; Roosevelt on political con-
duct, 217; long-range effect of vic-
tor'', 234-
World War II, 17, 22, 125 f.; attri-
tion, 7; ends without revolution, 24;
"crusade" character, z6 f.; early pe-
riod, 62 if.; turning point, 119; ter-
minal stage, Germany, 120, Japan,
197; becomes total, 136; Allied
handling of political aspect, 215-41;
origin, 238
Xenophon, 13 f.
Yalta conference, 154, 159 f., 178, z85
Ybarnigaray, J e a n, French cabinet
member, 44
Yonai, Mitsumasa, Japanese admiral,
cabinet member, 173, 179, 267 n.
Yoshida, Shigeru, Japanese politician,
x55, 169
Yugoslavia, 6o
Zara, Alberto da, Italian admiral, on
surrender of fleet, 106-9.
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