How Fighting Ends: A History of Surrender

There are many histories of how wars have begun, but very few which discuss how they have ended. This book fills that gap. Beginning with the Stone Age and ending with globalized terrorism, it addresses the specific issue of surrender, rather than the subsequent establishment of peace. At its heart is the individual warrior or soldier, and his or her decision to lay down arms. In the ancient world surrender led in most cases to slavery, but a slave still lived rather than died. In the modern world international law gives the soldiers rights as prisoners of war, and those rights include the prospect of their eventual return home. But individuals can surrender at any point in a war, and without having such an effect that they end the war. The termination of hostilities depends on a collective act for its consequences to be decisive. It also requires the enemy to accept the offer to surrender in the midst of combat. In other words, like so much else in war, surrender depends on reciprocity - on the readiness of one side to stop fighting and of the other to accept that readiness. This volume argues that surrender is the single biggest contributor to the containment of violence in warfare, offering the vanquished the opportunity to survive and the victor the chance to show moderation and magnanimity. Since the rules of surrender have developed over time, they form a key element in understanding the cultural history of warfare.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Part I: No Quarter? The Beginnings of Surrender 1: Laurence Keeley: No Surrender in Prehistoric Warfare Chapter 2: Paul Cartledge: Surrender in Ancient Greece 3: Loretana de Libero: Surrender in Ancient Rome Part II: Learning to Surrender? The Middle Ages Hans Henning Kortüm: Introduction: Surrender in Medieval Times 4: John Gillingham: Surrender in Medieval Europe - An Indirect Approach 5: John France: Surrender and Capitulation in the Middle East in the Age of the Crusades 6: Catherine Holmes: Basil II the Bulgar-slayer and the blinding of 15,000 Bulgarians in 1014: mutilation and prisoners-of -war in the Middle Ages Part III: The Developments of Rules and Regulations: Surrender in Early Modern Times John A. Lynn: Introduction: Honourable Surrender in Early Modern European History III.a. Surrender in Intercultural Wars 7: Ross Hassig: How Fighting ended in the Aztec Empire and its Surrender to the Europeans 8: William Campbell: Different Concepts of Surrender: Surrender in the Northeastern Borderlands of Native America III.b.: Surrender in Early Modern Europe 9: Lothar Höbelt: Surrender in the Thirty-Years War 10: John Childs: Surrender and the Laws of War in Western Europe, c. 1650-1783 11: Daniel Krebs: Rituals of Surrender in the American War of Independence Part IV: A Question of Honour: Surrender in Sea Warfare 12: Holger Afflerbach: Surrender in Sea Warfare from Elizabethan to our own Times Part V: The Times of International Law: Surrender in Modern Wars Introduction: Hew Strachan: Surrender in Modern Warfare since the French Revolution V.a. The 19th Century 13: Michael Broers: "Civilized, rational behaviour"? The Concept of Surrender in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1792-1815 14: Joseph Glatthaar: Robert E. Lee, the Army of Northern Virginia and Confederate Surrender 15: Edward Spiers: Surrender in 19th Century Colonial Wars V.b. Surrender in World War I. 16: Alan Kramer: Methods of Individual Surrender in the Great War 17: Dennis Showalter: By the book? Commanders surrendering in World War I 18: Jay Winter: The breaking point: Surrender 1918 Part VI: Unconditional Surrender? World War II Introduction: Gerhard Weinberg: Surrender in World War II VI a. 'Conventional' surrenders 19: Martin Alexander: French Surrender in 1940: Soldiers, Commanders, Civilians 20: Mark Connelly: The Issue of Surrender in the Malayan Campaign, 1941-1942 21: John Gooch: Neither Defeat nor Surrender: Italy's Change of Alliances in 1943 VI b. Germany and Japan in World War II 22: John Zimmermann: German Soldiers and Surrender, 1945 23: Mordecai George Sheftall: Kamikaze Warfare in Imperial Japan's Existential Crisis, 1944-1945 24: Richard Bessel: The German surrender 1945 Part VII: Our times: Asymmetric Wars - Endless Wars and No Surrender? 25: Michael Codner: Kosovo, the Serbian Surrender and the Western Dilemma: achieving victories with low casualties 26: Audrey Kurth Cronin: How Fighting Ends - Asymmetric Wars, Terrorism, and Suicide Bombing Conclusion Index

About the Author :
Holger Afflerbach, from 2002-2006, was DAAD Professor of History at Emory University. Afflerbach specializes in late nineteenth and twentieth Century German history; international relations; military history, particularly World War I and World War II; and Austrian and Italian history. Among his publications are the biography of the Prussian War Minister and Chief of General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn (Munich 1994, second edition 1996); his study of the Triple Alliance, entitled Der Dreibund. Europäische Grossmacht und Allianzpolitik vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg (Vienna 2002); and a popular book on the history of the Atlantic: Das entfesselte Meer (Munich, 2002). He also edited an edition of sources from the German Headquarters in World War I under the title Kaiser Wilhelm II: als Oberster Kriegsherr während des Ersten Weltkrieges - Quellen aus der militärischen Umgebung des Kaisers (Munich, 2005). He is is Professor of Central European History at the University of Leeds. Hew Strachan's research interests are military history from the eighteenth century to date, including contemporary strategic studies, but with particular interest in the First World War and in the history of the British Army. Among his numerous publications are: European Armies and the Conduct of War (London, 1983); Wellington's Legacy: The Reform of the British Army 1830-54 (Manchester, 1984); From Waterloo to Balaclava: Tactics, Technology and the British Army (Cambridge, 1985) ; The Politics of the British Army (Oxford, 1997); (ed.) The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (Oxford, 1998)

Review :
[the] accumulation of research remains admirably comprehensive and it can serve as a highly valuable reference work as well as a volume of stimulating and thought-provoking essays. It certainly demands to be widely cited. Thus with some twenty-seven leading scholars covering the period from prehistoric tribal societies to modern-day terrorism, this impressive volume clearly fills an important gap. Sean McGlynn, History