Maybe this is simply what it means to lose.īut in any case, suppose that you have chosen to fight. Negotiation and surrender will risk allegations of cowardice and betrayal and will subject you to the whims of the enemy, but neither does fighting to the last man seem to be a good solution. Perhaps the lesson is simply that defeat is defeat, and there is no good way out. In the German case, it was plainly obvious that Germany could not win the war, and yet surrender plunged the country into decades of shame, resentment, and hysteria over the supposed “betrayal” of the army. In the best examples, where a defeated state saw the handwriting on the wall and surrendered without dragging out the misery, the aura is one of cowardice, betrayal, and humiliation - think, for example, of France in 1940 or Germany in 1918. Yet one of the quirks of history is that surrender is generally the object of shame, and is almost never applauded for its prudence. After all, once the point of no return has been reached, continuing to fight only means wasting lives and probably angering the enemy more, bringing down more wrath on your head in the end. Perhaps the question presupposes that the inevitability of defeat is obvious and well understood, but let us just presume - you know that victory is beyond reach, so how do you keep fighting? In our more level headed moments, we would say that the best thing to do would be to negotiate.

How do you fight a war that you cannot win? A German POW contemplates the end of all things in Soviet Ukraine

Battle of the bulge tank losses