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Unconditional surrender is a surrender without conditions, except for those provided by international law. Normally a belligerent will only agree to surrender unconditionally if completely incapable of continuing hostilities. Announcing that only unconditional surrender is acceptable puts psychological pressure on a weaker adversary. It has also been criticized for forcing an opponent into a position where he has nothing to gain by negotiation or diplomacy, and might as well fight to the bitter end. The most notable uses of the term have been by the United States in the American Civil War and World War II.
United States usage
The first use of the phrase occurred during the 1862 Battle of Fort Donelson in the American Civil War. Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union Army received a request for terms from the fort's commanding officer, Confederate Brigadier General Simon Bolivar Buckner. Grant's reply was that "no terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." When news of Grant's victory—one of the Union's first in the Civil War—was received in Washington, D.C., newspapers remarked (and President Abraham Lincoln endorsed) that Grant's first two initials, "U.S.," stood for "Unconditional Surrender."
However, subsequent surrenders to Grant were not unconditional. When Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865, Grant agreed to allow the men under Lee's command to go home under parole and to keep sidearms and private horses. Generous terms were also offered to John C. Pemberton at Vicksburg and (by Grant's subordinate, William T. Sherman) to Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina.
The use of the term was revived during World War II at the Casablanca conference when American President Franklin D. Roosevelt offered it to the other Allies and the press as the objective of the war against the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan.
See also
Surrenders
Bedingungslose Kapitulation | 無条件降伏 | Kapitulacja III Rzeszy | 无条件投降
"Unconditional surrender"