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To Win Without Fighting: Difference between revisions
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** One good reason against the death penalty. If death is already certain, there's nothing to gain by surrendering.
** Sun Tzu talked about this as well (smart man, he was). Basically, it came down to, "make the enemy think that there is a way out, to avoid him fighting desperately to the death." On the flip side, he also said, [[Taking You with Me|"if you're on the wrong end of this, cut off your own escape routes to get your troops to fight to the death."]]
* The [[wikipedia:Swiss civil war|Sonderbund War or Swiss Civil War]] of 1847 was won by the liberal (mainly Protestant) cantons under General Guillaume-Henri Dufour with less than 100 dead on both sides combined. This relatively bloodless victory allowed for a swift reconciliation and the foundation of Switzerland as a true constitutional and democratic nation state the following year. As an aside, General Dufour was later an important figure in the foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross and presided over the first [[
* [[Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud]] did this once to the Al-Rashids by going behind his lines and raiding. As the Rashid's army cared ''much'' more about the fate of their camels then about the Rashid's cause, they all left, allowing Ibn Saud to end the year with a successful campaign.
* This trope was essentially the basis of tactical doctrine in eighteenth century wars, in which the best generals were considered those who could position their troops in such a way to force the enemy to surrender without losing any men. When the [[French Revolution]] came along and men started fighting to the death for political and national ideals, the generals of the old school found it hard to adapt.
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