THE CAPITULATION.
110. Should the defensive policy of the state not require a place to be held to extremity, the governor must be fully informed of the fact, and the extent of the defence and the conditions of capitulation must be fully understood by him before the investment. As a rule, however, no excuse will be received for the surrender of a place until every means of defence is exhausted, and further resistance is not only hopeless, but impossible, the only rule which can guide the governor being that “one additional day of defence may be of incalculable benefit to his country.” The old rule, copied from the French, but no longer observed by them, requires the defence to sustain at least one assault on a practicable breach in the body of the place.
Within recent years, in civilized warfare, no cases have occurred in which such assaults have been made, the places having been reduced by the more distant attack; but assuming such an assault to be repulsed, it will not justify the surrender of the place so long as a possibility of repulsing similar assaults exists. The garrison must withstand all attacks of whatever nature to the last extremity, and continue the defence up to the full requirements of duty and honor—surrendering only when nothing else is possible.