“No whisper of such plans is to be allowed,” he wrote. “No surrenders by officers and men will be considered tolerable unless at least 50 percent casualties are sustained by the Unit or force in question.” Any general or staff officer who found himself facing imminent capture by the enemy was to shoot it out with his pistol. “The honor of a wounded man is safe,” he wrote. “Anyone who can kill a Hun or even an Italian has rendered good service.”
