Debellatio


The term "debellatio" or "debellation" designates the end of war caused by complete destruction of a hostile state. Israeli law-school professor Eyal Benvenisti defines it as "a situation in which a party to a conflict has been totally defeated in war, its national institutions have disintegrated, and none of its allies continue to challenge the enemy militarily on its behalf".

Examples of debellation

Carthage

In some cases debellation ends with a complete dissolution and annexation of the defeated state into the victor's national territory, as happened at the end of the Third Punic War with the defeat of Carthage by Rome in the 2nd century BC.

Nazi Germany

The unconditional surrender of the Third Reich—in the strict sense only the German Armed Forces—at the end of World War II was at the time accepted by most authorities as a case of debellatio as:
Other authorities have argued that a German state remained in existence from 1945 to 1949, albeit dormant and without any institutional or organisational component, on the basis that: