Surrender Monkeys or Simply Realistic?

I've just started reading The Collapse of the Third Republic, An Inquiry into the Fall of France 1940, by William Shirer and very quickly came upon an interesting question. In the Prologue, Shirer recaps the stunningly fast manner in which French resistance failed and the German conquerors swept in. He makes this note:

Most demoralizing of all to army units still trying to fight were the efforts of civilians to prevent them from offering further resistance that might damage their homes and shops. At one village on the River Indre the local inhabitants extinguished the fuses of explosives already lit by army engineers to blow the bridge there and slow down the German advance.

OK, surrender monkeys for sure, right?

I don't know. When you think about it, they might have been doing something truly rational. The country is crashing down around you and, to quote the Borg, "Resistance is futile." If resistance is futile, why should you suffer worse consequences than you're already facing? Why risk having your home, your business, your family become targets of enemy artillery when the battle is already lost? Salvage what you can and hunker down to wait for better days.

Still, to a lot of people I'm pretty sure that just doesn't sit well. If the enemy doesn't have to pay a price for their aggression, what is there to stop them from continued aggression? Resistance may be a matter of losing the battle but winning the war. Isn't that what happened to the U.S. in Vietnam? We won a lot of battles, but at high cost and eventually public outcry over the deaths of so many of our young men led to disengagement and withdrawal.

So do civilians have a duty to suffer along with those in the military when it is a matter of defending your own country?

What all of this brings to mind for me is the decision my wife took some years ago when her son was on a dangerous and potentially deadly path. She stepped in and took action intended to ensure that he survived, action he hated her for at the time. Her thinking was very clear. He might never forgive her and they might never have a relationship again, but at least he would be alive. For the French civilians, this could be stated as "Retreat and live to fight another day." You can't fight another day if you're dead.

Today, the son is still alive, grown up, and grateful to his mother for her courage. Perhaps some of the very same Frenchmen who snuffed the fuses later joined the underground and exacted their vengence on the Germans. There really is very little black and white in this world. Don't let anyone tell you differently.