It is always a bad sign in an army when scapegoats are habitually sought out and brought to sacrifice for every conceivable mistake. It usually shows something very wrong in the highest command. It completely inhibits the willingness of junior commanders to make decisions, for they will always try to get chapter and verse for everything they do.

Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) German field marshal

(Dec. 1942), The Rommel Papers, 18 (ed. B. H. Liddell Hart) (1953)