recreant

Having admitted defeat and surrendered; defeated.

Soothly, he that despeireth hym is lyk The coward champious recreant, that seith, Creant withoute nede, allas! akkas! bedekes us He recreant and nedelees despeired. [Translation by Larry D. Benson from Riverside Chaucer: Truly, he that despairs himself is like the cowardly defeated champion, who says "I surrender" without need. Alas, alas, needless is he defeated and needless in despair.]

For, from the day that he thus did it leave, / Amongst all Knights he blotted was with blame, / And counted but a recreant Knight with endles shame.

Unfaithful to someone, or to one's duties or honour; disloyal, false.

Who, for ſo many benefits receiv'd, / Turn'd recreant to God, ingrate and falſe, / And ſo of all true good himſelf deſpoil'd, […]

And let the recreant traitors seek / My tourney court […].

Somebody who is recreant, who yields in combat; a coward or traitor.

[I]n the Choephoroe of Aeschylus Orestes pursues the same idea saying that unless he avenges his father, a stern duty which has devolved upon him, he will be punished in turn by the avengers of his father's wrongs. It may be remarked that in Maina to-day no recourse must be had to law for such cases, nor must the injured person satisfy himself by calling upon the aid of the police. To do this were incredibly base, the subterfuge of a recreant and a craven.

If Scholz believed he could dodge a reckoning after his party was beaten into a humiliating third place by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, he, like most recreants, is likely mistaken.