Dictionary Definition
besieged adj : surrounded by hostile forces; "the
besieged town"
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Verb
besiegedExtensive Definition
A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of
conquering by attrition
and/or assault. The term derives from the Latin word for "seat" or
"sitting." A siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or
fortress that cannot be easily taken by a frontal
assault and refuses to surrender.
Sieges involve surrounding the target and blocking the
reinforcement or escape of troops or provision of supplies (a
tactic known as "investment"),
typically coupled with attempts to reduce the fortifications by
means of siege
engines, artillery
bombardment, mining
(also known as sapping), or the use of deception or treachery to
bypass defenses. Failing a military outcome, sieges can often be
decided by starvation, thirst or disease, which can afflict both
the attacker or defender.
Sieges probably predate the development of cities
as large population centers. Ancient cities in the Middle East
show archaeological
evidence of having had fortified city walls.
During the Warring
States era of ancient
China, there is both textual and archaeological evidence of
prolonged sieges and siege machinery used against the defenders of
city walls. Siege machinery was also a tradition of the ancient
Greco-Roman
world. During the Renaissance and
the Early Modern
period, siege warfare dominated the conduct of war in Europe. Leonardo
da Vinci gained as much of his renown from the design of
fortifications as from his artwork.
Medieval campaigns
were generally designed around a succession of sieges. In the
Napoleonic
era, increasing use of ever more powerful cannon reduced the value of
fortifications. In modern times, trenches
replaced walls, and bunkers replaced castles. In the
20th century, the significance of the classical siege declined.
With the advent of mobile
warfare, one single fortified stronghold is no longer as
decisive as it once was. While sieges do still occur, they are not
as common as they once were due to changes in modes of battle,
principally the ease by which huge volumes of destructive power can
be directed onto a static target. Sieges in present day are more
commonly either smaller hostage, militant, or extreme
resisting-arrest situations such as the Waco
Siege.
Generally speaking, siege warfare is a form of
low-intensity warfare (until an assault takes place) characterized
in that at least one party holds a strong defense position, it is
highly static situation, the element of attrition is typically
strong and there are plenty of opportunities for
negotiations.
Ancient siege warfare
The essential of city walls
The Assyrians deployed large labour forces to build new palaces, temples and defensive walls.Some settlements in the Indus
Valley Civilization were also fortified. By about 3500 B.C.,
hundreds of small farming villages dotted the Indus floodplain.
Many of these settlements had fortifications and planned streets.
The stone and mud brick houses of Kot Diji were
clustered behind massive stone flood dikes and defensive walls, for
neighboring communities quarreled constantly about the control of
prime agricultural land. Mundigak (c. 2500 B.C.) in present day
south-east Afghanistan has
defensive walls and square bastions of sun dried bricks.
City walls and fortifications were essential for
the defense of the first cities in the ancient
Near East. The walls were built by mud bricks, stone, wood or a
combination of these materials depending on local availability.
City walls may also have served the dual purpose of showing
presumptive enemies the might of the Kingdom. The great walls
surrounding the Sumerian city of
Uruk gained
such a wide-spread reputation. The walls were 9.5 km / 6 miles in
length, and raised up to 12 metres / 40 feet in height. Later the
walls of Babylon, reinforced
by towers and moats, gained a similar reputation. In Anatolia, the
Hittites
built massive stone walls around their cities, taking advantage of
the hillsides. In Shang
Dynasty China, at the site of
Ao, large walls were erected in the 15th century BC that had
dimensions of 20 meters / 65 feet in width at the base and enclosed
an area of some squared. In similar dimensions, the ancient
Chinese
capital for the State of
Zhao, Handan (founded in
386 BC), had walls that were again 20 meters / 65 feet wide at the
base, a height of 15 meters / 50 feet tall, with two separate sides
of its rectangular enclosure measured at a length of .
Tactics in siege warfare
The most common practice of siege warfare was
however to lay siege and wait for the surrender of the enemies
inside. The Egyptian
siege of Megiddo in the 15th century BC lasted for 7 months
before its inhabitants surrendered. The Hittite siege of a
rebellious Anatolian vassal in the 14th century BC ended when the
queen mother came out of the city and begged for mercy on behalf of
her people. If the main objective of a campaign was not the
conquest of a particular city, it could simply be passed by. The
Hittite campaign against the kingdom of Mitanni in the 14th
century BC bypassed the fortified city of Carchemish. When
the main objective of the campaign had been fulfilled, the Hittite
army returned to Carchemish and the city fell after an
eight-day-siege. The well-known
Assyrian Siege of Jerusalem in the 8th century BC came to an
end when the Israelites
bought them off with gifts and tribute, according to the Assyrian account,
or when the Assyrian camp was struck by mass death, according to
the Biblical
account. Due to the problem of logistics, long lasting sieges
involving but a minor force could seldom be maintained.
During the Warring
States (481–221 BC) era of China, warfare lost its honorable,
gentlemen's duty that was found in the previous era of China
(Spring
and Autumn period), and became more practical, competitive,
cut-throat, and efficient for gaining victory. The Chinese
invention of the hand-held, trigger-mechanism crossbow during this period
revolutionized warfare, giving greater emphasis to infantry and
cavalry and less to traditional chariot Chinese warfare. The
philosophically-pacifist Mohists (followers
of the philosopher Mozi) of the 5th
century BC believed in aiding the defensive warfare of smaller
Chinese states against the hostile offensive warfare of larger
domineering states. The Mohists were renowned in the smaller states
(and the enemies of the larger states) for the inventions of siege
machinery to scale or destroy walls. This included traction
trebuchet catapults, eight foot high
ballistas, a wheeled
siege ramp with grappling hooks known as the Cloud Bridge (the
protractable, folded ramp slinging forward by means of a
counterweight with rope and pulley), and wheeled 'hook-carts' used
to latch large iron hooks onto the tops of walls to pull and tear
them down. When enemies attempted to dig tunnels under walls for
mining
or entry into the city, the defenders used large bellows (the type the Chinese
commonly used in heating up the blast
furnace for smelting cast iron) to
pump smoke into the tunnels in order to suffocate the
intruders.
During the Ming Dynasty
(1368–1644 AD), the Chinese were very concerned with city planning
in regards to gunpowder warfare. The site for constructing the
walls and the thickness of the walls in Beijing's Forbidden
City were favored by the Chinese Yongle
Emperor (r. 1402–1424), because they were in pristine position
to resist cannon volley and were built thick enough to withstand
attacks from cannon fire.
For more see
Technology of the Song Dynasty.
Sieges in the age of gunpowder
The introduction of gunpowder and the use of cannons brought about a new age in siege warfare. Cannons were first used in Song Dynasty China during the early 13th century, but did not become significant weapons for another 150 years or so. By the 16th century, they were an essential and regularized part of any campaigning army, or castle's defenses.The greatest advantage of cannons over other
siege weapons was the ability to fire a heavier projectile,
further, faster and more often than previous weapons. They could
also fire projectiles in a straight line, so that they could
destroy the bases of high walls. Thus, 'old fashioned'
walls—that is high and, relatively, thin—were
excellent targets and, over time, easily demolished. In 1453, the
great walls of Constantinople
were broken through in just six weeks by the 62 cannon of Mehmet II's
army.
However, new fortifications, designed to
withstand gunpowder weapons, were soon constructed throughout
Europe. During the Renaissance and
the Early Modern
period, siege warfare continued to dominate the conduct of war in
Europe.
Once siege guns were developed the techniques for
assaulting a town or a fortress became well known and ritualized.
The attacking army would surround a town. Then the town would be
asked to surrender. If they did not comply the besieging army would
surround the town with temporary fortifications to stop sallies from the
stronghold or relief getting in. The attackers would then build a
length of trenches parallel to the defences and just out of range
of the defending artillery. They would then dig a trench towards
the town in a zigzag
pattern so that it could not be enfiladed by defending fire.
Once within artillery range another parallel trench would be dug
with gun emplacements. If necessary using the first artillery fire
for cover this process would be repeated until guns were close
enough to be laid accurately to make a breach in the
fortifications. In order to allow the forlorn hope
and support troops to get close enough to exploit the breach, more
zigzag trenches could be dug even closer to the walls with more
parallel trenches to protect and conceal the attacking troops.
After each step in the process the besiegers would ask the besieged
to surrender. If the forlorn hope stormed the breach successfully
the defenders could expect no mercy.
Emerging theories on improving fortifications
The castles that in earlier years had been formidable obstacles were easily breached by the new weapons. For example, in Spain, the newly equipped army of Ferdinand and Isabella was able to conquer Moorish strongholds in Granada in 1482–92 that had held out for centuries before the invention of cannons.In the early 15th century, Italian architect
Leon
Battista Alberti wrote a treatise entitled De Re aedificatoria
which theorized methods of building fortifications capable of
withstanding the new guns. He proposed that walls be "built in
uneven lines, like the teeth of a saw." He proposed star-shaped
fortresses with low thick walls.
However, few rulers paid any attention to his
theories. A few towns in Italy began building in the new style late
in the 1480s, but it was only with the French invasion of the
Italian peninsula in 1494–95 that the new fortifications
were built on a large scale. Charles
VIII invaded Italy with an army of 18,000 men and a horse-drawn
siege-train. As
a result he could defeat virtually any city or state, no matter how
well defended. In a panic, military strategy was completely
rethought throughout the Italian states of the time, with a strong
emphasis on the new fortifications that could withstand a modern
siege.
New styles of fortresses employed
The most effective way to protect walls against cannon fire proved to be depth (increasing the width of the defenses) and angles (ensuring that attackers could only fire on walls at an oblique angle, not square on). Initially walls were lowered and backed, in front and behind, with earth. Towers were reformed into triangular bastions.This design matured into the trace
italienne. Star-shaped fortresses surrounding towns and even
cities with outlying defenses proved very difficult to capture,
even for a well equipped army. Fortresses built in this style
throughout the 16th century did not become fully obsolete until the
19th century, and were still in use throughout World War I
(though modified for 20th century warfare).
However, the cost of building such vast modern
fortifications was incredibly high, and was often too much for
individual cities to undertake. Many were bankrupted in the process
of building them; others, such as Siena, spent so much
money on fortifications that they were unable to maintain their
armies properly, and so lost their wars anyway. Nonetheless,
innumerable large and impressive fortresses were built throughout
northern Italy in the first decades of the 16th century to resist
repeated French invasions that became known as the Italian
Wars. Many stand to this day.
In the 1530s and 1540s, the new style of
fortification began to spread out of Italy into the rest of Europe,
particularly to France, the Netherlands,
and Spain. Italian engineers were in enormous demand throughout
Europe, especially in war-torn areas such as the Netherlands, which
became dotted by towns encircled in modern fortifications. For many
years, defensive and offensive tactics were well balanced leading
to protracted and costly wars such as Europe had never known,
involving more and more planning and government involvement.
The new fortresses ensured that war rarely
extended beyond a series of sieges. Because the new fortresses
could easily hold 10,000 men, an attacking army could not ignore a
powerfully fortified position without serious risk of
counterattack. As a result, virtually all towns had to be taken,
and that was usually a long, drawn-out affair, potentially lasting
from several months to years, while the members of the town were
starved to death. Most battles in this period were between
besieging armies and relief columns sent to rescue the
besieged.
Marshal Vauban
At the end of the 17th century, Marshal Vauban, a French military
engineer, developed modern fortification to its pinnacle, refining
siege warfare without fundamentally altering it: ditches would be
dug; walls would be protected by glacis; and bastions would enfilade an attacker. He was
also a master of planning sieges himself. Before Vauban, sieges had
been somewhat slapdash operations. Vauban refined besieging to a
science with a methodical process that, if uninterrupted, would
break even the strongest fortifications.
Examples of Vauban-style fortresses in North
America include Fort McHenry
in Baltimore,
Maryland, Fort
Ticonderoga in New York
State, and La
Citadelle in Quebec
City.
Planning and maintaining a siege is just as
difficult as fending one off. A besieging army must be prepared to
repel both sorties from
the besieged area and also any attack that may try to relieve the
defenders. It was thus usual to construct lines of trenches and
defenses facing in both directions. The outermost lines, known as
the lines of contravallation, would
surround the entire besieging army and protect it from attackers.
This would be the first construction effort of a besieging army,
built soon after a fortress or city had been invested. A line of
circumvallation
would also be constructed, facing in towards the besieged area, to
protect against sorties by the defenders and to prevent the
besieged from escaping.
The next line, which Vauban usually placed at
about 600 meters from the target, would contain the main batteries
of heavy cannons so that they could hit the target without being
vulnerable themselves. Once this line was established, work crews
would move forward creating another line at 250 meters. This line
contained smaller guns. The final line would be constructed only 30
to 60 meters from the fortress. This line would contain the
mortars
and would act as a staging area
for attack parties once the walls were breached. It would also be
from there that miners working to undermine the fortress would
operate.
The trenches connecting the various lines of the
besiegers could not be built perpendicular to the walls of the
fortress, as the defenders would have a clear line of fire along
the whole trench. Thus, these lines (known as saps) needed to be sharply
jagged.
Another element of a fortress was the citadel. Usually a citadel was a
"mini fortress" within the larger fortress, sometimes designed as a
last bastion of defense, but more often as a means of protecting
the garrison from potential revolt in the city. The citadel was
used in wartime and peacetime to keep the residents of the city in
line.
As in ages past, most sieges were decided with
very little fighting between the opposing armies. An attacker's
army was poorly served incurring the high casualties that a direct
assault on a fortress would entail. Usually they would wait until
supplies inside the fortifications were exhausted or disease had
weakened the defenders to the point that they were willing to
surrender. At the same time, diseases, especially typhus were a constant danger to
the encamped armies outside the fortress, and often forced a
premature retreat. Sieges were often won by the army that lasted
the longest.
An important element of strategy for the besieging army
was whether or not to allow the encamped city to surrender. Usually
it was preferable to graciously allow a surrender,
both to save on casualties, and to set an example for future
defending cities. A city that was allowed to surrender with minimal
loss of life was much better off than a city that held out for a
long time and was brutally butchered at the end. Moreover, if an
attacking army had a reputation of killing and pillaging regardless
of a surrender, then other cities' defensive efforts would be
redoubled.
Advent of mobile warfare
Siege warfare dominated in Western Europe for most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. An entire campaign, or longer, could be used in a single siege (for example, Ostend in 1601–04; La Rochelle in 1627–28). This resulted in extremely prolonged conflicts. The balance was that while siege warfare was extremely expensive and very slow, it was very successful—or, at least, more so than encounters in the field. Battles arose through clashes between besiegers and relieving armies, but the principle was a slow grinding victory by the greater economic power. The relatively rare attempts at forcing pitched battles (Gustavus Adolphus in 1630; the French against the Dutch in 1672 or 1688) were almost always expensive failures.The exception to this rule were the English.
During the English
Civil War anything which tended to prolong the struggle, or
seemed like want of energy and avoidance of a decision, was
bitterly resented by the men of both sides. In France and Germany,
the prolongation of a war meant continued employment for the
soldiers, but in England:
- "we never encamped or entrenched... or lay fenced with rivers or defiles. Here were no leaguers in the field, as at the story of Nuremberg, 'neither had our soldiers any tents, or what they call heavy baggage.' Twas the general maxim of the war: Where is the enemy? Let us go and fight them. Or... if the enemy was coming... Why, what should be done! Draw out into the fields and fight them."
This passage from the Memoirs of a Cavalier,
ascribed to Daniel
Defoe, though not contemporary evidence, is an admirable
summary of the character of the Civil War. Even when in the end a
regular professional army developed, the original
decision-compelling spirit permeated the whole organisation as was
seen when pitched against regular professional continental troops
the
Battle of the Dunes during the Interregnum.
Sixty year later during the
War of the Spanish Succession the
Duke of Marlborough preferred to engage the enemy in pitched
battles rather than engage in siege warfare, although he was very
proficient in both types of warfare.
In the early nineteenth century, two factors
changed this method of warfare.
Strategic concepts
In the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, new techniques stressed the division of armies into all-arms corps that would march separately and only come together on the battlefield. The less concentrated army could now live off the country and move more rapidly over a larger number of roads. Fortresses commanding lines of communication could be bypassed and would no longer stop an invasion. Since armies could not live off the land indefinitely, Napoleon Bonaparte always sought a quick end to any conflict by pitched battle. This military revolution was described and codified by Clausewitz.Industrial advances
The development of the armoured tank and improved infantry tactics
at the end of World War I swung the pendulum back in favour of
maneuver, and with the advent of Blitzkrieg in 1939, the end of
siege warfare was near its end. The Maginot Line
would be the prime example of the failure of immobile
fortifications post World War One. Although sieges would continue,
it would be in a totally different style and on a reduced
scale.
The Blitzkrieg of
the Second World
War truly showed that fixed fortifications are easily defeated
by maneuver instead of frontal assault or long sieges. The great
Maginot
Line was bypassed and battles that would have taken weeks of
siege could now be avoided with the careful application of air
power (such as the German paratrooper capture of
Fort
Eben-Emael, Belgium, early in World War II). The most important
siege was the Siege of
Leningrad, that lasted over 29 months, about half of the
duration of the entire Second World War. Along with the Battle
of Stalingrad, the Siege of Leningrad on the
Eastern Front was the deadliest siege of a city in history. In
the west apart from the
Battle of the Atlantic the sieges were not on the same scale as
those on the European Eastern front; however, there were several
notable or critical sieges: the island of Malta for which the
population won the George
Cross, Tobruk
and Monte
Cassino. In the
South-East Asian Theatre there was the siege of Singapore and in
the Burma
Campaign sieges of Myitkyina, the
Admin Box and the
Battle of the Tennis Court which was the high water mark for
the Japanese advance into India.
The air supply methods which were developed and
used extensively in the Burma Campaign for supplying the Chindits and other
units, including those in sieges such as Imphal,
as well as flying the Hump into
China, allowed the western powers to develop air lift expertise
which would prove vital during the Cold War
Berlin
Blockade.
During the Vietnam War
the battles of
Dien Bien Phu (1954) and Khe
Sanh (1968) possessed siege-like characteristics. In both
cases, the Vietminh and
NLF were able to cut off the opposing army by capturing the
surrounding rugged terrain. At Dien Bien Phu, the French were
unable to use air power to overcome the siege and were defeated.
However, at Khe Sanh a mere 14 years later, advances in air power
allowed the United
States to withstand the siege. The resistance of US forces was
assisted by the PAVN
and
PLAF forces' decision to use the Khe Sanh siege as strategic
distraction to allow their mobile warfare offensive, the first
Tet
offensive to unfold securely. The Siege of Khe Sanh displays
typical features of modern sieges, as the defender has greater
capacity to withstand siege, the attacker's main aim is to bottle
operational forces, or create a strategic distraction, rather than
take a siege to conclusion.
Recent sieges
- From 1980 to 11 April 1991 During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and subsequent Afghan Civil War, the city of Khost was under siege for more than 11 years. It is considered the longest siege in modern history.
- From 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 the Siege of Sarajevo took place, where Sarajevo, then controlled by the Bosnian government, was besieged by the Serb paramilitary.
- In 2004, United States forces laid siege to the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
- The Siege of Sangin, that lasted between June 2006 and April 2007, during which time Taliban insurgents attempted to besiege the district centre of Sangin District in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, occupied by British ISAF soldiers.
Police actions
Despite the overwhelming might of the modern state, siege tactics continue to be employed in police conflicts. This has been due to a number of factors, primarily risk to life, whether that of the police, the besieged, bystanders or hostages. Police make use of trained negotiators, psychologists and, if necessary, force, generally being able to rely on the support of their nation's armed forces if required.One of the complications facing police in a siege
involving hostages is the Stockholm
syndrome where sometimes hostages can develop a sympathetic
rapport with their captors. If this helps keep them safe from harm
this is considered to be a good thing, but there have been cases
where hostages have tried to shield the captors during an assault
or refused to co-operate with the authorities in bringing
prosecutions.
The 1993 police siege
on the Branch
Davidian church in Waco,
Texas, lasted
51 days, an atypically long police siege. Unlike traditional
military sieges, police sieges tend to last for hours or days
rather than weeks, months or years.
In Britain if the siege involves perpetrators who
are considered by the British Government to be terrorists, then if
an assault is to take place, the civilian authorities hand command
and control over to the military. The threat of such an action
ended the Balcombe
Street Siege in 1975 but the Iranian
Embassy Siege in 1980 ended in a military assault and the death
of all but one of the hostage takers.
See also
Notes
References
- Duffy, Christopher. Fire & Stone: The Science of Fortress Warfare (1660–1860). 1975. 2nd ed. New York: Stackpole Books, 1996.
- Duffy, Christopher. Siege Warfare: Fortress in the Early Modern World, 1494–1660. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1996.
- Duffy, Christopher. Siege Warfare, Volume II: The Fortress in the Age of Vauban and Frederick the Great. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, 1985.
- Lynn, John A. The Wars of Louis XIV.
- Ebrey, Walthall, Palais (2006). East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
- May, Timothy. "Mongol Arms." Explorations in Empire, Pre-Modern Imperialism Tutorial: the Mongols. University of Wisconsin-Madison. 27 June 2004.
- Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Part 2. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
- Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Part 6. Taiepi: Caves Books Ltd.
- Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Part 7. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
- Saltini Antonio, L'assedio della Mirandola. Vita, guerra e amore al tempo di Pico e di papa Giulio, Diabasis, Reggio Emilia 2003
- Turnbull, Stephen R. (2002). Siege Weapons of the Far East. Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd.
External links
- Native American Siege Warfare.
- Siege Kits
- Scenes of Siege Warfare
- Secrets of Lost Empires: Medieval Siege (PBS) Informative and interactive webpages about medieval siege tactics.
- href="http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/weapons/siege_warfare.htm">http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/weapons/siege_warfare.htm Three ancient Egyptian Sieges: Megiddo, Dapur, Hermopolis (archived version)
- The Siege Of The City Biblical perspectives.
besieged in Bosnian: Opsada
besieged in Czech: Obléhání
besieged in German: Belagerung
besieged in Spanish: Asedio
besieged in Esperanto: Sieĝo
besieged in French: Siège (militaire)
besieged in Korean: 공성전
besieged in Indonesian: Pengepungan
besieged in Italian: Assedio
besieged in Hebrew: מצור
besieged in Dutch: Belegering
besieged in Japanese: 攻城戦
besieged in Norwegian: Beleiring
besieged in Polish: Oblężenie
besieged in Portuguese: Cerco
besieged in Romanian: Asediu
besieged in Russian: Осада
besieged in Sicilian: Assèdiu
besieged in Simple English: Siege
besieged in Serbian: Опсада
besieged in Finnish: Piiritys
besieged in Swedish: Belägring
besieged in Turkish: Kuşatma