Investment (military)
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Investment is the military process of surrounding an enemy
It serves both to cut communications with the outside world and to prevent supplies and reinforcements from being introduced.A contravallation is a line of fortifications built by the attackers around the
The contravallation can be used as a base to launch assaults against the besieged city or to construct further earthworks nearer to the city.A circumvallation may be constructed if the besieging army is threatened by a field army allied to an enemy fort. It is a second line of fortifications outside the contravallation that faces away from an enemy fort. The circumvallation protects the besiegers from attacks by allies of the city's defenders and enhances the blockade of an enemy fort by making it more difficult to smuggle in supplies.[5]
Lines of contravallation and circumvallation generally consist of earthen ramparts and entrenchments that encircle the besieged city.
Antiquity
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Thucydides notes the role circumvallation played in the Sicilian Expedition and in the Spartan siege of Plataea during the initial stages of the Peloponnesian War in 429 BC.
During the Siege of Jerusalem, Titus and his Roman legions built a circumvallation, cutting down all trees within fifteen kilometres (9 miles).
Middle Ages
Another example from the pre-modern period is the Siege of Constantinople (717–718).
The
King Pepin the Short of Francia built a number of fortified camps during his Siege of Bourbon (761) to surround the town completely.[8] He built a complete set of lines of circumvallation and contravallation during the Siege of Bourges (762).[9]
Modern era
The basic objectives and tactics of a military investment have remained the same in the modern era. During the
In modern times, investments and
See also
References
- ^ invest Merriam-Webster
- ^ "4. Milit. The surrounding or hemming in of a town or fort by a hostile force so as to cut off all communication with the outside; beleaguerment; blockade" (Oxford English Dictionary: investment, n. Second edition, 1989; online version December 2011. Entry/99052. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1900).
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary: circumvallation, n. Second edition, 1989; online version December 2011. Entry/33402. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1889.
- ISBN 9780819601131,
If an attempt at relief from without was to be feared, another line of works must be created, outside the first, and facing outwards. In modern warfare this latter line is called the circumvallation, and the inner one the contravallation.
- ^ [verification needed] Oxford English Dictionary: contravallation, n. Second edition, 1989; online version December 2011. Entry/40491. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1893.
- ^ Julius Caesar. – via Wikisource.
- ^ Petersen 2013, pp. 703–708.
- ^ Petersen 2013, p. 729.
- ^ Petersen 2013, pp. 730–731.
Sources
- Petersen, Leif Inge Ree (2013). Siege Warfare and Military Organization in the Successor States (400–800 AD): Byzantium, the West and Islam. Leiden: ISBN 978-90-04-25199-1.
