Scorched earth
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A scorched-earth policy is a
Scorched earth against
It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.[2]
Origin of the term
The term was found in English in a 1937 report on the Second Sino-Japanese War. The retreating Chinese forces burned crops and destroyed infrastructure including cities to sabotage the logistics of the advancing Japanese forces.[1]
Military theory
In defensive just as in offensive warfare, it is necessary to pursue a great aim: the destruction of the enemy army, either by battle or by rendering its subsistence extremely difficult. Thus we shall disorganize it and force it into a retreat, during which it will necessarily suffer great losses. Wellington's campaign in 1810 and 1811 is a good example.[3]
Clausewitz wrote in On War:
All that the country yields will be taken for the benefit of the retreating army first, and will be mostly consumed. Nothing remains but wasted villages and towns, fields from which the crops have been gathered, or which are trampled down, empty wells, and muddy brooks.The pursuing army, therefore, from the very first day, has frequently to contend with the most pressing wants.[4]
Historic examples
Notable historic examples of successful scorched-earth tactics include the failed
6th century BCE
European Scythian campaign
The
4th century BCE
March of the Ten Thousand
The Greek general
3rd century BCE
Second Punic War
During the Second Punic War in 218–202 BCE, both Carthaginians and Romans used the method selectively during Hannibal's invasion of Italy.[7] After the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene, Quintus Fabius Maximus instructed those living in the path of the invading Carthaginians to burn their houses and grain.[8]
2nd century BCE
Third Punic War
After the end of the
1st century BCE
Gallic Wars
The system of punitive destruction of property and subjugation of people when accompanying a military campaign was known as vastatio.[10] Two of the first uses of scorched earth recorded happened in the Gallic Wars. The first was used when the Celtic Helvetii were forced to evacuate their homes in Southern Germany and Switzerland because of incursions of unfriendly Germanic tribes: to add incentive to the march, the Helvetii destroyed everything they could not bring.[11]
The second case shows actual military value: during the Great Gallic War the Gauls under Vercingetorix planned to lure the Roman armies into Gaul and then trap and obliterate them. They thus ravaged the countryside of what are now the Benelux countries and France. This caused immense problems for the Romans, but the Roman military triumphs over the Gallic alliance showed that the ravaging alone was not to be enough to save Gaul from subjugation by Rome.
4th century CE
Roman invasion of Persia
In the year CE 363, the Emperor
The extensive region that lies between the
River Tigris and the mountains of Media ...was in a very improved state of cultivation. Julian might expect, that a conqueror, who possessed the two forcible instruments of persuasion, steel and gold, would easily procure a plentiful subsistence from the fears or avarice of the natives. But, on the approach of the Romans, the rich and smiling prospect was instantly blasted. Wherever they moved ... the cattle was driven away; the grass and ripe corn were consumed with fire; and, as soon as the flames had subsided which interrupted the march of Julian, he beheld the melancholy face of a smoking and naked desert. This desperate but effectual method of defence can only be executed by the enthusiasm of a people who prefer their independence to their property; or by the rigor of an arbitrary government, which consults the public safety without submitting to their inclinations the liberty of choice.[12]
7th century CE
First Fitna
During the
9th century CE
Viking invasion of England
During the
11th century
Harrying of the North
In the
14th century
Hundred Years' War
During the Hundred Years' War, both the English and the French conducted chevauchée raids over the enemy territory to damage its infrastructure.
Robert the Bruce counselled using those methods to hold off the forces of Edward I of England, who were Scotland, according to an anonymous 14th-century poem:
Wars of Scottish Independence
A slighting is the deliberate destruction, whether partial or complete, of a fortification without opposition. Sometimes, such as during the Wars of Scottish Independence and the English Civil War, it was done to render the structure unusable as a fortress.[20][21][22] In England, adulterine (unauthorised) castles would usually be slighted if captured by a king.[23] During the Wars of Scottish Independence, Robert the Bruce adopted a strategy of slighting Scottish castles to prevent them from being occupied by the invading English.[22][24]
Crusades
A strategy of slighting castles in Palestine was also adopted by the Mamlukes during their wars with the Crusaders.[25]
15th century
Moldavian–Ottoman Wars
Wallachian–Ottoman Wars
In 1462, a massive Ottoman army, led by
16th century
Anglicisation of the Irish
Further use of scorched-earth policies in war was seen during the 16th century in Ireland, where it was used by English commanders such as Walter Devereux and Richard Bingham.
The Desmond Rebellions were a famous case in Ireland. Much of the province of Munster was laid waste. The poet Edmund Spenser left an account of it:
In those late wars in Munster; for not withstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they could have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stony heart would have rued the same. Out of every corner of the wood and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked Anatomies [of] death, they spoke like ghosts, crying out of their graves; they did eat of the carrions, happy where they could find them, yea, and one another soon after, in so much as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; that in a short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man or beast.[28]
Great Siege of Malta
In early 1565, Grandmaster Jean Parisot de Valette ordered the harvesting of all the crops in Malta, including unripened grain, to deprive the Ottomans of any local food supplies since spies had warned of an imminent Ottoman attack. Furthermore, the Knights poisoned all of the wells with bitter herbs and dead animals. The Ottomans arrived on 18 May, and the Great Siege of Malta began. The Ottomans managed to capture one fort but were eventually defeated by the Knights, the Maltese militia and a Spanish relief force.
17th century
Thirty Years' War
In 1630,
To revenge himself upon the Duke of Pomerania, the imperial general permitted his troops, upon his retreat, to exercise every barbarity on the unfortunate inhabitants of Pomerania, who had already suffered but too severely from his avarice. On pretence of cutting off the resources of the Swedes, the whole country was laid waste and plundered; and often, when the Imperialists were unable any longer to maintain a place, it was laid in ashes, in order to leave the enemy nothing but ruins.[29]
Nine Years' War
In 1688, France attacked the German
Mughal–Maratha Wars
In the
Shivaji's son,
18th century
Great Northern War
During the
Sullivan–Clinton genocide
In 1779 Congress decided to defeat the four British allied nations of the Iroquois decisively during the American Revolutionary War with the Sullivan Expedition. General John Sullivan used a scorched earth campaign by destroying more than 40 Iroquois villages and their stores of winter crops resulting in many deaths by starvation and cold in the following winter.[36]
Haitian Revolution against Napoleon
In a letter to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Toussaint Louverture outlined his plans for defeating the French in the Haitian Revolution starting in 1791 using scorched-earth: "Do not forget, while waiting for the rainy reason which will rid us of our foes, that we have no other resource than destruction and fire. Bear in mind that the soil bathed with our sweat must not furnish our enemies with the smallest sustenance. Tear up the roads with shot; throw corpses and horses into all the foundations, burn and annihilate everything in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes the image of the hell which they deserve".[37]
19th century
Napoleonic Wars
During the third Napoleonic invasion of Portugal in 1810, the Portuguese population retreated towards Lisbon and was ordered to destroy all the food supplies the French might capture as well as forage and shelter in a wide belt across the country. (Although effective food-preserving techniques had recently been invented, they were still not fit for military use because a suitably-rugged container had not yet been invented.)[38] The command was obeyed as a result of French plundering and general ill-treatment of civilians in the previous invasions. The civilians would rather destroy anything that had to be left behind, rather than leave it to the French. When the French armies reached the Lines of Torres Vedras on the way to Lisbon, French soldiers reported that the country "seemed to empty ahead of them". Low morale, hunger, disease and indiscipline greatly weakened the French army and compelled the forces to retreat, see also Attrition warfare against Napoleon.
In 1812, Emperor
South American War of Independence
In August 1812,
Belgrano, faced with the prospect of total defeat and territorial loss, ordered all people to pack their necessities, including food and furniture, and to follow him in carriages or on foot together with whatever cattle and beasts of burden that could endure the journey. The rest (houses, crops, food stocks and any objects made of iron) was to be burned to deprive the Royalists of resources. The strict scorched-earth policy made him ask on 29 July 1812 the people of Jujuy to "show their
The exodus started on 23 August and gathered people from Jujuy and Salta. People travelled south about 250 km and finally arrived at the banks of the Pasaje River, in Tucumán Province in the early hours of 29 August. They applied a scorched-earth policy and so the Spaniards advanced into a wasteland. Belgrano's army destroyed everything that could provide shelter or be useful to the Royalists.[42]
Greek War of Independence
In 1827,
American Civil War
In the American Civil War, Union forces under Philip Sheridan and William Tecumseh Sherman used the policy widely:[45]
supplies within the reach of Confederate armies I regarded as much contraband as arms or ordnance stores. Their destruction was accomplished without bloodshed and tended to the same result as the destruction of armies. I continued this policy to the close of the war. Promiscuous pillaging, however, was discouraged and punished. Instructions were always given to take provisions and forage under the direction of commissioned officers who should give receipts to owners, if at home, and turn the property over to officers of the quartermaster or commissary departments to be issued as if furnished from our Northern depots. But much was destroyed without receipts to owners when it could not be brought within our lines and would otherwise have gone to the support of secession and rebellion. This policy I believe exercised a material influence in hastening the end.
General Sherman used that policy during his March to the Sea.
Another event, in response to
When General Ulysses Grant's forces broke through the defenses of Richmond, Virginia, Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered the destruction of Richmond's military supplies. The resulting fires quickly spread to other buildings, as well as to the Confederate warships docked on the James River. Civilians in panic were forced to escape the city as it quickly burned.
Native American Wars
During the wars with
Second Boer War
During the
The existence of the concentration camps was exposed by English activist Emily Hobhouse, who toured the camps and began petitioning the British government to change its policy.[49][50] In an attempt to counter Hobhouse's activism, the British government commissioned the Fawcett Commission, but it confirmed Hobhouse's findings.[51] The British government then claimed that it perceived the concentration camps to be humanitarian measure and were established to care for displaced noncombatants until the war's end, in response to mounting criticism of the camps in Britain. A number of factors, including outbreaks of infectious diseases, a lack of planning and supplies for the camps, and overcrowding led to numerous internees dying in the camps.[52] A decade after the war, historian P. L. A. Goldman estimated that 27,927 Boers died in the concentration camps, 26,251 women and children (of whom more than 22,000 were under the age of 16) and 1,676 men over the age of 16, with 1,421 being above the age of 16.[53] The number of Black Africans who also suffered the same is unknown.
New Zealand Wars
In 1868, the
20th century
World War I
On the
In late 1916 the British army set fire to the Romanian oil fields in order to prevent the central powers from capturing them. 800 million litres of oil were burned.[56]
On the
Greco-Turkish War
During the
Norman Naimark noted that "the Greek retreat was even more devastating for the local population than the occupation".[58]
Second Sino-Japanese War
During the
The Chinese National Revolutionary Army destroyed dams and levees in an attempt to flood the land to slow down the advancement of Japanese soldiers, which further added to the environmental impact and resulted in the 1938 Yellow River flood. In the 1938 Changsha fire, the city of Changsha was put on fire by the Kuomintang to prevent any wealth from falling into enemy hands.[60]
World War II
At the start of the Winter War in 1939, the Finns used the tactic in the vicinity of the border in order to deprive the invading Soviet Red Army's provisions and shelter for the forthcoming cold winter. In some cases, fighting took place in areas that were familiar to the Finnish soldiers who were fighting it. There were accounts of soldiers burning down their very own homes and parishes. One of the burned parishes was Suomussalmi.[61]
When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, many district governments took the initiative to begin a partial scorched-earth policy to deny the invaders access to electrical, telecommunications, rail, and industrial resources. Parts of the telegraph network were destroyed, some rail and road bridges were blown up, most electrical generators were sabotaged through the removal of key components, and many mineshafts were collapsed.[62]
The process was repeated later in the war by the German forces of
Near the end of the summer of 1944, Finland, which had made a separate peace with the Allies, was required to evict the German forces, which had been fighting against the Soviets alongside Finnish troops in northern Finland. The Finnish forces, under the leadership of General Hjalmar Siilasvuo, struck aggressively in late September 1944 by making a landfall at Tornio. That accelerated the German retreat, and by November 1944, the Germans had left most of northern Finland. The German forces, forced to retreat because of an overall strategic situation, covered their retreat towards Norway by devastating large areas of northern Finland by using a scorched-earth strategy. More than a third of the area's dwellings were destroyed, and the provincial capital Rovaniemi was burned to the ground. All but two bridges in Lapland Province were blown up, and all roads were mined.
In northern Norway, which was also being invaded by Soviet forces in pursuit of the retreating Wehrmacht in 1944, the Germans also undertook a scorched-earth policy of destroying every building that could offer shelter and thus interposing a belt of "scorched earth" between themselves and the allies.[63]
In 1945, Adolf Hitler ordered his minister of armaments, Albert Speer, to carry out a nationwide scorched-earth policy, in what became known as the Nero Decree. Speer, who was looking to the future, actively resisted the order, just as he had earlier refused Hitler's command to destroy French industry when the Wehrmacht was being driven out of France. Speer managed to continue doing so even after Hitler became aware of his actions.[64]
During the Second World War, the railroad plough was used during retreats in Germany, Czechoslovakia and other countries to deny enemy use of railways by partially destroying them.[65]
Malayan Liberation War
Britain was the first nation to employ
Goa War
In response to
However, despite his orders from Lisbon, Governor General Manuel António Vassalo e Silva took stock of the superiority of the Indian troops and of his forces' supplies of food and ammunition and took the decision to surrender. He later described his orders to destroy Goa as "a useless sacrifice" (um sacrifício inútil)".
Vietnam War
The United States used Agent Orange as a part of its herbicidal warfare program Operation Ranch Hand to destroy crops and foliage to expose possible enemy hideouts during the Vietnam War. Agent Blue was used on rice fields to deny food to the Viet Cong.
Persian Gulf War
During the 1990
Guatemalan Civil War
Efraín Ríos Montt used the policy in Guatemala's highlands in 1981 and 1982, but it had been used under the previous president, Fernando Romeo Lucas García. Upon entering office, Ríos Montt implemented a new counterinsurgency strategy that called for the use of scorched earth to combat the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity rebels. Plan Victoria 82 was more commonly known by the nickname of the rural pacification elements of the strategy, Fusiles y Frijoles (Bullets and Beans).[69] Ríos Montt's policies resulted in the death of thousands, most of them indigenous Mayans.
Indonesia
The Indonesian military used the method during Indonesian National Revolution when the British forces in Bandung gave an ultimatum for Indonesian fighters to leave the city. In response, the southern part of Bandung was deliberately burned down in an act of defiance as they left the city on 24 March 1946. This event is known as the Bandung Sea of Fire (Bandung Lautan Api).[70]
The
Yugoslav Wars
The method was used during the Yugoslav Wars that started in 1991, such as against the Serbs in Krajina by the Croatian Army,[71][72] and by Serbian paramilitary groups.[73]
Soviet–Afghan War
The Russian army used scorched-earth tactics against towns and villages in 1983 to 1984 in the Soviet–Afghan War to prevent the return of the Mujahideen by a migratory genocide. The Russian army used mines extensively in the bordering provinces to Pakistan to cut off weapon supply.[74]
21st century
Darfur War
The government of
Sri Lankan Civil War
During the 2009
Myanmar civil war
In March 2023, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the Burmese military's use of a scorched earth strategy, which has killed thousands of civilians, displaced 1.3 million people and destroyed 39,000 houses throughout the country since the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, as the military has denied humanitarian access to survivors, razed entire villages, and used indiscriminate airstrikes and artillery shelling. [78]
In business world
The concept of scorched-earth defense is sometimes applied figuratively to the business world in which a firm facing a takeover attempts to make itself less valuable by selling off its assets.[79]
See also
- Area bombing
- Area denial
- Bellum se ipsum alet, the strategy of relying on occupied territories for resources
- Burmah Oil Co. v Lord Advocate
- Carthaginian peace
- Chevauchée
- Early thermal weapons
- Ecocide
- Environmental impact of war
- Fabian strategy
- Harrying of the North
- Lam chau (doctrine)
- Railroad plough
- Salted bomb
- Salting the earth
- Sherman's neckties
- Total war
- Well poisoning
Explanatory notes
- ^ The strategy of destroying the supply of food and water to the civilian population in an area of conflict has been banned under Article 54 of Protocol I of the 1977 Geneva Conventions
Notes
- ^ a b Vaughan 2023.
- ^ deoxy 1954.
- ^ Clausewitz 1812.
- ^ Clausewitz 1832.
- ^ Cunliffe 2019, p. 257.
- ^ Xenophon 403.
- ^ Hoyos 2011.
- ^ Clausen 1945, pp. 298–299.
- ^ Ridley 1986, pp. 140–146.
- ^ Desai 2022.
- ^ Billows 2008.
- ^ Gibbon 1788, p. 158.
- ^ Tabari 2015.
- ^ Phifer 2012.
- ^ historyinanhour 2012.
- ^ Forester 1854, p. 174.
- ^ Ambler, Bailey & Seel 2018, p. 236.
- ^ Oman 1905, p. 579.
- ^ Fraser 1971.
- ^ Manganiello 2004, p. 498.
- ^ Lowry 2006, p. 29.
- ^ a b Perry & Blackburn 2000, p. 321.
- ^ Muir 1997, p. 173.
- ^ Traquar 1998, p. 159.
- ^ Fulton 2020.
- ^ Eagles 2013.
- ^ Melton 2014, p. 995.
- ^ Spenser 1849, p. 510.
- ^ Schiller 1799.
- ^ Childs & Childs 1991, p. 17.
- ^ Lynn 2013, p. 198.
- ^ Roy 2020, p. 14.
- ^ Desāī 2003, p. 351.
- ^ Mehta 2005, p. 49.
- ^ Richards 1993.
- ^ Hardenbergh, McKendry & Griffis 2010.
- ^ Grey 2022.
- ^ Pivka 2013.
- ^ Riehn 1990, p. 321.
- ^ Chandler 1966, p. 813.
- ^ Kuhn 2008.
- ^ Thomas 2015.
- ^ Bostock 2010, p. 155.
- ^ Blackmore 2014, p. 306.
- ^ Grant 2017.
- ^ Pringle 2010, pp. 20–25.
- ^ Downes 2007.
- ^ sahistory 2008.
- ^ Hobhouse 1901.
- ^ Hobhouse 1907.
- ^ Fawcett 1901.
- ^ Doel 2017, p. 60.
- ^ rootsweb 1999.
- ^ Snaith 2014, p. 125.
- ^ Hochschild 2011.
- ^ Dologa 2020.
- ^ a b Fisher 1959.
- ^ Naimark 2002, p. 46.
- ^ Todd 2016.
- ^ Taylor 2009, p. 158.
- ^ Tuunainen 2016, p. 112.
- ^ Gilbert 1989, pp. 241–242.
- ^ Derry 1972.
- ^ Kershaw 2000, p. 785.
- ^ Forczyk 2016, p. 6.
- ^ goacom 2012.
- ^ american.edu 2010.
- ^ Wellman 1999.
- ^ Schirmer 1998.
- ^ Sitaresmi 1946.
- ^ Dyker & Vejvoda 2014, pp. 213-.
- ^ Pavkovic 2000, pp. 154–.
- ^ Mojzes 2016, pp. 166–.
- ^ Kakar 1995, p. 257.
- ^ unric 2017.
- ^ Finch 2013.
- ^ Tisdall 2010.
- ^ un.org 2023.
- ^ Willcox 1988.
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