Un asedio es un bloqueo militar de una ciudad o fortaleza , con la intención de conquistar por desgaste o un asalto bien preparado. Esto se deriva del latín : sedere , lit. 'sentarse'. [1] La guerra de asedio es una forma de conflicto constante de baja intensidad caracterizado por una parte que mantiene una posición defensiva fuerte, estática. En consecuencia, una oportunidad de negociación entre combatientes no es infrecuente, ya que la proximidad y la ventaja fluctuante pueden fomentar la diplomacia. El arte de la realización y resistir asedios se llama de asedio de guerra, Siegecraft , o poliorcetics .
Un asedio ocurre cuando un atacante se encuentra con una ciudad o fortaleza que no puede ser tomada fácilmente por un asalto rápido y que se niega a rendirse . Los asedios implican rodear al objetivo para bloquear el suministro de suministros y el refuerzo o escape de tropas (una táctica conocida como " inversión " [2] ). Esto suele ir acompañado de intentos de reducir las fortificaciones mediante máquinas de asedio , bombardeos de artillería , minería (también conocida como minería ) o el uso del engaño o la traición para eludir las defensas.
Si no se logra un resultado militar, los asedios a menudo se pueden decidir por hambre, sed o enfermedad, que pueden afligir al atacante o al defensor. Sin embargo, esta forma de asedio puede llevar muchos meses o incluso años, dependiendo del tamaño de las reservas de alimentos que tenga la posición fortificada.
La fuerza atacante puede circunvalar el lugar sitiado, lo que consiste en construir una línea de terraplenes, que consiste en una muralla y una trinchera, rodeándolo. Durante el proceso de circunvalación, la fuerza atacante puede ser atacada por otra fuerza, un aliado del lugar sitiado, debido al largo tiempo necesario para obligarlo a capitular. Un anillo defensivo de fuertes fuera del anillo de fuertes circunvalados, llamado contravallación, también se usa a veces para defender a los atacantes desde el exterior.
Las ciudades antiguas de Oriente Medio muestran evidencias arqueológicas de murallas fortificadas . Durante la era de los Reinos Combatientes de la antigua China , existen evidencias tanto textuales como arqueológicas de asedios prolongados y maquinaria de asedio utilizada contra los defensores de las murallas de la ciudad. La maquinaria de asedio también era una tradición del antiguo mundo grecorromano . Durante el Renacimiento y el período moderno temprano , la guerra de asedio dominó la conducción de la guerra en Europa. Leonardo da Vinci ganó tanto renombre por el diseño de fortificaciones como por su obra de arte.
Las campañas medievales se diseñaron generalmente en torno a una sucesión de asedios. En la era napoleónica , el uso cada vez mayor de cañones cada vez más poderosos redujo el valor de las fortificaciones. En el siglo XX, la importancia del asedio clásico declinó. Con el advenimiento de la guerra móvil , una única fortaleza fortificada ya no es tan decisiva como antes. Si bien los asedios tradicionales todavía ocurren, no son tan comunes como antes debido a los cambios en los modos de batalla, principalmente la facilidad con la que se pueden dirigir enormes volúmenes de poder destructivo hacia un objetivo estático. Los asedios modernos son más comúnmente el resultado de situaciones de arresto de rehenes más pequeños, militantes o de resistencia extrema .
Período antiguo
La necesidad de las murallas de la ciudad
Los asirios desplegaron grandes fuerzas laborales para construir nuevos palacios, templos y murallas defensivas. [3] También se fortificaron algunos asentamientos en la civilización del valle del Indo . Alrededor del 3500 a. C., cientos de pequeñas aldeas agrícolas salpicaban la llanura aluvial del río Indo . Muchos de estos asentamientos tenían fortificaciones y calles planificadas.
Las casas de piedra y adobe de Kot Diji estaban agrupadas detrás de enormes diques de piedra y muros defensivos, ya que las comunidades vecinas se peleaban constantemente por el control de las principales tierras agrícolas. [4] Mundigak (c. 2500 aC) en el actual sureste de Afganistán tiene muros defensivos y bastiones cuadrados de ladrillos secados al sol . [3]
Las murallas y fortificaciones de la ciudad fueron esenciales para la defensa de las primeras ciudades del antiguo Cercano Oriente . Las paredes se construyeron con adobe, piedra, madera o una combinación de estos materiales, según la disponibilidad local. También pueden haber tenido el doble propósito de mostrar a los presuntos enemigos el poder del reino. Las grandes murallas que rodean la ciudad sumeria de Uruk ganaron una gran reputación. Los muros tenían 9,5 km (5,9 millas) de largo y hasta 12 m (39 pies) de altura.
Más tarde, las murallas de Babilonia , reforzadas por torres, fosos y zanjas, ganaron una reputación similar. En Anatolia , los hititas construyeron enormes muros de piedra alrededor de sus ciudades en lo alto de las colinas, aprovechando el terreno. En la China de la dinastía Shang , en el sitio de Ao, se erigieron grandes muros en el siglo XV a. C. que tenían dimensiones de 20 m (66 pies) de ancho en la base y encerraban un área de unas 2.100 yardas (1.900 m) cuadradas. [5] La antigua capital china del estado de Zhao , Handan , fundada en 386 a. C., también tenía muros de 20 m (66 pies) de ancho en la base; tenían 15 m (49 pies) de altura, con dos lados separados de su recinto rectangular a una longitud de 1,530 yd (1,400 m). [5]
Las ciudades de la civilización del valle del Indo mostraron menos esfuerzo en la construcción de defensas, al igual que la civilización minoica en Creta . Estas civilizaciones probablemente se basaron más en la defensa de sus fronteras exteriores o costas marinas. A diferencia de la antigua civilización minoica, los griegos micénicos enfatizaron la necesidad de fortificaciones junto con las defensas naturales del terreno montañoso, como las enormes murallas ciclópeas construidas en Micenas y otros centros adyacentes de la Edad del Bronce Final (c. 1600-1100 a. C.) del centro y sur de Grecia. . [6]
Evidencia arqueológica
Aunque hay representaciones de asedios del antiguo Cercano Oriente en fuentes históricas y en el arte, hay muy pocos ejemplos de sistemas de asedio que se hayan encontrado arqueológicamente. De los pocos ejemplos, varios son dignos de mención:
- El sistema de asedio de finales del siglo IX a. C. que rodea a Tell es-Safi / Gath , Israel , consta de una trinchera de asedio de 2,5 km de largo, torres y otros elementos, y es la evidencia más antigua de un sistema de circunvalación conocido en el mundo. Aparentemente fue construido por Hazael de Aram Damasco , como parte de su asedio y conquista del filisteo Gat a finales del siglo IX a.C. (mencionado en II Reyes 12:18).
- El sistema de asedio de finales del siglo VIII a.C. que rodea el sitio de Laquis (Tell el-Duweir) en Israel, construido por Senaquerib de Asiria en 701 a.C., no solo es evidente en los restos arqueológicos, sino que se describe en fuentes asirias y bíblicas y en los relieves del palacio de Senaquerib en Nínive .
- El asedio de Alt- Paphos , Chipre por el ejército persa en el siglo IV a. C.
Representaciones
Las primeras representaciones de la guerra de asedio se han fechado en el Período Protodinástico de Egipto , c. 3.000 ANTES DE CRISTO. Estos muestran la destrucción simbólica de las murallas de la ciudad por animales divinos que usan azadas.
El primer equipo de asedio se conoce por los relieves de las tumbas egipcias del siglo 24 a. C., que muestran a los soldados egipcios asaltando las murallas de la ciudad cananea en escaleras de asedio con ruedas. Más tarde, los relieves de los templos egipcios del siglo XIII a. C. retratan el violento asedio de Dapur , una ciudad siria, con soldados subiendo escaleras sostenidos por arqueros.
Los relieves de los palacios asirios de los siglos IX al VII a. C. muestran asedios de varias ciudades del Cercano Oriente. Aunque en el milenio anterior se había utilizado un simple ariete, los asirios mejoraron la guerra de asedio y utilizaron enormes arietes de madera en forma de torre con arqueros colocados en la parte superior.
En la antigua China, los asedios de las murallas de la ciudad (junto con las batallas navales) se representaban en buques 'hu' de bronce , como los encontrados en Chengdu , Sichuan en 1965, que se han fechado en el período de los Reinos Combatientes (siglos V al III a.C.). [7]
Táctica
Ofensiva
El primer acto de un atacante en un asedio podría ser un ataque sorpresa, intentando abrumar a los defensores antes de que estuvieran preparados o incluso se dieran cuenta de que había una amenaza. Así fue como William de Forz capturó el castillo de Fotheringhay en 1221. [8]
La práctica más común de la guerra de asedio era sitiar y esperar la rendición de los enemigos en el interior o, muy comúnmente, coaccionar a alguien dentro para traicionar la fortificación. Durante el período medieval, las negociaciones se llevaban a cabo con frecuencia durante la primera parte del asedio. Un atacante, consciente del gran costo de tiempo, dinero y vidas de un asedio prolongado, podría ofrecer términos generosos a un defensor que se rindió rápidamente. A las tropas defensoras se les permitiría marchar ilesas, a menudo conservando sus armas. Sin embargo, un comandante de guarnición que se pensaba que se había rendido demasiado rápido podría enfrentar la ejecución por su propio lado por traición. [8]
A medida que avanzaba el asedio, el ejército circundante construía terraplenes (una línea de circunvalación ) para rodear completamente a su objetivo, evitando que la comida, el agua y otros suministros llegaran a la ciudad sitiada. Si estaban lo suficientemente desesperados a medida que avanzaba el asedio, los defensores y los civiles podrían haberse visto reducidos a comer cualquier cosa vagamente comestible: caballos, mascotas de la familia, el cuero de los zapatos e incluso entre ellos .
El asedio hitita de un vasallo rebelde de Anatolia en el siglo XIV a. C. terminó cuando la reina madre salió de la ciudad y suplicó clemencia en nombre de su pueblo. La campaña hitita contra el reino de Mitanni en el siglo XIV a. C. pasó por alto la ciudad fortificada de Carquemis . Si el objetivo principal de una campaña no era la conquista de una ciudad en particular, simplemente se podía pasar por alto. Cuando se cumplió el objetivo principal de la campaña, el ejército hitita regresó a Carquemis y la ciudad cayó tras un asedio de ocho días.
La enfermedad era otra arma de asedio eficaz, aunque los atacantes eran a menudo tan vulnerables como los defensores. En algunos casos, se utilizaron catapultas o armas similares para arrojar animales enfermos sobre las murallas de la ciudad en un ejemplo temprano de guerra biológica . Si todo lo demás fallaba, un sitiador podía reclamar el botín de su conquista sin daños y mantener intactos a sus hombres y equipo, por el precio de un soborno bien colocado a un guardián descontento. El sitio asirio de Jerusalén en el siglo VIII a.C. llegó a su fin cuando los israelitas los compraron con regalos y tributos, según el relato asirio , o cuando el campamento asirio fue golpeado por una muerte masiva, según el relato bíblico . Debido a la logística, raras veces se podían mantener asedios duraderos que involucraban a una fuerza menor. Un ejército sitiador, acampado en condiciones de campo posiblemente miserables y dependiente del campo y de sus propias líneas de suministro de alimentos, podría muy bien verse amenazado por la enfermedad y el hambre destinados a los sitiados.
Para poner fin a un asedio más rápidamente, se desarrollaron varios métodos en la antigüedad y en la Edad Media para contrarrestar las fortificaciones, y se desarrolló una gran variedad de máquinas de asedio para uso de los ejércitos sitiadores. Se podrían usar escaleras para escalar las defensas. Los arietes y los ganchos de asedio también podrían usarse para atravesar puertas o muros, mientras que las catapultas , balistas , trabuquetes , mangonels y onagros podrían usarse para lanzar proyectiles para derribar las fortificaciones de una ciudad y matar a sus defensores. Una torre de asedio , una estructura sustancial construida a una altura igual o mayor que los muros de la fortificación, podría permitir a los atacantes disparar contra los defensores y también hacer avanzar las tropas al muro con menos peligro que usando escaleras.
Además de lanzar proyectiles a las fortificaciones o defensores, también era bastante común intentar socavar las fortificaciones, provocando su colapso. Esto podría lograrse cavando un túnel debajo de los cimientos de las paredes y luego deliberadamente colapsando o explotando el túnel. Este proceso se conoce como minería . Los defensores podrían cavar contratúneles para cortar las obras de los atacantes y colapsarlos prematuramente.
El fuego se usaba a menudo como arma cuando se trataba de fortificaciones de madera. El Imperio Bizantino usó fuego griego , que contenía aditivos que dificultaban su extinción. Combinado con un lanzallamas primitivo , resultó ser un arma ofensiva y defensiva eficaz. [9]
Defensivo
El método universal de defensa contra el asedio es el uso de fortificaciones, principalmente muros y zanjas , para complementar las características naturales. Un suministro suficiente de comida y agua también era importante para derrotar al método más simple de guerra de asedio: el hambre . En ocasiones, los defensores expulsaban a los civiles "excedentes" para reducir la demanda de alimentos y agua almacenados. [10]
Durante el período de los Reinos Combatientes en China (481-221 a. C.), la guerra perdió su honorable deber de caballero que se encontraba en la era anterior del período de primavera y otoño , y se volvió más práctica, competitiva, feroz y eficiente para ganar victoria. [11] La invención china de la ballesta de mano con mecanismo de gatillo durante este período revolucionó la guerra, dando mayor énfasis a la infantería y la caballería y menos a la tradicional guerra de carros .
Los mohistas filosóficamente pacifistas (seguidores del filósofo Mozi ) del siglo V aC creían en ayudar a la guerra defensiva de los estados chinos más pequeños contra la guerra ofensiva hostil de los estados dominantes más grandes. Los mohistas eran famosos en los estados más pequeños (y los enemigos de los estados más grandes) por los inventos de la maquinaria de asedio para escalar o destruir muros. Estos incluían catapultas de trabuquete de tracción , balistas de dos metros y medio de altura , una rampa de asedio con ruedas con ganchos de agarre conocida como el Puente de la Nube (la rampa plegada y prolongada que se desliza hacia adelante por medio de un contrapeso con cuerda y polea) y carros de gancho con ruedas. 'utilizado para enganchar grandes ganchos de hierro en la parte superior de las paredes para tirar de ellos hacia abajo. [12]
Cuando los enemigos intentaban cavar túneles debajo de las paredes para minar o ingresar a la ciudad, los defensores usaban grandes fuelles (del tipo que los chinos usaban comúnmente para calentar un alto horno para fundir hierro fundido ) para bombear humo a los túneles con el fin de sofocar el intrusos. [11]
Los avances en la persecución de los asedios en la antigüedad y en la Edad Media naturalmente fomentaron el desarrollo de una variedad de contramedidas defensivas. En particular, las fortificaciones medievales se hicieron progresivamente más fuertes, por ejemplo, el advenimiento del castillo concéntrico de la época de las Cruzadas, y más peligrosas para los atacantes, atestigua el uso creciente de matacanes y agujeros de asesinato , así como la preparación de calientes o incendiarios. sustancias . [13] Las ranuras de flecha (también llamadas bucles de flecha o lagunas), los puertos de salida (puertas con forma de esclusa de aire) para salidas y los pozos de aguas profundas también eran medios integrales para resistir el asedio en este momento. Se prestará especial atención a la defensa de las entradas, con puertas protegidas por puentes levadizos , rastrillos y barbacanas . Los fosos y otras defensas contra el agua, ya sean naturales o aumentadas, también eran vitales para los defensores. [14]
En la Edad Media europea , prácticamente todas las grandes ciudades tenían murallas —Dubrovnik en Dalmacia es un ejemplo bien conservado— y las ciudades más importantes tenían ciudadelas , fortalezas o castillos . Se hizo un gran esfuerzo para asegurar un buen suministro de agua dentro de la ciudad en caso de asedio. En algunos casos, se construyeron largos túneles para llevar agua a la ciudad. Se utilizaron complejos sistemas de túneles para almacenamiento y comunicaciones en ciudades medievales como Tábor en Bohemia , similares a los utilizados mucho más tarde en Vietnam durante la Guerra de Vietnam . [ cita requerida ]
Hasta la invención de las armas a base de pólvora (y los proyectiles de mayor velocidad resultantes), el equilibrio de poder y logística definitivamente favorecía al defensor. Con la invención de la pólvora, los cañones y los morteros y obuses (en los tiempos modernos), los métodos tradicionales de defensa se volvieron menos efectivos frente a un asedio determinado. [15]
Cuentas de asedio
Aunque existen numerosos relatos antiguos sobre el saqueo de ciudades, pocos contienen pistas sobre cómo se logró esto. Existían algunos cuentos populares sobre cómo los héroes astutos tuvieron éxito en sus asedios. El más conocido es el Caballo de Troya de la Guerra de Troya , y una historia similar cuenta cómo la ciudad cananea de Jope fue conquistada por los egipcios en el siglo XV a. C. El Libro Bíblico de Josué contiene la historia de la milagrosa Batalla de Jericó .
Un relato histórico más detallado del siglo VIII a. C., llamado la estela Piankhi , registra cómo los nubios sitiaron y conquistaron varias ciudades egipcias utilizando arietes, arqueros y honderos y construyendo calzadas a través de fosos.
Antigüedad clásica
Durante la Guerra del Peloponeso , se intentaron cien asedios y cincuenta y ocho terminaron con la rendición de la zona sitiada. [dieciséis]
El ejército de Alejandro Magno asedió con éxito muchas ciudades poderosas durante sus conquistas. Dos de sus logros más impresionantes en el arte de asedio tuvieron lugar en el asedio de Tiro y el asedio de la Roca Sogdiana . Sus ingenieros construyeron una calzada que originalmente tenía 60 m (200 pies) de ancho y alcanzaba el alcance de su artillería de torsión, mientras que sus soldados empujaban torres de asedio que albergaban lanzadores de piedras y catapultas de luz para bombardear las murallas de la ciudad.
Most conquerors before him had found Tyre, a Phoenician island-city about 1 km from the mainland, impregnable. The Macedonians built a mole, a raised spit of earth across the water, by piling stones up on a natural land bridge that extended underwater to the island, and although the Tyrians rallied by sending a fire ship to destroy the towers, and captured the mole in a swarming frenzy, the city eventually fell to the Macedonians after a seven-month siege. In complete contrast to Tyre, Sogdian Rock was captured by stealthy attack. Alexander used commando-like tactics to scale the cliffs and capture the high ground, and the demoralized defenders surrendered.
The importance of siege warfare in the ancient period should not be underestimated. One of the contributing causes of Hannibal's inability to defeat Rome was his lack of siege engines, thus, while he was able to defeat Roman armies in the field, he was unable to capture Rome itself. The legionary armies of the Roman Republic and Empire are noted as being particularly skilled and determined in siege warfare. An astonishing number and variety of sieges, for example, formed the core of Julius Caesar's mid-1st-century BC conquest of Gaul (modern France).
In his Commentarii de Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War), Caesar describes how, at the Battle of Alesia, the Roman legions created two huge fortified walls around the city. The inner circumvallation, 16 km (10 mi), held in Vercingetorix's forces, while the outer contravallation kept relief from reaching them. The Romans held the ground in between the two walls. The besieged Gauls, facing starvation, eventually surrendered after their relief force met defeat against Caesar's auxiliary cavalry.
The Sicarii Zealots who defended Masada in AD 73 were defeated by the Roman legions, who built a ramp 100 m high up to the fortress's west wall.
During the Roman-Persian Wars, siege warfare was extensively being used by both sides.
Período medieval
Arabia during Muhammad's era
The early Muslims, led by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, made extensive use of sieges during military campaigns. The first use was during the Invasion of Banu Qaynuqa. According to Islamic tradition, the invasion of Banu Qaynuqa[17][18] occurred in 624 AD. The Banu Qaynuqa were a Jewish tribe expelled by Muhammad for allegedly breaking the treaty known as the Constitution of Medina[19][20]:209 by pinning the clothes of a Muslim woman, which led to her being stripped naked. A Muslim killed a Jew in retaliation, and the Jews in turn killed the Muslim man. This escalated to a chain of revenge killings, and enmity grew between Muslims and the Banu Qaynuqa, leading to the siege of their fortress.[19][21][22]:122 The tribe eventually surrendered to Muhammad, who initially wanted to kill the members of Banu Qaynuqa but ultimately yielded to Abdullah ibn Ubayy's insistence and agreed to expel the Qaynuqa.[23]
The second siege was during the Invasion of Banu Nadir. According to The Sealed Nectar, the siege did not last long; the Banu Nadir Jews willingly offered to comply with the Muhammad's order and leave Madinah. Their caravan counted 600 loaded camels, including their chiefs, Huyai bin Akhtab, and Salam bin Abi Al-Huqaiq, who left for Khaibar, whereas another party shifted to Syria. Two of them embraced Islam, Yameen bin ‘Amr and Abu Sa‘d bin Wahab, and so they retained their personal wealth. Muhammad seized their weapons, land, houses, and wealth. Amongst the other booty he managed to capture, there were 50 armours, 50 helmets, and 340 swords. This booty was exclusively Muhammad's because no fighting was involved in capturing it. He divided the booty at his own discretion among the early Emigrants and two poor Helpers, Abu Dujana and Suhail bin Haneef.[24]
Other examples include the Invasion of Banu Qurayza in February–March 627[25] and the siege of Ta'if in January 630.[26]
Mongols and Chinese
In the Middle Ages, the Mongol Empire's campaign against China (then comprising the Western Xia Dynasty, Jin Dynasty, and Southern Song dynasty) by Genghis Khan until Kublai Khan, who eventually established the Yuan Dynasty in 1271, with their armies was extremely effective, allowing the Mongols to sweep through large areas. Even if they could not enter some of the more well-fortified cities, they used innovative battle tactics to grab hold of the land and the people:
- By concentrating on the field armies, the strongholds had to wait. Of course, smaller fortresses, or ones easily surprised, were taken as they came along. This had two effects. First, it cut off the principal city from communicating with other cities where they might expect aid. Secondly, refugees from these smaller cities would flee to the last stronghold. The reports from these cities and the streaming hordes of refugees not only reduced the morale of the inhabitants and garrison of the principal city, it also strained their resources. Food and water reserves were taxed by the sudden influx of refugees. Soon, what was once a formidable undertaking became easy. The Mongols were then free to lay siege without interference of the field army, as it had been destroyed. At the siege of Aleppo, Hulagu used twenty catapults against the Bab al-Iraq ( Gate of Iraq) alone. [27] In Jûzjânî, there are several episodes in which the Mongols constructed hundreds of siege machines in order to surpass the number which the defending city possessed. While Jûzjânî surely exaggerated, the improbably high numbers which he used for both the Mongols and the defenders do give one a sense of the large numbers of machines used at a single siege. [citation needed]
Another Mongol tactic was to use catapults to launch corpses of plague victims into besieged cities. The disease-carrying fleas from the bodies would then infest the city, and the plague would spread, allowing the city to be easily captured, although this transmission mechanism was not known at the time. In 1346, the bodies of Mongol warriors of the Golden Horde who had died of plague were thrown over the walls of the besieged Crimean city of Kaffa (now Feodosiya). It has been speculated that this operation may have been responsible for the advent of the Black Death in Europe.[[[Wikipedia:Citing_sources|
On the first night while laying siege to a city, the leader of the Mongol forces would lead from a white tent: if the city surrendered, all would be spared. On the second day, he would use a red tent: if the city surrendered, the men would all be killed, but the rest would be spared. On the third day, he would use a black tent: no quarter would be given.[30]
However, the Chinese were not completely defenseless, and from AD 1234 until 1279, the Southern Song Chinese held out against the enormous barrage of Mongol attacks. Much of this success in defense lay in the world's first use of gunpowder (i.e. with early flamethrowers, grenades, firearms, cannons, and land mines) to fight back against the Khitans, the Tanguts, the Jurchens, and then the Mongols.
The Chinese of the Song period also discovered the explosive potential of packing hollowed cannonball shells with gunpowder. Written later around 1350 in the Huo Long Jing, this manuscript of Jiao Yu recorded an earlier Song-era cast-iron cannon known as the 'flying-cloud thunderclap eruptor' (fei yun pi-li pao). The manuscript stated that (Wade–Giles spelling):
The shells (phao) are made of cast iron, as large as a bowl and shaped like a ball. Inside they contain half a pound of 'magic' gunpowder (shen huo). They are sent flying towards the enemy camp from an eruptor (mu phao); and when they get there a sound like a thunder-clap is heard, and flashes of light appear. If ten of these shells are fired successfully into the enemy camp, the whole place will be set ablaze...[31]
During the Ming Dynasty (AD 1368–1644), 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 favoured 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.[32]
For more, see Technology of the Song dynasty.
Edad de la pólvora
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. In early decades, cannons could do little against strong castles and fortresses, providing little more than smoke and fire. By the 16th century, however, they were an essential and regularized part of any campaigning army, or castle's defences.
The greatest advantage of cannons over other siege weapons was the ability to fire a heavier projectile, farther, 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, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, were broken through in just six weeks by the 62 cannons of Mehmed 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 the European wars.
Once siege guns were developed, the techniques for assaulting a town or 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 next build a length of trenches parallel to the defences (these are known as the "First parallel") and just out of range of the defending artillery. They would dig a trench (known as a Forward) towards the town in a zigzag pattern so that it could not be enfiladed by defending fire. Once they were within artillery range, they would dig another parallel (the Second Parallel) trench and fortify it with gun emplacements. This technique is commonly called entrenchment.
If necessary, using the first artillery fire for cover, the forces conducting the siege would repeat the process until they placed their guns close enough to be laid (aimed) 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
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 1482–1492 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 1494–1495 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 fortresses
The most effective way to protect walls against cannonfire proved to be depth (increasing the width of the defences) 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.[33] This design matured into the trace italienne. Star-shaped fortresses surrounding towns and even cities with outlying defences proved very difficult to capture, even for a well-equipped army.[34] 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). During World War II, trace italienne fortresses could still present a formidable challenge, for example, in the last days of World War II, during the Battle in Berlin, that saw some of the heaviest urban fighting of the war, the Soviets did not attempt to storm the Spandau Citadel (built between 1559 and 1594), but chose to invest it and negotiate its surrender.[35]
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 '40s, 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. The densely populated areas of Northern Italy and the United Provinces (the Netherlands) were infamous for their high degree of fortification of cities. It made campaigns in these areas very hard to successfully conduct, considering even minor cities had to be captured by siege within the span of the campaigning season. In the Dutch case, the possibility of flooding large parts of the land provided an additional obstacle to besiegers, for example at the siege of Leiden. 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 and Van Coehoorn
At the end of the 17th century, two influential military engineers, the French Marshal Vauban and the Dutch military engineer Menno van Coehoorn, 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. Both engineers developed their ideas independently, but came to similar general rules regarding defensive construction and offensive action against fortifications. Both were skilled in conducting sieges and defences themselves. Before Vauban and Van Coehoorn, sieges had been somewhat slapdash operations. Vauban and Van Coehoorn refined besieging to a science with a methodical process that, if uninterrupted, would break even the strongest fortifications. Examples of their styles of fortifications are Arras (Vauban) and the no-longer-existent fortress of Bergen op Zoom (Van Coehoorn). The main differences between the two lay in the difference in terrain on which Vauban and Van Coehoorn constructed their defences: Vauban in the sometimes more hilly and mountainous terrain of France, Van Coehoorn in the flat and floodable lowlands of the Netherlands.
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. Van Coehoorn developed a small and easily movable mortar named the coehorn, variations of which were used in sieges until the 19th century. It would also be from this line 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 reduit, 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. Usually, a city would surrender (with no honour lost) when its inner lines of defence were reached by the attacker. In case of refusal, however, the inner lines would have to be stormed by the attacker and the attacking troops would be seen to be justified in sacking the city.
Siege warfare
Siege warfare dominated in Western Europe for most of the 17th and 18th centuries. An entire campaign, or longer, could be used in a single siege (for example, Ostend in 1601–1604; La Rochelle in 1627–1628). 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.[36] 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, both sides were looking to end the war quickly. Even when in the end the New Model Army—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.[37]
Experienced commanders on both sides in the English Civil War recommended the abandonment of garrisoned fortifications for two primary reasons. The first, as for example proposed by the Royalist Sir Richard Willis to King Charles, was that by abandoning the garrisoning of all but the most strategic locations in one's own territory, far more troops would be available for the field armies, and it was the field armies which would decide the conflict. The other argument was that by slighting potential strong points in one's own territory, an enemy expeditionary force, or local enemy rising, would find it more difficult to consolidate territorial gains against an inevitable counterattack. Sir John Meldrum put forward just such an argument to the Parliamentary Committee of Both Kingdoms, to justify his slighting of Gainsborough in Lincolnshire.[38][39]
Sixty years 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.
On 15 April 1746, the day before the Battle of Culloden, at Dunrobin Castle, a party of William Sutherland's militia conducted the last siege fought on the mainland of Great Britain against Jacobite members of Clan MacLeod.
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
Advances in artillery made previously impregnable defences useless. For example, the walls of Vienna that had held off the Turks in the mid-17th century were no obstacle to Napoleon in the early 19th.
Where sieges occurred (such as the siege of Delhi and the siege of Cawnpore during the Indian Rebellion of 1857), the attackers were usually able to defeat the defences within a matter of days or weeks, rather than weeks or months as previously. The great Swedish white-elephant fortress of Karlsborg was built in the tradition of Vauban and intended as a reserve capital for Sweden, but it was obsolete before it was completed in 1869.
Railways, when they were introduced, made possible the movement and supply of larger armies than those that fought in the Napoleonic Wars. It also reintroduced siege warfare, as armies seeking to use railway lines in enemy territory were forced to capture fortresses which blocked these lines.
During the Franco-Prussian War, the battlefield front-lines moved rapidly through France. However, the Prussian and other German armies were delayed for months at the siege of Metz and the siege of Paris, due to the greatly increased firepower of the defending infantry, and the principle of detached or semi-detached forts with heavy-caliber artillery. This resulted in the later construction of fortress works across Europe, such as the massive fortifications at Verdun. It also led to the introduction of tactics which sought to induce surrender by bombarding the civilian population within a fortress, rather than the defending works themselves.
The siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War and the siege of Petersburg (1864–1865) during the American Civil War showed that modern citadels, when improved by improvised defences, could still resist an enemy for many months. The Siege of Plevna during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) proved that hastily constructed field defences could resist attacks prepared without proper resources, and were a portent of the trench warfare of World War I.
Advances in firearms technology without the necessary advances in battlefield communications gradually led to the defence again gaining the ascendancy. An example of siege during this time, prolonged during 337 days due to the isolation of the surrounded troops, was the siege of Baler, in which a reduced group of Spanish soldiers was besieged in a small church by the Philippine rebels in the course of the Philippine Revolution and the Spanish–American War, until months after the Treaty of Paris, the end of the conflict.
Furthermore, the development of steamships availed greater speed to blockade runners, ships with the purpose of bringing cargo, e.g. food, to cities under blockade, as with Charleston, South Carolina during the American Civil War.
Guerra moderna
First World War
Mainly as a result of the increasing firepower (such as machine guns) available to defensive forces, First World War trench warfare briefly revived a form of siege warfare. Although siege warfare had moved out from an urban setting because city walls had become ineffective against modern weapons, trench warfare was nonetheless able to use many of the techniques of siege warfare in its prosecution (sapping, mining, barrage and, of course, attrition), but on a much larger scale and on a greatly extended front.
More traditional sieges of fortifications took place in addition to trench sieges. The siege of Tsingtao was one of the first major sieges of the war, but the inability for significant resupply of the German garrison made it a relatively one-sided battle. The Germans and the crew of an Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser put up a hopeless defence and, after holding out for more than a week, surrendered to the Japanese, forcing the German East Asia Squadron to steam towards South America for a new coal source.
The other major siege outside Europe during the First World War was in Mesopotamia, at the siege of Kut. After a failed attempt to move on Baghdad, stopped by the Ottomans at the bloody Battle of Ctesiphon, the British and their large contingent of Indian sepoy soldiers were forced to retreat to Kut, where the Ottomans under German General Baron Colmar von der Goltz laid siege. The British attempts to resupply the force via the Tigris river failed, and rationing was complicated by the refusal of many Indian troops to eat cattle products. By the time the garrison fell on 29 April 1916, starvation was rampant. Conditions did not improve greatly under Turkish imprisonment. Along with the battles of Tanga, Sandfontein, Gallipoli, and Namakura, it would be one of Britain's numerous embarrassing colonial defeats of the war.
The largest sieges of the war, however, took place in Europe. The initial German advance into Belgium produced four major sieges: the Battle of Liège, the Battle of Namur, the siege of Maubeuge, and the siege of Antwerp. All four would prove crushing German victories, at Liège and Namur against the Belgians, at Maubeuge against the French and at Antwerp against a combined Anglo-Belgian force. The weapon that made these victories possible were the German Big Berthas and the Skoda 305 mm Model 1911 siege mortars, one of the best siege mortars of the war,[40] on loan from Austria-Hungary. These huge guns were the decisive weapon of siege warfare in the 20th century, taking part at Przemyśl, the Belgian sieges, on the Italian Front and Serbian Front, and even being reused in World War II.
At the second siege of Przemyśl, the Austro-Hungarian garrison showed an excellent knowledge of siege warfare, not only waiting for relief, but sending sorties into Russian lines and employing an active defence that resulted in the capture of the Russian General Lavr Kornilov. Despite its excellent performance, the garrison's food supply had been requisitioned for earlier offensives, a relief expedition was stalled by the weather, ethnic rivalries flared up between the defending soldiers, and a breakout attempt failed. When the commander of the garrison Hermann Kusmanek finally surrendered, his troops were eating their horses and the first attempt of large-scale air supply had failed. It was one of the few great victories obtained by either side during the war; 110,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners were marched back to Russia. Use of aircraft for siege running, bringing supplies to areas under siege, would nevertheless prove useful in many sieges to come.
The largest siege of the war, and arguably the roughest, most gruesome battle in history, was the Battle of Verdun. Whether the battle can be considered true siege warfare is debatable. Under the theories of Erich von Falkenhayn, it is more distinguishable as purely attrition with a coincidental presence of fortifications on the battlefield. When considering the plans of Crown Prince Wilhelm, purely concerned with taking the citadel and not with French casualty figures, it can be considered a true siege. The main fortifications were Fort Douaumont, Fort Vaux, and the fortified city of Verdun itself. The Germans, through the use of huge artillery bombardments, flamethrowers, and infiltration tactics, were able to capture both Vaux and Douaumont, but were never able to take the city, and eventually lost most of their gains. It was a battle that, despite the French ability to fend off the Germans, neither side won. The German losses were not worth the potential capture of the city, and the French casualties were not worth holding the symbol of her defence.
The development of the armoured tank and improved infantry tactics at the end of World War I swung the pendulum back in favour of manoeuvre, and with the advent of Blitzkrieg in 1939, the end of traditional siege warfare was at hand. The Maginot Line would be the prime example of the failure of immobile, post–World War I fortifications. Although sieges would continue, it would be in a totally different style and on a reduced scale.
Second World War
The Blitzkrieg of the Second World War truly showed that fixed fortifications are easily defeated by manoeuvre 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. The siege of Leningrad resulted in the deaths of some one million of the city's inhabitants.[41] 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 and Tobruk. In the South-East Asian Theatre, there was the siege of Singapore, and in the Burma Campaign, sieges of Myitkyina, the Admin Box, Imphal, and Kohima, which was the high-water mark for the Japanese advance into India.
The siege of Sevastopol saw the use of the heaviest and most powerful individual siege engines ever to be used: the German 800mm railway gun and the 600mm siege mortar. Though a single shell could have disastrous local effect, the guns were susceptible to air attack in addition to being slow to move.
Airbridge
Throughout the war both the Western Allies and the Germans tried to supply forces besieged behind enemy lines with ad-hoc airbridges. Sometimes these attempts failed, as happened to the besieged German Sixth Army the siege of Stalingrad, and sometimes they succeeded as happened during the Battle of the Admin Box (5 – 23 February 1944) and, during the short Siege of Bastogne (December 1944).
The logistics of strategic airbridge operations were developed by the Americans flying military transport aircraft from India to China over the Hump (1942–1945), to resupply the Chinese war effort of Chiang Kai-shek, and to the USAAF XX Bomber Command (during Operation Matterhorn).[citation needed]
Tactical airbridge methods were developed and, as planned, used extensively for supplying the Chindits during Operation Thursday (February – May 1944). The Chindits a specially trained division of the British and Indian armies were flown deep behind Japanese front lines in the South-East Asian theatre to jungle clearings in Burma where they set up fortified airheads from which they sailed out to attack Japanese lines of communications, while defending the bases from Japanese counter attacks. The bases were re-supplied by air with casualties flown out by returning aircraft. When the Japanese attacked in strength the Chindits abandoned the bases and either moved to new bases, or back to Allied lines.[citation needed]
Post-Second World War
Several times during the Cold War the western powers had to use their airbridge expertise.
- The Berlin Blockade from June 1948 to September 1949, the Western Powers flew over 200,000 flights, providing to West Berlin up to 8,893 tons of necessities each day.
- Airbridge was used extensively during the siege of Dien Bien Phu during the First Indochina War, but failed to prevent its fall to the Việt Minh in 1954.
- In the next Vietnam War, airbridge proved crucial during the siege of the American base at Khe Sanh in 1968. The resupply it provided kept the North Vietnamese Army from capturing the base.
In both Vietnamese cases, the Viet Minh and NLF were able to cut off the opposing army by capturing the surrounding rugged terrain.[42] At Dien Bien Phu, the French were unable to use air power to overcome the siege and were defeated.[43] However, at Khe Sanh, a mere 14 years later, advances in air power—and a reduction in Vietnamese anti-aircraft capability—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 a 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 the siege, the attacker's main aim is to bottle operational forces or create a strategic distraction, rather than take the siege to a conclusion.
In neighbouring Cambodia, at that time known as the Khmer Republic, the Khmer Rouge used siege tactics to cut off supplies from Phnom Penh to other government-held enclaves in an attempt to break the will of the government to continue fighting.
In 1972, during the Easter offensive, the siege of An Lộc Vietnam occurred. ARVN troops and U.S. advisers and air power successfully defeated communist forces. The Battle of An Lộc pitted some 6,350 ARVN men against a force three times that size. During the peak of the battle, ARVN had access to only one 105 mm howitzer to provide close support, while the enemy attack was backed by an entire artillery division. ARVN had no tanks, the NVA communist forces had two armoured regiments. ARVN prevailed after over two months of continuous fighting. As General Paul Vanuxem, a French veteran of the Indochina War, wrote in 1972 after visiting the liberated city of An Lộc: "An Lộc was the Verdun of Vietnam, where Vietnam received as in baptism the supreme consecration of her will."
During the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s, Republika Srpska forces besieged Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The siege lasted from 1992 until 1996.
The longest siege to date in the modern era is the current blockade on the Gaza strip in Palestine by their opposition (2007–present).[citation needed]
Numerous sieges haven taken place during the Syrian Civil War, such as the Siege of Homs, Siege of Kobanî, Siege of Deir ez-Zor (2014–2017) and Siege of al-Fu'ah and Kafriya.
Actividad policial
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 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 cooperate 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, and 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 deaths of all but one of the hostage-takers.
Ver también
- Battleplan (documentary TV series)
- Blitzkrieg
- Breastwork (fortification)
- Infiltration
- Last stand
- Maneuver warfare
- Medieval warfare
- Sangar (fortification)
- Siege engines
- Siege equipment
- Tunnel warfare
- Lists
- List of established military terms
- List of sieges
Notas
- ^ "Definition of SIEGE". www.merriam-webster.com.
- ^ "Definition of INVEST". www.merriam-webster.com.
- ^ a b Fletcher & Cruickshank 1996, p. 20.
- ^ Stearns 2001, p. 17.
- ^ a b Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 43.
- ^ Schofield, Louise (2006). The Mycenaeans. Los Angeles, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-89236-867-9.
- ^ Needham, Volume 5, Part 6, 446.
- ^ a b The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology. Oxford University Press. 2010. pp. 266–267. ISBN 978-0-19-533403-6.
- ^ For example, Roland 1992, pp. 660,663
- ^ Hoskin 2006, p. 105.
- ^ a b Ebrey 2006, p. 29.
- ^ Turnbull 2002, p. 40.
- ^ Sellman 1954, p. 26.
- ^ Sellman 1954, p. 22.
- ^ Sellman 1954, pp. 44–45.
- ^ Campbell, Brian; Tritle, Lawrence A. (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World. Oxford University Press. p. 644. ISBN 9780199333806. Retrieved 31 March 2019.
- ^ Mubarakpuri, Saifur Rahman Al (2005), Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum, Darussalam Publications, p. 117
- ^ Mubarakpuri, Saifur Rahman Al (2002), When the Moon Split, DarusSalam, p. 159, ISBN 978-9960-897-28-8
- ^ a b Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah [The Life of Muhammad], transl. Guillaume, p. 363
- ^ Watt (1956), Muhammad at Medina.
- ^ Mubarakpuri, Saifur Rahman Al (2005), The sealed nectar: biography of the Noble Prophet, Darussalam Publications, p. 284, ISBN 978-9960-899-55-8
- ^ Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book.
- ^ Cook, Michael, Muhammad, p. 21.
- ^ Rahman al-Mubarakpuri, Saifur (2005), The Sealed Nectar, Darussalam Publications, p. 189 (online)
- ^ William Muir (2003), The life of Mahomet, Kessinger Publishing, p. 317, ISBN 9780766177413
- ^ Mubarakpuri, Saifur Rahman Al (2005), The sealed nectar: biography of the Noble Prophet, Darussalam Publications, p. 481, ISBN 978-9960899558 Note: Shawwal 8AH is January 630AD
- ^ Grousset 1970, p. 362.
- [[[Wikipedia:Citing_sources|
page needed]] ="this_citation_requires_a_reference_to_the_specific_page_or_range_of_pages_in_which_the_material_appears. (march_2011)">]-28">^ Wheelis 2002, p. [page needed]. - ^ Alchon 2003, p. 21.
- ^ Stewart 1998, p. 105.
- ^ Needham, Volume 5, Part 7, 264.
- ^ Turnbull, Stephen (2012). Chinese Walled Cities 221 BC– AD 1644. Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781846038921.
- ^ Townshend 2000, p. 211.
- ^ Townshend 2000, p. 212.
- ^ Beevor 2002, pp. 372–375.
- ^ Baldock 1809, pp. 515–520.
- ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Atkinson, Charles Francis (1911). "Great Rebellion: 2. The Royalist and Parliamentarian Armies". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 403.
- ^ Symonds 1859, p. 270.
- ^ Firth 1902, p. 29.
- ^ Reynolds, Churchill & Miller 1916, p. 406.
- ^ Timothy Snyder (2010). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Basic Books. p. 173. ISBN 0-465-00239-0
- ^ See for example the challenges noted in Windrow 2005, pp. 437,438
- ^ Morocco 1984, p. 52.
Referencias
- Alchon, Suzanne Austin (2003). A pest in the land: new world epidemics in a global perspective. University of New Mexico Press. p. 21. ISBN 0-8263-2871-7.
- Baldock, Thomas Stanford (1809). Cromwell as a Soldier. K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company. pp. 515–520.
- Beevor, Antony (2002). Berlin: The Downfall 1945. Viking-Penguin Books. ISBN 0-670-88695-5.
- Firth, C. H. (1902). Cromwell's Army: A History of the English Soldier During the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth and the Protectorate. Sussex: Methurn & Company. p. 29.
- Ebrey, Walthall, Palais (2006). East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
- Fletcher, Banister; Cruickshank, Dan (1996). Sir Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture (20th ed.). Architectural Press. p. 20. ISBN 0-7506-2267-9.
- Grousset, René (1970). The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Rutgers University Press. p. 362. ISBN 0-8135-1304-9.
- Hoskin, John, Carol Howland (2006). Vietnam. New Holland Publishers. p. 105. ISBN 978-1-84537-551-5.
- Stewart, William (1998). Dictionary of images and symbols in counselling (1st ed.). Jessica Kingsley. p. 105. ISBN 1-85302-351-5.
- Morocco, John (1984). Thunder from Above: Air War, 1941–1968. Boston: Boston Publishing Company.
- Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China. 4. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
- Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China. 5. Taiepi: Caves Books Ltd.
- Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China. 5. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
- Reynolds, Francis Joseph; Churchill, Allen Leon; Miller, Francis Trevelyan (1916). The story of the great war: history of the European War from official sources; complete historical records of events to date. P.F. Collier & Son. p. 406.
- Roland, Alex (1992). "Secrecy, Technology, and War: Greek Fire and the Defense of Byzantium, Technology and Culture". Technology and Culture. 33 (4): 655–679. doi:10.2307/3106585. JSTOR 3106585.
- Sellman, R. R. (1954). Castles and Fortresses. Methuen.
- Stearns, Peter N. (2001). The Encyclopedia of World History: ancient, medieval, and modern (6th ed.). Houghton Mifflin Books. p. 17. ISBN 0-395-65237-5.
- Symonds, Richard (1859). Long, Charles Edward (ed.). Diary of the Marches of the Royal Army During the Great Civil War. Works of the Camden Society. 74. The Camden Society. p. 270.
- Townshend, Charles (2000). The Oxford History of Modern War. Oxford University Press. pp. 211, 212. ISBN 0-19-285373-2.
- Turnbull, Stephen R. (2002). Siege Weapons of the Far East. Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd.
- Wheelis, M. (2002). "Biological warfare at the 1346 siege of Caffa". Emerg Infect Dis. Center for Disease Control. 8 (9): 971–975. doi:10.3201/eid0809.010536. PMC 2732530. PMID 12194776.
- Windrow, Martin (2005). The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French defeat in Vietnam. London: Cassell.
Otras lecturas
- Duffy, Christopher (1996) [1975]. Fire & Stone: The Science of Fortress Warfare (1660–1860) (2nd ed.). New York: Stackpole Books.
- Duffy, Christopher (1996). Siege Warfare: Fortress in the Early Modern World, 1494–1660. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
- Duffy, Christopher (1985). Siege Warfare, Volume II: The Fortress in the Age of Vauban and Frederick the Great. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
- Garlan, Yvon (1974). Recherches de poliorcétique grecque (in French). Paris: De Boccard.
- Lynn, John A. (1999). The Wars of Louis XIV. Pearson. ISBN 0582056292.
- May, Timothy. (27 June 2004). "Mongol Arms". Explorations in Empire, Pre-Modern Imperialism Tutorial: the Mongols. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Archived from the original on 18 May 2008.
- Ostwald, Jamel (2007). Vauban Under Siege: Engineering Efficiency and Martial Vigor in the War of the Spanish Succession. History of Warfare. 41 (illustrated ed.). BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-15489-6.
Historiography
- Bachrach, Bernard S (1994). "Medieval siege warfare: a reconnaissance". Journal of Military History. 58 (1): 119–133. doi:10.2307/2944182. JSTOR 2944182.
enlaces externos
- Native American Siege Warfare.
- Siege Kits
- Scenes of Siege Warfare
- Three ancient Egyptian Sieges: Megiddo, Dapur, Hermopolis
- The Siege Of The City Archived 30 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine Biblical perspectives.
- Secrets of Lost Empires: Medieval Siege (PBS) Informative and interactive webpages about medieval siege tactics.