Siege: Fortress Under Fire, Tactics, Triumphs, and Trials in the Art of Conquest

By Fouad Sabry

What is Siege

A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static, defensive position. Consequently, an opportunity for negotiation between combatants is common, as proximity and fluctuating advantage can encourage diplomacy.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Siege

Chapter 2: Siege tower

Chapter 3: Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban

Chapter 4: Fortification

Chapter 5: Siege engine

Chapter 6: Battle of Alesia

Chapter 7: Early thermal weapons

Chapter 8: Menno van Coehoorn

Chapter 9: Siege of Maastricht (1673)

Chapter 10: Bastion fort

(II) Answering the public top questions about siege.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Siege.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Jun 3, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Siege

The military blockade of a city is a siege, or fortress, with the intention of achieving victory via attrition, or through a well-planned assault.

This comes from the Latin sedere, lit. 'to sit'.

Siege warfare is a sort of continuous warfare, Conflict of low intensity defined by one party retaining a strong position, static, defensive position.

Consequently, a chance for discussion between fighters is typical, Due of proximity and variable advantage, diplomacy can be encouraged.

Siegecraft is used (by the invading force) to conduct a siege, or poliorcetics.

A siege happens when an attacker confronts a city or fortress that cannot be quickly captured and refuses to capitulate. Sieges entail encircling the objective to prevent the delivery of reinforcements or the escape of troops (a tactic known as investment). This is usually accompanied by attempts to weaken the fortifications by siege engines, artillery bombardment, mining (also known as sapping), or the use of trickery or treachery to circumvent defenses.

In the absence of a military victory, sieges are frequently decided by hunger, thirst, or sickness, which can affect either the attacker or the defense. This type of siege, however, can last many months or even years, depending on the amount of the fortified position's food stockpiles.

The attacking force can circumvent the besieged location by constructing a line of earthen defenses consisting of a rampart and a trench. Due of the length of time required to force the invading army to yield, it can be attacked by an ally of the besieged location throughout the circumvallation procedure. Contravallation refers to the use of a defensive ring of forts outside the ring of circumvallated forts to defend the invaders from the outside.

Archaeological evidence indicates that ancient cities in the Middle East had reinforced city walls. During the Warring States period of ancient China, there is textual and archaeological evidence of extended sieges and the deployment of siege equipment against city wall defenders. The ancient Greco-Roman world also had a long history of siege machinery. During the Renaissance and early modern period, siege warfare was the predominant form of combat in Europe. Leonardo da Vinci earned a portion of his notoriety through the design of fortifications.

Typically, medieval campaigns were organized on a series of sieges. During the Napoleonic period, the employment of increasingly potent cannons diminished the efficacy of fortifications. The relevance of the classical siege waned during the 20th century. The emergence of mobile warfare has rendered a single defended bastion less crucial than it once was. Despite the fact that classical sieges continue to occur, they are not as prevalent as they once were due to the evolution of warfare, specifically the ease with which massive amounts of destructive force may be directed at a stationary object. Modern sieges are frequently precipitated by smaller hostage, militant, or serious arrest-resisting situations.

The Assyrians employed massive labor forces to construct new palaces, temples, and fortifications. Some Indus Valley civilization settlements were also fortified. By about 3500 BCE, the Indus River floodplain was populated with hundreds of small farming communities. Numerous of these communities featured fortifications and planned roadways.

The stone and mud-brick homes of Kot Diji were crowded behind enormous stone flood dikes and defensive walls, as the possession of prime agricultural land was a persistent source of contention between neighboring towns.

For the defense of the early towns in the ancient Near East, city walls and fortifications were important. Depending on local availability, the walls were constructed of mudbricks, stone, wood, or a combination of these materials. They may have also had the twin aim of demonstrating the kingdom's power to possible foes. The massive walls that surrounded the Sumerian city of Uruk attained global renown. The walls were 9.5 kilometers (5.9 miles) long and up to 12 meters (39 feet) tall.

Later, the walls of Babylon, which were fortified with towers, moats, and ditches, acquired a similar reputation. Taking advantage of the environment, the Hittites constructed gigantic stone walls around their hilltop cities in Anatolia. In Shang Dynasty China, near the location of Ao, huge walls were constructed in the 15th century B.C. that had a base width of 20 meters (66 feet) and surrounded an area of around 2,100 yards (1,900 meters) squared.

There are depictions of ancient Near Eastern sieges in historical sources and works of art, but relatively few examples of siege systems have been discovered archaeologically. Several of the few examples are notable:

The late 9th century B.C. siege system enclosing Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel, consisting of a 2.5 km long siege trench, towers, and other features, and is the earliest known circumvallation system. In the late ninth century B.C., Hazael of Aram Damascus likely constructed it as part of his siege and victory of Philistine Gath (mentioned in II Kings 12:18).

The siege system surrounding Lachish (Tell el-Duweir) in Israel, constructed by Sennacherib of Assyria in 701 BC, is not only obvious in the archaeological remains, but is also documented in Assyrian and biblical texts and in the reliefs of Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh.

The Persian army's siege of Alt-Paphos, Cyprus, in the fourth century B.C.

Egypt's Protodynastic Period contains the earliest depictions of siege warfare, c. 3000 BC.

These depict the metaphorical dismantling of city walls with hoes by divine animals.

Egyptian tomb reliefs from the 24th century B.C. depict Egyptian troops breaching Canaanite city walls on wheeled siege ladders; they are the first known examples of siege equipment. Later Egyptian temple reliefs from the 13th century B.C. depict soldiers scaling ladders while being aided by archers during the fierce siege of the Syrian city of Dapur.

During the 9th to 7th centuries BCE, Assyrian palace reliefs depict various Near Eastern city sieges. Even though a simple battering ram had been utilized in the preceding millennia, the Assyrians revolutionized siege warfare by employing tower-shaped wooden battering rams with archers on top.

In ancient China, maritime and city wall sieges were depicted on bronze 'hu' vessels, such as those discovered in Chengdu, Sichuan in 1965 and dated to the Warring States period (5th to 3rd centuries BC).

The first act of an attacker during a siege may be a surprise attack, intended to overwhelm the defenders before they are prepared or even aware of the situation. In 1221, William de Forz took Fotheringhay Castle in this manner.

As a siege developed, the surrounding army would construct earthworks (a circumvallation line) to completely encircle their target and prevent food, water, and other supplies from reaching the beleaguered city. As the siege persisted, defenders and residents could have been reduced to eating anything vaguely appetizing, including horses, household pets, shoe leather, and each other.

In the fourteenth century B.C., the Hittite siege of a rebellious Anatolian vassal ended when the queen mother came out of the city and asked for forgiveness on behalf of her people. In the 14th century B.C., the Hittite expedition against the kingdom of Mitanni bypassed the walled city of Carchemish. If the conquering of a particular city was not the primary purpose of a war, it may be ignored. When the campaign's primary purpose was accomplished, the Hittite army returned to Carchemish, and after an eight-day siege, the city fell.

Disease was an additional useful siege weapon, although the invaders were frequently just as defenseless as the defenders. In some early cases of biological warfare, infected animals were launched over city walls using catapults or similar weapons. For the price of a well-placed bribe to a disgruntled gatekeeper, a besieger could claim the spoils of his conquest uninjured and preserve his men and equipment intact if all else failed. The siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C. ended when the Israelites bought them off with presents and tribute, according to the Assyrian version, or when mass death hit the