HUZZAH
(midwest.social)
PugJesus
History MemesOne time they left the doors open and that's how Constantinople fell.
(The rumour is not historically accurate tho)
+catapulting dead things into the city
Huᶻᶻᵃaₕ
I feel like I’d have been better at sieging than people of the time. Hunt the area to extinction, clear cut the forest, fling leper chunks over the wall. Make the city useless. Occasionally, I wonder whether I fantasize too often about war crimes. But the thought has long since succumbed to leprosy.
Were they war crimes yet? Was crimes became a thing because of mustard gas right?
I mean, this was back when you’d buy mercenaries who’d double super promise not to rape everything that moved, right before raping everything that moved. There was no such things as war crimes, but breaches of decorum were punished if you were on the losing side or under the thumb of a lord with certain principles or leanings
So nothing changed, ultimately
The point of sieges was generally to take the city in order to extract taxes (after the initial looting). If you make be the city completely useless you're not better at it, you're defeating the purpose of the siege itself.
(I know, I was just joking)
Didn’t they do all that?
The Roman’s couldn’t build defensive weight palisades without a lot of timber.
It depends on the era! In the Medieval and Early Modern periods, siegecraft, despite being core to military action, was... not prestigious. Even as late as the 16th century AD it was considered work for local levies rather than 'real' soldiers, and often handled with a degree of distaste. The engineers who drew up the plans were somewhat respected, but it was still considered not really the work of a real military commander, who spoke to TROOPS and used WEAPONS and STRATAGEMS and wore ARMOR, not nerd shit with angles and calculations and elbow grease.
On the other hand, as you point out, the Romans in the Classical era were very... thorough besiegers. Every legionary was also a laborer, after all - during the Siege of Jerusalem, they deforested the entire area for several miles to build their camps and siege weapons.
I mean, the objective was usually to keep the area useful for yourself afterward so full-on salted earth destruction wasn’t the norm. Unless they were trying to send a message. But you’re correct otherwise.
It's like people don't like to throw themselves directly at their enemies weapons.
Whip them until morale improves!
It's not like open-field battles didn't happen…
They did, but generally they were considered undesirable. Only a force with an overwhelming advantage or a need to force a quick resolution of the war (in medieval Europe, at least) would typically attempt to engage an enemy in a field battle. In most situations, it would be down to besieging and taking the disputed location (war, politics by other means, etc) or doing the same to an enemy's holdings one-by-one to force them to the negotiating table before you ran out of money with which to pay your long-term mercenaries. The attacker generally did not want a high-casualty and uncertain field battle which would be costly and reduce their chances of success next siege, and the defender likewise generally did not see the point in sacrificing the defensive advantage when time was their greatest ally on campaigns, considering organizational and logistical constraints of medieval armies.
Admittedly, sieges were usually a matter of weeks rather than years. But memes are allowed a little exaggeration - as a treat!
Contrast this to the Early Modern Period, in which sides would sometimes even agree on a battlefield to cut the bullshit to a minimum; or the Classical period, in which several days of 'offering' and denying battle from opposing fortified camps were often engaged in on each field until one was found that both sides thought they had the advantage on (or could not beg off battle any longer for reasons of supply).
But weren’t they more like “okay boys, young Jim you hold the shield at the front, six of us behind you will push you forward into the enemy line, and we’ll hope our spears are longer and they lose their footing so their line breaks. The grown ups will be in the second line watching”
Edit: sometimes followed up with “oh shit they invented a longer stick they’re literally unbeatable now”
People can't get over the deceased doge memes, huh? Not since Meme Center shut down.
That's a whole damn dog breed that looks like this.
