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Siege

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   A siege is a military blockade and assault of a city or fortress with
   the intent of conquering by force or attrition. A siege occurs when an
   attacker encounters a city or fortress that refuses to surrender and
   cannot be easily taken by a frontal assault. Sieges usually involve
   surrounding the target and blocking the provision of supplies,
   typically coupled with siege engines, artillery bombardment, or sapping
   (also known as mining) to reduce fortifications.

   Sieges probably predate the development of cities as large population
   centers. Ancient cities in the Middle East show archeological evidence
   of having had fortified city walls. During the Renaissance and the
   Early Modern period, siege warfare dominated the conduct of war in
   Europe. Leonardo da Vinci gained as much of his renown from the design
   of fortifications as from his artwork.

   Medieval campaigns were generally designed around a succession of
   sieges. In the Napoleonic era, increasing use of ever more powerful
   cannon reduced the value of fortifications. In modern times, trenches
   replaced walls, and bunkers replaced castles. In the 20th century, the
   significance of the classical siege declined. With the advent of mobile
   warfare, one single fortified stronghold is no longer as decisive as it
   once was. While sieges do still occur, they are not as common as they
   once were due to changes in modes of battle, principally the ease by
   which huge volumes of destructive power can be directed onto a static
   target. Sieges in present day are more commonly either smaller hostage,
   militant, or extreme resisting-arrest situations such as the Waco
   Siege.

Ancient siege warfare

Defense

   City walls and fortifications were essential for the defense of the
   first cities in the ancient Near East. The walls were built by mud
   bricks, stone, wood or a combination of these materials depending on
   local availability. City walls may also have served the dual purpose of
   showing presumptive enemies the might of the Kingdom. The great walls
   surrounding the Sumerian city of Uruk gained such a wide-spread
   reputation. The walls were 9.5 km / 6 miles in length, and raised up to
   12 metres / 40 feet in height. Later the walls of Babylon, reinforced
   by towers and moats, gained a similar reputation. In Anatolia, the
   Hittites built massive stone walls around their cities, taking
   advantage of the hillsides. The cities of the Indus Valley civilization
   showed less effort in constructing defenses, and likewise the Minoan
   civilization on Crete. These civilizations probably relied more on the
   defense of their outer borders or sea shores.
   The Egyptian siege of Dapur in the 13th century BC, from Ramesseum,
   Thebes.
   Enlarge
   The Egyptian siege of Dapur in the 13th century BC, from Ramesseum,
   Thebes.

Siege warfare in art

   The earliest representations of siege warfare is dated to the
   Protodynastic Period of Egypt, c.3000 BC. These show symbolic
   destruction of city walls by divine animals using hoes. The first siege
   equipment is known from Egyptian tomb reliefs of the 24th century BC,
   showing Egyptian soldiers storming Canaanite town walls on wheeled
   siege ladders. Later Egyptian temple reliefs of the 13th century BC
   portrays the violent siege of Dapur, a Syrian city, with soldiers
   climbing scale ladders supported by archers. Assyrian palace reliefs of
   the 9th to 7th centuries BC display sieges of several Near Eastern
   cities. Though a simple battering ram had come into use in the previous
   millennium, the Assyrians improved siege warfare and built huge wooden
   tower shaped battering rams with archers positioned on top.

Tactics in siege warfare

   The most common practice of siege warfare was however to lay siege and
   wait for the surrender of the enemies inside. The Egyptian siege of
   Megiddo in the 15th century BC lasted for 7 months before its
   inhabitants surrendered. The Hittite siege of a rebellious Anatolian
   vassal in the 14th century BC ended when the queen mother came out of
   the city and begged for mercy on behalf of her people. If the main
   objective of a campaign was not the conquest of a particular city, it
   could simply be passed by. The Hittite campaign against the kingdom of
   Mitanni in the 14th century BC bypassed the fortified city of
   Carchemish. When the main objective of the campaign had been fulfilled,
   the Hittite army returned to Carchemish and the city fell after an
   eight-day-siege. The well-known Assyrian Siege of Jerusalem in the 8th
   century BC came to an end when the Israelites bought them off with
   gifts and tribute, according to the Assyrian account, or when the
   Assyrian camp was struck by mass death, according to the Biblical
   account. Due to the problem of logistics, long lasting sieges involving
   but a minor force could seldom be maintained.

Siege accounts

   Although there are numerous ancient accounts of cities being sacked,
   few contain any clues to how this was achieved. Some popular tales
   existed on how the cunning heroes succeeded in their sieges. The
   best-known is the Trojan Horse of the Trojan War, and a similar story
   tells how the Canaanite city of Joppa was conquered by the Egyptians in
   the 15th century BC. The Biblical Book of Joshua contains the story of
   the miraculous Battle of Jericho. A better detailed historical account
   from the 8th century BC, called the Piankhi stela, records how the
   Nubians laid siege to and conquered several Egyptian cities using
   battering rams, archers, slingers and building causeways across moats.

Greco-Roman and medieval siege warfare

   Enlarge

   Alexander the Great's Macedonian army was involved in many sieges.
   There are two which are of particular note: Tyre and Sogdian Rock. Tyre
   was a Phoenician island-city about 1 km from the mainland, and thought
   to be impregnable. The Macedonians built a mole (causeway) out to the
   island. It is said to have been at least 60 m (200 ft) wide. When the
   causeway was within artillery range of Tyre, Alexander brought up stone
   throwers and light catapults to bombard the city walls. The city fell
   to the Macedonians after a seven month siege. In complete contrast to
   Tyre, Sogdian Rock was captured by guile. The fortress was high up on
   cliffs. Alexander used commando-like tactics to scale the cliffs and
   capture the high ground. 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 train; 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 BCE conquest of Gaul (modern
   France). In his Gallic Wars, Caesar describes how at the Battle of
   Alesia the Roman legions created two huge fortified walls around the
   city. The inner circumvallation, 10 miles, 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 74 were defeated by the
   Roman Legions who built a ramp 100 meters high up to the fortress's
   west wall.

   The universal method for defending against siege is the use of
   fortifications, principally walls and ditches to supplement natural
   features. A sufficient supply of food and water is also important to
   defeat the simplest method of siege warfare: starvation. During a
   siege, a surrounding army would build earthworks (a line of
   circumvallation) to completely encircle their target, preventing food
   and water supplies from reaching the besieged city. If sufficiently
   desperate as the siege progressed, defenders and civilians might have
   been reduced to eating anything vaguely edible—horses, family pets, the
   leather from shoes, and even each other. On occasion, the defenders
   would drive 'surplus' civilians out to reduce the demands on stored
   food and water.

   Disease was another effective siege weapon, although the attackers were
   often as vulnerable as the defenders. In some instances, catapults or
   like weapons would fling diseased animals over city walls in an early
   example of biological warfare.
   Medieval trebuchets could sling about two projectiles per hour at enemy
   positions.
   Enlarge
   Medieval trebuchets could sling about two projectiles per hour at enemy
   positions.

   To end a siege more rapidly various methods were developed in ancient
   and medieval times to counter fortifications, and a large variety of
   siege engines were developed for use by besieging armies. Ladders could
   be used to escalade over the defenses. Battering rams and siege hooks
   could be used to force through gates or walls, while catapults,
   ballistae, trebuchets, mangonels, and onagers could be used to launch
   projectiles in order to break down a city's fortifications and kill its
   defenders. A siege tower could also be used: a substantial structure
   built as high, or higher than the walls, it allowed the attackers to
   fire down upon the defenders and also advance troops to the wall with
   less danger than using ladders.

   In addition to launching projectiles at the fortifications or
   defenders, it was also quite common to attempt to undermine the
   fortifications, causing them to collapse. This could be accomplished by
   digging a tunnel beneath the foundations of the walls, and then
   deliberately collapsing or exploding the tunnel. This process is known
   as sapping or mining. The defenders could dig counter-tunnels to cut
   into the attackers' works and collapse them prematurely.

   Fire was often used as a weapon when dealing with wooden
   fortifications. The Byzantine Empire used Greek fire, which contained
   additives that made it hard to put out. Combined with a primitive
   flamethrower, it proved an effective offensive and defensive weapon.
   Cahir Castle in Ireland was besieged and captured three times: in 1599
   by the Earl of Essex, in 1647 by Lord Inchiquin, and in 1650 by Oliver
   Cromwell.
   Enlarge
   Cahir Castle in Ireland was besieged and captured three times: in 1599
   by the Earl of Essex, in 1647 by Lord Inchiquin, and in 1650 by Oliver
   Cromwell.

   Advances in the prosecution of sieges in ancient and medieval times
   naturally encouraged the development of a variety of defensive
   counter-measures. In particular, medieval fortifications became
   progressively stronger—for example, the advent of the concentric castle
   from the period of the Crusades—and more dangerous to attackers—witness
   the increasing use of machicolations and murder-holes, as well the
   preparation of boiling oil, molten lead or hot sand. Arrow slits (also
   called arrow loops or loopholes), sally ports (concealed doors) for
   sallies, and deep water wells were also integral means of resisting
   siege at this time. Particular attention would be paid to defending
   entrances, with gates protected by drawbridges, portcullises and
   barbicans. Moats and other water defenses, whether natural or
   augmented, were also vital to defenders.

   In the European Middle Ages, virtually all large cities had city walls—
   Dubrovnik in Dalmatia is an impressive and well-preserved example—and
   more important cities had citadels, forts or castles. Great effort was
   expended to ensure a good water supply inside the city in case of
   siege. In some cases, long tunnels were constructed to carry water into
   the city. Complex systems of underground tunnels were used for storage
   and communications in medieval cities like Tábor in Bohemia (similar to
   those used much later in Vietnam during the Vietnam War).

   Until the invention of gunpowder-based weapons (and the resulting
   higher-velocity projectiles), the balance of power and logistics
   definitely favored the defender. With the invention of gunpowder,
   cannon and (in modern times) mortars and howitzers, the traditional
   methods of defense became less and less effective against a determined
   siege.

Mongol siege warfare

   In the Middle Ages, the Mongol Empire's campaign against China by
   Genghis Khan and his army 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, Hulegu used
          twenty catapults against the Bab al-Iraq (Gate of Iraq) alone.
          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." ^1

   Another Mongol tactic was to use catapults to launch corpses of plague
   victims into besieged cities. The disease-carrying fleas from the
   person's body 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.

   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.

   Similar attitude was common to most armies. A city that surrendered
   could expect to negotiate terms to avoid a sack. A city broken by siege
   or assault could suffer extreme retribution, even in the 19th century.
   While the ruthless sack of Jerusalem in the finish of the First Crusade
   is often quoted as a sign of Christian religious fanaticism and
   barbarity against the Muslim opponents, it was no different from any
   siege ending in taking the city by assault. Jerusalem was taken by an
   all-out assault; the common usage was that it could be looted for three
   days and three nights, and the inhabitants freely raped or killed. The
   city had been similarly sacked only four years earlier, 1095, by
   victorious Turkomans. It was a common usage to sack the city and kill
   all the adult inhabitants if the city was taken by assault, carry out
   an "arson tax" if the city surrendered after a siege (as in Jerusalem
   1187 and Visby 1361), and spare the city if it surrendered without a
   siege.

Sieges in the age of gunpowder

   The introduction of gunpowder and the use of cannons brought about a
   new age in siege warfare. Cannons were first used in the early 13th
   century, but did not become significant weapons for another 150 years
   or so. By the 16th century, they were an essential and regularized part
   of any campaigning army, or castle's defenses.

   The greatest advantage of cannons over other siege weapons was the
   ability to fire a heavier projectile, further, faster and more often
   than previous weapons. 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 were broken
   through in just six weeks by the 62 cannon of Mehmet 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
   war in Europe.

   Once siege guns were developed the techniques to assaulting a town or a
   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 then build a length of trenches parallel to the
   defences and just out of range of the defending artillery. They would
   then dig a trench towards the town in a zigzag pattern so that it could
   not be enfiladed by defending fire. Once within artillery range another
   parallel trench would be dug with gun emplacements. If necessary using
   the first artillery fire for cover this process would be repeated until
   guns were close enough to be laid accurately to make a breach in the
   fortifications. So that the forlorn hope and support troops could 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 on improving fortifications

   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 1482–92 that had held out for centuries
   before the invention of cannons.
   Turks laid siege to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine
   Empire, for nearly two months in 1453. Other sieges lasted much longer.
   Enlarge
   Turks laid siege to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine
   Empire, for nearly two months in 1453. Other sieges lasted much longer.

   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 1494–95 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 styles of fortresses employed

   The most effective way to protect walls against cannon fire proved to
   be depth (increasing the width of the defenses) 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.

   This design matured into the trace italienne. Star-shaped fortresses
   surrounding towns and even cities with outlying defenses proved very
   difficult to capture, even for a well equipped army. 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).

   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
   Wars of Italy. Many stand to this day.

   In the 1530s and 1540s, 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. 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

   Vauban refined siege warfare by designing fortresses to withstand
   attacks and planning attacks.
   Enlarge
   Vauban refined siege warfare by designing fortresses to withstand
   attacks and planning attacks.

   At the end of the 17th century, Marshal Vauban, a French military
   engineer, 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. He was also a master of planning sieges himself. Before
   Vauban, sieges had been somewhat slapdash operations. Vauban refined
   besieging to a science with a methodical process that, if
   uninterrupted, would break even the strongest fortifications.

   Examples of Vauban-style fortresses in North America include Fort
   McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, Fort Ticonderoga in New York State, and
   La Citadelle in Quebec City.

   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. It would also be from there that
   sappers 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
   last bastion of defense, 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.

Advent of mobile warfare

   Siege warfare dominated in Western Europe for most of the seventeenth
   and eighteenth centuries. An entire campaign, or longer, could be used
   in a single siege (for example, Ostend in 1601–04; La Rochelle in
   1627–28). This resulted in extremely elongated 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 punative 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. Although during the
   English Civil War (1642–1651) there were many sieges, the general maxim
   of the field armies was "Where is the enemy? Let us go and fight them.
   Or... if the enemy was coming... Why, what should be done! Draw out
   into the fields and fight them." This was very different from the siege
   of Nuremberg during the 30 Years' War and was demonstrated to the
   continental powers by regiments of the New Model Army at the Battle of
   the Dunes (1658) during the Anglo-Spanish War.

   However, this pattern was vastly reduced 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
   comanding lines of communication could be bypassed and no longer stop
   an invasion. This military revolution was described by Clausewitz.
   Though highly successful, this revolution relied on a densely populated
   rich countryside to work. The civil population resented feeding
   invading armies. In Spain and Russia, French armies starved and the
   local peasants became anti-French guerillas as too many troops, sought
   too much food, from too few peasants. For political and logistical
   reasons, the British army fighting the French in Spain relied heavily
   on supply lines. Sieges therefore played a more significant role in the
   Peninsular War than in most other Napoleonic warfare.

   Advances in artillery made previously impregnable defenses useless. For
   example, the walls of Vienna that had held off the Turks in the
   mid-seventeenth century were no obstacle to Napoleon in the late
   eighteenth. Where sieges occurred, the attackers were usually able to
   defeat the defenses within a matter of days or weeks, rather than weeks
   or months as previously. But Lines of Torres Vedras (1810–1811), which
   were built by the Portuguese under the direction of Royal Engineers of
   the British Army during the Peninsular war were able to stop a French
   Army and were the first example of Trench warfare. The Siege of
   Sevastopol (1854–1855) during the Crimean War and those of Petersburg
   (1864–1865) during the American Civil War showed that modern citadels
   could still resist an enemy for many months. This era of rapidly moving
   armies continued through the 19th century. For example, 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.

   Advances in firearms technology without the necessary advances in
   battlefield communications gradually led to the defense again gaining
   the ascendancy. During the Franco-Prussian War, the battlefield
   front-lines moved rapidly through France. However, the Siege of Metz
   and the Siege of Paris held up German armies for months at a time due
   to the superior firepower of the Chassepot rifle and the principle of
   detached or semi-detached forts with heavy-caliber artillery. This
   resulted in the construction of fortress works across Europe such as
   the massive fortifications at Verdun.

Modern warfare

   For ten months from 1864 to 1865, Union soldiers laid siege against
   Confederate positions in the siege at Petersburg, Virginia during the
   American Civil War.
   Enlarge
   For ten months from 1864 to 1865, Union soldiers laid siege against
   Confederate positions in the siege at Petersburg, Virginia during the
   American Civil 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 utilize 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. The development of the armoured tank and
   improved infantry tactics at the end of World War I swung the pendulum
   back in favour of maneuver.

   The Blitzkrieg of the Second World War truly showed that fixed
   fortifications are easily defeated by maneuver 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 'sieges' of the Second World War were on the Eastern Front
   where bloody urban warfare marked the battles of Leningrad, Stalingrad
   and Berlin. In these battles, the ruins of an urban landscape proved to
   be just as effective an obstacle to an advancing army as any
   fortifications. 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, Tobruk
   and Monte Cassino. In the South-East Asian Theatre there was the siege
   of Singapore and in the Burma Campaign sieges of Myitkyina, the Admin
   Box and the Battle of the Tennis Court which was the high water mark
   for the Japanese advance into India.

   The air supply methods which were developed and used extensively in the
   Burma Campaign for supplying the Chindits and other units, including
   those in sieges such as Imphal, as well as flying the Hump into China,
   allowed the western powers to develop air lift expertise which would
   prove vital during the Cold War Berlin Blockade.

   During the Vietnam War the battles of Dien Bien Phu (1954) and Khe Sanh
   (1968) possessed siege-like characteristics. In both cases, the
   Vietminh and Vietcong were able to cut off the opposing army by
   capturing the surrounding rugged terrain. At Dien Bien Phu, the French
   were unable to use air power to overcome the siege and were defeated.
   However, at Khe Sanh a mere 14 years later, advances in air power
   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 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 siege, the attacker's main aim is to
   bottle operational forces, or create a strategic distraction, rather
   than take a siege to conclusion.

Recent sieges

     * From 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 the Siege of Sarajevo took
       place, where Sarajevo, then controlled by the Bosnian government,
       was besieged by the Serb paramilitary.
     * In 2004, United States forces laid siege to the Iraqi city of
       Fallujah.

Police actions

   Despite the overwhelming might of the modern state, 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
   the 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 co-operate 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, then 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 death of all but one of the hostage takers.

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