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Scorched earth

A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and infrastructure. Its use is possible by a retreating army to leave nothing of value worth taking, to weaken the attacking force or by an advancing army to fight against unconventional warfare.[1]

For the agricultural method, see Slash-and-burn.

Scorched earth against non-combatants has been banned under the 1977 Geneva Conventions.[a]

Origin of the term[edit]

The term was found in English in a 1937 report on the Second Sino-Japanese War. The retreating Chinese forces burned crops and destroyed infrastructure including cities to sabotage the logistics of the advancing Japanese forces.[1]

Historic examples[edit]

Notable historic examples of successful scorched-earth tactics include the failed Swedish, French and German invasion of Russia, Sherman's march to the sea during the American Civil War, Kit Carson's campaign during the Navajo Wars in 1863 and Lord Kitchener's methods in the Anglo-Boer War.

6th century BCE[edit]

European Scythian campaign[edit]

The Scythians used scorched-earth methods against the Persian Achaemenid Empire, led by King Darius the Great, during his European Scythian campaign. The Scythians, who were nomadic herders, evaded the Persian invaders and retreated into the depths of the steppes after they had destroyed food supplies and poisoned wells.[5]

4th century BCE[edit]

March of the Ten Thousand[edit]

The Greek general Xenophon recorded in his Anabasis that the withdrawing enemy burnt up the grass and everything else that was good for use in front of the Ten Thousand.[6]

3rd century BCE[edit]

Second Punic War[edit]

During the Second Punic War in 218–202 BCE, both Carthaginians and Romans used the method selectively during Hannibal's invasion of Italy.[7] After the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene, Quintus Fabius Maximus instructed those living in the path of the invading Carthaginians to burn their houses and grain.[8]

2nd century BCE[edit]

Third Punic War[edit]

After the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BCE, the Roman Senate also elected to use this method to permanently destroy the Carthaginian capital city, Carthage (near modern-day Tunis). The buildings were torn down, their stones scattered so not even rubble remained, and the fields were burned. However, the story that they salted the earth is apocryphal.[9]

1st century BCE[edit]

Gallic Wars[edit]

The system of punitive destruction of property and subjugation of people when accompanying a military campaign was known as vastatio.[10] Two of the first uses of scorched earth recorded happened in the Gallic Wars. The first was used when the Celtic Helvetii were forced to evacuate their homes in Southern Germany and Switzerland because of incursions of unfriendly Germanic tribes: to add incentive to the march, the Helvetii destroyed everything they could not bring.[11]


The second case shows actual military value: during the Great Gallic War the Gauls under Vercingetorix planned to lure the Roman armies into Gaul and then trap and obliterate them. They thus ravaged the countryside of what are now the Benelux countries and France. This caused immense problems for the Romans, but the Roman military triumphs over the Gallic alliance showed that the ravaging alone was not to be enough to save Gaul from subjugation by Rome.

4th century CE[edit]

Roman invasion of Persia[edit]

In the year CE 363, the Emperor Julian's invasion of Persia was turned back by a scorched-earth policy:

7th century CE[edit]

First Fitna[edit]

During the First Fitna (656–661), Muawiyah I sent Busr ibn Abi Artat to a campaign in the Hejaz and Yemen to ravage territory loyal to Muawiyah's opponent Ali ibn Abi Talib. According to Tabari, 30,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed during that campaign of the civil war. Muawiyah also sent Sufyan ibn Awf to Iraq to burn the crops and homes of Ali's supporters.[13]

9th century CE[edit]

Viking invasion of England[edit]

During the Viking invasion of England, the Viking chieftain Hastein tried to occupy the ruined Roman fortress of Chester in late summer 893, planning to raid northern Mercia from the refortified fortress. But the Mercians destroyed all crops and livestock in the surrounding countryside and expelled the Vikings successfully.[14]

11th century[edit]

Harrying of the North[edit]

In the Harrying of the North, William the Conqueror's solution to stop a rebellion in 1069 was the brutal conquest and subjugation of northern England. William's men burnt whole villages from the Humber to Tees and slaughtered the inhabitants. Food stores and livestock were destroyed so that anyone surviving the initial massacre would soon succumb to starvation over the winter. The destruction is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry.[15] The survivors were reduced to cannibalism,[16] with one report stating that the skulls of the dead were cracked open so that their brains could be eaten. Between 100,000 and 150,000 perished, and the area took centuries to recover from the damage.[17]

15th century[edit]

Moldavian–Ottoman Wars[edit]

Stephen the Great used scorched earth in the Balkans against the Ottoman Army in 1475 and 1476.[26]

16th century[edit]

Anglicisation of the Irish[edit]

Further use of scorched-earth policies in war was seen during the 16th century in Ireland, where it was used by English commanders such as Walter Devereux and Richard Bingham.


The Desmond Rebellions were a famous case in Ireland. Much of the province of Munster was laid waste. The poet Edmund Spenser left an account of it:

17th century[edit]

Thirty Years' War[edit]

In 1630, Field-Marshal General Torquato Conti was in command of the Holy Roman Empire's forces during the Thirty Years' War. Forced to retreat from the advancing Swedish army of King Gustavus Adolphus, Conti ordered his troops to burn houses, destroy villages and cause as much harm generally to property and people as possible.:

18th century[edit]

Great Northern War[edit]

During the Great Northern War, Russian Emperor Peter the Great's forces used scorched-earth tactics to hold back Swedish King Charles XII's campaign towards Moscow.

Sullivan–Clinton genocide[edit]

In 1779 Congress decided to defeat the four British allied nations of the Iroquois decisively during the American Revolutionary War with the Sullivan Expedition. General John Sullivan used a scorched earth campaign by destroying more than 40 Iroquois villages and their stores of winter crops resulting in many deaths by starvation and cold in the following winter.[36]

Haitian Revolution against Napoleon[edit]

In a letter to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Toussaint Louverture outlined his plans for defeating the French in the Haitian Revolution starting in 1791 using scorched-earth: "Do not forget, while waiting for the rainy reason which will rid us of our foes, that we have no other resource than destruction and fire. Bear in mind that the soil bathed with our sweat must not furnish our enemies with the smallest sustenance. Tear up the roads with shot; throw corpses and horses into all the foundations, burn and annihilate everything in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes the image of the hell which they deserve".[37]

19th century[edit]

Napoleonic Wars[edit]

During the third Napoleonic invasion of Portugal in 1810, the Portuguese population retreated towards Lisbon and was ordered to destroy all the food supplies the French might capture as well as forage and shelter in a wide belt across the country. (Although effective food-preserving techniques had recently been invented, they were still not fit for military use because a suitably-rugged container had not yet been invented.)[38] The command was obeyed as a result of French plundering and general ill-treatment of civilians in the previous invasions. The civilians would rather destroy anything that had to be left behind, rather than leave it to the French. When the French armies reached the Lines of Torres Vedras on the way to Lisbon, French soldiers reported that the country "seemed to empty ahead of them". Low morale, hunger, disease and indiscipline greatly weakened the French army and compelled the forces to retreat, see also Attrition warfare against Napoleon.

21st century[edit]

Darfur War[edit]

The government of Sudan used scorched earth as a military strategy in the Darfur War that started in 2003.

Sri Lankan Civil War[edit]

During the 2009 Sri Lankan Civil War, the United Nations Regional Information Centre accused the government of Sri Lanka of using scorched-earth tactics.[75][76][77]

In business world[edit]

The concept of scorched-earth defense is sometimes applied figuratively to the business world in which a firm facing a takeover attempts to make itself less valuable by selling off its assets.[79]

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