Information about Scorched Earth

A scorched earth policy is a military tactic which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area. Apparently a translation of the Chinese phrase jiao tu ( jiāotǔ), the term refers to the practice of burning crops to deny the enemy food sources, although it is by no means limited to food stocks, and can include shelter, transportation, communications and industrial resources, which are often of equal or greater military value in modern warfare, as modern armies generally carry their own food supplies. The practice may be carried out by an army in enemy territory, or by an army in its own home territory. It is often confused with the term "slash-and-burn," however, that is not a military tactic but rather an agricultural technique. It may overlap with, but is not the same as, punitive destruction of an enemy's resources, which is done for strategic rather than tactical reasons.

Ancient times

The Scythians used scorched earth tactics against King Darius the Great of Persia. Nomadic herders, the Scythians retreated into the depths of the Steppes, destroying food supplies and poisoning wells. As a result, Darius the Great was forced to concede defeat. A large number of his troops died from starvation and dehydration.

The Greek general Xenophon records in his Anabasis that the Armenians burned their crops and food supplies as they withdrew before the advance of the Ten Thousand.

Roman era

The system of punitive destruction of property and subjugation of peoples when accompanying a military campaign was known as vastatio. Two of the first uses of scorched earth recorded both happened in the Gallic Wars. The first was used when the Celtic Helvetii were forced to evacuate their homes in Southern Germany and Switzerland due to incursions of unfriendly Germanic tribes. To add incentive to the march, the Helvetii destroyed everything they could not bring. After the Helvetii were defeated by a combined Roman-Gallic force, the Helvetii were forced to rebuild themselves on the shattered German and Swiss plains they themselves destroyed.

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. To this end, they ravaged the countryside of what are now the Benelux countries and France. This did cause immense problems for the Romans, but Roman military triumphs over the Gallic alliance showed that this alone was not enough to save Gaul from subjugation by Rome.

During the Second Punic War in 218-202 BC, the Carthaginians used this tactic while storming through Italy. After the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BC, the Roman Senate also elected to use this tactic to destroy permanently 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. The story that they salted the earth so nothing would grow again is apocryphal.^[1]

Early Modern Era

Robert the Bruce counselled using these tactics to hold off the English King Edward’s forces when the English invaded Scotland, according to an anonymous 14th-century poem^[2]:

...in strait places gar keep all store,
And byrnen ye plainland them before,
That they shall pass away in haist
What that they find na thing but waist.
...This is the counsel and intent
Of gud King Robert's testiment.

Vlad Ţepes also used such tactics to great effect in 1462 during the Turks' invasion of Wallachia.

British use of scorched earth policies in war was seen as early as the sixteenth century in Ireland where it was used by English commanders such as Walter Devereux and Richard Bingham. Its most infamous use was by Humphrey Gilbert during the wars against the native Irish in Munster in the 1560s and 1570s, actions which earned the praise of the poet Edmund Spenser in his A View of the Present State of Ireland in 1596. Persians also used scorched earth tactics against the invading Turks during the long Ottoman-Iran wars between 1578-90.

19th Century

During the Napoleonic Wars, scorched earth policies were successfully employed in both Spain and Portugal (see Peninsular War) and Russia (see Napoleon's invasion of Russia).

This was used by the Mormons, as commanded by Brigham Young in the Utah War, 1858.

In the American Civil War, General Sherman utilized this policy during his March to the Sea, it was also used by the confederates to destroy any items that could have been used by Sherman's advancing army, this may have contributed to the burning of Columbia.

In the Argentina war of independence, the Jujuy Exodus, led by Manuel Belgrano was also a scorched earth tactic.

In 1868, Tūhoe sheltered the Māori leader Te Kooti, and for this were subjected to a scorched earth policy in which their crops and buildings were destroyed and their people of fighting age were captured.

Indian wars (America)

During the wars with Native American tribes of the American West, under Carleton's direction, Kit Carson instituted a scorched earth policy, burning Navajo fields and homes, and stealing or killing their livestock. He was aided by other Indian tribes with long-standing enmity toward the Navajos, chiefly the Utes. The Navajo were forced to surrender due to the destruction of their livestock and food supplies. In the spring of 1864, 8,000 Navajo men, women and children were forced to march 300 miles to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Navajos call this “The Long Walk.” Many died along the way or during the next four years of imprisonment.

Boer War

Lord Kitchener applied this policy during the later part of the Second Boer War (1899-1902) when the British failed to get the better of the Boers on the battlefield. This took the form of the destruction of farms in order to prevent the fighting Boers from obtaining food and supplies, and to demoralise them by leaving their women and children homeless and starving in the open. When this proved unsuccessful, they herded the Boer women and children into concentration camps where conditions were appalling and disease and death was rife.

Sino-Japanese War

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese soldiers destroyed dams and levees in an attempt to flood the land to slow down the advancement of Japanese soldiers. This policy resulted in the 1938 Huang He flood. The Japanese also adopted a scorched-earth policy in China during the war, known as "Three Alls Policy".

World War II

When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin ordered both soldiers and civilians to initiate a scorched earth policy to deny the invaders basic supplies as they moved eastward. The process was repeated later in the war (Ger. verbrannte Erde), when retreating German forces burned or destroyed farms, buildings, weapons, and food to deprive Soviet forces of their use.

At the close of the World War II, Finland, which had made a separate peace with the Allies, was required to evict the German forces which had been fighting against the Soviets alongside the Finnish troops in the Northern part of the country. Finnish forces, under the leadership of general Hjalmar Siilasvuo, struck aggressively in August 1944 by making a landfall at Tornio. This accelerated the German retreat, and by November 1944 the Germans had left most of northern Finland. The German forces, forced to retreat due to overall strategic situation, covered retreat towards Norway by devastating large areas of northern Finland using scorched earth tactics. More than one-third of the dwellings in the area were destroyed, and the provincial capital Rovaniemi was burned to the ground. All but two bridges in Lapland were blown up and roads mined^[3]. In Northern Norway which was at the same time invaded by Finnish forces in pursuit of the retreating German army in 1944, the Germans also undertook a scorched earth policy, destroying every building that could offer shelter, thus interposing a belt of "scorched earth" between themselves and the allies^[4].

In 1945, Adolf Hitler, desperately attempting to save Nazi Germany from the Allies and the Soviet Union, ordered Albert Speer, his armaments minister, to carry out the nationwide scorched earth policy, in what was termed the Nero Order. Speer refused the order and left Berlin.

The Australian government had a scorched earth policy as a worst case scenario during 1942. Due to the very real threat of invasion from Japan, the Australian government considered what land could be burnt and surrendered to possible Japanese invading forces.

Vietnam War

Throughout the 60s, the US employed herbicides (chiefly Agent Orange), as a part of its herbicidal warfare program Trail Dust to destroy crops and foliage in order to expose possible enemy hideouts and to deny food to the enemy. Napalm was also extensively used for such purposes.

Gulf War

During the Gulf War in 1990 when Iraqi forces were driven out of Kuwait they set oil wells on fire. This was done in the hope that it would "blind" allied aircraft and prevent them from bombing. However, most allied aircraft were equipped with all-weather and night-attack capabilities such as FLIR, and the smoke posed no impediment.

Recent uses

Efraín Ríos Montt utilized this tactic in the Guatemalan highlands in 1982-3, resulting in the death of approximately 10,000 indigenous peoples, and causing 100,000 to leave their homes.

Indonesia and pro-Indonesia militias used this tactic in their Timor-Leste Scorched Earth campaign around the time of East Timor's referendum for independence in 1999. The Sudanese government has used scorched earth tactics as a military strategy in Darfur.

Business

The scorched-earth defense is a form of risk arbitrage and anti-takeover strategy. When a target firm implements this provision, it will make an effort to make it unattractive to the hostile bidder. For example, a company may agree to liquidate or destroy all valuable assets, also called "crown jewels", or schedule debt repayment to be due immediately following a hostile takeover. In some cases, a scorched-earth defense may develop into an extreme anti-takeover defense called a "suicide pill".

See also

• Salting the earth
• Well poisoning
• Total war
• Soviet Winter
• The Harrying of the North
• Chevauchée

References