10-25-2011, 12:52 PM
I ran through Victor Davis Hanson’s arguments. This is specifically about the Peloponnesian War, but some of the ideas could be applied to the tactic generally.
1) In his personal experiments with walnut, apricot, peach, almond, plum, and persimmon trees, he found it was difficult to kill them or burn them. Olive trees were the hardest of all.
2) Vines and trees regrow quickly. Thucydides pointed out that the Spartans had to recut those trees and vines “that had grown up again” from their raids several years previously.
3) He suggests that the Greek formulaic phrase “ravaging the land (deountes / temnontes ten gen)” probably meant “they attacked, but could not easily destroy the land.”
4) Along similar lines, the idea of the importance of land may have been a cultural trope of sorts. Aporthetos, or “Unplundered” was a word to reflect almost religious pride in land that had been untouched. (So perhaps the literary sources that describe scorched earth campaigns are not entirely reliable? He doesn’t say this, from what I remember, but it seems to be implicit.)
5) Stalks of grain are often greener than they look, so fields are difficult to burn.
6) An invading army trying to burn trees and crops might be harassed by raiders, making a difficult endeavour even more problematic.
7) A scorched earth campaign might have a goal of inducing the attacked people to come out and fight, not simply destroy an agricultural livelihood. Pericles pointed this out, saying that trees and vines regrow but people do not.
8 ) The agricultural devastation did not work. Neither Athens, nor Sparta, which had its own raids to deal with, sued for peace.
1) In his personal experiments with walnut, apricot, peach, almond, plum, and persimmon trees, he found it was difficult to kill them or burn them. Olive trees were the hardest of all.
2) Vines and trees regrow quickly. Thucydides pointed out that the Spartans had to recut those trees and vines “that had grown up again” from their raids several years previously.
3) He suggests that the Greek formulaic phrase “ravaging the land (deountes / temnontes ten gen)” probably meant “they attacked, but could not easily destroy the land.”
4) Along similar lines, the idea of the importance of land may have been a cultural trope of sorts. Aporthetos, or “Unplundered” was a word to reflect almost religious pride in land that had been untouched. (So perhaps the literary sources that describe scorched earth campaigns are not entirely reliable? He doesn’t say this, from what I remember, but it seems to be implicit.)
5) Stalks of grain are often greener than they look, so fields are difficult to burn.
6) An invading army trying to burn trees and crops might be harassed by raiders, making a difficult endeavour even more problematic.
7) A scorched earth campaign might have a goal of inducing the attacked people to come out and fight, not simply destroy an agricultural livelihood. Pericles pointed this out, saying that trees and vines regrow but people do not.
8 ) The agricultural devastation did not work. Neither Athens, nor Sparta, which had its own raids to deal with, sued for peace.
David J. Cord
www.davidcord.com
www.davidcord.com