Scorched earth: how useful?

[Epictetus]

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.

[Theodosius the Great]

Victor Davis Hanson has suggested that it wasn’t very useful during the Peloponnesian War. He says that it is difficult to kill olive orchards and vineyards, and those cut grow back quickly. He also suggests that it is hard to burn a field of grain, unless conditions are exactly right.

Nicholas Sekunda seems to agree with VDH but there's a critical detail that's been unmentioned. He writes that during the Peloponnesian War if one side decided to keep hiding behind city walls to avoid engaging in battle year after year then the hope was that the cumulative damage from the annual burning of the enemies crops would force him to fight. One session of devastation alone wouldn't be effective in this particular war.

Sekunda also writes that in southern Greece the crops ripen "significantly earlier" than in northern Greece. This was one permanent advantage, he says, which allowed the Spartans to gather in their cops and then invade Attica before the Athenians could harvest theirs.

He also acknowledges VDH's critism of the theory that the "strategy of devastation" doesn't fully explain what happened in Greek hoplite warfare given the practical difficulties in carrying it out and the rarity of pitched battles. [Osprey book, Greek Hoplite 480-323 BC, pages 45-49]

~Theo

[Sardaukar]

Well...I'd say that scorched earth, when used offensively, was weapon against morale of enemy and less against their capability to fight.

1. It'd show population that they are not safe from attack
2. It'd reduce the prestige of ruler, showing that he/she was unable to protect the population from enemy.

It is bit similar to what Romans did when invading Parthia, concentrating to invade cities instead of trying to force very fluid enemy army into pitched battle. Against tribal armies, scorched earth might actually force tribe/nation to accept pitched battle for above reasons.

When used defensively (like Vercingetorix did vs. Caesar), it could have also big effect on invading army's capability to supply itself.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Exactly Mika,
and also what gave fuel to the arguments against Pericles Policy of sitting out the seige when the Spartans were despoiling the surrounding farmlands under the noses of the Athenians on the Walls.

[ValentinianVictrix]

Whilst respecting Hanson has experience with growing olive tree's and vines, he does appear to state that they do take at least a few years to produce fruits once burnt or cut down. This of course means that those agricultural societies that rely on an income from these food stuffs suffer terribly, so its not only a tool to reduce an area's food production, it also affects the economy.

[Macedon]

Do not forget the strategy used to shed doubt on the loyalty of certain opponents. Often, an invading force would on purpose leave certain lands intact, so that their lord would be considered a traitor.

[alexander the great]

It really depends on how much time you have to "scorch the earth" if you know what I mean. In the Civil War, on Sherman's march when the confederates tried to scorch the earth they didn't have much time and it didn't work very well because of that. But on the other hand, when Napoleon came into Russia, the Russians had a lot of time and it worked so well that Napoleon's Grand Armee was obliterated and virtually destroyed.