Re:U.S. Identifies First Coronavirus Case Without Outbreak Ties
by nl on Thursday February 27, 2020 @05:04PM
(#22438460)
The plan for European civilians since antiquity was basically life as usual, war was a matter of political power and resources, farms weren't burned and population killed since they were the goal of the war in the first place.
Total war may have been the exception, but farms and cities both suffered enormously during pre-20th century European warfare. Indeed the page you linked gave a bunch of examples of total destruction prior to the 20th century.
Outside those examples, most warfare then relied on looting farms for supplies (including seed crops)[1]. Indeed there was a whole technique of warfare called Chevauchée which relied on this before the 14th century:
A chevauchée [..] was a raiding method of medieval warfare for weakening the enemy, primarily by burning and pillaging enemy territory in order to reduce the productivity of a region, as opposed to siege warfare or wars of conquest... The chevauchée has gained recognition for its use during the Hundred Years' War between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France. It was not a new tactic and had been used many times before; for example, William the Conqueror had used the tactic before the Battle of Hastings to encourage Harold to engage in a battle.[2]
Total war may have been the exception, but farms and cities both suffered enormously during pre-20th century European warfare. Indeed the page you linked gave a bunch of examples of total destruction prior to the 20th century.
Outside those examples, most warfare then relied on looting farms for supplies (including seed crops)[1]. Indeed there was a whole technique of warfare called Chevauchée which relied on this before the 14th century:
A chevauchée [..] was a raiding method of medieval warfare for weakening the enemy, primarily by burning and pillaging enemy territory in order to reduce the productivity of a region, as opposed to siege warfare or wars of conquest... The chevauchée has gained recognition for its use during the Hundred Years' War between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France. It was not a new tactic and had been used many times before; for example, William the Conqueror had used the tactic before the Battle of Hastings to encourage Harold to engage in a battle.[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_warfare#Supplies_and_...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevauchée