Question, Ancient Greece and Rome is the farthest thing from my area of historical expertise and so I have absolutely no evidence to support this but I just wanted to know if this is wrong or right. I was under the impression that Athens was abandoned by the Athenians in the persian wars rather than submit to a siege, is that right or was it actually besieged by the persians with a greek force within it?
platae was not a siege, it was fought near the town of platae on a bumpy, rocky grassland and was between 100,000 greeks lead by the 40,000 spartans against approximately 250,000 persians who got smashed by the greeks as usual
@lindybeige oh, yes i think your correct, i read something years ago about ancient warfare and battles and sieges and it did mention platae but i cant really remember.
Is there some historically accurate movie you can recommend? Not necessarily about wars (well, if it has one, better yet). Seems like every fantasy/medieval movie we see on theaters is just a pile of rubbish from the perspective of historical accuracy.
Naturally, sieges has been the dominant form of warfare - wars were fought over land and natural resources; more specifically, the key cities and infrastructure from which control of said resources could be maintained. Slaughtering opponents wouldn't do you much good in the long run, except in the bard's tales and hymns, which could be fabricated for good measure anyway...
I heard a medieval expert once say (IIRC on "In Our Time", Radio 4) that knights/commanders also tried to avoid battles because it was felt that victory was at least partly decided by God - i.e. as a kind of trial by combat as to which side was most righteous.
As most powerful fighting men at the time knew their lives and conduct were anything but entirely virtuous, they weren't too eager to test God's judgement, and so avoided field battles.
Conversely, if you know your enemy has a standing army in the field it becomes very dangerous to siege coz he'll know where you are but you won't know where he is - sieges can effectively pin down your army. In fact, many fortifications were built with this purpose in mind.
Another point regarding sieges: the frequency of sieges has a lot to do with army mobilization, both yours and the enemy's.
In a feudal society there were no standing armies. Thus, it took time to raise an army sufficient to threaten an enemy army and thus there was a large window of opportunity for sieges and extended raids (see Sherman's March to the Sea).
This is a fine point. If you look at the Civil War of Caesar and Pompey there's a whole lot of just trying to outmanoeuvre each other and taking strategically and tactically advantageous positions. Though I figure that if you've got two opposing factions with a sizeable army, at some point there's bound to be a field battle because you're not going to want to scatter your troops around a lot and en masse they're going to starve if positioned in one place and surrounded.
This once again made me wonder how high casualties were in such battles. Hanibal is famous for completely annihilating enemy armies, but he got them completely cornered with no way to escape.
If you know you lost, why keep fighting to the death? And if the enemy wants to surrender or flee, why get in close combat with people who have nothing left to loose?
After all, a commander has to keep his troops alive after the battle.
@yourlitlesister Stalingrad was fairly famous. The war in Libya happening now has all been about taking towns and cities. I haven't heard about any battles in the field, but then not much news about military operations is getting out.
@lindybeige Another recent one was the siege of Sarajevo from 92 to 96.
I'd debate whether or not most of the fighting in Libya was actual siege warfare or just battles that happened to take place in urban centers due to the limited mobility of the loyalist forces outside of civilian centers. The attack on Sirte probably qualifies since the NTC forces were forced to actually invest the city for an extended period.
@imperialus11 Yes, the cities were not fortified much on the outside edges, but cities, as the Germans found out in Stalingrad, function in modern warfare much like fortresses in other ways.
Wanna clarify a point touched in the vid. An inferior army in the field can simply refuse battle, which lead to inconclusive campaigns of maneuver.
But in the case of sieges the defenders cannot simply leave the fortification and thus are forced to defend it. Interestingly enough, the few cases of hand-to-hand combat during the Industrial Age revolved around fortifications as well.
When I first saw this video in the list, I misread it as "A point about sledges." I thought it was going to be about the silly way war hammers are portrayed in fantasy (as the fantasy equivalent of the ten pound sledge.) You should do a video about that.
Good point. Warfare during much of the Middle Ages were largely dominated by sieges, and oftentimes sieges were a lot more profitable compared to field battles. The case of Roger II of Sicily vs Count Ranulf was a good example. During their conflict, Ranulf defeated Roger three times in great pitched battles, yet none of these victories yielded him any good. Roger was able to stage a comeback from each of these defeats and reconquer much of his old territories through, guess what, sieges.
Hmm, I guess there were stages in history when sieges were much less common, such as the Napoleonic Wars. Still even then the Peninsular Theater saw an awful lot of sieges, mostly I think because of the more constrained space between the two armies, as well as the good match up in strength between the opposing forces, making both sides less eager to accept major battles, unless they believe the advantage to be truly theirs. Napoleon seemed to have no such problem.
@HaNsWiDjAjA There were quite a lot of sieges in Germany during the napoleonic wars, though. I think they just don't get mentioned much because they didn't tend to last very long.
If I'm not deceived, the only fortress that didn't fall when the French laid siege on it, was that of Graz.
My book says this about the Normans ''Still, in two generations the vikings had fully merged into french society. They were christians, spoke french and had completely forgotten their Scandinavian habbits'' What do you say about that? The book is called ''Barbarian invasions'' by Thomas J. Craughwell.
@jaskamakkara Yes, most became Christians, at least nominally, and since the mothers were mostly speakers of a language related to French, the children ended up with this as their mother tongue. That still does not make them French, though.
@lindybeige The duke of Normandy was a vassal of the French king, though. One of the French points in the Hundred Years' War was that a foreign king had no business also being a French vassal.
And they were certainly French enough to keep speaking French after taking England. Edward III (the guy who started the 100 years war) was reputedly the first post-1066 English king who spoke English. All the Norman nobles you see in Robin Hood adaptations historically spoke French.
@lindybeige And now that I'm talking about the Hundred Years' War, I always wondered how it was possible that England won all the major battles, yet lost the war. The answer is simple: it's only the sieges that really matter.
So why do we focus more on battles? Because sieges are boring. Battles are exciting. How many sieges have you re-enacted? (Note though that in the 80 Years' War, the most famous battles are actually sieges.)
@mcvos Yes, the French won the war with sieges, and new weaponry: improved cannon. Re-enacting sieges is rare because castles are expensive props to make.
What about storming the besieged city/castle? How (un)common was that? I'd guess it was also quite rare, given the risks for the attacker and them being much more comfortable starving the defenders out. But for instance Alexander's conquests were quite quick and he obviously didn't sit around every besieged city for six months.
@HerrSchnitzel1911 Well, 'storming' was quite common if you count violent attacks made immediately after the construction of massive siege-works. A common method was to built a massive ramp and use this to assault over the walls. Storming without such laborious preparation was an act of desperation.
in azincourt, the french army barred the way to the coast. and in crecy, they pursued the english army. i'm sure the english didn't agree that a battle would be nice. they were forced into it. but you make an interesting point about sieges. especially since strongholds would have given you a strategic advantage.
@Keasri Can you think of an example of a modern battle in which two mobile field armies met? Modern warfare is mostly attacker versus defender, along a front.
@Keasri Er... that is 'conventional' warfare between similar sides. Actually, most warfare as experienced by developed nations lately has been very asymmetrical - more like peace-keeper versus terrorist.
William the conqueror was in fact a Francisized Norseman. He spoke a form of French and his people adopted Frankish culture and mixed extensively with the local populace. If you wanted to argue that he is not French since his ancestors came from Norway, then I can also argue that the English victories at Crecy and Agincourt were against the Germanic elite of France and not a victory against Frenchmen. Obviously this doesnt make sense.
So true so many sieges were at that time and so fiew battles. But i think when you planning to lay siege to a castle, you make an army and must be rdy to take on another army that might want to help castle under siege. Isnt it so that you take the risk with going into siege that you migh get into a fieldbattle? A raided nation doesent sit back and wait till someone burns your land and waits in a city till he gets there. To the decisive fieldbattles i would add: Mohi, Lechfield, Marchfeld...
As far as I know, the Normans who conquered GB were quite "frenchised". Of course the normandie was an independant "state" but they spoke the french language and were culturally much closer to the french than to the norwegians.
When you talk about Agincourt being a decisive battle, even that battle, was a battle of necessity, the plan was to make take places by siege and then have lots of skirmishing raids to show why people should pledge allegiance to the Plantagenet Crown.
Unfortunately, harfleur held out longer than anticipated, at least, from what I can gather.
I agree on this point. I have been listening to a great roman history podcast. When Hannibal was running around the boot of Italy, he only faced the Romans three times. The rest of the time He was sieging cities until they switched sides, and then when he moved to the next city the Romans came in and laid siege to the same city until they switched back to the Roman side. Elephants didn't even play that big a part. Turns out, fire scares them, and they turn and trample the Carthaganians.
Robert E. Lee knew, historically, just how bad news sieges were for a weaker army, and tried to avoid them. Speaking of Grant's '64 campaign, he said that if it became a siege, it would just be a matter of time. Lee liked fighting battles.
Which, in retrospect, was not all that smart, as Lee had this tendency to lose an even higher proportion of men than his enemies. Had the war been lost in '62 instead of '65 the vast majority of the young men of the South would've gone home vertical.
The fact is that battle are just more interesting than sieges, you don't see too many siege reenactments, do you? There's an old saying "The greater part of being a soldier is waiting" and it is very true. The funny thing is, all that waiting is probably what killed a lot of them since they were in one place for a long period of time in poor shelter and lousy hygiene... disease kills!
@Torome86 : Good point there. In the 1863 Vicksburg campaign, Grant ordered the initial assaults with that in the back of his head- that standing in one spot in the summer months in Mississippi might be disastrous to his army.
The only reason I would think you would fight a battle instead of a siege is when you're confident that your field army can defeat another field army. Even then, it is true that defeating the enemy army in the field is less decisive then taking a city, but I would also say less costly. I imagine a siege is a much more desperate affair, especially for the defenders of a city. Sieges should be the goal of standing armies, though, not battles, as the enemy can always retreat and attack you later.
i can think of reasons to fight a battle with out knowing you are going to win persay. If you mean win as in force them to fall back i know of lots of times when a battle was fought with out any hope of doing that. if you mean doing something you need to even if you are run off i dont know why you would fight.
Don't castles have strong defense. It seams like fighting at home should be an advantage seeing as u have a castle. If I was a king I would have a huge strong castle that you'd have 2 be crazy 2 fight.
@lindybeige That's the thing isn't it? The defender can't choose when he has to defend his castle, an attacker chooses when he attacks, and usually do so when he's ready.
@44SCB But if you can't grow your own food in there and have a well, it's only a matter of time before you give up without a shot being fired. From a bow, of course. Well, since it's a siege, a crossbow. A fat lot of good your castle has done you. Assuming I can pay my soldiers to stick around for the 3 years required to starve you out. Not that I need to, since if you're holed up in there, I can go pillaging your lands and conquering your towns. Stay in your castle as long as you want.
what you said about william 1st/conquorer/bastard was kinna true, most of his subjigation of england was done by either capturing or building strongholds/forts ... except for his subjigation of the north, where he simply marched his army through yorkshire/lancashire/cumbria/etc and murdered anything he encountered, so not all of his subjication was siege-warfar!
people tend to get confuse because of hollywood movies. as you said, it is easy to win if you take the strategic strongholds of your enemy.althought, depending on the city(in my humble opinion), it woudl take a little while.
Btw, I must say, please... PLEASE don't begin scripting your videos. They are funny and witty and informative just as they are, and you also get to talk about more than one point per vid.
Absolutely great to have you back. Missed your points. Anyhow on topic: you're probably right about most things. However the point about field battles and only doing them when you think you're going to win. You say you have to be mad to just go in for a fight but I recon medieval honor and misguided idea of nobility and hatered might also factor into it alot. Like crecy for example. I guess it's a form of madness :)
Lovely, at last more ramblings on historical warfare. As always, it's strangely been a pleasure watching you rant on about great big castles, military equipment and on the French got stuffed.
The investment in defensive architecture made siege warfare a necessity. It was too expensive to replace fortifications battered to bits, never mind the cost of battering them to bits. Win a siege, and you face neither cost.
Not everything about the use of violence is actual violence; much of the use of force is about coercion.
@brucetheviking i think mike loades has taken that spot what ive seen of him is spectacular and has a degree of thouroughness that you rarely see
the only exception was two shows one, called 'perfect weapon', the other, a series called 'secrets of the vikings' both brilliant, and the weapons testing was immaculate (in the viking one, they test THREE types of riveted maille, and in the most historically likely style, they test with and without a paddded undercoat)
@ElSabio0004 "Walled cities"? So besiege everything else first? I wonder about this. Perhaps one could also say do not fight wars unless they cannot be avoided. This is a bit like saying in a driving lesson "Do not crash headlong into on-coming cars unless this cannot be avoided." Is it wisdom or just stating the obvious? Does Sun Tsu say that battles must always be fought in preference to sieges unless this cannot be avoided?
@lindybeige About Sun Tzu and the walled cities, he might be saying that one should strive to end the war as quickly as possible, and eliminate the opponents ability to besiege one's own cities by winning a decisive battle or interfering the enemy's line of supply. Maybe.
@lindybeige In context, Sun Tzu assumes that you are already invading of another ruler's territory, so he's advising you to pass by cities and drawn your enemy's forces out of the city to a place of your choosing. To seige a city is a big undertaking. You must transport supplies from home to the city over long periods of time, plus you can only forage so much without leaving the seige. Reading the Art of War makes it seem that seiges weren't as common in China as you're saying about the West.
@ElSabio0004 bypassing cities and strong points risk sending you deep inside enemy territory, being cut off from all sides. No supplies is even worse than transporting supplies. Sun Tzu did give advice of stealing supplies from the enemies; which typically in cities or enemy camp.
Anyway, I read Sun Tzu and this is what I get: Chinese generals fight wars for war sake. "Let's have an epic battle here". The reason I say this is because very little is devoted to the minute details of training ...
@ElSabio0004 ... people, administering them, etc ... Art of War is highly concerned with how to fight on the strategy level: how to move you armies, etc ... If you read Byzantine manuals like Strategikon of Marice, Taktika of Leo the Wise, they are devote quite a large part on training people (as by Roman tradition). One thing you note is pitched battles should be avoided. You may destroy the enemy but you lose men; they will come back or another enemy will follow as the first fell.
@ElSabio0004 you should therefore skirmish them, uses light cavalry, horse archers attacking them. Starve them out by capturing their supplies, kill their foragers, ambush them, etc ... As a last resort, fight a battle. In case of a siege: you surround them, devastate the country side, cut of supplies then starve them out.
BTW, Sun Tzu did advise the best way to defeat another is by using your prestige, second best is by diplomacy, then the third best is to fight. The same thing in Byzantine.
@ElSabio0004 the actual text is "The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided. The preparation of mantlets, movable shelters, and various implements of war, will take up three whole months; and the piling up of mounds over against the walls will take three months more."
Why would the Diadochi, for example, fight lots of sieges when the core of their armies were phalanxes?
Also, why would you lose more men in battles? Storming walls would result in vastly more casulties I would imagine. You other options are to use siege engines or starvation. Siege engines weren't nearly as common in antiquity as they were in the middle ages so that option isn't really viable. That leaves starvation; which would require good logistics and foraging skills.
@sakarauka1 Men in the phalanx are men. In a siege they are a resource. They can dig and build things. Active sieges tended to be short, so starvation was not an issue. The ancients often had far better siege equipment than the medievals. Creating a breach needn't cost many men, and once in, an invading and almost always out-numbering army quickly gets a victory.
@lindybeige I've heard a saying that one should only attempt to storm a walled city once your own troops outnumber the defenders 10 to 1. Seems reasonable, since a guaranteed, easy victory is the best kind of victory.
@lindybeige You make sieges sound very easy. If this was in fact the case, Hannibal would have marched on Rome after Cannae given that Rome had lost its only standing army outside of Spain.
Also what about the Siege of Syracsue which took 2 years and was only eventually won through treachery; or the Siege of Carthage in 150BC which lasted 2-3 years despite multiple attempts to assault the walls directly.
@sakarauka1 Yes, there are a few famous examples of long sieges. As for Hannibal's hesitation, that has baffled historians ever since. Even the Romans at the time could not explain why he didn't take Rome. Certainly the Romans expected him to.
While I agree with what you say in the video I was just wondering, wouldn't the defenders eventually have to take to the field to drive the invading forces from their lands or was it more a matter of hoping the invaders ran out of resources to stay on campaign before they took the town/castle?
Makes a certain amount of sense now that I think about it. In any conflict, one side is weaker or stands to gain by delays, hunkering down in a fortification is logical.
Open battle can happen if both sides are confident, or because one side has been deceived or maneuvered into a disadvantadge. When I was a child I used to think it was impossible to get struck by a sword, because you could just move your own sword in the way! Alas, it's not so simple.
Very interesting as always :) I liked that you went adrift on the topic of medieval languages - Maybe I should make a video about that topic myself, so many horrible misconceptions around there...
In some cases wars were really fought around battles or with very short sieges - in the early 100 years war it was mainly: prepare an army in England, then go about plundering and only occasionally taking a town or castle, if possible to do so by surprise.. and this tactic weakened France greatly (in addition to making later sieges impossible because the countryside was exhausted)
I thought you'd given up, Lloyd! Interesting video, as usual. I'd add that battles were usually attempts to block an invading army from plundering an area or to prevent/break a siege. The Italian Wars were mostly sieges; condottieri rarely engaged an enemy unless they were certain of victory. Most military activities of the period were investments and manoeuvres to avoid battle. The Dutch Revolt is a good example due to Spanish superiority on the battlefield. Also, 30 Years War. Regards!
Makes sense...The whole point of war is usually to take assets...so it makes sense that at the end of every army's journey was a siege for the city they were after. I would assume that most field battles were were interceptions to protect the city.
Sun Tzu deplored sieges though. He thought they were expensive, drawn-out and a poor idea.
@wesmatron Well, chinese fortifications are different from western forts. Theyre mosty just walls sorrounding a city but they tend to be thicker and bigger than most euopean walls. I'd compared it to Constantinople walls. WJust walls and towers but very well fortified.
Well, if the armies are trying to gain an advantageous position by maneuvering, then you could argue that maneuvering was a part of warfare. Battles, however, would be secondary, I agree.
You have finally returned my friend! I am glad to see you well and talking about ancient and medieval history. I have used your videos in many a discussion, even in the ARMA forums, where usually people know their stuff pretty well! I would be glad if you made a list of good reading material, i'll be sure to buy the books next time I visit England.
Then Hannibal must be a pretty singally example... but, you are right, why people did hide in massive castles was because of the enemy might run out of supply... right?
a good "point about" , thanks :) however, for the siege to be a more usual type of warfare than battles, the fighting factions will have to 1. be able to build proper defenses, and 2. have the machines to tear those back down again. This is true for most of the military history. The greeks however, at least before 500BC, did not much like sieges, because they lacked siege engines and had to starve the defender out (then the attacker usually starve just as much).
Sometimes one enters into battle, not with the expectation of victory (Though for the sake of your command, You Lie Like A Persian Rug!) but with the expectation that this battle is your best bet of getting out with your hide more or less intact and free of ransom debt.
I'll agree with your valuation of sieges, with the provision that the skirmishes and the predations of the countryside were to be factored in. But this is nitpicking at your quite valid arguments !
I had written an entire post about Normans not being French Vikings when you said they were from 'Scandinavia' but you already rectified that before I hit send. :D Most of what I had typed, in fact, you even said. Funnily enough, I read about the difference between a real 'skirmish' and a pitched battle not too long ago. After that you sort of said what I was thinking, but in a more amusing way.
I'd have to agree that sieges are a much more "calculable risk" than land battles, as its also an easy tactic to draw out enemies to force them to fight on your own terms. But siege battles tend to be long and expensive, as you'd need engineers, sappers, siege weapons and such. I think most sieges would last around a year or two, since foraging is quite common in maintaining food supplies.
@lindybeige Yea i don't refute the fact that seige could end in days. But i don't think most sieges last less than a week. On average i think sieges last around a couple weeks to months. And it also depends on the era too doesn't it? Sieges in Ancient or Medieval times could last longer because of better fortifications rather than Dark Age Siege warfare.
I think battles were more emphasized in history books for two reasons:
1. "GLORY AND BLOOD EPIC CHARGE GRRR" is more poetic than "Yeah, the enemy's still outside. Dang, I sure am hungry."
2. I think that th average battle was more decisive than the average siege, for the potential manpower loss and commitment requirement that you mentioned. Also, while most sieges were small affairs, the grand ones like Constantinople and Vienna are given the recognition they deserve.
@MatthiasVargas Many battles decided nothing. The defeated enemy ran away, licked its wounds, and tried again later. Taking a city by siege is utterly decisive - you get the city, and all its people and resources, defences, position, administration, gold, the lot.
@lindybeige Yes, but for every major city captured via siege, you had about 300 little towns or 15 foot tall castles captured via siege. Which is why I think that your average battle was more decisive than your average siege.
Also, would you say that gunpowder, with it's wall-shattering potential, made battles more frequent than in previous ages, or did sieges still hold preeminence at the time of its widespread use?
@MatthiasVargas Sieges were still the main thing in the 17th C - look at all those star forts, and the history of the Thirty Years War. Look too at the actions in Canada between British and French. Few battles, many sieges.
@lindybeige ill disagree saying battles were lmore risky, ok they were risky,
but the impression i repeatedly get is that seiges are often very espensive affairs. with a risk your own army will be slowly bled by disease and desertions as they try and pound or starve , when assult doesnt work.
not all of them obviously. since the most problematic were the big big cities.
though interestingly i read that it was largely fort design that made western europeans more inured to suleymans armies
First: very informative. Second, when you say battles, I think you are referring specifically to "pitched" battle. Although it is probably true that pitched field battles were rare, I would think that it would be common for a maneuvering force to have engaged or have been engaged on their way to a siege.
Medieval 2 Total War: Darth mod (for the added realism)
I very quickly found out that battles on open ground were much less frequent than battles in and around settlements; and in fact less effective. A siege well done could have a very decisive victory as on open ground it almost always turned into a meat grinder.
that makes sense. but what about before the feudal era. sun tzu writes about gurella raids. and the only thing he bring up bout seiges is that one have double the amount of men than the beseiged
It took you seven minutes to make a simple point, but you made a lot of other good points as well. It is staggering to me how anyone with even a halfway working sense of logic can think that field battles were more common (and often more important) than sieges. If nothing else drives this point home, look at the sophistication and variety of siege engines. If sieges were a secondary aspect of warfare, would the time, money, material and manpower have been devoted to developing and building them?
Technically speaking, isn't a siege also considered as a battle, just not one in the open field?
malkrow21 1 week ago
Question, Ancient Greece and Rome is the farthest thing from my area of historical expertise and so I have absolutely no evidence to support this but I just wanted to know if this is wrong or right. I was under the impression that Athens was abandoned by the Athenians in the persian wars rather than submit to a siege, is that right or was it actually besieged by the persians with a greek force within it?
minigun20 2 weeks ago
@minigun20 Athens was indeed largely abandoned, yes. Some die-hards held out on the Acropolis for a while.
lindybeige 2 weeks ago
platae was not a siege, it was fought near the town of platae on a bumpy, rocky grassland and was between 100,000 greeks lead by the 40,000 spartans against approximately 250,000 persians who got smashed by the greeks as usual
loadedClownZ 1 month ago
@loadedClownZ There was a siege of Platea in the Peleponnesian War.
lindybeige 1 month ago
@lindybeige oh, yes i think your correct, i read something years ago about ancient warfare and battles and sieges and it did mention platae but i cant really remember.
loadedClownZ 1 month ago
How ironic is it that most medieval RTS games, which almost all show battles, are less accurate than lego?
helios5868 1 month ago
@helios5868
Actually in Medieval 2 Total War when I play a campaign for every one battle I fight about 4 or 5 sieges though.
sirdidymus62 1 month ago
that was actualy a pretty decent Connery impression
HazelArchery 1 month ago
I like this one a lot
TheWhoaDude 3 months ago
Is there some historically accurate movie you can recommend? Not necessarily about wars (well, if it has one, better yet). Seems like every fantasy/medieval movie we see on theaters is just a pile of rubbish from the perspective of historical accuracy.
micheletoscan 3 months ago
Naturally, sieges has been the dominant form of warfare - wars were fought over land and natural resources; more specifically, the key cities and infrastructure from which control of said resources could be maintained. Slaughtering opponents wouldn't do you much good in the long run, except in the bard's tales and hymns, which could be fabricated for good measure anyway...
Taraquin 3 months ago
A point about "A point about sieges":
I heard a medieval expert once say (IIRC on "In Our Time", Radio 4) that knights/commanders also tried to avoid battles because it was felt that victory was at least partly decided by God - i.e. as a kind of trial by combat as to which side was most righteous.
As most powerful fighting men at the time knew their lives and conduct were anything but entirely virtuous, they weren't too eager to test God's judgement, and so avoided field battles.
crapatev 3 months ago
Conversely, if you know your enemy has a standing army in the field it becomes very dangerous to siege coz he'll know where you are but you won't know where he is - sieges can effectively pin down your army. In fact, many fortifications were built with this purpose in mind.
Bankstercide 3 months ago
Another point regarding sieges: the frequency of sieges has a lot to do with army mobilization, both yours and the enemy's.
In a feudal society there were no standing armies. Thus, it took time to raise an army sufficient to threaten an enemy army and thus there was a large window of opportunity for sieges and extended raids (see Sherman's March to the Sea).
Bankstercide 3 months ago
This is a fine point. If you look at the Civil War of Caesar and Pompey there's a whole lot of just trying to outmanoeuvre each other and taking strategically and tactically advantageous positions. Though I figure that if you've got two opposing factions with a sizeable army, at some point there's bound to be a field battle because you're not going to want to scatter your troops around a lot and en masse they're going to starve if positioned in one place and surrounded.
admiralaztec 4 months ago
This once again made me wonder how high casualties were in such battles. Hanibal is famous for completely annihilating enemy armies, but he got them completely cornered with no way to escape.
If you know you lost, why keep fighting to the death? And if the enemy wants to surrender or flee, why get in close combat with people who have nothing left to loose?
After all, a commander has to keep his troops alive after the battle.
Yora21 4 months ago
@Yora21 Many of the people running were on foot, and many of those pursuing were on horses.
lindybeige 4 months ago
being besieged and otherwise do nothing is the perfect way to lose the war. You have to raise an army eventually.
SloveintzWend 4 months ago
so what killed sieges, or do they still take place? if they are in fact dead, when was the last one?
yourlitlesister 4 months ago
@yourlitlesister Stalingrad was fairly famous. The war in Libya happening now has all been about taking towns and cities. I haven't heard about any battles in the field, but then not much news about military operations is getting out.
lindybeige 4 months ago 2
@lindybeige Another recent one was the siege of Sarajevo from 92 to 96.
I'd debate whether or not most of the fighting in Libya was actual siege warfare or just battles that happened to take place in urban centers due to the limited mobility of the loyalist forces outside of civilian centers. The attack on Sirte probably qualifies since the NTC forces were forced to actually invest the city for an extended period.
imperialus11 4 months ago
@imperialus11 Yes, the cities were not fortified much on the outside edges, but cities, as the Germans found out in Stalingrad, function in modern warfare much like fortresses in other ways.
lindybeige 4 months ago
Wanna clarify a point touched in the vid. An inferior army in the field can simply refuse battle, which lead to inconclusive campaigns of maneuver.
But in the case of sieges the defenders cannot simply leave the fortification and thus are forced to defend it. Interestingly enough, the few cases of hand-to-hand combat during the Industrial Age revolved around fortifications as well.
Bankstercide 5 months ago
When I first saw this video in the list, I misread it as "A point about sledges." I thought it was going to be about the silly way war hammers are portrayed in fantasy (as the fantasy equivalent of the ten pound sledge.) You should do a video about that.
djp928 5 months ago
Good point. Warfare during much of the Middle Ages were largely dominated by sieges, and oftentimes sieges were a lot more profitable compared to field battles. The case of Roger II of Sicily vs Count Ranulf was a good example. During their conflict, Ranulf defeated Roger three times in great pitched battles, yet none of these victories yielded him any good. Roger was able to stage a comeback from each of these defeats and reconquer much of his old territories through, guess what, sieges.
HaNsWiDjAjA 5 months ago
We're there sieges during the Wars Of The Roses?
tarkin56 6 months ago
@tarkin56 Plenty.
lindybeige 6 months ago
Hmm, I guess there were stages in history when sieges were much less common, such as the Napoleonic Wars. Still even then the Peninsular Theater saw an awful lot of sieges, mostly I think because of the more constrained space between the two armies, as well as the good match up in strength between the opposing forces, making both sides less eager to accept major battles, unless they believe the advantage to be truly theirs. Napoleon seemed to have no such problem.
HaNsWiDjAjA 7 months ago
@HaNsWiDjAjA There were quite a lot of sieges in Germany during the napoleonic wars, though. I think they just don't get mentioned much because they didn't tend to last very long.
If I'm not deceived, the only fortress that didn't fall when the French laid siege on it, was that of Graz.
Timrath 6 months ago
My book says this about the Normans ''Still, in two generations the vikings had fully merged into french society. They were christians, spoke french and had completely forgotten their Scandinavian habbits'' What do you say about that? The book is called ''Barbarian invasions'' by Thomas J. Craughwell.
jaskamakkara 7 months ago
@jaskamakkara Yes, most became Christians, at least nominally, and since the mothers were mostly speakers of a language related to French, the children ended up with this as their mother tongue. That still does not make them French, though.
lindybeige 7 months ago
@lindybeige ''That still does not make them French, though.'' It doesn't.
jaskamakkara 7 months ago
@lindybeige The duke of Normandy was a vassal of the French king, though. One of the French points in the Hundred Years' War was that a foreign king had no business also being a French vassal.
And they were certainly French enough to keep speaking French after taking England. Edward III (the guy who started the 100 years war) was reputedly the first post-1066 English king who spoke English. All the Norman nobles you see in Robin Hood adaptations historically spoke French.
mcvos 4 months ago
@lindybeige And now that I'm talking about the Hundred Years' War, I always wondered how it was possible that England won all the major battles, yet lost the war. The answer is simple: it's only the sieges that really matter.
So why do we focus more on battles? Because sieges are boring. Battles are exciting. How many sieges have you re-enacted? (Note though that in the 80 Years' War, the most famous battles are actually sieges.)
mcvos 4 months ago
@mcvos Yes, the French won the war with sieges, and new weaponry: improved cannon. Re-enacting sieges is rare because castles are expensive props to make.
lindybeige 4 months ago
The way that I try to think of it is that battles are chiefly part of wars, while sieges make up the vast majority of conquests.
stickrpghjk 8 months ago
What about storming the besieged city/castle? How (un)common was that? I'd guess it was also quite rare, given the risks for the attacker and them being much more comfortable starving the defenders out. But for instance Alexander's conquests were quite quick and he obviously didn't sit around every besieged city for six months.
HerrSchnitzel1911 8 months ago
@HerrSchnitzel1911 Well, 'storming' was quite common if you count violent attacks made immediately after the construction of massive siege-works. A common method was to built a massive ramp and use this to assault over the walls. Storming without such laborious preparation was an act of desperation.
lindybeige 8 months ago
in azincourt, the french army barred the way to the coast. and in crecy, they pursued the english army. i'm sure the english didn't agree that a battle would be nice. they were forced into it. but you make an interesting point about sieges. especially since strongholds would have given you a strategic advantage.
ApollonPythios 8 months ago
Does sieges still exist in modern warfare? What sieges looks like when no one has walls or castles?
Keasri 9 months ago
@Keasri Can you think of an example of a modern battle in which two mobile field armies met? Modern warfare is mostly attacker versus defender, along a front.
lindybeige 9 months ago
@Keasri Er... that is 'conventional' warfare between similar sides. Actually, most warfare as experienced by developed nations lately has been very asymmetrical - more like peace-keeper versus terrorist.
lindybeige 9 months ago
@Keasri Research something about the "Siege of Sarajevo" during the Yugoslav wars. It is an example of the modern day sieges.
SloveintzWend 4 months ago
William the conqueror was in fact a Francisized Norseman. He spoke a form of French and his people adopted Frankish culture and mixed extensively with the local populace. If you wanted to argue that he is not French since his ancestors came from Norway, then I can also argue that the English victories at Crecy and Agincourt were against the Germanic elite of France and not a victory against Frenchmen. Obviously this doesnt make sense.
Kingofsomething87 9 months ago
So true so many sieges were at that time and so fiew battles. But i think when you planning to lay siege to a castle, you make an army and must be rdy to take on another army that might want to help castle under siege. Isnt it so that you take the risk with going into siege that you migh get into a fieldbattle? A raided nation doesent sit back and wait till someone burns your land and waits in a city till he gets there. To the decisive fieldbattles i would add: Mohi, Lechfield, Marchfeld...
kolotiti 10 months ago
As far as I know, the Normans who conquered GB were quite "frenchised". Of course the normandie was an independant "state" but they spoke the french language and were culturally much closer to the french than to the norwegians.
ZiePe 11 months ago
When you talk about Agincourt being a decisive battle, even that battle, was a battle of necessity, the plan was to make take places by siege and then have lots of skirmishing raids to show why people should pledge allegiance to the Plantagenet Crown.
Unfortunately, harfleur held out longer than anticipated, at least, from what I can gather.
TheBoyFromNorfolk 11 months ago
I agree on this point. I have been listening to a great roman history podcast. When Hannibal was running around the boot of Italy, he only faced the Romans three times. The rest of the time He was sieging cities until they switched sides, and then when he moved to the next city the Romans came in and laid siege to the same city until they switched back to the Roman side. Elephants didn't even play that big a part. Turns out, fire scares them, and they turn and trample the Carthaganians.
ohcaptain13 11 months ago
A Roman general who's name I cannot remember at the time once said, "The legions win more battles with their shovels than their swords."
And in Caesars conquest of Gaul, there was only I think three actual battles in the field where most the action was sieges.
amitten 11 months ago 8
Hey careful now, Patrick Stewart can hear everything.
zdkezios 11 months ago
Robert E. Lee knew, historically, just how bad news sieges were for a weaker army, and tried to avoid them. Speaking of Grant's '64 campaign, he said that if it became a siege, it would just be a matter of time. Lee liked fighting battles.
Which, in retrospect, was not all that smart, as Lee had this tendency to lose an even higher proportion of men than his enemies. Had the war been lost in '62 instead of '65 the vast majority of the young men of the South would've gone home vertical.
althesmith 11 months ago
Scripts are to Youtube what battles were to medieval warfare: quite rare.
Gilmaris 11 months ago
The fact is that battle are just more interesting than sieges, you don't see too many siege reenactments, do you? There's an old saying "The greater part of being a soldier is waiting" and it is very true. The funny thing is, all that waiting is probably what killed a lot of them since they were in one place for a long period of time in poor shelter and lousy hygiene... disease kills!
Torome86 1 year ago
@Torome86 : Good point there. In the 1863 Vicksburg campaign, Grant ordered the initial assaults with that in the back of his head- that standing in one spot in the summer months in Mississippi might be disastrous to his army.
althesmith 11 months ago
That's a cool sweater. Where'd you get it?
ATerribleScreenName 1 year ago
@ATerribleScreenName That one is twenty years old. It was a common and popular one at the time. It is Norwegian double-knit.
lindybeige 1 year ago
The only reason I would think you would fight a battle instead of a siege is when you're confident that your field army can defeat another field army. Even then, it is true that defeating the enemy army in the field is less decisive then taking a city, but I would also say less costly. I imagine a siege is a much more desperate affair, especially for the defenders of a city. Sieges should be the goal of standing armies, though, not battles, as the enemy can always retreat and attack you later.
000majorwinters000 1 year ago
i can think of reasons to fight a battle with out knowing you are going to win persay. If you mean win as in force them to fall back i know of lots of times when a battle was fought with out any hope of doing that. if you mean doing something you need to even if you are run off i dont know why you would fight.
kokofan50 1 year ago
Don't castles have strong defense. It seams like fighting at home should be an advantage seeing as u have a castle. If I was a king I would have a huge strong castle that you'd have 2 be crazy 2 fight.
44SCB 1 year ago
@44SCB Alas, an invading army has a lot of manpower, and can build a big ramp...
lindybeige 1 year ago
@lindybeige That's the thing isn't it? The defender can't choose when he has to defend his castle, an attacker chooses when he attacks, and usually do so when he's ready.
Setrus 9 months ago
@44SCB But if you can't grow your own food in there and have a well, it's only a matter of time before you give up without a shot being fired. From a bow, of course. Well, since it's a siege, a crossbow. A fat lot of good your castle has done you. Assuming I can pay my soldiers to stick around for the 3 years required to starve you out. Not that I need to, since if you're holed up in there, I can go pillaging your lands and conquering your towns. Stay in your castle as long as you want.
NoisemakerArrow 11 months ago
what you said about william 1st/conquorer/bastard was kinna true, most of his subjigation of england was done by either capturing or building strongholds/forts ... except for his subjigation of the north, where he simply marched his army through yorkshire/lancashire/cumbria/etc and murdered anything he encountered, so not all of his subjication was siege-warfar!
Tarantio1983 1 year ago
I love your ramblings.. Greetings from Norway
lukboda 1 year ago
Will all the history majors now have no other medium than YouTube through which to channel their knowledge?
TotalWarFilms 1 year ago
people tend to get confuse because of hollywood movies. as you said, it is easy to win if you take the strategic strongholds of your enemy.althought, depending on the city(in my humble opinion), it woudl take a little while.
mechupanlamonda 1 year ago
Brilliant video as always.
Nic sofa, too. :)
Btw, I must say, please... PLEASE don't begin scripting your videos. They are funny and witty and informative just as they are, and you also get to talk about more than one point per vid.
talknight2 1 year ago
Absolutely great to have you back. Missed your points. Anyhow on topic: you're probably right about most things. However the point about field battles and only doing them when you think you're going to win. You say you have to be mad to just go in for a fight but I recon medieval honor and misguided idea of nobility and hatered might also factor into it alot. Like crecy for example. I guess it's a form of madness :)
PsykoOps 1 year ago
Lovely, at last more ramblings on historical warfare. As always, it's strangely been a pleasure watching you rant on about great big castles, military equipment and on the French got stuffed.
/Berg
berg89dk 1 year ago
The investment in defensive architecture made siege warfare a necessity. It was too expensive to replace fortifications battered to bits, never mind the cost of battering them to bits. Win a siege, and you face neither cost.
Not everything about the use of violence is actual violence; much of the use of force is about coercion.
Polymarkos 1 year ago
Aha! I'll be honest, I have been waiting for this! ^^
MegaGlueman 1 year ago
SOMEONE put this guy on the telly! BBC where are you? no more boring history channel presenters get this guy ON NOW! hes great!
brucetheviking 1 year ago
@brucetheviking i think mike loades has taken that spot what ive seen of him is spectacular and has a degree of thouroughness that you rarely see
the only exception was two shows one, called 'perfect weapon', the other, a series called 'secrets of the vikings' both brilliant, and the weapons testing was immaculate (in the viking one, they test THREE types of riveted maille, and in the most historically likely style, they test with and without a paddded undercoat)
elgostine 1 year ago
"The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided." -Sun Tzu, The Art of War: Chapter 3, Paragraph 4
ElSabio0004 1 year ago
@ElSabio0004 "Walled cities"? So besiege everything else first? I wonder about this. Perhaps one could also say do not fight wars unless they cannot be avoided. This is a bit like saying in a driving lesson "Do not crash headlong into on-coming cars unless this cannot be avoided." Is it wisdom or just stating the obvious? Does Sun Tsu say that battles must always be fought in preference to sieges unless this cannot be avoided?
lindybeige 1 year ago
@lindybeige About Sun Tzu and the walled cities, he might be saying that one should strive to end the war as quickly as possible, and eliminate the opponents ability to besiege one's own cities by winning a decisive battle or interfering the enemy's line of supply. Maybe.
Zeedox 1 year ago
@lindybeige In context, Sun Tzu assumes that you are already invading of another ruler's territory, so he's advising you to pass by cities and drawn your enemy's forces out of the city to a place of your choosing. To seige a city is a big undertaking. You must transport supplies from home to the city over long periods of time, plus you can only forage so much without leaving the seige. Reading the Art of War makes it seem that seiges weren't as common in China as you're saying about the West.
ElSabio0004 1 year ago
@ElSabio0004 bypassing cities and strong points risk sending you deep inside enemy territory, being cut off from all sides. No supplies is even worse than transporting supplies. Sun Tzu did give advice of stealing supplies from the enemies; which typically in cities or enemy camp.
Anyway, I read Sun Tzu and this is what I get: Chinese generals fight wars for war sake. "Let's have an epic battle here". The reason I say this is because very little is devoted to the minute details of training ...
ImEternalWanderer 11 months ago
@ElSabio0004 ... people, administering them, etc ... Art of War is highly concerned with how to fight on the strategy level: how to move you armies, etc ... If you read Byzantine manuals like Strategikon of Marice, Taktika of Leo the Wise, they are devote quite a large part on training people (as by Roman tradition). One thing you note is pitched battles should be avoided. You may destroy the enemy but you lose men; they will come back or another enemy will follow as the first fell.
ImEternalWanderer 11 months ago
@ElSabio0004 you should therefore skirmish them, uses light cavalry, horse archers attacking them. Starve them out by capturing their supplies, kill their foragers, ambush them, etc ... As a last resort, fight a battle. In case of a siege: you surround them, devastate the country side, cut of supplies then starve them out.
BTW, Sun Tzu did advise the best way to defeat another is by using your prestige, second best is by diplomacy, then the third best is to fight. The same thing in Byzantine.
ImEternalWanderer 11 months ago
@ElSabio0004 the actual text is "The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided. The preparation of mantlets, movable shelters, and various implements of war, will take up three whole months; and the piling up of mounds over against the walls will take three months more."
scottbaioisdead 1 year ago
@scottbaioisdead Odd figures, very much at odds with what was achieved in the Mediterranean world, where large armies took big cities very quickly.
lindybeige 1 year ago
dont use a script! for some reason your insanely entertaining when you ramble... I bet you could put babies to sleep by speaking to them
IssunQuixotic 1 year ago
A few questions:
Why would the Diadochi, for example, fight lots of sieges when the core of their armies were phalanxes?
Also, why would you lose more men in battles? Storming walls would result in vastly more casulties I would imagine. You other options are to use siege engines or starvation. Siege engines weren't nearly as common in antiquity as they were in the middle ages so that option isn't really viable. That leaves starvation; which would require good logistics and foraging skills.
sakarauka1 1 year ago
@sakarauka1 Men in the phalanx are men. In a siege they are a resource. They can dig and build things. Active sieges tended to be short, so starvation was not an issue. The ancients often had far better siege equipment than the medievals. Creating a breach needn't cost many men, and once in, an invading and almost always out-numbering army quickly gets a victory.
lindybeige 1 year ago
@lindybeige I've heard a saying that one should only attempt to storm a walled city once your own troops outnumber the defenders 10 to 1. Seems reasonable, since a guaranteed, easy victory is the best kind of victory.
Zeedox 1 year ago
@lindybeige You make sieges sound very easy. If this was in fact the case, Hannibal would have marched on Rome after Cannae given that Rome had lost its only standing army outside of Spain.
Also what about the Siege of Syracsue which took 2 years and was only eventually won through treachery; or the Siege of Carthage in 150BC which lasted 2-3 years despite multiple attempts to assault the walls directly.
sakarauka1 1 year ago
@sakarauka1 Yes, there are a few famous examples of long sieges. As for Hannibal's hesitation, that has baffled historians ever since. Even the Romans at the time could not explain why he didn't take Rome. Certainly the Romans expected him to.
lindybeige 1 year ago
Its been a long time! welcome back
MrDeverill 1 year ago
While I agree with what you say in the video I was just wondering, wouldn't the defenders eventually have to take to the field to drive the invading forces from their lands or was it more a matter of hoping the invaders ran out of resources to stay on campaign before they took the town/castle?
Also, I love your videos
cosmiclordofthedance 1 year ago
Makes a certain amount of sense now that I think about it. In any conflict, one side is weaker or stands to gain by delays, hunkering down in a fortification is logical.
Open battle can happen if both sides are confident, or because one side has been deceived or maneuvered into a disadvantadge. When I was a child I used to think it was impossible to get struck by a sword, because you could just move your own sword in the way! Alas, it's not so simple.
Xandros999 1 year ago
Your off-topic deviations are more interesting than many people's main point.
TheMetalPenguin 1 year ago
Very interesting as always :) I liked that you went adrift on the topic of medieval languages - Maybe I should make a video about that topic myself, so many horrible misconceptions around there...
Lothenon 1 year ago
“Unless you’re bucking mad.” Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden. A good example of when not to do battle.
JohnNoxious 1 year ago
Interesting! I enjoyed this. I'm subscribing.
BelgianGeneral 1 year ago
@BelgianGeneral Thanks. Please visit my back-catalogue of over 100 videos, many on similar topics to this one.
lindybeige 1 year ago
In some cases wars were really fought around battles or with very short sieges - in the early 100 years war it was mainly: prepare an army in England, then go about plundering and only occasionally taking a town or castle, if possible to do so by surprise.. and this tactic weakened France greatly (in addition to making later sieges impossible because the countryside was exhausted)
cilibinarii 1 year ago
woot !
Hobgoblin1975 1 year ago
6:43 its Sean Connery ! ! !
Miko92ster 1 year ago
*Rubs chin*
You beard looks exactly the same as last time.
MiniMackeroni 1 year ago
I thought you'd given up, Lloyd! Interesting video, as usual. I'd add that battles were usually attempts to block an invading army from plundering an area or to prevent/break a siege. The Italian Wars were mostly sieges; condottieri rarely engaged an enemy unless they were certain of victory. Most military activities of the period were investments and manoeuvres to avoid battle. The Dutch Revolt is a good example due to Spanish superiority on the battlefield. Also, 30 Years War. Regards!
absolutesilence 1 year ago
entertaining video :) i never thought about the important role of sieges but your points about it are plausible.
888HamilkarBarkas888 1 year ago
You're back! :D
RasdenFasden 1 year ago
This made my day
camo999999999 1 year ago
Makes sense...The whole point of war is usually to take assets...so it makes sense that at the end of every army's journey was a siege for the city they were after. I would assume that most field battles were were interceptions to protect the city.
Sun Tzu deplored sieges though. He thought they were expensive, drawn-out and a poor idea.
wesmatron 1 year ago
@wesmatron Well, chinese fortifications are different from western forts. Theyre mosty just walls sorrounding a city but they tend to be thicker and bigger than most euopean walls. I'd compared it to Constantinople walls. WJust walls and towers but very well fortified.
ironflea 1 year ago
Well, if the armies are trying to gain an advantageous position by maneuvering, then you could argue that maneuvering was a part of warfare. Battles, however, would be secondary, I agree.
Setzer2500 1 year ago
Amazing delivery Sir, you kept it extremely interesting. I feel like i learned a huge chunk of interesting information!
alexbaxthedarkside 1 year ago
You have finally returned my friend! I am glad to see you well and talking about ancient and medieval history. I have used your videos in many a discussion, even in the ARMA forums, where usually people know their stuff pretty well! I would be glad if you made a list of good reading material, i'll be sure to buy the books next time I visit England.
Ba4oKolio 1 year ago
I'm glad you are back!
ArbitraryImposition 1 year ago
He's back!
Roriniho 1 year ago
that was a brilliant Sean Connery. Good to have you back.
Metikoi 1 year ago
Love your vids :)
Dimitrij90 1 year ago
You're back! Oh God! Feel my inability to express my joy! ...!
GERdeathstar 1 year ago
Great to see you back, I missed your videos about military :)
KuroNekoPL 1 year ago
Then Hannibal must be a pretty singally example... but, you are right, why people did hide in massive castles was because of the enemy might run out of supply... right?
FaakedLillebror 1 year ago
a good "point about" , thanks :) however, for the siege to be a more usual type of warfare than battles, the fighting factions will have to 1. be able to build proper defenses, and 2. have the machines to tear those back down again. This is true for most of the military history. The greeks however, at least before 500BC, did not much like sieges, because they lacked siege engines and had to starve the defender out (then the attacker usually starve just as much).
Dawnrim 1 year ago
woohoo! you're back!
spectraldistortion 1 year ago
i was really miserable this morning and this video has made me so much happier
jokersrighthandman 1 year ago
And Richard the Lionheart was killed... you guessed it... in a siege! =)
Great to hear another historical point of yours, even if you do ramble about other stuff as well.
hathiphnath 1 year ago
Hell, about time.
arvidmann 1 year ago
welcome back, i really missed your videos
Ojf119 1 year ago
You make a good number of logical points that I for some reason have totally overlooked
Adjuni 1 year ago
Sometimes one enters into battle, not with the expectation of victory (Though for the sake of your command, You Lie Like A Persian Rug!) but with the expectation that this battle is your best bet of getting out with your hide more or less intact and free of ransom debt.
I'll agree with your valuation of sieges, with the provision that the skirmishes and the predations of the countryside were to be factored in. But this is nitpicking at your quite valid arguments !
Roddyoneeye 1 year ago
He's still alive !!
TheOrangePanda 1 year ago
Love it, glad to see you making videos again.
ClockworkHobo 1 year ago
I had written an entire post about Normans not being French Vikings when you said they were from 'Scandinavia' but you already rectified that before I hit send. :D Most of what I had typed, in fact, you even said. Funnily enough, I read about the difference between a real 'skirmish' and a pitched battle not too long ago. After that you sort of said what I was thinking, but in a more amusing way.
And yeah, Richard was more Norman than English.
FrisianDude 1 year ago
omg a video !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MrBrian987987 1 year ago
Hooray! New Lloyd! You listened! Nice one old son.
Slithytove1000 1 year ago
I'd have to agree that sieges are a much more "calculable risk" than land battles, as its also an easy tactic to draw out enemies to force them to fight on your own terms. But siege battles tend to be long and expensive, as you'd need engineers, sappers, siege weapons and such. I think most sieges would last around a year or two, since foraging is quite common in maintaining food supplies.
btw glad to have u back in the scene lindyb.
ironflea 1 year ago
@ironflea I may make another video about the length of sieges. You may be surprised to learn that most lasted a few days.
lindybeige 1 year ago
@lindybeige Yea i don't refute the fact that seige could end in days. But i don't think most sieges last less than a week. On average i think sieges last around a couple weeks to months. And it also depends on the era too doesn't it? Sieges in Ancient or Medieval times could last longer because of better fortifications rather than Dark Age Siege warfare.
ironflea 1 year ago
holy shit you're back! :D
Mangekyu10 1 year ago
Great video, very informative.
aj528 1 year ago
FINALLY! I've been waiting for more of these for.... AGES! =D
thugugbob 1 year ago
Welcome back sir!
IncognitusSapiens 1 year ago
Excellent video. Will you be buying Shogun total war 2?
TWCGroup 1 year ago
Are you going to put up a video about that riveted Hauberk?
Welcome back btw
Amarksyhk 1 year ago
@Amarksyhk Oh er... possibly. Please don't hold your breath, though.
lindybeige 1 year ago
@lindybeige Damn! I did and passed out......
Amarksyhk 1 year ago
Missed your videos. Fascinating as always.
Phantom1thrd 1 year ago
I think battles were more emphasized in history books for two reasons:
1. "GLORY AND BLOOD EPIC CHARGE GRRR" is more poetic than "Yeah, the enemy's still outside. Dang, I sure am hungry."
2. I think that th average battle was more decisive than the average siege, for the potential manpower loss and commitment requirement that you mentioned. Also, while most sieges were small affairs, the grand ones like Constantinople and Vienna are given the recognition they deserve.
MatthiasVargas 1 year ago
@MatthiasVargas Many battles decided nothing. The defeated enemy ran away, licked its wounds, and tried again later. Taking a city by siege is utterly decisive - you get the city, and all its people and resources, defences, position, administration, gold, the lot.
lindybeige 1 year ago 9
@lindybeige Yes, but for every major city captured via siege, you had about 300 little towns or 15 foot tall castles captured via siege. Which is why I think that your average battle was more decisive than your average siege.
Also, would you say that gunpowder, with it's wall-shattering potential, made battles more frequent than in previous ages, or did sieges still hold preeminence at the time of its widespread use?
MatthiasVargas 1 year ago
@MatthiasVargas Sieges were still the main thing in the 17th C - look at all those star forts, and the history of the Thirty Years War. Look too at the actions in Canada between British and French. Few battles, many sieges.
lindybeige 1 year ago
@lindybeige ill disagree saying battles were lmore risky, ok they were risky,
but the impression i repeatedly get is that seiges are often very espensive affairs. with a risk your own army will be slowly bled by disease and desertions as they try and pound or starve , when assult doesnt work.
not all of them obviously. since the most problematic were the big big cities.
though interestingly i read that it was largely fort design that made western europeans more inured to suleymans armies
elgostine 1 year ago
@MatthiasVargas Don't forget the Siege of Malta as well. Now THAT battle was batshit insane.
ironflea 1 year ago
lol nice sean connery impression
WolfOfBloodAndBone 1 year ago
good to see you back Lloyd
Danie9989 1 year ago
Your videos are awesome
SalohcinZerep 1 year ago
actaully Richard lion heart was a english born Norman he was born in Beaumont palace
kaindrg 1 year ago
You see, if these Mid evil people were smarter, they would've ran their seiges better!
I'm talking Steriod-enhanced Gorillas wielding maces and machetes. In full plate armor.
SwatShinsengumi 1 year ago
Yay, you didn't die in a horrible javelin incident!
S4B3R117 1 year ago
First: very informative. Second, when you say battles, I think you are referring specifically to "pitched" battle. Although it is probably true that pitched field battles were rare, I would think that it would be common for a maneuvering force to have engaged or have been engaged on their way to a siege.
SrgGoofy 1 year ago
I learned this via gaming actually.
Medieval 2 Total War: Darth mod (for the added realism)
I very quickly found out that battles on open ground were much less frequent than battles in and around settlements; and in fact less effective. A siege well done could have a very decisive victory as on open ground it almost always turned into a meat grinder.
leeham991 1 year ago
yay! finally!!!!
lawl at the sean connery accent
1x93cm 1 year ago
that makes sense. but what about before the feudal era. sun tzu writes about gurella raids. and the only thing he bring up bout seiges is that one have double the amount of men than the beseiged
kaindrg 1 year ago
It took you seven minutes to make a simple point, but you made a lot of other good points as well. It is staggering to me how anyone with even a halfway working sense of logic can think that field battles were more common (and often more important) than sieges. If nothing else drives this point home, look at the sophistication and variety of siege engines. If sieges were a secondary aspect of warfare, would the time, money, material and manpower have been devoted to developing and building them?
DistendedPerinium 1 year ago
Personally, I like that your videos don't have any script. It's more informal and pleasant and we learn more.
UncleJunkyard 1 year ago
No wonder I'm fighting sieges after sieges after sieges in Total War.
ChaohsiangChen 1 year ago
Good to see you again :)
alenbudalen 1 year ago
Ohh my Geebus, a new LindyBeige video, its been like, a year. I thought you were done with these videos my friend!
Kylef7735 1 year ago
your videos are great !
cheers !
SIXXX1POUNDER 1 year ago 7
YAY!
CrypticArtist 1 year ago 7
Oh hell yes, new video.
LucanJacups 1 year ago 31
There we go!
Finally! I missed your videos a lot.
Hope you keep coming here and uploading great videos. You are great.
Regards
jirisysklatoon 1 year ago 72
You're back! ^^
nzarhel 1 year ago 10