Scorched earth

A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy used to make it hard for an enemy to keep fighting. When an army is losing or moving back, they might destroy things like food, water, animals, plants, tools, and buildings. The goal is to leave nothing useful for the enemy.

Sometimes, this strategy is used by armies that are moving forward to fight against surprise attacks. However, it is wrong to use these tactics against people who are not fighting, like ordinary citizens. Rules from the 1977 Geneva Conventions say it is not allowed to destroy things people need to survive, such as food, water, and farms. This helps keep people safe during wars.

This policy has been used in many wars and situations, showing how important it is to think about how war affects everyone.

Origin of the term

The word "scorched earth" was first used in English in 1937. It was used in a report about the Second Sino-Japanese War. When Chinese forces were moving back, they burned crops and destroyed buildings and roads. They did this to make it harder for the Japanese army to get supplies and move.

Military theory

Clausewitz wrote in Principles of War that in war, the main goal is to weaken the enemy. This can be done in battle or by making it hard for them to get food and supplies.

Wellington's campaign in 1810 and 1811 is an example of this.

Clausewitz also wrote in On War that when an army retreats, they will take all the food and supplies from the area. This leaves the area empty and without crops or water. The army chasing them will then struggle to find what they need.

Historic examples

6th century BC

European Scythian campaign

The Scythians used scorched-earth methods against the Persian Achaemenid Empire, led by King Darius the Great, during his European Scythian campaign. The Scythians, who were nomadic herders, evaded the Persian invaders and retreated into the depths of the steppes after destroying food supplies and poisoning wells.

4th century BC

March of the Ten Thousand

The Greek general Xenophon recorded that the withdrawing enemy burnt up the grass and everything else useful in front of the Ten Thousand.

3rd century BC

Second Punic War

During the Second Punic War, both Carthaginians and Romans used the method during Hannibal's invasion of Italy. After a Roman defeat, those living in the path of the invading Carthaginians were told to burn their houses and grain.

2nd century BC

Third Punic War

After the end of the Third Punic War, the Roman Senate decided to destroy the Carthaginian capital city, Carthage. The buildings were torn down and the fields burned. However, the story that they salted the earth is made up.

1st century BC

Gallic Wars

The system of destroying property when accompanying a military campaign was known as vastatio. Two of the first uses of scorched earth happened in the Gallic Wars. The first was when the Celtic Helvetii were forced to leave their homes because of unfriendly Germanic tribes: they destroyed everything they could not take.

The second case shows military value: the Gauls under Vercingetorix planned to trap the Roman armies in Gaul. They ravaged the countryside. This caused problems for the Romans, but the Roman victories showed that this alone was not enough to save Gaul from Rome.

4th century AD

Roman invasion of Persia

In the year CE 363, the Emperor Julian's invasion of Persia was turned back by a scorched-earth policy:

The region between the River Tigris and the mountains of Media was well cultivated. Julian expected to easily get food from the natives. But, as the Romans approached, the rich land was destroyed. Wherever they moved, cattle was driven away, grass and corn were burned, and Julian saw a smoking and naked desert. This method of defence can only be done by people who prefer independence to property, or by a government that consults public safety.

7th century AD

First Fitna

During the First Fitna, Muawiyah I sent Busr ibn Abi Artat to campaign in the Hejaz and Yemen. According to Tabari, many civilians were killed during that campaign. Muawiyah also sent Sufyan ibn Awf to Iraq to burn the crops and homes of opponents.

9th century AD

Viking invasion of England

During the Viking invasion of England, the Viking chieftain Hastein tried to occupy the ruined Roman fortress of Chester in 893, planning to raid northern Mercia. However, the Mercians destroyed all crops and livestock and expelled the Vikings.

11th century

Harrying of the North

In the Harrying of the North, William the Conqueror tried to stop a rebellion in 1069 by conquering northern England. William's men burnt villages from the Humber to Tees and destroyed food stores and livestock. The area took centuries to recover.

14th century

Hundred Years' War

During the Hundred Years' War, both the English and the French conducted raids over enemy territory to damage its infrastructure.

Robert the Bruce advised using scorched earth to frustrate the invasion of Scotland by Edward I of England.

Wars of Scottish Independence

A slighting is the deliberate destruction of a fortification. Sometimes, it was done to render the structure unusable as a fortress. During the Wars of Scottish Independence, Robert the Bruce adopted a strategy of slighting Scottish castles to prevent them from being occupied by the invading English.

Crusades

A strategy of slighting castles in the Holy Land was also adopted by the Mamlukes during their wars with the Crusaders.

15th century

Moldavian–Ottoman Wars

Stephen the Great used scorched earth in the Carpathians against the Ottoman Army in 1475 and 1476.

Wallachian–Ottoman Wars

In 1462, a massive Ottoman army, led by Sultan Mehmed II, marched into Wallachia. Vlad the Impaler retreated to Transylvania. During his departure, he used scorched-earth tactics. When the Ottoman forces approached Tirgoviste, they encountered many people impaled by Vlad's forces.

16th century

Tudor conquest of Ireland

Further use of scorched-earth policies in war was seen during the Tudor conquest of Ireland, where it was used by English commanders.

The Desmond Rebellions were a famous case in Ireland. Much of the province of Munster was laid waste.

Great Siege of Malta

In early 1565, Grandmaster Jean Parisot de Valette ordered the harvesting of all the crops in Malta to deprive the Ottomans of food. The Ottomans arrived on 18 May, and the Great Siege of Malta began. The Ottomans managed to capture one fort but were eventually defeated.

17th century

Thirty Years' War

In 1630, Field-Marshal General Torquato Conti was in command of the Holy Roman Empire's forces during the Thirty Years' War. Forced to retreat from the advancing Swedish army, Conti ordered his troops to burn houses and destroy villages.

Swedish Deluge

From 1655 to 1660, the Swedish army destroyed cities, towns, castles and churches in Poland. As a result, few pre-Baroque buildings remained in Poland.

Nine Years' War

In 1688, France attacked the German Electoral Palatinate. The French destroyed cities, towns, villages and châteaux.

Mughal–Maratha Wars

In the Maratha Empire, Shivaji Maharaj had introduced scorched-earth tactics. His forces looted traders from Aurangzeb's Mughal Empire and burnt down his cities.

18th century

Great Northern War

During the Great Northern War, Russian Emperor Peter the Great's forces used scorched-earth tactics to hold back Swedish King Charles XII's campaign towards Moscow in 1707–1708.

Sullivan–Clinton genocide

In 1779, the Continental Congress of the United States decided to defeat the four British allied nations of the Iroquois during the American Revolutionary War with the Sullivan Expedition. General John Sullivan used a scorched earth campaign by destroying more than 40 Iroquois villages and their stores of winter crops.

Haitian Revolution against Napoleon

In a letter to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Toussaint Louverture outlined his plans for defeating the French in the Haitian Revolution using scorched-earth.

19th century

Napoleonic Wars

During the third Napoleonic invasion of Portugal in 1810, the Portuguese population retreated towards Lisbon and destroyed all the food supplies the French might capture. When the French armies reached the Lines of Torres Vedras, French soldiers reported that the country "seemed to empty ahead of them". This weakened the French army and forced them to retreat.

In 1812, Emperor Alexander I was able to render Napoleon's invasion of Russia useless by using a scorched-earth policy. As Russians withdrew from the advancing French army, they burned the countryside, leaving nothing of value for the pursuing French army. Napoleon's Grande Armée was ineffective and met with disaster. Having conquered essentially nothing, Napoleon's troops retreated, with the scorched-earth policy having a punitive effect.

South American War of Independence

In August 1812, Argentine General Manuel Belgrano led the Jujuy Exodus, a massive forced displacement of people from what is now Jujuy and Salta Provinces to the south. Belgrano ordered all people to pack their necessities and follow him, and the rest was to be burned to deprive the Royalists of resources.

Greek War of Independence

In 1827, Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt led an Ottoman-Egyptian force in a campaign to crush Greek revolutionaries in the Peloponnese. In response to Greek guerrilla attacks, Ibrahim launched a scorched earth campaign that threatened the population with starvation. The fires of burning villages and fields were visible from Allied ships.

American Civil War

In the American Civil War, Union forces under Philip Sheridan and William Tecumseh Sherman used the policy widely:

General Sherman used that policy during his March to the Sea.

When General Ulysses Grant's forces broke through the defenses of Richmond, Virginia, Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered the destruction of Richmond's military supplies. The resulting fires quickly spread to other buildings. Civilians in panic were forced to escape the city as it quickly burned.

Native American Wars

During the wars with Native American tribes of the American West, Kit Carson, under James Henry Carleton's direction, instituted a scorched-earth policy, burning fields and homes and destroying livestock. The Navajo were forced to surrender because of the destruction of their livestock and food supplies.

Second Boer War

During the Second Boer War, British forces applied a scorched-earth policy in the occupied Boer republics under the direction of General Lord Kitchener. Numerous Boers, refusing to accept military defeat, adopted guerrilla warfare. As a result, British forces initiated a policy of the destruction of the farms and the homes of civilians to prevent the Boers who were still fighting from obtaining food and supplies.

20th century

World War I

On the Eastern Front of World War I, the Imperial Russian Army created a zone of destruction by using a massive scorched-earth strategy during their retreat from the Imperial German Army in the summer and the autumn of 1915. The Russian troops destroyed anything that might be of use to their enemy, including crops, houses, railways and entire cities.

In late 1916 the British army set fire to the Romanian oil fields in order to prevent the Central Powers from capturing them.

On the Western Front on 24 February 1917, the German army made a strategic scorched-earth withdrawal from the Somme battlefield to the prepared fortifications of the Hindenburg Line.

Greco-Turkish War

During the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), the retreating Greek Army carried out a scorched-earth policy while it was fleeing from Anatolia.

Second Sino-Japanese War

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army had a scorched-earth policy, which caused immense environmental and infrastructure damage. It contributed to the destruction of entire villages and partial destruction of entire cities.

The Chinese National Revolutionary Army destroyed dams and levees to flood the land to slow down the advancement of Japanese soldiers.

World War II

At the start of the Winter War in 1939, the Finns used the tactic in the vicinity of the border to deprive the invading Soviet Red Army's provisions and shelter for the cold winter.

When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, many district governments began a partial scorched-earth policy to deny the invaders access to resources. Parts of the telegraph network were destroyed, some rail and road bridges were blown up, most electrical generators were sabotaged, and many mineshafts were collapsed.

The process was repeated later in the war by the German forces, which stole crops, destroyed farms, and razed cities and smaller settlements during several military operations.

Near the end of the summer of 1944, Finland, which had made a separate peace with the Allies, was required to evict the German forces. The Finnish forces struck aggressively in late September 1944. That accelerated the German retreat, and by November 1944, the Germans had left most of northern Finland. The German forces, forced to retreat, devastated large areas of northern Finland by using a scorched-earth strategy. More than a third of the area's dwellings were destroyed, and the provincial capital Rovaniemi was burned to the ground.

In northern Norway, which was also being invaded by Soviet forces in pursuit of the retreating Wehrmacht in 1944, the Germans also undertook a scorched-earth policy of destroying every building that could offer shelter.

In 1945, Adolf Hitler ordered his minister of armaments, Albert Speer, to carry out a nationwide scorched-earth policy, in what became known as the Nero Decree. Speer actively resisted the order.

During the Second World War, the railroad plough was used during retreats in Germany, Czechoslovakia and other countries to deny enemy use of railways.

Malayan Liberation War

Britain was the first nation to employ herbicides and defoliants (chiefly Agent Orange) to destroy the crops and the bushes of Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) insurgents in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency.

Goa War

In response to India's invasion of Portuguese Goa in December 1961 during the annexation of Portuguese India, orders delivered from Portuguese President Américo Tomás called for a scorched-earth policy for Goa to be destroyed before its surrender to India.

However, despite his orders from Lisbon, Governor General Manuel António Vassalo e Silva took stock of the superiority of the Indian troops and took the decision to surrender.

Vietnam War

The United States used Agent Orange as a part of its herbicidal warfare program Operation Ranch Hand to destroy crops and foliage to expose possible enemy hideouts during the Vietnam War.

Guatemalan Civil War

Efraín Ríos Montt used the policy in Guatemala's highlands in 1981 and 1982.

Indonesia

The Indonesian military used the method during the Indonesian National Revolution when the British forces in Bandung gave an ultimatum for local fighters to leave the city. In response, the southern part of Bandung was deliberately burned down as they left it on 24 March 1946.

The Indonesian military and pro-Indonesia militias also used the method in the 1999 East Timorese crisis.

Yugoslav Wars

The method was used during the Yugoslav Wars that started in 1991.

Soviet–Afghan War

The Soviet army used scorched-earth tactics against towns and villages in 1983 to 1984 in the Soviet–Afghan War to prevent the return of the Mujahideen.

21st century

Sri Lankan Civil War

During the 2009 Sri Lankan Civil War, the United Nations Regional Information Centre accused the government of Sri Lanka of using scorched-earth tactics.

Operation Scorched Earth

In 2009, Yemen launched Operation Scorched Earth to end the Houthi insurgency.

Myanmar civil war

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the Burmese military's use of a scorched earth strategy, which has killed thousands of civilians, displaced 1.3 million people and destroyed 39,000 houses throughout the country since the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état.

Gaza war

The Dahiya doctrine, an Israeli military strategy, involves the destruction of civilian infrastructure to pressure hostile governments. Initially applied during the 2006 Lebanon War, it targeted the Dahieh district in Beirut. This strategy was similarly employed during Israel's 2023 military operations in Gaza following the October 7 attacks. Satellite images from the first five months of the conflict revealed widespread destruction across Gaza.

As of January 2024, the United Nations reported that 90% of Gaza's educational facilities had been significantly damaged. Large areas of agricultural land were also destroyed. In December 2024, the UN reported that over 60,000 structures in Gaza had been destroyed, with more than 20,000 severely damaged. By January 2025, UN figures showed that 90% of homes in Gaza had been destroyed or damaged, with 60% of buildings overall being affected.

Critics, including international rights organizations, have accused Israel of waging a scorched earth campaign aimed at eradicating Palestinian life in Gaza.

In business world

Sometimes, businesses use a plan like scorched earth to avoid being taken over. In this case, a company might sell its valuable things to make itself less interesting to others who want to buy it. This helps keep the company’s value and control.

Takeover