What is the difference between a siege and a battle

They spend time talking about fortification design, but when it comes to sieges, the defining characteristic for them is delays, delays required by fortifications which require them to use the sap, to dig trenches and construct batteries.

And they preferred other positional tactics as well storm, surprise, bombardment. If true, that takes us back to the siege tactics, if not the siege event.

The context matters, but I think the tactics used needs more investigation, because I think it significantly influences how we view one type of combat or another. Storms are good and honorable, saps are bad and less-than-honorable. But as we saw previously, what gets published in print and then scanned is often quite different from what people and institutions say online. If you contrast the results of a Google Books search even including modern works with a regular Google search on whether Toulon was a battle or siege, you see there is a big gulf between published and web-based works.

Even worse, it represents yet another attempt by moderns to ignore historical categories and impose their views on the past. Do we really think we have a better understanding of early modern warfare than contemporaries did, and particularly of their conceptual categories? Who are we to ignore unanimous contemporary usage? Next, what do we mean by permanence? Maybe we mean permanence of the fortifications?

Would we or did they make a distinction between attacking a permanently-fortified fortress e. Or maybe we mean permanence of the military occupation of said fortifications? A half-renovated fortress could be weaker than strong field fortifications, so is it just about the relative strength of the fortification, or is there something about the works being in existence for a long time?

Other cases muddle the matter further. Fortified lines. Many of those WWI trench complexes seemed relatively permanent depending on how long permanence requires — some of them are still around today long after most fortress walls were demolished — permanence depends on maintenance — did they demolish them when they moved forward, or leave them empty in case of retreat?

So what does this tell us? What about fortified camps anchored on towns? On occasion these camps would be attacked. Toulon saw an assault on the field fortifications constructed above the town, and we saw the disagreement over whether this should be a battle or a siege.

As a final example, what do we call attacking a sconce or churchyard or even a village, fortified on all sides, surrounded by the enemy during a battle say a fortified village within the larger battlefield of Blenheim?

Maybe we should just add a level-of-war indicator, e. Any typology of different types of combat requires dealing with such middling cases, and settling on a scale of analysis. In the meantime, we need to avoid metaphorical use of these terms, because it only muddies the waters.

And, regardless of what they call ed these operations, most people still see them just like any siege — plodding, bloody, expensive and a tragic waste of time. Any ideas? The Romans eventually replaced their citizen-soldiers with a paid professional army whose training, equipment, skill at fortification, road building, and siege warfare became legendary. The Byzantine emperors studied Roman strategy and tactics and wrote some of the first essays on the subject. The Middle Ages saw a decline in the study and application of strategy — with the exception of the great Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan.

Medieval tactics began with an emphasis on defensive fortifications, siegecraft, and armored cavalry. The introduction, however, of such new developments as the crossbow, longbow, halberd, pike, and, above all, gunpowder began to revolutionize the conduct of war. The Emergence of Modern Warfare. Gustav II Adolf, king of Sweden r. His disciplined national standing army — differing from the common use of mercenaries — was organized into small, mobile units armed with highly superior, maneuverable firepower and supplemented by mounted dragoons his creation armed with carbine and saber.

Frederick II the Great of Prussia r. In the Seven Years' War , Frederick faced a coalition whose various forces almost surrounded Prussia. Using a strategy of interior lines, Frederick — supported by a highly disciplined army and horse artillery his creation — would quickly maneuver, assemble a superior force at some decisive point along the line of encirclement, and, with massed howitzer fire, strike hard against an enemy flank before moving to another point.

With Napoleon I, however, the age of modern warfare was born. The French Revolution had produced a mass patriot army organized into loose divisional formations. Napoleon carefully planned his campaigns and quickly maneuvered his troops by forced marches to a selected field of battle.

His battles began with skirmishing and cannonading, followed by an overwhelming concentration of forces in shock bayonet attacks against enemy flanks in turning and enveloping movements designed to utterly destroy opposing forces. Because of the greater complexities of warfare, a rudimentary general staff began to emerge under Napoleon. The 19th Century: Theory and Technological Change.

Napoleonic strategy and tactics were closely studied by the first great theorists of war, the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz — and the French general Antoine Jomini — Clausewitz's On War —34; Eng. Jomini, on the other hand, emphasized occupying enemy territory through carefully planned, rapid, and precise geometric maneuvers. Whereas Jomini's theories had influence in France and North America, Clausewitz's teachings in particular were influential on the great Prussian military strategists of the 19th century, Helmuth von Moltke — architect of victory in the Franco-Prussian War — and Alfred von Schlieffen — creator of the Schlieffen plan defense against Russia and envelopment of France , which Germany applied in a modified form at the beginning of World War I.

The 19th century was an era of far-reaching technological change that vastly altered the scope of tactics and strategy, an alteration seen in what has been called the first total war, the U.

Civil War. Railroads and steamships increased the volume, reach, and speed of mobilization and of conscription. The consistent support of war industry became critical. The growth in range and accuracy of rifle firepower created new tactical problems: artillery had to be placed farther behind the lines, massed charges became ineffective if not disastrous, cavalry became limited to reconnaissance and skirmish, and troops began to fight from trenches and use grenades and land mines.

Telegraph communications linked widening theaters of war and made large-scale strategy and tactics possible. During the U. Civil War the large-scale strategy of the North blockade, division of the Confederacy, destruction of the Confederate armies and supplies backed by superior industry and manpower were the key factors in its victory. The development of the machine gun late in the 19th century would have its most telling effect in World War I.

World War I began with immense, rapid, national mobilizations and classical offensive maneuvers, but after mutual attempts at envelopment at and after the Battle of the Marne, stationary trench warfare ensued across a wide battlefront.

A war of attrition set in that called for total national involvement in the war effort. Two key technological developments in the war were to fashion the strategic and tactical debates of the s and s. They insisted that airpower alone could win wars, not only by striking at enemy forces but by strategic bombing —the massive attack on cities, industries, and lines of communication and supply that characterized part of Allied strategy during World War II.

The other World War I development was that of motorized armored vehicles such as the tank. The use of the tank as the new cavalry of the modern age was advocated by B. Liddell Hart, Charles de Gaulle, and J. Best Answer. Battle -a hostile encounter or engagement between opposing military forces Siege - the act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies, for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders and thereby making capture possible Basically, a battle is when enemies fight, but a siege is when a team surrounds their enemy and cuts off all their supplies until they have to come out.

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