The Encyclopedia of Military History shows that from the Assyrian era in 700 BC, terror against civilians formed part of a calculated practice of warfare.1 The Greeks believed that ravaging grain fields, orchards and vineyards was a serious and well established aspect of warfare even by the fifth century BC.2 During the Peloponnesian Wars, 431-403 BC destruction of crops, fields and store houses was common.3 The next century saw the practice developed to a regular system. As stated by Victor Davis Hanson, “the key then, was to invade right at the beginning of harvest to burn the barley and wheat to deny the enemy the dividends of an entire year’s work and investment, to use the produce to feed the very agents of its destruction.”4 In the medieval period, Mongols advanced through northeastern Europe in 1241, leaving town after town sacked and burned.5 In 1242 the Mongols withdrew from Europe sacking the kingdoms of Serbia and Bulgaria as they passed through southern Europe into Asia.6
The Thirty Years' War was fought between 1618 and 1648, mainly in and around Germany. It ultimately involved most of the major European continental powers. Although it was originally a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics, the rivalry between the Hapsburg dynasty and other powers was also a central motive. The issue of imperial authority in Germany fed by the increasing France-Hapsburg rivalry was shown by the fact that Catholic France supported the Protestant side. The loss of life among civilians and economic destruction had not been seen in Europe in some 400 years. David Kaiser cites Gunther Franz in stating that the Thirty Years War “probably reduced Germany’s population by between 30 and 50 per cent.” While Geoffery Parker, in Thirty Years War, disagrees and argues for a more conservative figure of 15-20 percent, It’s clear that the losses were still very large.7
Applying the lowest figure of 15 percent to the population of Germany in 1600 of about 20 million, at least 3 million civilians must have been lost. The 10 million Confederates would have lost at least 1.5 million to equal this level of civilian violence. In contrast McPherson estimates perhaps 50,000 civilian losses, only 1 in 30 by comparison with the German losses. Adjusted to an annual figure, the 100,000 civilians lost in Germany each year dwarf the 12,500 annual rate in McPherson’s estimate (1 to 8 annual ratio). This general picture of severe violence against civilians is highlighted with specific examples. In 1635 Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus tried to force Austrian General Wallenstein into Bavaria by devastating its northern region.8 When French General Tilly sacked Magdeburg, May 20 1631, “only about 5,000 of 30,000 inhabitants survived the holocaust.” 9 Later that same year the smaller town of Kaiser-lauten saw 3700 of its 4200 inhabitants slaughtered. In Cromwell’s campaign to subdue Ireland, he systematically plundered and terrorized the people to destroy their will to resist English occupation. In 1649 at Drogheda 2800 civilians were killed and later at Wexford 1500 more.10
Following the Battle of Culloden in 1746, English troops systematically ravaged the highlands. Crops and houses were destroyed throughout the highlands. Innocent men, women, and children were killed or driven off their lands in the hunt for Jacobite rebels. 11
During the Thirty Years War, civilian violence was calculated to do more than simply terrorize enemy populations. It also served the purpose of weakening the enemy’s war industry and thus his fighting capacity. The German city of Suhl is an example of this history. By the early 1600’s Suhl was know as one of the most important arms centers in Europe. In his 1634 campaign, French General Tilly destroyed the city both as an act of terror but also to weaken enemy armies.12
Delbruck cites examples from the 16th century Italian Wars for violence that was both extreme and systematic. He states “in a city taken by storm everything was permitted, and all women were sacrificed to them (the victors).” The most extreme case occurred when the burghers and peasants were ”systematically tortured.”13 He continues into the 17th and 18th centuries and finds that “as a new and frightful means of warfare there appeared the systematic laying waste of an entire border area.” (Palatinate 1689) He cites Prince Eugene who wrote in 1704 “entire Bavaria… must be totally destroyed and laid waste to deny the opportunity” to the enemy to make war.14
Gustavus Adolphus and Marlborough “brutally and efficiently ravaged” Bavaria and waged a style of warfare which savaged and devastated civilians in the 17th and 18th centuries. Marlborough razed Bavaria in 1704, “his soldiers mercilessly put” the region “to the torch, leveling entire towns and villages, and destroying crops, herds, and orchards.”15
When the Civil War experience is directly examined, we find little evidence to support the Modern war/Total war claim. An example is the burning of Columbia, South Carolina. While many writers claim that Sherman was the arch-type modern civil war commander, and frequently cite his operations as examples of modern war, the example of Columbia conflicts with this claim. Marion Brunson Lucas in the authoritative Sherman and the Burning of Columbia shows that about one-third of the city and most of the business district was burned. Only a few homes and residential areas were damaged. McPherson finds that this account “deflates the wholesale rapine mythology.”16 Thus, two authorities classify one of the most obvious cases of Union military violence against a civil target, Columbia, as not and example of unrestricted total war.
The period of the French revolution saw resurgence in violence against civilians. In the Rhineland campaign of 1795, two French armies plundered the area.17 During the 1796 campaign in Lombardy, Italian princes, towns, and a large swath of the province were victims of systematic plundering made to support French armies.18
Evidence of the limits on Civil War civilian violence are found in selections from Official Records volumes 32, 38, 39, 43 & 44 comprising the major records of the Campaigns of Meridian, Miss., Atlanta, Altoona, Shennandoah Valley 1864, and Sherman’s March to Savannah. These comprise the major campaigns of 1864-65 where large Union armies occupied substantial sections of core Confederate states. If large-scale violence and destruction occurred against civilians and private property, evidence should be found in these volumes. We find 36 references to orders or reports for troop actions towards southern civilians. Although this is not a scientific or comprehensive sample, it is helpful in gauging the systematic use of violence. Twenty-five cases refer to destruction of property for military purpose but caution against general pillaging. Eighteen specifically reference civilians. Most of these orders caution against misconduct toward civilians. Seven indicate some abuse of civilians or civilian property. Only four appear to suggest real violence or atrocities.
One major argument that the war was modern and total comes from the orders by Union army commanders for destruction of property. These same orders show intent to limit destruction and violence. The clear pattern from this sample is not systematic violence against civilians. Most striking is the limitation to destroy only material that may aid rebel forces. These are regular efforts made by any army to destroy the enemy’s war materials. Those orders suggesting real violence against civilians do so as admonishments to stop the behavior. So, even where we have some evidence that atrocities actually occurred, its clear the behavior was not part of a concerted policy.19
Comparing the record of violence against civilians in 1864 in Georgia and South Carolina with the 1914 German invasion of Belgium yields striking contrasts. The “severe and inexorable reprisals” reported by General Von Kluck in August 1914 by the German army had not been seen in living memory. Atrocities included “shooting individuals and the burning of homes.” On August 19, the occupying Germans shot 150 civilians in Aershot and later 664 at Dinant. This violence against civilians was “not spontaneous” but was “prepared ahead of time, was designed to save time and men by cowing the Belgians quickly.” German reprisals were “expressly outlawed by the Hague Convention” and “shocked the world of 1914 which had believed in human progress.” On August 6, 1914, a German zeppelin was sent from Cologne to bomb Brussels. “The thirteen bombs it dropped, the nine civilians it killed, inaugurated a twentieth-century practice.” Tuchman wrote. (emphasis added)20 These “events in Belgium were a product of the German theory of terror.” The high command had decided that the “civilian population must not be exempted but forced by severe measures to compel leaders to make peace.” This in spite of the experience of the Franco-Prussian war that “proved the corollary of the theory of terror, that it deepens antagonism, stimulates resistance and ends by lengthening the war.” The high command also took note that, “Through some peculiar failure of the system, the greater the terror, the more terror seemed to be necessary.”21 So too, it proved in 1914, German reprisals caused “a change in sentiment that was to prevent any negotiated settlement and keep the fighting going until total victory. What wrought the change was what happened to Belgium (in 1914).”22 The record of a like experience of atrocities in the Civil War is largely absent.
NOTES PART 6
PART 2 - TACTICS
PART 3 - ENTRENCHMENTS
PART 4 - BOER TACTICS
PART 5 - RAILROADS
PART 6 - CIVILIAN VIOLENCE
PART 7 - DRAFT
List of figures and tables
WORKS CITED
top