5 Bloodiest Sieges In History

perceiving a large city or well-defended position is usually a far less costly strategy for the attacker than a direct assault where fortifications and tightly packed streets can make attack a risky and bloody proposition simply starving the defenders into submission can negate the need for such bloodshed however the consequences for the defenders can be nothing short of horrific as disease hunger thirst and bombardment slowly wear down those trapped inside inflicting casualties on a more terrible scale than even the deadliest of battles here are my choices for five of the bloodiest sieges in history number five the siege of Tenochtitlan of the course of just three months a quarter of a million people would perish as armies containing hundreds of thousands of men fought each other to the bitter end in a siege which saw levels of brutality that shocked even the battle-hardened Spanish conquistadors who took part in it as the disease stricken and starving Aztecs desperately fought to repel an invading Spanish LED Alliance which had laid siege to the capital city in a final standoff between two vastly differing civilizations with an entire continent as the prize the resulting battle turning one of the world's greatest cities into a ruined mass graveyard and marking the end of an ancient empire which had ruled over millions of people just two years earlier the very possibility that the Aztec capital might fall to invaders from across the ocean must have seemed like something out of an apocalyptic myth to the more than six million people thought to have been living in the five hundred states that made up the sprawling and goldrich Aztec empire in modern-day Mexico however it was this presence of gold that would lure men from the other side of the world to undertake the long and dangerous journey across the ocean and into the unknown on the promise of riches and fame in doing so forging an incredible tale of greed betrayal brutality and bravery that would completely change the future of Central and South America one such man was a Spaniard named Hernan Cortes who like so many others had sought to leave behind what he saw as a future which was going nowhere inspired to travel west in search of adventure riches and fame as news of strange and unexplored lands came flooding into Europe following the incredible discoveries of Christopher Columbus after proving his competence during the conquer of Cuba Cortez was given command of an expedition to the mainland to investigate rumors of a mighty cold rich Empire which was said to have been ruled over by a people known as the Aztecs sensing an opportunity to finally make a name for himself he famously destroyed his ships in front of his men after they came ashore so as to remove from their minds the very possibility of retreat the men now knew that they would have to fight and win in order to survive there could be no turning back the conquest of the Aztec empire had begun yet with the population of perhaps six million people as well as access to vast resources and control over a city that were said to be larger than any city in Europe at the time it must have seemed like this ragtag band of just 600 Spanish explorers stood no hope of taking on the might of the Aztecs however Cortes was a shrewd operator and quickly learned that his newfound enemy had major weaknesses weaknesses that he intended to exploit with devastating consequences the Aztec empire was held together by military strength and above all fear he had a massive undercurrent of resentment and outright hatred for the Aztecs simmered beneath the surface over hundreds of years vast numbers of native tribes were violently subjugated by the Aztecs the vanquished tribes forced to pay never-ending tributes of wealth as well as sacrificial victims to be offered up to the Aztec gods in horrifying mass sacrifices we're still beating hearts would be cut from chests and severed heads rolled down the steps of the Great Pyramid many of these conquered tribes dreamed of a day when they might throw off the shackles of the cruel overlords and so the arrival of Cortes and his band of men equipped with strange and deadly weapons must have seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally destroy their hated enemies Cortez wasted no time in exploiting this ill feeling between the various tribes and set about building a network of alliances with natives who had long hated the Aztecs and relished the chance at obtaining revenge and breaking free the Aztec emperor Montezuma had initially sent great gifts of gold to the Spanish trespassing in his lands perhaps hoping that such offerings would encourage them to leave however such lavish gifts merely increased their desire for plunder encouraging the Spanish to press on with their attempt at conquest the insatiable lust for fast fortunes of God now no longer just a hopeful fantasy by November the eighth 1519 Cortes and his men finally reached the Aztec capital yet amazingly was welcomed into the city by Montezuma who perhaps hoped to observe them and look for weaknesses only to crush them at a later date or simply underestimated his strange-looking enemies either way the decision proved to be a huge mistake and surrounded by a hostile population of up to 200,000 people Cortes and his men panicked and took the risky move of seizing Montezuma as a hostage in his own palace intending to use him as a puppet ruler and therefore ensure the safety of his men yet Cortez was soon forced to leave the city to deal of the rival band of conquistadors who had arrived in Aztec lands leaving a trusted but cruel lieutenant named Pedro del Verado in charge who soon after carried out a massacre of many thousands of Aztecs during a religious festival triggering a full-scale rebellion of the city's Aztec population Cortes returned to the capital to find the Spanish and llave under siege and ordered his hostage Montezuma to persuade the people to stop fighting however according to the Spanish the Emperor was stoned to death by an angry mob leaving Cortes and his men no choice but to flee the city in what would later become known as the night of Sorrows under constant attack as they fell back many of the Spanish soldiers were killed captured or drowned in the nearby lake weighed down by the armor as well as the gold and plunder they had carried with them however crucially Cortes survived the humiliating nighttime retreat living on to fight another day he wasted no time in regrouping his strength amassing a horde of perhaps 100,000 native allies before heading back to the Aztec capital for revenge and a final showdown that would determine the future of the entire continent on the 22nd of May 1521 he laid siege to the city which had by now been ravaged by smallpox carried with the Spanish on their previous stay and had killed as much as 50% of the city's population fatally damaging Aztec fighting potential with no access to supplies of food water or reinforcements from the rest of the Empire the Aztecs grew weaker and more desperate by the day while Spanish grew stronger as more native tribes join them sensing that the time of the Aztecs was fast coming to an end and wishing to ensure that they were on the winning side when the war was over many tribes who had ideas about aiding the Aztecs were brutally crushed the Spanish fearing that a snowball effect might tip the balance of power against them if too many of the smaller city-states join the enemy as the day's wore on the Aztecs inside the city were forced to drink filthy water in a vain attempt to quench the terrible thirst yet this act simply furthered their demise as dysentery ravaged the already dwindling population while the lack of food became so severe the many were forced to eat leather and wood as they were driven mad by hunger Cortes slowly tightened his noose around the city's neck moving forward inch by inch as the fighting descended into a vicious bloodbath amongst the city's tightly packed streets the Spanish forced to fight for every building by the determined enemies with each side showing no mercy to the other those who might have considered surrendering would receive no quarter as each side fought to the death rather than risk being captured with many Spanish soldiers unlucky enough to fall into the hands of the Aztecs immediately taken to the great temple to be sacrificed often in full view of their comrades encamped nearby watching on in horror as their friends were dragged up the pyramid steps before having their chests cut open the still beating hearts ripped out after three months of fighting the Aztecs made their last stand amid piles of corpses in the central marketplace where despite fighting bravely they were unable to hold back the Spanish led onslaught any longer yet despite surrendering the slaughter was far from over as the native allies of the Spanish vented centuries of frustration and anger at the Aztecs massacring thousands of civilians and looting anything of value not even women and children would be spared the wrath and even the hardened conquistadors were shocked at the unfolding carnage Cortes was now left in complete control and soon went on to build modern-day Mexico City on the ruins of the blood-soaked Aztec capital that he at once so admired while the lands that made up the now vanquished Aztec empire were incorporated into the colony of New Spain the ambition greed and strategic brilliance of legendary conquistador changing the course of history and inspiring thousands more to follow in his footsteps now before the siege of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago a series of relatively minor riots over unfair taxation and religious tensions escalated into an all-out rebellion against Roman rule that would bring destruction and slaughter on an unimaginable scale to Jerusalem as for crack legions surrounded the city and cut off its food and water supplies before commencing a brutal slaughter of the trapped and starving people contained within its thick walls resulting in perhaps as many as 1 million deaths with a few thousand still alive once the killing was over sold into slavery many meeting a violent end on the sands of the gladiatorial arena to the sounds of applause from the Romans who returned fur once beautiful city into a ruined wasteland like all occupations by a foreign force Roman control over Judea had always been unpopular with its mainly Jewish population however the situation took a violent turn in 66 AD that would set into motion a course of events that would have disastrous consequences for the people living in the holy city of Jerusalem simmering religious and ethnic tensions between Romans and Jews erupted into a series of localized riots with protests and unfair taxation and harsh treatment by Roman authorities soon added to the rioters lists of grievances with the tax upon Roman citizens growing in number the Roman governor of Judea attempted to restore order however his actions simply made the situation worse after his forces plundered the Jewish temple and arrested several leading Jewish citizens who were later publicly whipped and crucified these horrific reprisals prompted a province-wide rebellion as Jews across the region took up arms against the Roman occupiers eventually overrunning the main Roman garrison resulting in thousands of legionaries being massacred as they attempted to retreat to safety the weapons and armor ripped from their still warm corpses to be used by the rebels in the many battles which were no doubt still to come in response to the escalating violence the legate in neighbouring Roman controlled Syria brought in his Legion in an effort to quell the revolt however after some initial small-scale victories the series légion suffered a similar grisly fade and was ambushed and defeated with 6,000 of Rome's finest warriors slain by a people the Romans had previously considered to be nothing more than an unorganized rabble with Judea now purged of its Roman presence a free government was formed in Jerusalem with new leaders elected however it was only a matter of time and told the Roman response arrived shocked at the loss of a legion and Bruni rose and general Vespasian with a force of around 60,000 men to restore order and crush that provinces rebellious population once and for all the general was an accomplished military man and implemented a successful strategy of first securing Judea smaller cities and forts driving the rebels they held towards the main center of resistance at Jerusalem a cunning strategy designed to focus enemy forces in one area swell is population and thus put an unsustainable strain on the city's food and water supplies as thousands of refugees poured into the city with each passing day most of the rebel strongholds were easily crushed by the disciplined legions however general Vespasian knew that protected by his mighty rings of walls the city of Jerusalem would not fall so easily and any direct assault would prove to be a bloody and costly exercise yet fate was to deny the general his prize with the current Emperor Nero declared an enemy of the people Vespasian returned to Rome where he would ultimately be proclaimed Emperor himself leaving his son Titus in command lumbered with the difficult job of taking Jerusalem and ending the war Titus surrounded the city with four legions and a massive wall and trench to prevent rebel supplies from getting through while crucifying anyone who tried to escape and following his father's earlier devious strategy put even more pressure on the city's food and water supply by allowing religious pilgrims to enter the city in order to celebrate Passover but not letting them out the Romans unleashed an unrelenting bombardment of the city using battering rams to slowly break down its formidable walls yet despite quickly breaking through the first two walls the third and final walls the thickest and most heavily defended and would not be overcome so easily siege engines launched huge stones at the fortifications day after day night after night however the defenders sallied out from behind their walls to attack and dismantle the towering weapons turning the siege into a stalemate that would last for seven long months the situation inside the city quickly descended into hellish chaos as such a huge number of people concentrated in such a small area quickly depleted the city's limited food and water supplies the population began to starve with many resorting to eating leather and even sewage in a vain effort to stave off starvation with tales of cannibalism becoming chillingly common the situation was made even worse by the poorly led rebels engaging in vicious factional infighting as they fought and killed each other over disagreements on strategy with at one point one faction even burning a huge stockpile of dry food in an insane attempt to make the defenders more desperate and thus willing to fight to the bitter end rather than negotiate a peace by the summer of 70 AD the disciplined and well-trained Romans finally broke through the last defences around the fortress of Antonia following a daring nighttime attack on the rebel positions the defenders put up a fierce and almost suicidal resistance fighting to the end rather than surrendering however it was only a matter of time until they were completely overwhelmed by the relentless Roman advance it was now that the real slaughter began as the vengeful Romans became gripped by bloodlust even trampling to death their own men as they impatiently poured through breaches in the walls eager to get inside the city and cut down anyone who crossed their path while plundering anything of value that they could get their hands on much of the city was razed to the ground with even the ancient Temple of Solomon destroyed by fire as in the shadows of the flames legionaries climbed over the ever-growing heaps of corpses hungry to carry on the butchering of the largely unarmed civilians as with the city's defenders already slain around its walls the innocent were now the only ones left alive to receive their Roman wrath those few who managed to survive the carnage were sold into slavery with many of those doomed to die horrific deaths on the sands of empire's many gladiatorial arenas the fate of Jerusalem serving as a grim warning to the many people subjugated by the Romans of the fate that awaited them should they dare to raise arms against their masters number three the siege of Carthage a century of warfare between two of the world's most powerful empires reached a final and bloody conclusion with a three-year long siege of the city of Carthage that would see most of its 400,000 inhabitants butchered and burned along its ancient streets the lucky few who had escaped the Spears and swords of the vengeful Romans who had brought such calamity to their home sold into a lifetime of slavery while every brick of their beloved City was torn down until only a faint memory of what was once the mighty Carthaginian Empire remained doomed to be lost with the passing of time when those who had witnessed the terrible destruction unleashed upon her people join their victims in passing from this world before this titanic clash of civilizations occurred Carthage had flourished for over 600 years thanks to his powerful Navy which enabled her people to build a trading empire that spread from North Africa to Spain Sardinia and the island of Sicily however this expansion brought the Carthaginians onto the doorstep of the militaristic Romans a people who were themselves rapidly growing in strength having recently conquered all of the Italian peninsula with the Carthaginian presence so close to Rome's borders it quickly became clear that the Mediterranean world was not big enough for two expanding great empires yet both the Carthaginians and the Romans were convinced that the future belonged to them and them alone the stage was set for an ancient war to end all wars as each side for the battle for survival from which only one Empire could prevail what became known as the Punic Wars would be some of the largest conflicts that mankind had ever seen as three bitter wars were unleashed upon the world dooming hundreds of thousands of people to an early grave as entire cities were wiped from the face of the earth their populations put to the sword or sold into slavery as Rome and Carthage fought to the bitter end in a clash of civilizations that would determine the future course of the West the First Punic War broke out in 264 BC when a local dispute taking place on Carthaginian controlled Sicily escalated into an ancient world war as both sides called their allies and vassals into the fight displayed Carthage being in the dominant position that determined the Romans who were not a people to back down and although outnumbered on the high seas achieved the incredible feat of constructing over 100 warships in just two months a feat which enabled them to pull off a stunning series of victories that finally broke the Carthaginians naval superiority forcing them to sue for peace the humiliated Carthaginians who were kicked out of Sicily and burdened with huge war reparations desperate for new sources of wealth to aid in their recovery after the war Carthage looked to Spain which was a land rich in sulfur as a target for expansion however once again they would find themselves at odds with the hated enemies when the Carthaginian army attacked a Roman protected town the second Punic War began in 218 BC as once again the two great empires vied for dominance in a conflict that almost brought Rome to its knees over 17 years of vicious fighting in which as many as 600,000 men would perish it was this war that saw the legendary Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca undertake the seemingly impossible task of marching a 100,000 manstrong army including 37 massive war elephants across the treacherous Alps allowing him to take the Romans by surprise and invade their Italian Holland from the north even threatening the great city of Rome herself at cannae Hannibal destroyed an entire Roman army using tactics still taught to this day when he surrounded a force twice his size resulting in the slaughter of 70,000 Romans in a single day however the Romans were not a people to give in no matter how bleak the situation despite his incredible success Hannibal failed to land the killing blow and capture Rome and was caught by surprise when a Roman force retook the initiative with a surprise attack on North Africa forcing Hannibal to abandon his invasion of Italy and return to Carthage to defend his homeland where he was soundly beaten by general skip-bo at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC the Second Punic War had left the once-mighty Carthaginian Empire a shadow of his former glory her people confined to North Africa with her once vast Mediterranean possessions now under the control of the Roman Republic however the worst was yet to come despite humbling their old adversary the Romans were not a people prone to forgive and forget and hatred of the old enemy remained at all levels of Roman society as powerful men called for even the city of Carthage itself to be completely removed from the map as punishment for her people's transgressions against Rome for 50 years the Romans debated over what should be done to solve the Carthaginian question with many notable military and political figures actively seeking a third armed conflict to finish off their hated enemies once and for all before Carthage managed to regain the strength and will to threaten Rome once again though seeking war finally got the opportunity they so desired when Carthage went to war with their new Midian neighbours in an act of self-defense that the Romans claimed violated their peace treaty as following the Second Punic War Carthage had agreed to first request Roman approval before launching any of his own Wars a massive Roman force landed in North Africa in 149 BC demanding the carthage surrender all of their armies weapons as well as hand over 300 children of the nobility as hostages demands which the Carthaginians agreed to as they realized they were in no position to repel the invaders yet the Romans were still not satisfied and eventually issued the Carthaginians with a final ultimatum surrendered the city of Carthage itself or be destroyed faced with such a stark choice the people of Carthage opted for defines and prepared to defend their treasured city to the last man secure behind their 60-foot walls but cut off from outside supplies the 90,000 Carthaginian soldiers and 400,000 civilians set to work turning the home into something resembling a giant armory capable of producing hundreds of sword shields and Spears with each day the past anything made from metal was rounded up to be used to forge weapons while the women are even said to have cut off their hair to aid the war effort their flowing locks used to make ropes and strings for bows even the children were put to work fortifying the city as the entire population braced itself for the final hammer blow that was sure to come faced with such formidable resistance the Romans were held at bay for an astonishing three years before they finally managed to breach the city's mighty walls the vengeful Roman army swarmed inside slaughtering burning and looting their way through a city which had stood for seven hundred years and birthed one of the great civilizations of the world unleashing a level of destruction so complete that it said that even the Roman commander openly wept and the devastation his men had wrought overwhelmed by the stark realization that all great empires and cities are doomed to fall and that one day a similar bleak fate might await his beloved Rome yet even with all hope lost the Carthaginians still alive in the city continued to resist waging an ancient urban war as the two sides fought in the city streets the Romans made to pay a hefty price in blood as they fought to clear the city house by house room by room as almost every citizen was now armed and ready to fight yet such resistance could only last for so long and when the last defenders were finally sane the wife of the Carthaginian commander is said to have sacrificed her own sons in front of the advancing Romans before taking her own life in a fine or disturbing act of defines that marked the end of the three-year long siege the victorious Roman commander rounded up the remaining 50,000 civilian survivors to be sold into slavery and issued orders that every single building and structure in the city be torn down so that no trace of Carthaginian civilization would remain while the territories once controlled by Carthage were now incorporated into the Roman Empire as merely the province of a the terrible fate of Carthage had not only left Rome as the supreme power in the western Mediterranean but also served to instill fear and terror into the Republic's many potential enemies the total destruction of this once mighty Empire serving as an eternal warning to any who might dare to cross Rome in the future number two the siege of Baghdad insulting the Carn of the Mongolian Empire is a mistake that few men have had the misfortune of making yet either through arrogance incompetence or betrayal by his advisors the Calif of the Abbasid Empire would bring down the wrath of the Mongols upon his people resulting in one of the largest and most horrific massacres in history as the city of Baghdad at the time the global center of learning and culture was put to the sword in a 10 day long unrelenting bloodbath the claimed anywhere from 90,000 up to two million lives as the city that was once the jewel in his Caliphate was reduced to a depopulated ruin its rivers running red with the blood of its men women and children the stench of rotting corpses so great that the Mongolian army who had destroyed it was forced to move his camp miles upwind to escape the terrible smell of decay in the air the devastation so great that Baghdad would never again regain anything close to his former glory in 1242 alma stazon became the 37th caliph of the apposite dynasty however at the time of his rise to power little did he know that he would also be the last ruling from the capital of the caliphate at the ancient city of baghdad the Caliph was the figurehead of an Islamic empire that stretched from North Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and as far afield as modern-day Afghanistan however the glory days of his dynasty were now firmly in the past with the city of Baghdad beset by political intrigues civil wars sectarian violence and natural disasters the capital of the Caliphate had experienced a sharp decline yet in spite of all this it still stood as one of the world's great cities the caliphs predecessors had already been in contact with the strange people known as the Mongols who had built themselves a massive Empire in the east the legendary Genghis Khan having led his armies out of the Mongol steppe to conquer the world by the half a century before however although the first con was play now long dead his grandsons who were now in control of the Empire he had built were no less ambitious looking towards the lands now known as Iraq Syria and Egypt has ripe targets for expansion although the Caliphate was already wisely sending an annual tribute to the mongol khan in exchange for being left alone by 1241 it was decided that this was no longer enough and the new caliph al mostaza received a fresh list of demands the card gave him the simple ultimatum travel in person to the Mongol capital to offer his personal submission to Mongol rule and provide military aid to the Mongol armies currently fighting in Persia or refuse and be destroyed a cursory glance at the Mongols track record of the previous 50 years should have been enough for the Caliph to tread carefully with his reply however either due to arrogance incompetence or poor advice from his court he not only refused the khan's ultimatum but also insulted the Mongol ruler in his reply such disrespect could only receive one answer from a Khan of the Mongols the Caliph and his city of Baghdad were now marked for extermination the Mongols raised a massive army of 150,000 men conscripting one out of every ten military age males from their population and accompanied by 1000 Chinese artillery experts this terrifying force headed west with the goal of punishing the Calif the army swept aside all opposition in modern-day Iran even destroying the long feared order of assassins rooting their Grand Master out of his stronghold and executing him after he attempted to murder the Khan with a swarm of his assassin followers by January the 29th 1258 ad this terrifying force arrived at baghdad surrounding the city in a pincer movement that cut it off completely from outside aid the Caliph was shocked at the size of the force force eating his treasured City having been assured by his advisors that the Mongol army marching toward him would be just a fraction of his true size perhaps overconfident that he would be able to crush these invaders the Calif had failed to summon any reinforcements from across his vast empire even neglecting to repair the city's crumbling walls and with just 50,000 soldiers at his disposal the situation must have seemed bleak Alma stazon panicked and ordered the entirety of his 20,000 strong cavalry force to ride out and meet the besieging Mongols in battle however their charge was easily crushed leaving the Calif with just 30,000 men to defend his city back that was now completely surrounded with no friendly armies riding to its rescue and the enemy siege engines and catapults rapidly breaking down as few defenses and fortifications seeing that he now had no chance of saving the city the Calif attempted to negotiate with the Mongol general however his offers of peace were instantly rebuffed and around 3,000 of Baghdad's elite Nobles were slaughtered by the Mongols after riding out to meet with them in an attempt to save their own skin by February the 10th the Mongols had captured all of Baghdad's defenses leaving the city wide open and vulnerable however perhaps hoping to avoid a bloody street battle with the 30,000 defending soldiers waiting inside the Mongol general ordered his men to wait for 3 days during which the entire city held its breath while their fates hung in the balance after three days of inaction the Calif agreed to surrender his city and order his men to hand over their weapons and march outside the city walls so that the number could be counted hoping that their lives would be spared the 30,000 defenders still alive obeyed this command and marched out yet the Mongols were in no mood for mercy once the soldiers had been disarmed the Mongols drew their own weapons and began slaughtering the unarmed men while the Calif looked on in horror realizing his monumental mistake as every last soldier was cut down where they stood with nobody left to defend the city the Mongols entered Baghdad and began a week-long orgy of killing and destruction that would end the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of civilians with the Calif himself rolled up in a fine carpet and trampled to death by a horse the Mongols abiding by their tradition of never shedding royal blood majestic buildings that are taken generations to design and construct were burned to the ground without ceremony while the House of Wisdom Baghdad's grandis library which contained countless precious works and records of human knowledge was also destroyed in the carnage its books carelessly flung into the river in such volume that it said it was possible to ride a horse across the surface the terrible retribution of the Mongols had left Baghdad at depopulated ruin with some accounts even suggesting that the canal networks which supported the region's once rich agriculture were filled in by the city's conquerors leaving a legacy of desolation that hindered the city's growth and prosperity for centuries to come as there was simply not enough skilled people left alive to repair the damage that had been wrought the deep scars of the terrible siege perhaps even stretching into the modern era number one the siege of leningrad the second world wars Eastern Front witnessed the largest and bloodiest battles in the entirety of human history with the siege of leningrad becoming one of the longest and most lethal ever recorded 50% of the city's population was destroyed as over 872 dark days as many as one and a half million people perished with those who survived reduced to walking skeletons hanging on to life by the faintest thread their every thought consumed by desire for food as all around them the hellish scenes unfolded with acts of cannibalism murder and robbery becoming all too common as the people battle not only the German and Finnish forces besieging them but also hunger disease and each other in a chapter of history that serves as a chilling reminder of the suffering that can be unleashed upon a civilian population during wartime with the German military machines steaming into Russia during its three-pronged invasion of 1941 the war plan known as Operation Barbarossa called for the 500,000 strong German army group in the north to destroy the Red Army presence in the Baltic states and capture all Soviet naval bases on the Baltic Sea before finally moving on the historic city of Leningrad which was not only the main base of the so V Baltic Fleet and an important industrial sensor accounting for 11% of all Soviet output but also the symbolic capital of the Russian Revolution capturing the city would deal a huge blow to the Soviet war effort as well as crippling enemy morale perhaps hastening the surrender and maybe even bringing the war in the East to an early end yet as Axis forces closed in on the city during the summer of 1941 Hitler intervened at the last minute and altered the original plan eager to avoid the huge casualties that would no doubt be inflicted by a direct assault he instead decided to starve the city into submission ordering his troops to halt their attack and instead completely encircle Leningrad with limited supplies arriving from home the German army had topped up their food rations by living off the land as they advanced through Soviet territory however with so many troops now deployed that were simply not enough food to go around Leningrad contained far too many hungry mouths that would need to be fed and so the decision was made to starve the city rather than capture it wiping out its entire population in the process with the city completely surrounded food quickly ran out for his three million citizens and by winter rations had been lowered to just one third of the daily amount needed by an adult dogs cats birds and rats vanished from the city as its starving people undertook a never-ending search for anything that might provide some nourishment with many resorting to eating shoe leather and wallpaper in a futile attempt to stave off impending starvation yet worse was still to come and as the situation grew increasingly desperate more sinister reports began to emerge ration cards could mean the difference between life and death and the city's more unscrupulous individuals began resorting to murder hiding their victims body so that they could draw the slain persons food rations for themselves while others simply ate the flesh of the dead who were scattered across every corner of the city with as many as 1,500 people arrested by police for cannibalism yet hunger was not the only hardship that the people had to contend with oil and coal supplies ran out early in the winter resulting in thousands freezing as temperatures plummeted while disease spread like wildfire through Leningrad weakened and malnourished population killing thousands more every week German air and artillery bombardments were incessant often purposely targeting schools and hospitals as the constant possibility of a grisly death continually weighed upon the minds of civilians the suffering stretched across eight hundred and seventy two days until Soviet troops driving westwards finally broke the siege in January 1944 however despite the tide of the war now finally turning the people of Leningrad had paid a terrible price with perhaps as much as half of the city's population and perishing ensuring that no family was left untouched by the deadly combination of starvation disease cold and combat that had shattered so many lives so those are my choices four or five of the bloodiest sieges in history let me know your thoughts as well as which are the seizures you would have included in the list in the comments below and I'll see you again soon

Channel: Unknown5

Views: 1,204,447

Keywords: documentaries, full documentary, documentary film, siege, sieges, history, historical, rome, battles, ancient battle, strategy, educational, education, history lesson, abbasids, khan, mongols, mongolians, genghis khan, unknown5, top 5, top 10, romans, roman empire, medieval history, carthage, leningrad, Tenochtitlán, aztecs, aztec empire, conquistadors

Id: KZjBoxj_PHU

Length: 35min 31sec (2131 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 25 2018