Essay Contribution by Edin Beslagic
February 23, 2006

Five Ways to Conquer a City : Reaction to an Ancient Assyrian Conquest Article

The article, written by Erika Bleibtreu, describes how archeologists such as Paul-Emile Botta and Austen Henry Layard slowly crept into a discovery of an ancient capital city of the Assyrian civilization. Their initial discovery was incorrectly analyzed and mislabeled and their methods of discovery needed improvement, but in time, more artifacts were found that identified the ancient town of Sargon. In this manner the article highlighted the human disregard for historical evidence, observed in the earlier 19th and 20th centuries, and how it led to a loss of information. Discovered in this city were detailed accounts of five different methods the Assyrians used to win a siege: use of ladders to cross walls, breaking weak walls or burning gates, digging under the walls (tunneling), laying siege patiently, and cutting off water supply to the city. After winning, Assyrians destroyed the town fortifications and kept tokens of their battles in form of human heads, used to cruelly measure their prowess as warriors.

This article immediately brought to my mind memories of watching many World War II documentaries. It occurred to me that, in their time, the Assyrians must have diversified their offensive strategies enough to catch defenders off guard, hence the mention of five unique ways to assault a fortified city. This I related to German blitzkrieg tactics and how it resulted in various German operations during the war. Germany surprised the world by introducing both innovative technologies and fresh strategies to combat; Assyrians must have done the same to their neighboring nations by being well versed in the art of war. Assyrian versatility must have caused many problems for defenders, both in terms of preparation for combat and in-combat strategies. For example, if an invader was coming to invade a city, the city would bring near-by villagers and other residents into the fortification and have a decent amount of time to stock up on food and water to endure a siege. By definition a siege is a “Prolonged military blockade and assault of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by force or attrition.” We know that defenders had ample time to prepare because Assyrians wrote about being engaged in and breaking these sieges. This means that, under normal circumstances, a city could ward off attackers by simply holding out long enough for the attackers to decide to cut their losses and move on. Assyrians, like any other invaders, would take some time to amass for a siege. However, when it came to dealing with them, defenders appeared to be unable to anticipate Assyrian strategies and therefore lost.

Counter-strategies can be very effective. If a city knows that their attacker usually scales walls by use of ladders, they could prepare sharp rows of spikes at top of their walls or just on the other side to prevent invaders from hopping the fence. This preparation would take some time and effort, but would result in defenders prevailing. If a city knows that their attacker usually tries to use battering rams through their front doors, they could simply reinforce their gates and close the walls off. If the attackers usually dug tunnels under city walls, the defenders could have boiling oil standing by, ready to pour in any holes that creep up on their side of the fortification. If the attackers were to hold a prolonged siege around the city, the city could spend all their efforts procuring food and water for their citizens and organize food rationing to counter this strategy.

The problem is, of course, what if the attacker uses more than one of these strategies to invade? Defenders, trying to counter all five ways that Assyrians used to take over cities, would stretch their resources and efforts thin; on the other hand, Assyrians needed very little preparation time to make their way inside. This is, in my mind, exactly why Assyrians were able to assault all their targets effectively. They were unpredictable and no defender could adequately prepare for what was to come.

History repeats itself. 2,600 years after the Assyrians demonstrated their strategies to the world Germany would use these similar adaptive strategies to keep the Allies constantly in check. Just like the Assyrians, the German army used maneuvers instead of attrition to win the objectives of their battles. In more recent times, defenders of Middle Eastern countries resorted to shifting sets of tactics and Guerilla warfare to keep their far superior invaders at bay. Even though the US-led coalition forces are modernized, mechanized and have near-instant communication abilities, they are taking heavy casualties to demoralizing random attacks by terrorists in what used to be Mesopotamia. To draw another parallel, in the Revolutionary War Americans used guerilla warfare against traditional tactics employed by the British Army. Because Americans were flexible and unchained to tradition they were able to defeat a superior and better-equipped military force. Historically, the most successful way to end a stalemate is the ability to innovate.