Siege Tactics Quotes

If you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna.

To a surrounded enemy, you must leave a way of escape.

Hussein praised his sons for putting up a brave fight, noting that U.S. forces had surrounded their compound with advanced weaponry, ground troops and warplanes. In case that didn't work, U.S. forces were prepared to tell Janet Reno that a small Cuban boy was inside the house.

When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.

The wooden wall alone should remain unconquered.

In a battle, as in a siege, the art consists in concentrating very heavy fire on a particular point. The line of battle once established, the one who has the ability to concentrate an unlooked for mass of artillery suddenly and unexpectedly on one of these points is sure to carry the day.

Paris must either not fall into the hands of the enemy or the enemy must find it only a wasteland.

The fact is that as soon as they reach Baghdad gates, we will besiege them and slaughter them. Until now they have refused to do battle with us. They are just going places. One can describe them as a boa: when it feels threatened, it runs to somewhere else.

How can you lay siege to a whole country? Who is really under siege now? Baghdad cannot be besieged.

As to the war, while it is always thought rash to have any strong military convictions, I have always believed that if they would go straight to Sebastopol early in the season they would take it with little difficulty.

Cities are made for enemies to destroy.

If you smash a city when you're trying to capture it, you actually end up providing the perfect terrain for the defenders while blocking the access for your own armoured vehicles.

If we wish to fight, the enemy can be forced to an engagement even though he be sheltered behind a high rampart and a deep ditch. All we need do is attack some other place that he will be obliged to relieve.

I shall await the first shot, and if you do not batter us to pieces, we shall be starved out in a few days.

This boa, the American columns, are being besieged between Basra and other towns north, west, south and west of Basra… Now even the American command is under siege. We are hitting it from the north, east, south and west. We chase them here and they chase us there. But at the end we are the people who are laying siege to them. And it is not them who are besieging us.

When you have to besiege a city for a long time, you must not destroy its trees, wielding an ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are the trees human, to withdraw before your siege?

The fact is that as soon as they reach Baghdad gates, we will besiege them and slaughter them.

For siege works against bold and venturesome men should be constructed on one plan, on another against cautious men, and on still another against the cowardly.

They are still trying to bomb with artillery and rocket-propelled grenades to hit the Republican Guard who are controlling Saddam International Airport.

General Grant had no fixed plan of campaign beyond the general idea to avoid the strong defensive line occupied by General Lee behind Mine Run, and find a way to draw him out to open battle.

As to Hezekiah [King of Judea], the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to his strong cities, walled forts, and countless small villages, and conquered them

The death agony of the barricade was about to begin.For, since the preceding evening, the two rows of houses in the Rue de la Chanvrerie had become two walls; ferocious walls, doors closed, windows closed, shutters closed. A house is an escarpment, a door is a refusal, a facade is a wall. This wall hears, sees and will not. It might open and save you. No. This wall is a judge. It gazes at you and condemns you. What dismal things are closed houses.

Have fun storming the castle!

When you besiege a city with guns and aircraft, you are driving the good citizens and the bad elements together.

Laying siege to enemy-controlled cities allows attacking armies to keep their own casualties low by avoiding urban combat.