Re: Were the Japanese trying to surrender for months before Hiroshima?

In article <0001HW.C09D29E1010C772BF0509530@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
the auroran sunset <upm@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[...]. are there any cases of real sieges of
rome? i don't know much about early rome or later empire..

Oh, yes. When they chucked out the king, when they were
sacked by the Gauls, and any number of other events. You don't
get to fight hundreds of wars without sometimes finding yourself
on the wrong end ....

Cannae is quite a long way from Rome. [...]
By the time the whole Carthaginian army got there, I'm sure a
proper defence could have been mounted. But it was still the
only real chance that Hannibal had.
what makes you sure? just in terms of being prepared for a siege?

Well, that's the main thing. Given a week or two, you
have time to close the gates, repair walls, dig ditches, set
palisades, stock up with food, water, boiling oil, arrows/spears,
"scorch" the surrounding earth, and generally move to a war footing.
After that, esp with control of the sea, you can just sit tight,
esp as Hannibal wasn't equipped with siege engines.

or was
there someone other army within reach?

I expect someone can tell us where [eg] Marcellus was at the
time. But not really the point. Once you're "hunkered down", sieges
are not instant things -- neither in ancient times nor as recently
as WW2. Basically, you have to surround the place, then spend months
or even years trying to breach the walls or starve the place out.
Hannibal was doomed to fail at both of those, unless he had some
outrageous luck [such as a secret way in] or surprise or collapse
of morale. He might have had that in the panic of the first few
days after Cannae, but by the time he could have got his army there
it was too late.

Note that Hannibal *did* besiege Naples and various other
places in 216, and failed ....

aiui, cannae was at most a week's
march away from rome, probably closer..

About 250 miles, I understand. For comparison, it took
Harold 11 days to get from Stamford Bridge to Hastings, about the
same distance, give or take. But that was a forced march, dictated
by the news of the invasion, was recognised as a brilliant effort
that caught William by surprise, was through friendly territory;
and they were knackered by the end of it. A large army, having to
forage in hostile territory, having to encamp each night and build
some sort of defence works [or risk being picked off by raids every
night with serious loss of morale], having to take its baggage
train with it, and moving over rough terrain, is *slow*.

[...]
Saying that has just reminded me of the story about the
Roman Senate deciding, when Rome was sacked, that only fighting men
should be allowed into the citadel, and sitting there calmly waiting
to be slaughtered. Not a fashionable attitude for modern politicos.
i'm not clear what you mean, or even whether this is early or late roman
history!

390BC. Brennus and the Gauls won a battle just outside
Rome, and sacked the place. The remnants of the Roman army were
besieged in the Capitol, and the civilians fled or were slaughtered.
The Senate sat in their places; when the Gauls arrived they stared
around in awe, and no-one moved. Eventually, a soldier tugged at
the beard of some ancient senator, who struck him; whereupon the
slaughter began. All attacks on the Capitol were thwarted, once
by the sacred geese making a noise and alerting the defenders to
the Gauls coming up a secret path, and eventually the Romans paid
the Gauls to go away. Difficult to imagine our MPs sitting in
Westminster as London was being sacked around them, and not taking
their chance to escape.

--
Andy Walker, School of MathSci., Univ. of Nott'm, UK.
anw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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