When and why did it become frowned upon to win a siege by starvation?

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I'm not an expert in military history, but as there is no better answer yet:

Mass starvation of civilians was officially outlawed in 1919 after World War I. That means that for example the horrific Siege of Leningrad by the Germans constitutes a war crime.

However, siege warfare is allowed as long as civilians are either allowed to leave the place under siege or foodstuff is allowed in.

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docindex/v1_rul_rule53

Upvote:0

Consider the question: "When and why did it become frowned upon to win a siege by starvation?" "frowned upon" could range in meaning from "to disapprove of" or "morally unacceptable." But that is more of a value judgment than an objective criterion. We do not know enough about ancient attitudes to siege defenses, ancient politics or moral values in order to give a definitive answer. However, we can presume that there always have been some people who would consider the using the tactic of civilian suffering to win advantage in war to be immoral, or at the least strategically counter-productive, and there have always been those to whom victory by causing suffering of non-combatants is acceptable (e.g., "the ends justify the means" philosophy).

But did how starvation by siege even become possible, and hence a viable tactic and a morally questionable one.

I imagine sieges of some sort have been practiced ever since humanity began to settle in cities, whereupon people have preyed upon their inhabitants. The earliest sieges were probably simple encirclements of settlements that lasted just a day or two. As defenses improved, siege times increased too. Since humans can live up to 4 weeks without food, a siege would have to last at least that long for starvation to be effective. If food is stored, siege times increase accordingly.

The Wikipedia article on siege cites the earliest known "city walls" by 3500 BC in the Indus Valley. It's entirely possible that such walls were the first to be attacked and besieged, and that starvation was a factor.

Upvote:8

I am going to answer a slightly different question, both broader and more narrow.

"When did it become frowned upon, in the West, to deliberately cause mass civilian casualties?"

This is what a modern siege and bomb approach to urban warfare will result in. If it was just bombing it would also get frowned upon.

I would take the inflection point as somewhere between 1975 and 1990.

During the Vietnam war a number of tactics were pursued, or considered, by the US, that could not help but cause mass casualties, even assuming those were not the primary intent:

Likewise, the Algerian war was fought by France 1954-1962 with relatively little concern for civilians (death toll is claimed to be 300k total by Algeria).

By the time of Gulf War 1 (1991), the extensive coverage of the war was all about the gee-whiz wonders of smart bombs that allowed precise destruction of enemy military assets and avoided civilian casualties.

What had, until that point, been either a deliberately sought-after result, or an easily tolerated side effect had become something that the Western militaries had to give extensive reassurances to their electorate: "we are avoiding hurting civilians as much as possible".

It's just hard to see this demeanor in Vietnam and the wars preceding it. Even though many peace activists were specifically concerned about civilian casualties before, their voice just didn't seem to be that influential.

Let alone during WW2 before, where deliberate civilian casualties were a goal, even if it was dressed up as going after military targets like factories.

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