"The Most Terrible, Deadliest Sieges Before the 19th Century" Topic

"Sieges throughout history were awful affairs. Unlike Field Battles, Sieges involved civilians, as well as numerous ways to die over long periods of time. Starvation and disease often killed about as many soldiers and civilians as actual fighting did.

It wasn't until the 19th and 20th century where guns, artillery and air strikes were able to inflate the casualties to over a million as at Stalingrad, but some ancient and medieval sieges were outstandingly epic affairs involving hundreds of thousands of people. Sieges quite often turned the whole tide of a war while also leaving an unimaginable scar on the besieged population…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Vienna 1485 & 1683

Carthage 146 bc
Corinth 146 bc
Tyre 332 bc

>Vienna 1485
Afaik that was not an overly bloody affair – in essence, Corvinus had not much trouble entering Vienna after negotiating with the citizens rather then the Emperor.

Perhaps you mean 1529, when Suleyman made his first attempt. This one was pretty closely fought, with sorties several thousand strong, and a fight for the breach between the Janissaries and the Landsknechts (and some Spaniards) that put the fate of Europe on a razors edge… If the Austrians had not used the money extracted from the hostage of Richard III on building these walls three centuries before…

Generally spoken: The Mongols had a habit of sometimes killing all inhabitants of cities that defied their advance – especially when they thought these had previously surrendered to their rule. Not many incidents in Europe, Northern Africa or even between these have a similar almost professional genocidal ruthlessness.

That said, there are many sieges that were hard fought. Neuss, 1474/75 was besieged by the full army of Charles the Bold for some 11 month, and was within a week of giving up when the siege was finally relieved by the arrival of the Imperial army.
Charles was so obsessed with this Siege that he passed the chance for the agreed cooperative invasion of France with England, and wore down his army.

There were other, more desperate affairs, many of them lost to obscurity. The Siege of Mombasa is just one of the better known: link

Richard I not III

Crusaders could be pretty vicious after taking a Moslem city and some of the Spanish sieges in El Cid's day got quite nasty.

Probably the worst in terms of casualties were in China – simply because the armies were big and cities had such large populations.

Malta

Magdeburg 1631 come to mind.

The devastations were so great that Magdeburgisieren (or "magdeburgization") became an oft-used term signifying total destruction, rape, and pillaging for decades. The terms "Magdeburg justice", "Magdeburg mercy" and "Magdeburg quarter" also arose as a result of the sack, used originally by Protestants when executing Roman Catholics who begged for quarter.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

Saragossa comes to mind. And anything involving the Mongols.