Talk:Scorched earth

Mexican farmers
Originally "Mexico has used scorched earth tactics against farmers' land as a policy to make room for bigger farming businesses. "

I think it's supposed to be farms getting burned to prevent big businesses from taking over, this isn't a use of scorched earth tactic as worded.

the tactic was first proposed not by Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov but Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly. where and when? the ref. link doesn't mention it.


 * Not just that, but it can hardly have been first proposed in modern times if it was in widespread use (as I seem to recall from history books that it WAS) in the ancient world. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 15:24, Jun 24, 2004 (UTC)

Etymology section
There could be an etymology section for the term.

"Scorched earth military strategy is 1937, translation of Chinese jiaotu..." - etymonline.com

The quote is a bit longer but I don't want to run afoul of copyright rules.

I didn't realize that somebody had mentioned this very thing way back in 2008: Talk:Scorched_earth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AllThatJazz2012 (talk • contribs) 08:13, December 2, 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree that an "origin of the term" or similar section would be appropriate -- the article seems like it's essentially a list of instances scorched-earth in practice, and it lacks a discussion of the history of scholarship about the practice. As I recall from my high school history, the term originated with the Russians' strategy of retreat from Napoleon, but the article doesn't actually say that. ~ Waidawut (talk) 08:05, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Changes to the Boer War section
Removing an unsubstantiated claim. : "adopted the first modern form of what we know today as guerrilla warfare," I have been reading the attached reference ( which is awful, the writer is a fool ) and there is no mention of "modern" guerrilla warfare. So I'm deleting it. here is a link to the reference https://home.gwu.edu/~downes/CIVWARS9_4_DOWNESDRAININGSEA.pdf

removing "An eloquent description of this comes from an Army officer at the time.[41]" Well and good but you failed to include it in the wikipedia entry so I'm removing it.

removing "astonishing" from "Goldman officially determined that an astonishing number" because no reference and Neutral Point of View. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheezypeaz (talk • contribs) 22:04, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Ripe Corn?
In section 1, the ending part is introduced

In the year AD 363, the Emperor Julian's invasion of Sassanid Persia was turned back by a scorched-earth policy:

inside the block quote is the phrase:

...the grass and ripe corn were consumed with fire...

Corn didn't exist in Europe at that point; it came from the Americas shortly after 1492. OsamaBinLogin (talk) 23:50, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , this reply is months late but better late than never. "Corn" in European English meant, and mostly still means, any edible grain. What is called "corn" in the Americas is called "Maize" in European English. See the note at the top of Corn_(disambiguation) for more. I hope this helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:13, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Removed as "no sources"
, you have removed several sections with the comment "no reliable source was found". I checked two of them, and in fact it was trivial to find sources using Google Books. In fact, the sections were actually nearly verbatim extracts from sources, so they need to be rewritten to avoid copyvio:
 * Viking invasion: the first result of the Google Books search [hastein mercia destroy crops]
 * India: the second result of the Google Books search [chandella scorched earth]

Remember, before deleting content, you should make a minimal effort to find a source. --Macrakis (talk) 18:02, 1 July 2023 (UTC)


 * @Macrakis: I have checked the sources you get with "chandela scorched earth".
 * Ancient India:appear to have adopted a scorched earth policy and retreated...
 * Ancient Indian history and civilization:seems to have adopted the scorched earth policy and shut himself up...
 * Uttar Pradesh District Gazetteers:appears that the Chandellas adopted a ' scorched earth ' policy, and on both occasions staged a planned retreat
 * For me, this is not enough, no details on scorched earth, the words used are seem and appear, it sounds like Fabian strategy best case.
 * This information makes no sense in an article about scorched earth, we have better examples and by that the delete was right.
 * books.google.de › books Ruedi33a (talk) 19:00, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Viking invasion is rewritten and with new source reactivated. Thanks for the links. Ruedi33a (talk) 19:21, 1 July 2023 (UTC)