A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and infrastructure. Its use is possible by a retreating army to leave nothing of value worth taking, to weaken the attacking force or by an advancing army to fight against unconventional warfare.
Sherman's March to the Sea by Darley and Ritchie
Corfe Castle was slighted during the English Civil War so that its defences could not be reused.
The forces of Vlad the Impaler were associated with torches, particularly outside Târgoviște.
Napoleon's retreat from Moscow
Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek word strategos, the term strategy, when first used during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general", or "the art of arrangement" of troops. and deals with the planning and conduct of campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces, and the deception of the enemy.
Entry of Napoleon into Berlin by Charles Meynier. After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806.
19th century musketeers from Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford, 18 June 1815