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When did looting by friendly forces stop being the norm?

JayF

JayF

The Idol Producer
For most of history, an army approaching where you live was bad news, regardless of their supposed affliation. Soldiers were badly paid to no pay at all, and their supplies were supplanted by whatever you can loot from the locals.

Even in 1915, retreating troops in WW1 looted friendly towns. So when did looting by alleged friendlies stopped being the norm?
 
The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 obligated military combatants to avoid destruction of and provide protection to enemy property and the fourth Geneva convention of 1949 specifically prohibited the looting of civilian property.

Though before that even in the ancient and medieval world where looting was a normal part of war there were generally previsions that settlements that surrendered before the first battering ram touching the walls were protected but once the siege began then the settlement would be sacked and in the ancient world the a chunk of the population sold into slavery or if they were really, really, unlucky like lets say pissing the Romans off then the entire population might be put to the sword by the victorious army.
 
JayF said:
For most of history, an army approaching where you live was bad news, regardless of their supposed affliation. Soldiers were badly paid to no pay at all, and their supplies were supplanted by whatever you can loot from the locals.

Even in 1915, retreating troops in WW1 looted friendly towns. So when did looting by alleged friendlies stopped being the norm?
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Has it ever? The US army of today might do it's best to supply all it's soldiers needs, but shortfalls can and do happen, and worse, some troops are just assholes.

I'm reasonably sure that the German Army must have plundered somewhat the countryside in 1945, as they were beaten back into their own heartland, but generally this sort of thing came to an end durring and after WW1. In the innocent age before that war, ammunition, fuel, and replacement weapons were mere footnotes compared to the dominating issues of fodder for animals and food for troops. Annoyingly, horses needed ten times as much food as humans, so wagon-trains became inefficent quite rapidly for supply from base. Freed of animal driven supply chains though, a mechanized army can probably avoid the need for mass diversions of civilians supplies, voluntary or otherwise.
 
Vehrec said:
Has it ever? The US army of today might do it's best to supply all it's soldiers needs, but shortfalls can and do happen, and worse, some troops are just assholes.

I'm reasonably sure that the German Army must have plundered somewhat the countryside in 1945, as they were beaten back into their own heartland, but generally this sort of thing came to an end durring and after WW1. In the innocent age before that war, ammunition, fuel, and replacement weapons were mere footnotes compared to the dominating issues of fodder for animals and food for troops. Annoyingly, horses needed ten times as much food as humans, so wagon-trains became inefficent quite rapidly for supply from base. Freed of animal driven supply chains though, a mechanized army can probably avoid the need for mass diversions of civilians supplies, voluntary or otherwise.
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The whole German war machine was predicated on looting conquered countries of resources, never mind just the smaller scale stuff the troops took directly for their own use.
 
So in short, once an army's needs were no longer capable of supplied by a typical civi town, it became less of an issue?
 
Ironanvil1 said:
The whole German war machine was predicated on looting conquered countries of resources, never mind just the smaller scale stuff the troops took directly for their own use.
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Well yes, but if we're specifically talking about their looting from 'friendly' territory, which was obviously low for much of the war because active looting requires the troops to be in that territory. Only in 44 and 45 were the German Army at home in quantities that probably exceeded the capacity to quarter them in an orderly fashion.

And of course, the need for food has never gone away, even in the age of MREs.
 
I have no hard facts to back this up, but I think the British Empire might have played a part in this. During the Peninsular War of 1808-1814, the Brits worked out that in the long run it was cheaper to buy local supplies than to commandeer them and have to deal with the resulting banditry and hatred. Bear in mind I got this notion from a period novel by Martin McDowell, so it could easily be nonsense.
 
JayF said:
So in short, once an army's needs were no longer capable of supplied by a typical civi town, it became less of an issue?
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Well the thing is that a lot of the time a town was never going to meet an army's needs anyways. It's just not big enough. The Romans had to deal with armies that needed dedicated logistics efforts.

There are two factors here: the supply of the army via a dedicated logistics effort rather than living off the land, and the view that looting was undesirable either as a matter of discipline or wasteful of time.
 
Isn't it still is the norm, at least for British squaddies?



Maybe you're thinking of a different form of friendly looting. :)
 
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Night said:
Well the thing is that a lot of the time a town was never going to meet an army's needs anyways. It's just not big enough. The Romans had to deal with armies that needed dedicated logistics efforts.

There are two factors here: the supply of the army via a dedicated logistics effort rather than living off the land, and the view that looting was undesirable either as a matter of discipline or wasteful of time.
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Right, the town was never gonna be able to meet the army's needs in the long term-but it could do so for a day. And the next day, you march to the next town. An army that's looting it's way across the countryside can't stop for long, so it's weakness is seige, and a relatively small force can stymie it because it can't take the time to crack even a small fort without huge logistics effort. When at all possible, the Romans and everyone else moved supplies by boat-no large Roman permanent fort ever was build away from a river which could deliver supplies, I hear.
 
Vehrec said:
Right, the town was never gonna be able to meet the army's needs in the long term-but it could do so for a day. And the next day, you march to the next town. An army that's looting it's way across the countryside can't stop for long, so it's weakness is seige, and a relatively small force can stymie it because it can't take the time to crack even a small fort without huge logistics effort. When at all possible, the Romans and everyone else moved supplies by boat-no large Roman permanent fort ever was build away from a river which could deliver supplies, I hear.
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There is a reason Rome's heart was around the mediteranean and everything else was periphery.

That said, river and sea transport are the dominant forms of logistic transportation for the world up to the invention of the train, so the Romans weren't unique in concentrating their major fortifications and urban centers around rivers and seas.
 
Alane1 said:
Though before that even in the ancient and medieval world where looting was a normal part of war there were generally previsions that settlements that surrendered before the first battering ram touching the walls were protected but once the siege began then the settlement would be sacked and in the ancient world the a chunk of the population sold into slavery or if they were really, really, unlucky like lets say pissing the Romans off then the entire population might be put to the sword by the victorious army.
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Pretty sure most ancient military writers made note not to needlessly piss off or destroy the country whose wealth you are attempting to acquire.
 
Night said:
There are two factors here: the supply of the army via a dedicated logistics effort rather than living off the land, and the view that looting was undesirable either as a matter of discipline or wasteful of time.
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And since supplying an army with all of the consumables of Modern Warfare that have no civilian equivalent was necessary anyways, it wasn't really any more of a herculean task to see to the troops provisioning.
 
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