Most well defended city in the world?

[emzie]

What about Hattusa? My understanding is that it was basically a gigantic fortress in inaccessible mountains.

Edessa was also supposed to be an extremely defensible city, which may be one reason it managed to maintain itself as the capital of independent Osrhoene when both the Romans and the Parthians were squeezing it from both sides.

Also, I'd have thought Petra must have been pretty defensible.

Eh, the view we have of Petra is one of the treasury and the Siq entrance. The city itself is actually in a pretty wide, flat valley. It had some good fortifications, but the towers were toppled from undermining.

I also imagine it would have been very vulnerable to a prolonged siege. It's not a place that's easily resupplied. Nor is it self sufficient. If Petra's water supply system were damaged (as it eventually was in an earthquake) the city would be forced to use stored reserves.

 

[Dachs]

While Petra was not easy to keep supplied, it was even more difficult for a besieger to supply his own armies. Hieronymos of Kardia and Demetrios Poliorketes both attacked the place during Antigonos I's brief sideshow war with the Nabataians, and neither was successful.

 

[Plotinus]

Somebody managed to obliterate Hattusha during that mysterious civilization-wrecking collapse of the Bronze Age, and Edessa fell to the Sassanids, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Crusaders, Mamluks, and others, if I recall.

Well, Mike Tyson has been beaten in the ring more often than I have, but that doesn't make me a better boxer than him. Edessa was captured so many times because of where it is - that doesn't mean it was indefensible.

 

[Domen]

On the other hand, Leningrad's and Stalingrad's defences had face more severe attacks,

I wouldn't compare attacks on Leningrad with those on Stalingrad.

While Stalingrad was really under very severe German attacks (and almost entire city fell into German hands before the Soviets started to gain their ground back), Leningrad for vast majority of the entire period was just besieged & shelled, but Germans did not attack it directly with their ground forces. The German tactics for Leningrad was to starve the city to death - and after 17 September 1941 Germans did not assault Leningrad even a single time, only besieged it. The only real attempt of assaulting Leningrad was between 12 and 17 September 1941, soon after German forces approached the outskirts of the city.

 

[Domen]

One of the shortest city defences in history was the French siege of the Prussian city of Stettin on 1 November 1806.

German garrison of Stettin - 6,000 soldiers and 70 cannons - surrendered to 500 French cavalrymen with 1 cannon, after the French cannon fired 1 shot.

Commander of the city garrison was baron von Romberg.

French cavalry (500 Huzars under gen. Antoine Charles Louis Collinet de Lasalle) capturing Stettin after its capitulation, 1 November 1806:



At least Germans did not surrender without a single shot (but after a single shot).

 

[AnthonyBoscia]

Wouldn't the fact that Leningrad was besieged for two years instead of occupied be an argument in favor of it being well-defended?

Can't believe you called it Stettin. Regardless of the time frame.

 

[Domen]

Wouldn't the fact that Leningrad was besieged for two years instead of occupied be an argument in favor of it being well-defended?

No - because Germans did not attack Leningrad not because it was so well-defended, but because they chose the easier (at least they thought so) way to force it to surrender - namely to starve it to death.

In fact it was Adolf Hitler who gave that inhuman order to starve the city to death instead of wasting lives of German soldiers in an assault.

======================================

Moreover - regardless of the huge amount of sheer numbers and material means gathered to defend the city, the Soviet decision-making and command center made a series of terrible mistakes at the beginning of the city defence, which later vastly contributed to the mass starvation and to the tragedy of civilians trapped inside the surrounded city. This alone is an argument to say that the city was not really "well", but rather ineptly defended.

And considering the numerical strength of German forces around Leningrad and of Soviet forces inside and around the city - the Germans should be defending here, because they were numerically inferior, also in terms of equipment. Yet their blockade of Leningrad was successful for 900 days and many Soviet attempts to break through the German ring of encirclement to release the besieged city failed, before one such attempt finally succeeded in 1944.

The fact that Leningrad was besieged for 900 days is a proof that German lines around it were well-defended against Soviet attempts to unblock the city.

One of those attempts was repulsed by the Spanish "Blue" Division near Krasny Bor in February 1943 - against many times stronger Soviet forces.

Can't believe you called it Stettin. Regardless of the time frame.

Ok, Burstaborg (Burstaborg = how the Danes called it).

 

[Yeekim]

German garrison of Stettin - 6,000 soldiers and 70 cannons - surrendered to 500 French cavalrymen with 1 cannon, after the French cannon fired 1 shot.

Slightly different numbers in wiki:

Romberg surrendered the Stettin fortress, 5,300 troops, and 281 guns. The Prussian garrison was made up the remnants of Schimmelpfennig's and other forces, plus the 3rd battalions of the Kuhnheim Infantry Regiment Nr. 1, Arnim Infantry Regiment Nr. 13, Brunswick Infantry Regiment Nr. 21, Pirch Infantry Regiment Nr. 22, Winning Infantry Regiment Nr. 23, Möllendorf Infantry Regiment Nr. 25, and Larisch Infantry Regiment Nr. 26. One hundred officers were released on their word of honor not to fight against France while the common soldiers became prisoners of war. Lasalle's entire force consisted of 800 horsemen of the 5th and 7th Hussar Regiments plus two cannons.

Anyway, nice tidbit, thanks for mentioning it!

 

[Domen]

On the other hand - if we already speak about Szczecin / Stettin / Burstaborg - Danish 12th century historian Saxo Grammaticus referred to it as an "impregnable fortress" during times when it was held by independent Slavic Pomeranians (until mid-12th century).

He wrote that there was a proverb "to be safe like behind the walls of Szczecin".

Eric Christiansen in his book "The Northern Crusades" when describing the Slavic (Polabian & Pomeranian) duchies & city-states along the Baltic coast from the Bay of Kiel to the Polish-controlled Region of Gdansk (East Pomerania) in early 12th century, listed several large Slavic urban / civic centers along the coast of Baltic and wrote that there was not a single city of similar size in Denmark at that time, maybe except of Slesvig.

Indeed those were very large settlements for that time period and part of Europe. Their wealth resulted from intense trade and also raids of Slavic pirates against neighbouring Christian countries. For example Slavic Szczecin had 5000 or more inhabitants, many of whom were slaves (among those slaves were many from Denmark, which was being heavily devastated by raids of Slavic pirates, halted only as the result of the Polabian Crusades of 1147 - 1185).

According to German missionary Otto from Bamberg Szczecin was inhabited by ca. 900 Slavic families / clans (plus, of course, their slaves).

One of Slavic merchants & members of the ruling class from Szczecin - certain Domisław - had 500 armed servants and a private fleet of 6 ships.

Indeed, Slavic Szczecin was never captured during the crusades of 1147 - 1185. But Duke of Pomerania and Szczecin Boguslav I (died 1187) was defeated in the battle of Kamien in 1185 and after that battle he agreed to become a vassal of the Danish king Canute VI (reigned 1182 - 1202).

Until 1180 West Pomerania & Szczecin were vassal states of Poland (since the Polish invasion in late 1110s and early 1120s).

 

[Veles]

Ah, the good old gone days of Baltic Slavs. Vineta was, supposedly, the biggest city of Northern Europe. Arkona...
Btw, there's actually a legend, that the Rus' were initially the colonists of the Rujane of the island of Rujan (modern Rugen).

Spoiler :

 

[Domen]

Beautiful pictures Veles!

Regarding those Baltic-Slavic city-states and duchies:

In early 12th century (before the Polabian Crusades) the Slavic territory extended to the west as far as to the Bay of Kiel and areas near modern Hamburg, bordering Danish territory (Danish territory extended to the south as far as to the mouth of river Eider in the west and to the Bay of Kiel in the east) and Saxon territory (the northern and north-eastern border of Saxon territory was so called "limes Saxoniae" - the one hundred kilometers wide belt of almost completely uninhabited, heavily forested land, extending from the south-western banks of the Bay of Kiel to Lauenburg at the Elbe river).

Between the Bay of Kiel and the river Trawa (Germ. Trave) lived Wagrowie. From the Trawa river to the upper Warnawa (Germ. Warnow) river lived Warnowie. Areas from the Warnow river to the Rana (Germ. Rugen) island, Piana (Germ. Peene) river and the mouth of the Odra (Germ. Oder) river were inhabited by Veleti. On the Rana island itself lived Ranowie. To the south of those tribes lived the Serbo-Łużyczanie (Sorbs), who spoke slightly different dialects than their neighbours from the north (Sorbs spoke Eastern-Lechitic dialects while those in the north spoke Western-Lechitic dialects).

In German & Scandinavian sources all those Western Slavic nations were called Wends.

Main cities of the Baltic Slavs living west of the Odra river, were: Stargard (Germ. Oldenburg, Dan. Brandehuse); Ljubice (Germ. Lubeck); Racibórz (Germ. Ratzeburg); Mechlin (Germ. Mecklenburg) - Mechlin was the main city of Obodrites; Roztok (Germ. Rostock). On the Rana island were located two important cities - Arkona (Germ. Arkona) and Gardziec (Germ. Garz). At the Piana river were located Dymin (Germ. Demmin), at the Odra river Szczecin (Germ. Stettin, Dan. Burstaborg), in the area around the Szczecin Lagoon - Wołogoszcz (Germ. Wolgast), Uznam (Germ. Usedom), Lubin (Germ. Lebbin), Wolin (Germ. Wollin) and Kamień (Germ. Cammin). And also Wineta / Vineta - the exact location of which is nowadays unknown.

As you can see all the modern German names of these cities are derived from old Slavic names (some phonetically and some semantically - like for example in case of Slav. Stargard / Germ. Oldenburg, which means "an old city").

 

[ArguCa]

@Veles
wonderful pics! do you have more?

 

[Veles]

@Veles
wonderful pics! do you have more?

Spoiler :

This are pics by Russian painter Vsevolod Ivanov. It's mostly depicts pre-Christian Russia. Some of those are dedicated to Wagrian, Polabian and Pomeranian Slavs.

 

[ArguCa]

just wow!

I would give you thousand +rep, if it were possible

really great pics. thank you for sharing.

Peace!

 

[Veles]

Nae worries, mate. I got tonnes of this stuff.


Link to video.

Link to video.

Are you really from Kiev?

 

[madviking]

Awesome stuff, tovarishch!

 

[ArguCa]

Are you really from Kiev?

no but part of my family migrated from Kiev

 

[madviking]

Ah, exactly just how I'm from St. Petersburg.

 

[ArguCa]

Ah, exactly just how I'm from St. Petersburg.

wasnt funny at all. my family had to migrate from there. I do not expect you to understand

 

[Kosez]

Am I right that Ragusa (Dubrovnik) fell only to Napoleon's (Marmont?) troops? Dubrovnik's city walls are on UNESCO's list.