Editing Scorched earth (section)

==20th century==
===World War I===
[[File:The German Withdrawal To the Hindenburg Line, March-april 1917 Q5216.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Ruins of the church of St. Jean in [[Péronne, Somme|Péronne]], blown up by the Germans in March 1917]]
On the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]] of [[World War I]], the [[Imperial Russian Army]] created a zone of destruction by using a massive scorched-earth strategy during their retreat from the [[Imperial German army|Imperial German Army]] in the summer and the autumn of 1915. The Russian troops, retreating along a front of more than 600 miles, destroyed anything that might be of use to their enemy, including crops, houses, railways and entire cities. They also forcibly removed huge numbers of people. In pushing the Russian troops back into Russia's interior, the German army gained a large area of territory from the [[Russian Empire]] that is now [[Poland]], [[Ukraine]], [[Belarus]], [[Latvia]] and [[Lithuania]].{{sfn|Hochschild|2011}}

In late 1916 the British army set fire to the [[Romania in World War I|Romanian]] oil fields in order to prevent the Central Powers from capturing them. 800 million litres of oil were burned.{{sfn|Dologa|2020}}

On the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] on 24 February 1917, the [[German Army (German Empire)|German army]] made a strategic scorched-earth withdrawal ([[Operation Alberich]]) from the [[Battle of the Somme|Somme battlefield]] to the prepared fortifications of the [[Hindenburg Line]] to shorten the line that had to be occupied. Since a scorched-earth campaign requires a [[maneuver warfare|war of movement]], the [[Western Front of World War I|Western Front]] provided little opportunity for the policy as the war was mostly a [[stalemate]] and was fought mostly in the same concentrated area for its entire duration.

===Greco-Turkish War===
{{main|Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)#Greek scorched earth policy}}
[[File:After Greek atrocity August 1922.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Turkish [[Combat medic|medics]] arrived at a town to rescue wounded on the way to Izmir after Greek forces abandoned the town (August 1922).]]
During the [[Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)]], the retreating [[Hellenic Army|Greek Army]] carried out a scorched-earth policy while it was fleeing from [[Anatolia]] in the final phase of the war.{{sfn|Fisher|1959}}  The historian [[Sydney Nettleton Fisher]] wrote, "The Greek army in retreat pursued a burned-earth policy and committed every known outrage against defenceless Turkish villagers in its path".{{sfn|Fisher|1959}}

[[Norman Naimark]] noted that "the Greek retreat was even more devastating for the local population than the occupation".{{sfn|Naimark|2002|p=[{{Google books |plainurl=yes |id=L-QLXnX16kAC |page=46}} 46]}}

===Second Sino-Japanese War===
{{See also|Second Sino-Japanese War|Three Alls Policy|Nanjing Massacre}}
[[File:Chinese civilians to be buried alive.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Chinese civilians to be killed, Sino-Japanese War]]
During the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]], the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] had a scorched-earth policy, known as "[[Three Alls Policy]]", which caused immense environmental and infrastructure damage to be recorded. It contributed to the complete destruction of entire villages and partial destruction of entire cities.{{sfn|Todd|2016}}

The Chinese [[National Revolutionary Army]] destroyed dams and levees in an attempt to flood the land to slow down the advancement of Japanese soldiers, which further added to the environmental impact and resulted in the [[1938 Yellow River flood]]. In the [[1938 Changsha fire]], the city of [[Changsha]] was put on fire by the [[Kuomintang]]  to prevent any wealth from falling into enemy hands.{{sfn|Taylor|2009|p=158}}

===World War II===
[[File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-087-3693-07A,_Russland,_brennende_Ortschaft.jpg|thumb|upright=1|[[Nazi Germany]]'s scorched-earth policy in the [[Soviet Union]] in 1943. In this photograph, taken by a [[Propagandakompanie|Wehrmacht propaganda company]], the original 1943 caption reads, "Russia. Burning houses / huts in village".]]

At the start of the [[Winter War]] in 1939, the Finns used the tactic in the vicinity of the border in order to deprive the invading Soviet [[Red Army]]'s provisions and shelter for the forthcoming cold winter. In some cases, fighting took place in areas that were familiar to the Finnish soldiers who were fighting it. There were accounts of soldiers burning down their very own homes and parishes. One of the burned parishes was [[Battle of Suomussalmi|Suomussalmi]].{{sfn|Tuunainen|2016|p=112}}

When [[Operation Barbarossa|Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941]], many district governments took the initiative to begin a partial scorched-earth policy to deny the invaders access to electrical, telecommunications, rail, and industrial resources. Parts of the telegraph network were destroyed, some rail and road bridges were blown up, most electrical generators were sabotaged through the removal of key components, and many mineshafts were collapsed.{{sfn|Gilbert|1989|pp=241–242}}

The process was repeated later in the war by the German forces of [[Army Group North]] and [[Erich von Manstein]]'s [[Army Group Don]], which stole crops, destroyed farms, and razed cities and smaller settlements during several military operations. The rationale for the policy was that it would slow pursuing Soviet forces by forcing them to save their own civilians. The best-known victims of the German scorched-earth policy were the people of the historic city of [[Novgorod]], which was razed during the winter of 1944 to cover Army Group North's retreat from [[Leningrad]].

[[File:Sodankylä 1944.jpg|thumb|upright=1|[[Finnish Defence Force|Finnish troops]] arrive in the church village of [[Sodankylä]], burned by the [[Nazi Germany|Germans]], in 1945.]]
Near the end of the summer of 1944, [[Finland]], which had made a [[separate peace]] with the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]], was required to evict the German forces, which had been fighting against the Soviets alongside Finnish troops in northern Finland. The Finnish forces, under the leadership of General [[Hjalmar Siilasvuo]], struck aggressively in late September 1944 by making a landfall at [[Tornio]]. That accelerated the German retreat, and by November 1944, the Germans had left most of northern Finland. The German forces, forced to retreat because of an overall strategic situation, covered their retreat towards [[Norway]] by devastating large areas of northern Finland by using a scorched-earth strategy. More than a third of the area's dwellings were destroyed, and the provincial capital [[Battle of Rovaniemi|Rovaniemi]] was burned to the ground. All but two bridges in [[Lapland (Finland)|Lapland Province]] were blown up, and all roads were mined.

In [[northern Norway]], which was also being invaded by Soviet forces in pursuit of the retreating [[Wehrmacht]] in 1944, the Germans also undertook a scorched-earth policy of destroying every building that could offer shelter and thus interposing a belt of "scorched earth" between themselves and the allies.{{sfn|Derry|1972}}

In 1945, [[Adolf Hitler]] ordered his minister of armaments, [[Albert Speer]], to carry out a nationwide scorched-earth policy, in what became known as the [[Nero Decree]]. Speer, who was looking to the future, actively resisted the order, just as he had earlier refused Hitler's command to destroy French industry when the Wehrmacht was being driven out of France. Speer managed to continue doing so even after Hitler became aware of his actions.{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|page=785}}

During the Second World War, the [[railroad plough]] was used during retreats in [[Nazi Germany|Germany]], [[Czechoslovakia]] and other countries to deny enemy use of railways by partially destroying them.{{sfn|Forczyk|2016|p=6}}

===Malayan Liberation War===
Britain was the first nation to employ [[herbicides]] and [[defoliants]] (chiefly [[Agent Orange]]) to destroy the crops and the bushes of [[Malayan National Liberation Army]] (MNLA) insurgents in [[Malay Peninsula|Malaya]] during the [[Malayan Emergency]]. The intent was to prevent MNLA insurgents from utilizing rice fields to resupply their rations and using them as a cover to ambush passing convoys of Commonwealth troops.

===Goa War===
In response to [[India]]'s invasion of [[Portuguese Goa]] in December 1961 during the [[annexation of Portuguese India]], orders delivered from [[President of Portugal|Portuguese President]] [[Américo Tomás]] called for a scorched-earth policy for Goa to be destroyed before its surrender to India.{{sfn|goacom|2012}}

However, despite his orders from [[Lisbon]], Governor General [[Manuel António Vassalo e Silva]] took stock of the superiority of the Indian troops and of his forces' supplies of food and ammunition and took the decision to surrender. He later described his orders to destroy Goa as "a useless sacrifice" (''um sacrifício inútil'')".

===Vietnam War===
The United States used [[Agent Orange]] as a part of its [[herbicidal warfare]] program [[Operation Ranch Hand]] to destroy crops and foliage to expose possible enemy hideouts during the [[Vietnam War]]. [[Agent Blue]] was used on rice fields to deny food to the [[Viet Cong]].

===Guatemalan Civil War===
[[Efraín Ríos Montt]] used the policy in [[Guatemala]]'s highlands in 1981 and 1982, but it had been used under the previous president, [[Fernando Romeo Lucas García]]. Upon entering office, Ríos Montt implemented a new counterinsurgency strategy that called for the use of scorched earth to combat the [[Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity]] rebels. [[Plan Victoria 82]] was more commonly known by the nickname of the rural pacification elements of the strategy, ''Fusiles y Frijoles'' (Bullets and Beans).{{sfn|Schirmer|1998}}  Ríos Montt's policies resulted in the death of thousands, most of them indigenous [[Maya peoples|Mayans]].

===Indonesia===
[[File:Bandung Lautan Api.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Southern part of Bandung during [[Bandung Sea of Fire]], 23 March 1946]]
The [[Indonesian National Armed Forces|Indonesian military]] used the method during [[Indonesian National Revolution]] when the British forces in [[Bandung]] gave an ultimatum for Indonesian fighters to leave the city. In response, the southern part of Bandung was deliberately burned down in an act of defiance as they left the city on 24 March 1946. This event is known as the [[Bandung Sea of Fire]] (''Bandung Lautan Api'').{{sfn|Sitaresmi|1946}}

The [[Indonesian military]] and [[pro-Indonesia militias]] also used the method in the [[1999 East Timorese crisis]]. The Timor-Leste scorched-earth campaign was around the time of [[East Timor]]'s referendum for independence in 1999.

===Yugoslav Wars===
 {{further|Yugoslav Wars}}
The method was used during the [[Yugoslav Wars]] that started in 1991, such as against the [[Serbs]] in [[Republic of Serbian Krajina|Krajina]] by the [[Croatian Army]],{{sfn| Dyker|Vejvoda|2014|pp=213-}}{{sfn|Pavkovic|2000|pp=154–}} and by [[List of Serbian paramilitary formations#Yugoslav Wars|Serbian paramilitary groups]].{{sfn|Mojzes|2016|pp=166–}}

===Soviet–Afghan War===
The Soviet army used scorched-earth tactics against towns and villages in 1983 to 1984 in the [[Soviet–Afghan War]] to prevent the return of the [[Mujahideen]] by a migratory [[genocide]]. The Soviet army used mines extensively in the bordering provinces to Pakistan to cut off weapon supply.{{sfn|Kakar|1995|p=257}}