this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
187 points (100.0% liked)

History Memes

2204 readers
1057 users here now

A place to share history memes!

Rules:

  1. No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.

  2. No fascism (including tankies/red fash), atrocity denial or apologia, etc.

  3. Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.

  4. Follow all Piefed.social rules.

  5. History referenced must be 20+ years old.

Banner courtesy of @setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world

OTHER COMMS IN THE HISTORYVERSE:

founded 10 months ago
MODERATORS
 

Context: According to historical accounts, the Byzantine Emperor Leo III tricked the Umayyad commander Maslama into burning his own army's grain supplies by promising a peaceful surrender once the food was gone. Leo then refused to surrender, leaving the Arab forces to face a devastating famine and a brutal winter that ultimately broke the siege.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

There is some sense to it - insofar as besieging armies occasionally did destroy their own supplies in order to force their own troops to commit to a (usually costly) assault on the besieged location. Thus, "I want to convince my nobles to surrender, but they think you're just going to wait out there and that they can outlast you. They need to think you're going to storm the walls soon if we want them scared enough to entertain the idea of surrender" is a legitimate thought...

... but that's a lot of fucking faith to put in one's literal fucking enemy XD