What was the biggest siege in history?
By scale and loss of life, the siege of Leningrad was the biggest in history: German and Finnish troops blockaded the city for 872 days, from 8 September 1941 to 27 January 1944, and about 700,000 to one million civilians died. Our ranking still puts Jerusalem in 70 AD first, ahead of Leningrad on consequence, with Constantinople in 1453 and Vienna in 1683 next.
Some of history's most decisive moments came not in open battle but before a city's walls, in the slow grip of a siege. These are the fifteen greatest sieges ever fought, from Jerusalem and the earthworks of Alesia to Leningrad and the ruins of Stalingrad. They are ranked by a score, not by date, and how we chose and ranked them is explained right after the list.
1 Jerusalem, 70 AD
- Where
- Jerusalem, Roman province of Judaea
- War
- First Jewish-Roman War, 66 to 74 AD
- Besiegers
- Four Roman legions with auxiliaries under Titus
- Defenders
- About 23,000 fighters in rival factions, by Josephus’s figures, and crowds of trapped pilgrims
- Outcome
- City taken and the Temple burned; 600,000 to 1,100,000 dead in ancient accounts
By the spring of 70 AD Jerusalem was the last great stronghold of the Jewish revolt against Rome. Titus, son of the new emperor Vespasian, arrived before the walls on 14 April, just before Passover, with four legions. Inside, the city was split between rival commanders: Simon bar Giora held the Upper City and John of Gischala the Temple Mount, and their feud had already wasted men and food. Josephus counts about 23,000 fighters in their factions, and crowds of Passover pilgrims were shut in with them.1
The Romans broke the outer wall in 15 days and the second wall four days later, then took the Antonia fortress despite the defenders’ mines. Hunger spread through the packed city, and according to Josephus as many as 500 people a day were crucified outside the walls. In August the Temple burned: Josephus dates it to the tenth of the month Lous, the same day, he says, on which the Babylonians had burned the First Temple. By early September Titus held what was left of the city. Josephus says 1,100,000 people perished in the siege and 97,000 were taken captive over the whole war; ancient figures run from about 600,000 to 1,100,000 and cannot be checked. Jews still mourn the Temple on the fast of Tisha B’Av, and the Arch of Titus in Rome shows its golden menorah carried in the Roman triumph.2
Why it ranks here: It takes full marks for recognition, scale, consequence and memory: the siege destroyed the Second Temple and reshaped Jewish history. Only certainty holds it back, because the death toll rests on Josephus; it is No. 1 because it ties Leningrad on points and wins the tie on consequence.
2 Leningrad, 1941 to 1944
- Where
- Leningrad (today St Petersburg), Soviet Union
- War
- World War II, Eastern Front
- Besiegers
- German Army Group North from the south, Finnish troops from the north
- Defenders
- The Red Army and about 2.5 million trapped civilians
- Outcome
- Held for 872 days; about 700,000 to 1 million civilians dead
When German troops took Shlisselburg on Lake Ladoga in early September 1941 and cut the last land route into the city, Hitler ordered the Soviet Union’s second city starved out rather than fought for street by street. Army Group North sealed it off on 8 September, and Finnish troops closed the ring to the north. About 2.5 million civilians, at least 400,000 of them children, were trapped inside.3
The first winter was the worst. From 20 November to 25 December 1941 the bread ration fell to 125 grams a day, and by Anna Reid’s count more than 100,000 people died in each of January and February 1942. People ate cats, rats, bark and sawdust. Food came in, and hundreds of thousands of people went out, across the frozen Lake Ladoga. The Red Army broke a narrow corridor through in January 1943 and drove the Germans off on 27 January 1944, after 872 days. That makes it the biggest siege of a modern city and the deadliest siege on record. Between about 700,000 and one million civilians died, most of them of hunger, and the exact toll will never be known: the Soviet figure of 632,253 given at Nuremberg was, in Reid’s words, spuriously precise. Half a million victims lie in the Piskaryovskoe Memorial Cemetery.4
Why it ranks here: It takes full marks for recognition, scale, memory and certainty: 872 days and up to a million civilian dead make it the biggest and deadliest siege on record. It loses one point on consequence, because the city held but did not by itself decide the war, so it ties Jerusalem on points and stands second on the consequence tie-break.
3 Constantinople, 1453
- Where
- Constantinople (today Istanbul), capital of the Byzantine Empire
- War
- Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire
- Besiegers
- Sultan Mehmed II: 60,000 to 80,000 by modern estimates, 150,000 to 200,000 in older accounts
- Defenders
- Emperor Constantine XI: about 5,000 to 7,000 men, plus 700 Genoese
- Outcome
- Stormed on 29 May 1453; the Byzantine Empire ended
By 1453 the Byzantine Empire was little more than its capital, but Constantinople still sat behind the Theodosian land walls: a ditch 20 meters wide, an outer wall, and an inner wall 12 meters high with 96 towers. The 21-year-old sultan Mehmed II opened the attack on 6 April. Modern historians put his army at 60,000 to 80,000, while the eyewitness Sphrantzes claimed 200,000. Against them the emperor Constantine XI had fewer than 5,000 Greeks by Sphrantzes’s count, or about 7,000 men with the foreigners, reinforced by 700 Genoese under Giovanni Giustiniani. All these numbers are disputed.5
Mehmed’s answer to the walls was gunpowder. The Hungarian engineer Urban cast him a gun 9 meters long that hurled a 500-kilogram ball, though only seven times a day. To get past the defenses of the harbor, the Ottomans dragged about 70 ships overland on ox-drawn carts and launched them into the Golden Horn. After about seven weeks of bombardment the walls were badly cracked, and at dawn on 29 May Mehmed attacked from three sides. Janissaries got onto the land walls by a small gate left open, Constantine XI died fighting, and the city was looted for three days. An empire that had lasted eleven centuries ended in a single morning. As one Byzantine put it, everything was decided by the cannon.6
Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, consequence and memory: 53 days of the heaviest cannon fire yet seen ended the Byzantine Empire. It drops a point on scale and a point on certainty, because the garrison and Ottoman numbers rest on partisan chroniclers; it ties Vienna on points, and the tie goes to the older siege.
4 Vienna, 1683
- Where
- Vienna, capital of the Habsburg monarchy, Austria
- War
- Great Turkish War
- Besiegers
- About 100,000 to 120,000 Ottomans under Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa
- Defenders
- About 11,000 soldiers and 5,000 militia under Count Starhemberg
- Outcome
- Relieved on 12 September 1683 by about 65,000 men under John III Sobieski
In 1683 the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa marched on the Habsburg capital with one of the largest armies the Ottomans ever sent west. The army that left Edirne counted some 200,000 men, 80,000 of them in the baggage train, and about 120,000 closed around Vienna on 14 July. Count Starhemberg held the walls with about 11,000 soldiers and some 5,000 militia and volunteers.7
The Ottomans fought the siege underground. They reached the edge of the moat on 29 July and began a war of mines; by the end of August mines had opened several breaches that the defenders closed with barricades, and on 4 September a mine wrecked the Burg bastion. Dysentery swept the city, and by early September Vienna had lost half its defenders. Then the relief came. On 12 September an army of about 65,000 imperial, German and Polish troops under the Polish king John III Sobieski attacked from the Kahlenberg heights, and a charge of Polish cavalry broke the Ottoman ranks; Kara Mustafa fled toward Hungary. Sobieski wrote to the Pope: “Venimus, vidimus, Deus vicit,” we came, we saw, God conquered. In 1983 Pope John Paul II came to the Kahlenberg for the 300th anniversary.8
Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, consequence and memory: two months of mining and assault by one of the largest Ottoman armies ever sent west ended in a rout that turned back the Ottoman advance into central Europe. It loses a point on scale, because the relief battle is better known than the siege itself, and a point on certainty; it ties Constantinople on points and ranks below it as the younger siege.
5 Stalingrad, 1942 to 1943
- Where
- Stalingrad (today Volgograd), Soviet Union
- War
- World War II, Eastern Front
- Besiegers
- The Red Army, which closed the ring on 23 November 1942
- Defenders
- German 6th Army: about 250,000 Germans and more than 30,000 Romanian and Soviet auxiliaries
- Outcome
- Surrendered 31 January to 2 February 1943; about 91,000 taken prisoner
By mid-November 1942 the German 6th Army under Friedrich Paulus had fought its way through about 90 percent of Stalingrad, but never the whole city. On 19 November the Red Army struck the Romanian armies guarding the 6th Army's flanks, and on 23 November the two pincers met near Kalach. The besiegers were now the besieged: about 250,000 Germans and more than 30,000 Romanian and Soviet auxiliaries were shut in a pocket some 40 by 50 kilometers.9
Hitler forbade a breakout and trusted Göring’s promise to supply the pocket from the air. Göring promised 300 tons a day and Paulus reckoned he needed 750; the airlift averaged about 100. A relief attack under Erich von Manstein got within 48 kilometers in December and was called off. The trapped men lived on two slices of bread and a little tea a day in frosts below minus 40. On 30 January 1943 Hitler made Paulus a field marshal, since no German field marshal had ever surrendered; Paulus gave up the southern pocket the next day, and the northern pocket followed on 2 February. About 150,000 Germans had died in the pocket. Some 91,000 went into captivity, and perhaps 6,000 of them ever came home. The initiative in the east passed to the Red Army for good, and since 1967 The Motherland Calls has stood over the battlefield on Mamayev Kurgan.10
Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, consequence, memory and certainty: the starving and surrender of a whole German army in the pocket turned the war in the east. It scores only 3 for scale as a siege, because the city itself was never cut off and the encirclement lasted about ten weeks.
6 Alesia, 52 BC
- Where
- Alesia, on Mont Auxois near Alise-Sainte-Reine, Burgundy, France
- War
- Gallic Wars
- Besiegers
- Julius Caesar’s ten legions with auxiliaries, about 60,000 men by Britannica’s estimate
- Defenders
- Vercingetorix with 80,000 men by Caesar’s count, plus a relief army he put at about 250,000 foot and 8,000 horse
- Outcome
- Relief army beaten; Vercingetorix surrendered
In 52 BC most of Gaul rose against Rome under Vercingetorix. He withdrew into Alesia, a hilltop town near the source of the Seine, with an army Caesar puts at 80,000 chosen men and grain for about 30 days. Caesar did not storm the hill. He shut it in with a line of siege works about 11 miles around, then built a second ring about 14 miles long facing outward, against the Gallic relief army he knew was coming.11
Hunger came first. Vercingetorix sent the women and children out of the town, and the Romans would not let them through, so they starved between the lines. When the day set for relief had passed and the grain was gone, the chieftain Critognatus urged the garrison to live on the bodies of those too old to fight rather than surrender. Then the relief army arrived, by Caesar’s count about 250,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry. The Gauls attacked from inside and outside at once, until Caesar broke their last assault with his reserves and German cavalry. The next day Vercingetorix surrendered. He was kept a prisoner in Rome for six years, led in Caesar’s triumph and executed in 46 BC. Caesar’s figures for the Gauls are almost certainly inflated; his siege works are real, and excavations under Napoleon III traced their ditches.12
Why it ranks here: Full marks for scale and consequence: Caesar’s double ring of siege works held off Vercingetorix and his relief army together and finished the conquest of Gaul. It scores 4 for recognition and memory and 3 for certainty, because Caesar’s own numbers are inflated; among the sieges level with it on points, the tie-break puts the oldest first.
7 Tenochtitlan, 1521
- Where
- Tenochtitlan, island capital of the Mexica (today Mexico City)
- War
- Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire
- Besiegers
- Fewer than 1,000 Spaniards led by Hernán Cortés and 50,000 to over 100,000 Indigenous allies
- Defenders
- The Mexica under Cuauhtémoc, in a city of over 200,000 people
- Outcome
- Fell on 13 August 1521; the Aztec Empire ended
Tenochtitlan, the Mexica capital, was the largest city in the Americas, home to over 200,000 people and joined to the lake shore by three causeways. Cortés had been driven out of it in 1520, losing half his men, and smallpox had since swept the city. In 1521 he came back with about 700 infantry, 118 crossbowmen and arquebusiers, 86 horses, 18 guns and 13 brigantines built for the lake. Most of his army, though, came from the Tlaxcalans and other enemies of the Mexica: at least 100,000 warriors by one count, 50,000 by another. Myth vs fact: a few hundred Spaniards did not take Tenochtitlan alone, since Indigenous allies far outnumbered them.13
The siege began in April. In late May the attackers cut the aqueduct from Chapultepec, and the brigantines ruled the lake, so fresh water and food ran short. In July the defenders seized Cortés himself before his men dragged him free, and the Spaniards spent nearly three weeks on the defensive. On 13 August 1521, after 93 days of resistance, the emperor Cuauhtémoc was captured trying to escape by canoe, and the city fell. National Geographic puts the dead at about 100 Spaniards and as many as 100,000 Mexica, but every casualty figure for the siege is a guess. Mexico City was built over the ruins.14
Why it ranks here: Full marks for scale and consequence: a 93-day siege of the largest city in the Americas ended the Aztec Empire. It scores 4 for recognition and memory and 3 for certainty, because the casualty figures are guesses; level on points with its neighbors, it ranks behind the older Alesia and ahead of the younger Vicksburg.
8 Vicksburg, 1863
- Where
- Vicksburg, Mississippi, on the Mississippi River
- War
- American Civil War
- Besiegers
- Ulysses S. Grant’s Union army, 70,000 to 77,000 men
- Defenders
- John C. Pemberton’s Confederates, about 29,000 to 33,000 men
- Outcome
- Surrendered on 4 July 1863 after 47 days; about 29,000 men laid down their arms
Vicksburg was the Confederacy’s great fortress on the Mississippi, and the Union could not use the river while it held. Lincoln called it the key: the war, he said, could never be brought to a close until that key was in the Union’s pocket. John C. Pemberton had more than a year to ring the city with earthen forts and over 170 cannon. In May 1863 Ulysses S. Grant, after marching inland, cut Vicksburg off from Jackson and the rest of the Confederacy and closed in.15
Grant tried to take the city by storm on 19 May and again, along the whole front, on 22 May. Both assaults failed, so he dug in to starve it. For 47 days the Union trenches crept closer while the guns pounded the town; residents moved into tunnels dug into the hillsides, and conditions for soldiers and civilians grew steadily worse. On 4 July 1863 Pemberton surrendered, and about 29,000 Confederates marched out and laid down their arms and flags, the day after the Union victory at Gettysburg. With the river in Union hands, the Confederacy was split in two; Lincoln wrote that the Mississippi “again goes unvexed to the sea.” The siege lines are preserved today in Vicksburg National Military Park.16
Why it ranks here: Full marks for consequence and certainty: few sieges are so well documented, and it gave the Union the Mississippi. It scores 4 for recognition, scale and memory, because 47 days is short beside the sieges ranked above it; level with them on points, it comes after them as the youngest.
9 Yorktown, 1781
- Where
- Yorktown and Gloucester Point, Virginia
- War
- American Revolutionary War
- Besiegers
- About 16,000 (our sum of Hatch's figures) to 19,900 (American Battlefield Trust) American and French troops under Washington and Rochambeau; de Grasse's French fleet offshore
- Defenders
- About 7,500 to 9,000 British and German troops under Cornwallis
- Outcome
- Surrendered 19 October 1781; 7,416 British captured
In the summer of 1781 Lord Cornwallis marched his army to Yorktown, a port on the York River, and fortified it as a base where the Royal Navy could supply him. It became a trap. On 5 September a French fleet under the Comte de Grasse beat the British at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, and the Royal Navy sailed away, leaving Cornwallis cut off by sea. Washington and Rochambeau were already marching south from New York, and by 27 September about 5,200 Continentals, 7,500 French and over 3,000 militia stood at Williamsburg, about 16,000 men by our sum of Hatch's figures.17
On 28 September the allies marched out and closed around the town. They opened their first siege line on 6 October and a second, closer one on 11 October, and their guns pounded the British works. On the night of 14 October French troops stormed Redoubt 9 while Alexander Hamilton's light infantry took Redoubt 10 with the bayonet. On 17 October an officer with a flag of truce appeared on the parapet, and two days later the garrison marched out to Surrender Field and laid down its arms. The American Battlefield Trust counts 7,416 British captured; the National Park Service notes that a third of all British forces in North America surrendered that day. Parliament voted for peace in March 1782, and the Treaty of Paris confirmed American independence in 1783.18
Why it ranks here: Cornwallis's surrender effectively ended the war, and every American schoolchild knows the name, so Yorktown takes top marks for recognition and consequence. It lasted only about three weeks against some 8,000 men, though, so its scale scores 2 and keeps it below the longer sieges above it.19
10 Carthage, 149 to 146 BC
- Where
- Carthage, on the coast near modern Tunis, Tunisia
- War
- Third Punic War
- Besiegers
- Roman armies of up to 80,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry; from 147 BC under Scipio Aemilianus
- Defenders
- A city of about 200,000, its citizens and freed slaves behind some 34 km of walls; a field army of 30,000 recalled from the Numidian border was hemmed in at Nepheris
- Outcome
- Stormed in spring 146 BC; city razed, 50,000 survivors enslaved, according to Appian
Carthage had lost two wars to Rome, yet its trade still made it rich, and in the Senate Cato kept demanding that “Carthage must be destroyed.” A war with Numidia in 150 BC gave Rome its pretext. It demanded all the city's weapons, then ordered the Carthaginians to leave their city and resettle at least 16 km from the sea. Carthage refused, and in 149 BC shut its gates against a Roman army of up to 80,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry.20
For two years the Romans got nowhere. In 147 BC Scipio Aemilianus walled the city off by land and built a mole across the single entrance to its harbor, so that nothing more came in by sea. In the spring of 146 BC his troops broke in and fought house to house toward the citadel of Byrsa, six days and nights of it in Appian's account, until 50,000 men and women came out to surrender. Scipio, Appian writes, wept for a city that had flourished for 700 years. The survivors were enslaved, the ruins razed and the land made a Roman province. Myth vs fact: the Romans did not sow the ground with salt; Appian's account of the Senate's orders for the ruins says nothing of it, and the story is a later invention.21
Why it ranks here: Three years of siege ended with a great city razed and a state wiped off the map, so it takes full marks for scale and consequence. Its memory is fainter, and the story rests mainly on Appian and fragments of Polybius, so memory and certainty score 3.
11 Dien Bien Phu, 1954
- Where
- Valley of Dien Bien Phu, northwest Vietnam, near the border with Laos
- War
- First Indochina War
- Besiegers
- Viet Minh under Vo Nguyen Giap: five divisions, about 35,000 to 50,000 men
- Defenders
- French Union garrison: about 10,800 men at the start, some 15,000 in all
- Outcome
- Fell 7 May 1954; about 3,500 French Union dead and missing, about 10,300 captured
In November 1953 General Henri Navarre sent paratroopers to seize a remote valley in northwest Vietnam. He wanted an air-supplied base from which to strike at the Viet Minh and keep them out of Laos, and the plain of Dien Bien Phu, about 17 km by 8 km, was the only ground in the region that could take one. By March some 10,800 men held a ring of strongpoints named after women, from Béatrice to Éliane. Around them General Vo Nguyen Giap gathered five divisions, by French figures 35,000 to 50,000 men.22
At 5:10 p.m. on 13 March 1954 Giap's artillery opened fire on the whole garrison. The Viet Minh went first for the airstrip, the base's lifeline; from 30 March to 10 April they fought for the five hills of Éliane and Dominique, and between assaults their trenches crept forward and strangled the defense. In all, some 15,000 French Union soldiers fought there. The general assault of 5 to 7 May overran the last positions, and at 5:30 p.m. on 7 May the guns fell silent. France counted about 3,500 dead and missing and 10,300 prisoners, and of roughly 10,000 who went into the prison camps only about 3,300 came back. The Viet Minh lost an estimated 8,000 dead and 15,000 wounded. In July the Geneva conference split Vietnam at the 17th parallel, and the French withdrew.23
Why it ranks here: Nearly two months of siege ended French rule in Indochina (consequence 5), but it is little remembered outside France and Vietnam (memory 3). It ties on points and recognition with Orléans and Sarajevo and ranks first of the three on consequence.
12 Orléans, 1428 to 1429
- Where
- Orléans on the Loire, France
- War
- Hundred Years' War
- Besiegers
- English and Burgundian troops under the Earl of Salisbury, then the Earl of Suffolk; numbers uncertain
- Defenders
- About 2,400 soldiers and 3,000 armed citizens, according to British Battles; relieved by Joan of Arc
- Outcome
- Siege lifted 8 May 1429
Orléans guarded the Loire and the lands of the uncrowned Charles VII to the south, and if it fell France would most likely lose the war. On 12 October 1428 Thomas Montagu, Earl of Salisbury, laid siege to it; within weeks he was hit by gunfire and died on 3 November, but the siege went on. The English never had enough men to surround a city whose walls ran for about a mile and a quarter. They built a chain of forts on the western side and another at St Loup to the east, while supplies still came in by the roads from the north.24
On 29 April 1429 Joan of Arc entered the city by the eastern gate with reinforcements and supplies. Within days the French went over to the attack: Joan led the assault on the fort of St Loup, and from 6 May they fought for two days to take the Tourelles, the English fort at the bridge. On 8 May, nine days after Joan's arrival, the English raised the siege and marched away. The victory led on to Patay in June and to Charles VII's coronation at Reims in July. The city has celebrated its deliverance since 1430: the Fêtes de Jeanne d'Arc, among the oldest commemorative festivals in France, run every year from 29 April to 8 May.25
Why it ranks here: Joan's relief turned the Hundred Years' War and the city still celebrates it every May (memory 5), but the English never fully encircled Orléans (scale 3). It ties on points and recognition with Dien Bien Phu and Sarajevo; its consequence is smaller than the first's and greater than the second's.
13 Sarajevo, 1992 to 1996
- Where
- Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina
- War
- Bosnian War
- Besiegers
- Bosnian Serb forces, from 1992 the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the Army of Republika Srpska, on the hills around the city
- Defenders
- The Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina; about 350,000 residents trapped inside
- Outcome
- Declared over 29 February 1996; more than 10,000 killed (11,541 by a local count)
The siege is dated from 5 April 1992, when Suada Dilberović and Olga Sučić, its first civilian victims, were shot dead on the Vrbanja Bridge. By September 1992 the Sarajevo-Romanija Corps of the Bosnian Serb army had almost encircled the city and held the ridges above it, while most of Sarajevo stayed in the hands of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some 350,000 people lived inside the ring.26
It was a siege fought less with assaults than with shells and snipers. At its height, according to a UN report, more than 3,000 shells a day fell on the city; on 22 July 1993 alone 3,777 were counted. The main avenue became known as Sniper Alley. On 5 February 1994 a mortar shell in the Markale market killed some 60 people; on 28 August 1995 a second attack on the market killed 43. The Dayton agreement ended the war at the end of 1995, and on 29 February 1996, after 1,425 days, the siege was declared over, the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare. More than 10,000 residents died; a local count gives 11,541, among them more than 1,600 children. The UN tribunal in The Hague later sentenced Stanislav Galić, commander of the besieging corps from 1992 to 1994, to life imprisonment for a campaign of sniping and shelling whose primary purpose was to spread terror among the civilian population.27
Why it ranks here: At 1,425 days and with more than 10,000 dead, it takes full marks for scale and is widely remembered. The siege did not decide the Bosnian War, which ended at the negotiating table, so consequence scores 3, and that places it last of the three sieges tied on points with equal recognition.28
14 The Alamo, 1836
- Where
- San Antonio de Béxar, Texas
- War
- Texas Revolution
- Besiegers
- Santa Anna's Mexican army; about 1,800 in the final assault
- Defenders
- About 150 Texians at first, almost 200 after 1 March; 189 to 257 by later counts
- Outcome
- Stormed 6 March 1836, the 13th day; the defenders killed
Santa Anna's army began to arrive at San Antonio de Béxar on 23 February 1836, and William Travis took his garrison of about 150 men into the fortified mission of the Alamo. When a Mexican courier demanded surrender, Travis answered with a cannonball. Mexican gunners set about battering down the walls, and Travis sent out appeals addressed to “the people of Texas & all Americans in the world,” swearing “Victory or Death” and writing that his men were “determined to defend the garrison to the last.” The only answer was 32 men of the Gonzales ranging company, who slipped in on 1 March.29
Around 5 a.m. on 6 March, the thirteenth day of the siege, Santa Anna sent his columns at the battered walls from four directions. About 1,800 assault troops went in under canister fire, and the fighting was over in no more than ninety minutes. The official list names 189 defenders, though research may raise the total to 257; as many as seven survived the fighting, and Santa Anna ordered them executed. The Mexicans lost about 600 killed and wounded. Myth vs fact: the Alamo did have survivors, nearly twenty women and children and Joe, a man enslaved by Travis. On 21 April Sam Houston's army charged at San Jacinto crying “Remember the Alamo!” and won in eighteen minutes.30
Why it ranks here: Few names here are better known, and “Remember the Alamo” keeps it alive (recognition and memory 5). But a thirteen-day siege of a few hundred men is small beside sieges of months and years (scale 2), and that holds it a point below the sieges above it.
15 Petersburg, 1864 to 1865
- Where
- Petersburg and the approaches to Richmond, Virginia
- War
- American Civil War
- Besiegers
- Union armies under Ulysses S. Grant; about 62,000 in the first assaults of June 1864
- Defenders
- Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia; about 42,000 in the June battles
- Outcome
- Lines broken 2 April 1865; Petersburg and Richmond evacuated; about 42,000 Union and 28,000 Confederate casualties
In 1860 Petersburg was the second-largest city in Virginia, and by 1864 five railroads met there, linking it to Richmond and the South. Grant struck at the town on 15 June 1864 with about 62,000 men against some 42,000, but four days of assaults failed to take it, and he turned to siege.31
The most famous moment came underground. Union soldiers dug a 510-foot shaft under a Confederate fort, packed it with 8,000 pounds of gunpowder and fired it at 4:44 a.m. on 30 July, killing 352 Confederates. The assault that followed failed at a cost of 3,798 Union casualties against 1,491, and the US Colored Troops, sent in late, were given no quarter. On 1 April 1865 Sheridan broke Pickett's line at Five Forks, near the South Side Railroad, Lee's last supply line, and before dawn the next day the Sixth Corps broke through. That night Lee told Jefferson Davis that Petersburg and Richmond must be evacuated; Richmond fell on 3 April. Lee surrendered at Appomattox on 9 April. Over 292 days more than 180,000 soldiers took part, and the best estimates count about 42,000 Union and 28,000 Confederate casualties. Myth vs fact: it is called the longest siege in American history, but Lee was never trapped, so the American Battlefield Trust argues it was not a true siege.32
Why it ranks here: It wore down Lee's army and led straight to Appomattox (consequence 5), and its record is excellent (certainty 5). Gettysburg and Vicksburg overshadow it in fame and memory (both 3), so it takes the last place, a point ahead of the sieges that just missed.
How we chose and ranked these sieges
We counted a siege when an army surrounded or blockaded a city, fortress or camp and tried to take it by assault, hunger or bombardment, whether it fell or held. Stalingrad is ranked for the siege inside the battle: the city itself was never cut off, since the Soviets supplied it across the Volga, but from November 1942 the German 6th Army was surrounded in it and starved into surrender; the whole battle is told in the greatest battles of the Eastern Front. Small chosen defenses are in our guide to the greatest last stands; the Alamo, a 13-day siege, appears in both, while Masada, which rests on one ancient writer, stays a close call here.33
We considered 24 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of which sieges are the most famous; scale, consequence and memory count twice, and certainty once:
- Recognition (×3). 5 if the name is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of its kind, 1 if only specialists know it.
- Scale and endurance (×2). 5 if it was a siege of exceptional size, length or ferocity (a great city, a huge army, months or years, terrible losses), 1 if it was a short siege of a small post.
- Consequence (×2). 5 if it decided a war or the fate of a state, 1 if it changed nothing about the outcome.
- Memory (×2). 5 if it is still a living tradition (a day of remembrance, a monument, a holiday, a famous work of art), 1 if it is forgotten.
- Certainty (×1). 5 if the numbers and events are confirmed by independent sources, 1 if they rest on one source or are disputed.
The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better-known siege, then to the one with the greater consequence, then to the older one. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them, so you can see exactly why Jerusalem in 70 AD and Leningrad lead, and why the Alamo, as famous as any name here, sits only fourteenth: it was a 13-day siege of about 200 men, small beside sieges that lasted months or years.34
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×3 | Scale and endurance ×2 | Consequence ×2 | Memory ×2 | Certainty ×1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jerusalem | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 48 |
| 2 | Leningrad | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 48 |
| 3 | Constantinople | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 47 |
| 4 | Vienna | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 47 |
| 5 | Stalingrad | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 46 |
| 6 | Alesia | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 43 |
| 7 | Tenochtitlan | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 43 |
| 8 | Vicksburg | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 43 |
| 9 | Yorktown | 5 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 42 |
| 10 | Carthage | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 41 |
| 11 | Dien Bien Phu | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 40 |
| 12 | Orléans | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 40 |
| 13 | Sarajevo | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 40 |
| 14 | The Alamo | 5 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 39 |
| 15 | Petersburg | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 38 |
Close calls
Six sieges came close and did not make the fifteen:
Sevastopol, 1854 to 1855. The allied armies bombarded Russia's Black Sea naval base from 17 October 1854 until the French stormed the Malakoff on 8 September 1855 and the Russians abandoned the city; the loss helped push Russia to the Treaty of Paris in 1856. Eleven months of siege decided the Crimean War, but few general readers know the name, and it misses by one point.35 › Siege of Sevastopol, 1854
Malta, 1565. For nearly four months about 500 Knights of St John and some 8,000 soldiers and Maltese held the Grand Harbour against an Ottoman force of 23,000 to 25,000, until it sailed home in September. Historians dispute whether the victory changed the war: the Ottomans took Cyprus in 1570, and Jonathan Sumption argues it made no difference to the course of history. It falls just short of the fifteen.36
Masada, 73 to 74 AD. Rome's Tenth Legion built a great ramp against the desert fortress above the Dead Sea, and according to Josephus the 960 rebels inside chose death over slavery. It is ranked among our last stands; as a siege it was a small garrison in a war Rome had already won, and the story rests on Josephus alone.37
Paris, 1870 to 1871. From 19 September 1870 German armies ringed a city holding some two million people; meat ran out, balloons carried Gambetta and others over the lines and pigeons brought messages in, and from January 1871 shells fell on Paris itself, until the armistice of 28 January, after more than four months. It ended the Franco-Prussian War, but it misses on recognition and memory, overshadowed by the Commune that followed.38
Khotyn, 1621. From 2 September to 9 October 1621 a Polish-Lithuanian and Cossack army held its fortified camp on the Dniester against Sultan Osman II's army of 100,000 or more, and the failed campaign later cost the sultan his throne and his life. It was on our old list, but it was more a defensive battle than a siege of a city and is little known outside Poland and Ukraine.39
Candia, 1648 to 1669. The longest well-documented siege: Ottoman armies besieged Candia, today Heraklion, the Venetian capital of Crete, from 1648 (some accounts date the first attacks to 1647) until Francesco Morosini surrendered the city in September 1669, about 21 years later. It decided the fate of Crete, but it is known mainly to specialists and is little remembered.40
Why sieges decided wars
A siege is a test of walls, supplies and will. Some, like Alesia and Constantinople, decided the fate of whole peoples; others, like Yorktown, ended wars outright. Others became symbols, like the monastery of Jasna Góra, which held out against a Swedish army for some forty days in 1655. Explore more in the greatest battles of all time or the greatest last stands in history. The fall of Constantinople and the siege of Vienna are both questions in the Ottoman battles quiz.41
What was the longest siege in history?
The longest siege on record comes from Herodotus, who writes that the Egyptian king Psammetichus spent twenty-nine years before Azotus, the later Ashdod, until he took it, and calls it the longest siege he knew of. Among well-documented sieges, the Ottoman siege of Candia on Crete lasted more than twenty years and ended in 1669.42
Candia, today Heraklion, was the Venetian capital of Crete. The siege began in 1648 (some accounts date the first attacks to 1647) and ended in September 1669, when the Venetian commander Francesco Morosini negotiated the surrender of the city. Crete passed to the Ottoman Empire.43
In the modern era the siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days, from 1941 to 1944. Most sieges in the table above were far shorter: the Alamo fell on the thirteenth day, Constantinople after about seven weeks, and the Ottomans lay before Vienna for two months.44
What was the deadliest siege in history?
The siege of Leningrad from 1941 to 1944 is the deadliest siege for which there are reliable records: the National WWII Museum calls it the most lethal siege in history, and the historian Anna Reid the deadliest blockade of a city. Estimates of the civilians who died run from about 700,000 to one million, most of them from hunger.45
The exact toll will never be known. At the Nuremberg trials the Soviet government gave a figure of 632,253 deaths, which Reid calls spuriously precise. One summary of recent estimates counts close to two million Soviet citizens who died in Leningrad or on the nearby fronts between 1941 and 1944, roughly one million of them civilians inside the city. Our page on the siege of Leningrad tells how the city lived through it.46
Ancient writers give even larger numbers. Josephus states that 1,100,000 people perished in the Roman siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, most of them pilgrims shut in the city, and that 97,000 were taken captive over the whole war. Ancient estimates of the dead range from about 600,000 to 1,100,000, figures that cannot be checked. For the costliest battles, many of them fought for cities, see the deadliest battles in history.47
How were castles and cities besieged?
The simplest method was to surround a town, cut it off from food, water and reinforcements, and wait for hunger or treachery to open the gates. When that took too long, besiegers attacked the walls themselves: with battering rams and siege towers, with tunnels dug beneath the walls, with stone-throwing engines and, later, with gunpowder artillery.48
The Romans made blockade an engineering project. At Alesia in 52 BC, as Caesar records in his Gallic War, his army ringed the town with a line of works about 11 Roman miles long, then built a second, outward-facing line about 14 Roman miles long against the Gallic relief army. The most powerful way to bring down a wall was mining: besiegers dug a gallery under a wall, propped it with timber and set the props on fire, so that the tunnel and the wall above it collapsed. From the twelfth century the counterweight trebuchet could hurl heavy stones against walls.49
Gunpowder changed the balance. Mehmed II's great guns breached the walls of Constantinople in 1453, and when French troops marched through Italy in 1494, their artillery took castle after castle with what Britannica calls astonishing rapidity. Engineers answered with the angled bastion, which let defenders sweep the ground before the walls with flanking fire; according to Britannica, it remained the dominant element of fortification for about 300 years. The age of castle warfare is covered in the greatest medieval battles.50
What is the most famous siege in history?
In legend, the most famous siege is Troy. Greek tradition told of a ten-year siege by a Greek coalition under Agamemnon, and Homer's Iliad covers 52 days in its final year. Whether a single Trojan War ever took place is still debated, although the mound of Hisarlik in Turkey is widely identified with Troy.51
Among recorded sieges, the most often retold are the fall of Constantinople in 1453, which ended the Byzantine Empire, Alesia, which completed Caesar's conquest of Gaul, the relief of Vienna in 1683 and the siege of Leningrad. Others, like the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521, ended an empire.52
