20 Times a Seat Was Won Through Cunning

Traditionally dated to the end of the Bronze Age—often around the 12th or 13th century BCE—Troy has become the quintessential example for good reason. The Greeks did not merely leave behind a wooden horse; they also staged a convincing departure and allowed the Trojans to convince themselves that the war was over. The city fell because its defenders mistook a ruse for a trophy.

When Cyrus the Great captured Babylon in 539 B.C., later accounts emphasized cunning as much as conquest. It is said that the Persians diverted the Euphrates far enough to allow their troops to cross the riverbed, while the Babylonians relied on their city’s imposing defenses. Whether every detail is accurate or not, this story has endured through the centuries because it highlights a well-known weakness: trust.

Sardis fell to Cyrus in 546 B.C. as a result of one of those small observations that change everything. A Persian attacker reportedly saw a defender climbing down a steep passage to retrieve a fallen helmet, thereby demonstrating that a route the city considered safe was not safe at all. As soon as a few men had scaled it, the wall ceased to be a real defense.

During the siege of Pelium in 335 B.C., Alexander the Great relied as much on strategic theatrics as on pressure. He used disciplined formations, sudden maneuvers, and intimidating displays to destabilize the defenders and their allies before striking at the opportune moment. The goal was to force the enemy to react poorly before its true advantage could even become apparent.

Tyr, besieged by Alexander in 332 B.C., seemed incredibly difficult to capture due to its island location and its strong ramparts. But the Macedonians continually varied their tactics, applying pressure both by sea and by land, which forced the defenders to spread their efforts thin and misjudge the source of the decisive blow. Ultimately, this confusion helped weaken a city that might not have been taken by brute force alone.

The Roman capture of Véies, traditionally dated to 396 B.C., is remembered more for what happened beneath the city than in front of it. As the siege dragged on in plain sight, Roman forces are said to have dug tunnels under the defenses. The defenders, focused on the ramparts, were completely unaware of this far more dangerous threat.

During the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, deception had as much of an impact on morale as it did on troop movements. The Romans staged terrifying spectacles in front of the city walls, showing the city what resistance would lead to and turning despair into a weapon of war in its own right. By the time the defenses finally gave way, the psychological siege had already caused enormous damage.

Antioch fell to the First Crusade in 1098, not because the Crusaders had finally forced the city to surrender, but because a gate had been opened from the inside. A guard named Firouz had been bribed or persuaded to help them enter during the night. After months of starvation and failure, a single corrupt man proved more significant than the city walls.

In Ma’arra, in 1098, the Crusaders resorted to pressure, disinformation, and relentless intimidation to make resistance seem increasingly futile. The defenders were not simply facing an assault: they were confronting an enemy whose unpredictability and brutality made any conventional analysis more difficult. In siege warfare, fear itself can cloud judgment, and this played a decisive role in this particular case.

The Mongol siege of Xiangyang ended in 1273 after years of resistance, but one of the decisive turning points was a technological surprise. Powerful counterweight trebuchets—likely introduced by engineers from farther west—radically altered the defenders’ perception of their ramparts’ effectiveness. Sometimes, the trick lies not in camouflage, but in introducing a weapon against which the defenses were never designed to protect against.

When Constantinople fell in 1453, one of the most memorable Ottoman maneuvers was to transport ships overland to the Golden Horn. The city had relied on a massive chain to block direct access from the sea, but it discovered that the Ottomans had simply bypassed this obstacle. It was a logistical feat, but it also resembled a psychological ambush.

The siege of Calais in 1346–1347 was not won by a single spectacular ruse, but through sustained pressure shaped by negotiations and uncertainty. The defenders held their ground as conditions, hopes for relief, and possible outcomes kept changing. During a long siege, delaying clarity on the situation can become a trap in itself.

In 1314, during the Scottish Wars of Independence, Edinburgh Castle was recaptured during a nighttime assault up a steep path that was considered too difficult to monitor closely. A small force led by Thomas Randolph took precisely this route because the defenders were counting on the terrain to do the work for them. Thus, the castle’s natural strengths turned into its weakness.

The siege of Tenochtitlan in 1521 was brutal and direct, but it was also accompanied by a meticulous exploitation of the city’s geography. The Spanish forces and their allies cut off the roads, controlled movement, and used brigantines to transform the surrounding waters, turning them into a danger rather than a source of protection. The city was not merely attacked; it was strategically redesigned to become a trap.

During the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, deception often took the form of a calculated ruse. The defenders concealed their weaknesses in some areas, exaggerated their state of readiness in others, and allowed the Ottomans to launch costly assaults against positions that were harder to take than they appeared. The outcome of a siege can depend on the ability to lull the enemy into a false sense of confidence too early.

The Siege of Candia, which lasted from 1648 to 1669, turned into a protracted war of attrition, engineering, and disinformation. Over the years, both the Ottomans and the defenders resorted to false signals, hidden fortifications, and deceptive troop movements. At this point, deception ceased to be a mere episode and became part of the daily strategy of war.

In 1759, the British strategy at Quebec was based on the idea of convincing the French that they were focusing too much attention on the wrong areas. The famous climb up the cliffs near the Plains of Abraham succeeded because that route seemed too unlikely to pose the main threat. A simple assumption about the terrain paved the way for a decisive battle.

In 1781, the Battle of Yorktown relied less on an ingenious ruse than on an increasingly tight web of strategic diversionary maneuvers. The Allies concealed their intentions long enough to trap Cornwallis in a position from which he could not easily escape, while the siege lines and artillery did the rest. Sometimes, the real ruse takes place even before the siege is fully closed in.

At Szigetvár in 1566, the Ottomans eventually captured the fortress, but the defenders repeatedly resorted to feints, sudden sorties, and diversionary tactics to prolong their resistance far beyond what seemed possible. Even in defeat, cunning set the pace of the siege. On its own, it can influence the outcome of events far beyond the walls themselves.

When the Romans recaptured Taranto in 209 B.C., cunning proved more important than battering rams. Fabius Maximus took advantage of a betrayal within the city: the guards had been persuaded to let the Romans in. This is one of the recurring truths of siege warfare: sooner or later, the person manning the gate becomes more important than the gate itself.