All You Need is Relief Trivia Quiz

Answer: They completely destroyed the city

The siege of Carthage took place during the Third Punic War and lasted from c.149-146 BC. Taking the city was difficult for the Romans because during the three year siege every building in the city had been fortified resulting in hours of house to house fighting. Once they had taken the city the Romans completely destroyed the city, and enslaved or killed the entire population. Some more recent historians have claimed that the Romans ploughed salt into the earth round the city so that nothing could grow but ancient sources do not support this view.

It would have been impossible for them to have renamed it in honour of the Roman Emperor as Rome was a republic at this time and did not have an emperor. (The first emperor was Augustus in 27BC)

Answer: Masada

The siege of Masada was one of the final acts in the Great Jewish Revolt and occurred from 73-74 AD. When it looked as though the Roman forces were going to take the town the commander of Masada, Elazar ben Yair, ordered the inhabitants to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Romans.

It is reported by the ancient Jewish historian Josephus that Elazar ordered the destruction of everything in the city apart from the food stores in order to show the Romans that the defenders were still able to live but had chosen death over slavery.

Answer: Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc was a French peasant girl who, claiming she had divine guidance, led the French army to a number of victories in the Hundred Years' War. She was seen as a fulfilment of the vague prophecies that France would be rescued by an armed woman. Joan's arrival at Orleans gave a major morale boost to the French forces for their assault on the besieging English forces.

She was captured by the English and burned as a heretic on 30 May 1431. Joan was made a saint of the Roman Catholic church in 1920 and is one of the patron saints of France.

Answer: 21

The siege of Candia (now called Heraklion) on the island of Crete lasted from 1648 to 1669. The siege took place during the Cretan War which was part of the fifth Ottoman-Venetian war. The Ottoman forces spent three years taking Venetian Crete in response to an attack on one of their convoys by the Knights of Malta who had taken the loot to Candia and by 1648 there was only the capital, Candia, left to take.

The ensuing siege lasted 21 years during which time the city was bombarded for 19 years by the Ottomans with no real effect. During the siege a number of efforts were made to relive the city but all failed, the final relief attempt lead to the surrender of the city after the French forces abandoned the city following a failed relief attempt by French forces which included the loss of the French fleet's vice-flagship La Thérèse in an accidental explosion.

When the French forces abandoned the city the Venetian commander, Francesco Morosini, was left with few supplies and only 3,600 defenders and so was forced to surrender to the besieging Ottoman forces.

Answer: The Napoleonic Wars

The siege and storming of Badajoz in 1812 was an attack on the French held, Spanish city by British and Portuguese forces under the command of the Duke of Wellington and formed part of the Peninsular campaign of the Napoleonic Wars. The siege started on March 16 and ended with the storming of the city on April 6. The storming of the city was one of the bloodiest battles of the Napoleonic Wars with 3,000 British and Portuguese soldiers killed during this action. The aftermath of the storming saw a serious breakdown of order in the British ranks with soldiers ignoring orders and rampaging through the city after stealing and drinking large quantities of alcohol, during which time they are believed to have killed up to 4,000 Spanish civilians. The soldiers were not brought back under control for three days.

A good, fictionalised account of the siege and storming can be found in Bernard Cornwell's novel 'Sharpe's Company'.

Answer: Mexican

Part of the Texas Revolution, the siege of the Alamo took place between February 23 and March 6 1836. The siege occurred as part of a Mexican attempt to re-take Texas after having been expelled a few months earlier by the Texans. The Mexican forces attacked the fort in the early hours of March 6, at the time of the attack their were only 189 defenders garrisoned in the fort and all were killed in the attack.

The perceived brutality of the attack led to many Texans joining the the Texan army and their fury against the Mexican forces led to the defeat of the Mexicans at the Battle of San Jacinto on 21 April 1836 which ended the revolution.

Answer: The Crimean War

The siege of Sevastopol lasted from September 1854 - September 1855 and involved the British, French and Ottoman forces besieging and taking the Crimean capital, Sevastopol. This siege saw one of the most famous battles of the Crimean war, namely the battle of Balaclava which included the now infamous charge of the Light Brigade in which a brigade of British light cavalry were ordered to charge an artillery battery resulting in heavy British casualties.

The siege of Sevastopol also saw the wounded treated by the pioneering nurses Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole.

Answer: Fort Sumter

The Confederate siege of Fort Sumter started in early 1861 as Confederate forces surrounded the fort making the supply of provisions and reinforcements difficult. The siege came to a climax with the battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861 during which time the fort was bombarded, after which the Union forces, realising they were outmanned and outgunned, surrendered. This battle is regarded as the start of the US Civil War.

The second siege of Fort Sumter began with a naval bombardment of the fort, following which a combined navy/army assault on the Fort took place. The assault failed due to poor organisation and cooperation which meant that the troops did not land where there was an attackable breach. After this unsuccessful assault the bombardment resumed and this continued throughout the rest of war.

Answer: Siege of Mafeking

The siege of Mafeking lasted from 13 October 1899 - 17 May 1900 starting shortly after the declaration of war by the Boer Republic of South Africa on October 12 1899. The town was first shelled by the Boers on October 16 after the commander of the British forces, Robert Baden-Powell, refused to surrender. Despite being heavily outnumbered the defence of the town was robust and after about a month of the siege the Boers decided it would be too difficult to take and around half the forces were re-deployed although the siege continued. It was not until the British forces sent to relieve the town got near that the Boers decided to attack which they did on May 12 1900. The Boers got through the perimeter and started a fire which alerted the defenders who were able to see off the Boer forces. The British relief force arrived a few days later on May 17 and defeated the besieging Boer troops, relieving the town and ending the siege.

It is believed that the use of the Mafeking Cadet Corps, consisting of boys aged 12-15, as messengers and orderlies during the siege was the inspiration for Baden-Powell to found the Scouting movement in 1907.

Answer: 872

The siege of Leningrad started on September 8, 1941 when German forces cut off the last land connection to the city and the ensuing siege did not end until January, 27 1944, though the Soviet forces managed to open a narrow life-line, first across Lake Lagoda and later also by land.

The siege of Leningrad was part of Operation Barbarossa, the code name for the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The German forces consistently bombarded the city during the siege. In all, at least 640,000 Soviet civilians perished in the besieged city, mainly from starvation. (There were instances of cannibalism, especially in the winter months and 260 citizens were imprisoned for cannibalism during the siege).

A further 400,000(?) civilians were killed while being evacuated from the city.

Although the Soviet forces made a number of attempts to relieve the city it was not until January 1944 that their efforts succeeded.