He may have solved this by improving on an already existing natural obstacle, barricading the entrance or keeping it just high enough to be able to see over the top and yet still be able to throw missiles through a carefully sighted gap. The first military engineer was probably the cave-dweller who was faced with the problem of defending his lair against both wild beasts and his fellow-men. Examples of particularly noteworthy sieges both successful and unsuccessful will be discussed in order to demonstrate the premise that, ultimately, no fortress can be considered impregnable. To discuss the issues and events encompassed in this book, the evolution of fortifications and the weapons and methods of sieges used to conquer them will be examined concurrently. This book will examine the pendulum effect that ultimately renders the newest defensive or offensive idea obsolete in the shortest possible time. It has also been observed that no matter how good an idea is, one cannot safely rely on it as a sole means of defense for too long, because a determined enemy willing to pay the price will quickly bring a better idea into play against it. Inventive ideas are something no one has a monopoly on, even though the results of these ideas have come to affect millions of lives touched by them.
This change can perhaps best be described as a form of pendulum that swings on an erratic and often rapid centre-pin of new ideas. The technological battle continues to this day in a constant seesaw of change. Necessity being the mother of invention, as one chieftain, king or pharaoh developed a practicable plan of defense or assault another would in turn attempt to devise a better one to overcome it.Īs the means and methods to wage war developed and became more sophisticated, so too did the ideas and technology that had to be developed in order for civilizations to survive. In the intervening years since Joshua besieged Jericho, little has changed in the apparent fact that whenever one group of people sets up a position from which they can defend themselves, another group will soon set to the task of defeating it. The trumpets blew, and in 1400 BC the walls of Jericho that had been built over 9000 years before our present time, came tumbling down. The fall of the walls of Jericho, ca 1400 BC.
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