Page 124 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

124 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

siege engines that were built to attack the city from that side were impressive. The bulky
and hard to move “turtle” structure was loaded on two cargo ships that were tied to one
another. The same thing happened for the two four story towers that were higher than the
city’s walls. To protect the siege engines a reinforced floating barrier was built. The boats
and the lighter ships were fortified and Cretan archers were boarded on those, with the
mission to obstruct the Rhodians that were trying to construct the city’s walls higher than
the towers of Demetrius. Fierce fights followed, new complex warfare constructions were
designed and attacks were carried out from soldiers that were siding the walls from ships
and they were climbing on them by ladders. But these did not manage to bring the desired
effect. The constant failures and the winter that was approaching postponed the naval op-
erations. The city seemed impregnable from the sea and thus Demetrius turned to its siege
from land. He recruited several technicians, labourers and capable engineers to build siege
engines and the impressive “elepoli”. In the spring of 304 BC, Demetrius chose to attack
the city from the south and at a point that was close to his artificial harbour. He ensured
his potential to launch a coordinated attack from the sea and the land and he started to ad-
vance his engines. The Rhodians did not restrict themselves only to defend the city. They
built a secondary wall at the point of the attack but they also benefited from the freedom of
movement that they had regained on the sea to obstruct the supplies to the besiegers, using
their fleet. Since Demetrius failed to invade the city using bribery, he prepared a plan for
a coordinated offensive. According to that plan 1.500 men would neutralize the guards of
the extensive breach on the city’s walls and they would invade the city at night. As soon
as these would open wider the breach while obstructing the defensive forces, they would
launch the coordinated attack from sea and the land.
The plan finally failed as the defenders did not abandon their positions on the walls and
repelled successfully the general attack that was launched form land and sea at dawn. At
the same time and after a strong battle the invaders body was annihilated. The consecu-
tive failures using land as well as naval forces led Demetrius to decide defeating the city
by a blockade. Such a blockade would require long time that Demetrius did not possess
and still with a doubtful result, as the Rhodians had repeatedly received reinforcements,
without the fleet being able to intervene. After the mediation of the Athenians and the Ai-
tolians, the two sides were led to a compromise, in the summer of 304 BC.

Epilogue
Across time, the joint warfare operations demonstrate substantial analogies and simi-
larities that lead to particular solutions, especially when these are developed in the same
operational space. Having today’s priorities as our motive, we can light up new aspects of
known events in military history. Certainly, those events have always been present in the
collective memory, having been seen though from a different perspective. The study of
the ancient Hellenic military history offers guiding principles that can lead us to compre-
hending and implementing the joint warfare, whereas coming to the conclusion that in the
present, joint warfare is not a recent copy of the modern allied conception for the conduct
of operations, but it is based on valid historical facts.