The list of historical blockades informs about blockades that were carried out either on land, or in the maritime and air spaces in the effort to defeat opponents through denial of supply, usually to cause military exhaustion and starvation as an economic blockade in addition to restricting movement of enemy troops.
Ancient era[]
- 458–457 BCE: Athenian blockade of the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf during the First Peloponnesian War
- 431–404 BCE: During the Peloponnesian War, Spartan forces surrounded Athens on land. Athens withstood the landward attack, and subsisted on food imported by ship. In the Battle of Aegospotami, the Spartan navy destroyed the Athenian navy and implemented a sea blockade, forcing Athens to surrender.[1]
- 31 BCE Blockade of the Mark Antony’s fleet in the bay of Actium during the Wars of the Second Triumvirate by Octavian
Medieval era[]
- 1068–1071: Blockade of the Byzantine Empire in southern Italy, mostly during the Siege of Bari by the Robert Guiscard during the Norman conquest of Southern Italy.
- 1102 Fatimid Caliphate's naval blockade of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
- 1104 Blockade of Lebanese coast during the Crusader-Muslim Wars by the Republic of Genoa
- 1084 Blockade of Corcyra by the Byzantine-Venetian fleet during the First Byzantine-Norman War.
- 1337 Blockade of the island of Cadsand by the French and Flemish nobles that triggered the Hundred Years War.
- 1379–1380: Genoese blockade of the Venetian Republic during the War of Chioggia.
- 1394–1402: Ottoman blockade of Constantinople.[2]
Early-modern era[]
- 1585–1792: The Dutch Republic's blockade of the Scheldt, denying Spanish Empire-ruled Antwerp's access to international trade and shifting much of its trade to Amsterdam.
- 1601 Attempted blockade by the Portuguese Empire of the Dutch Republic's Dutch East India Company Bantam colony during the Dutch-Portuguese Colonial Wars
- 1639–1646: Seventeen Provinces blockade of the Spanish Netherlands under Admiral Maarten Tromp during the Thirty Years War
- 1653 Commonwealth of England's blockade of the Dutch coast during the First Anglo-Dutch War[3]
- 1656-1657: Venetian blockade of the Dardanelles strait during the Cretan War (1645-1669) between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice
- 1775–1783: The Kingdom of Great Britain's blockade of the American colonies' east coast during The American Revolutionary War by the Kingdom of Great Britain .
- 1788–1790: Russian Empire's blockade of the Kingdom of Sweden during the Second Russo-Swedish War
- 1793–1802: British blockade of French First Republic and its allies during the French Revolutionary War .
- 1802–1814: British blockade of First French Empire and its allies during the Napoleonic War.
- 1803–1814: British naval blockade of the United States east coast during the War of 1812 by United Kingdom.
- 1825–1828: Empire of Brazil's intermittent blockade of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata during the Cisplatine War.
Modern era[]
- 1848–1851: Kingdom of Denmark's blockade of German Empire during the First Schleswig War .
- 1854–56: The British, Second French and Ottoman Empires' blockade of the Russian Empire during the Crimean War.
- 1861–1865: Union Blockade: the Union blockaded the coasts of the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
- 1861–1862: Anaconda Plan[4]
- 1894–95: Empire of Japan's blockade of the Qing Empire during the First Sino-Japanese War.
- 1897: Blockade of Constantinople by the Great Powers.[5]
- 1898: The United States blockaded San Juan, Puerto Rico and Cuba as part of the Spanish American War.
- 1902-1903: Blockade by the British, German and Italian navies of the Venezuelan coast following the Venezuelan Incident
- 1914–1919: British naval blockade of Germany during World War I.
- 1914–1919: Blockade of the Central Powers by the Allies of World War I.[6]
- 1915–1918: Ottoman blockade of Lebanon.[7]
- 1936–1937: Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Republican Navy blockade of the Strait of Gibraltar to hamper the transport of Army of Africa troops from Spanish Morocco to Peninsular Spain
- 1936–1939: Nationalist blockade of north and south-eastern Spain during the Spanish Civil War
- 1937–41: Empire of Japan's blockade of the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
- 1939–1940: German blockade of Great Britain during the winter.
- 1939–1945: The Second Battle of the Atlantic during World War II when Germany attempted to blockade the Eastern United States coast maritime traffic using u-boats.
- 1941-1944: German blockade of Leningrad (Siege of Leningrad)
- 1944–1945: United States blockade of Japan during the Pacific War of World War II.
- 1948–1949: Soviet land blockade of West Berlin, known as the Berlin Blockade.[8]
- 1949–1958: The Kuomintang Blockade of the PRC.
- 1950–1953: Failed Blockade of North Korea during the Korean War.
- 1956 Egyptian blockades of the Straits of Tiran prior to the 1956 Suez War and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
- 1962 United States quarantine of Cuba during the October Cuban Missile Crisis; a partial blockade.
- 1965-1975: Naval blockades during the Vietnam War by the US Navy and its allies (Operations Market Time and Game Warden).
- 1966-1975: United Kingdom's failed Blockade of Rhodesia
- 1967 Egyptian blockades of the Straits of Tiran prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli War
- 1971 Indian blockade of East Pakistan during the Bangladesh War
- 1973 Egyptian blockade of Israel during Operation Badr, part of the Yom Kippur War, and Israeli counter-blockade against Egypt.
- 1975–1990: Israeli blockades of some or all the shores of Lebanon at various times during the Lebanese Civil War.
- 1982 United Kingdom's blockade of the Falkland Islands occupied by Argentina during the Falklands War
- 1982 Israeli blockades of some or all the shores of Lebanon at various times during the 1982 Lebanon War.
- 1982–2000: Israeli blockades of some or all the shores of Lebanon at various times during the 1982-2000 South Lebanon conflict.
- 1988–ongoing: Co-ordinated blockade of Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan since the Nagorno-Karabakh War up to the present.
- 1990–2003: United Nations naval operations as part of the Maritime Sanctions enforcement against Iraq
- 1991–1992: Blockade of the Croatian coast by the Serbian navy during the Croatian War of Independence
- 1993–1996: NATO blockade of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during Operation Sharp Guard.
- 1996 People's Republic of China's Ballistic missiles blockade strategy against Taiwan
- 2000–ongoing: Israeli sea and land blockade of the Gaza Strip since the outbreak of the Second Intifada up to the present.
- 2001–2007: Australian maritime border protection regime that aimed “to disrupt, deter and deny” the entry of unauthorized boat people.
- 2006–ongoing: Israeli blockade resumed during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.
- 2007–ongoing Combined land and sea blockade of the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt, beginning in June.[9]
- 2009: Sri Lankan naval blockade of Mullaitivu coast
See also[]
Recommended reading[]
- Medlicott, W. N. The Economic Blockade, London: H.M.S.O., 1952.
- Elleman, Bruce A. and Paine, S.C.M., eds. Naval Blockades and Seapower Strategies and Counter-Strategies, 1805–2005, Routledge, London, 2006
- ↑ Boardman, John & Griffin, Jasper & Murray, Oswyn. 2001. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World, p. 166. ISBN 0-19-280137-6.
- ↑ Robert Cowley, Geoffrey Parker. The Reader's Companion to Military History New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. on Google books.
- ↑ Palmer, Michael A., Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control since the Sixteenth Century, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2005, pp.48-49
- ↑ Tucker, Spencer C., Gen. Ed., Ground Warfare: An International encyclopedia, p.37
- ↑ "To Blockade Constantinople" New York Times (November 24, 1897)
- ↑ Osborne, Eric W., Britain's economic blockade of Germany, 1914-1919, Frank Cass, London, 2004, p.230
- ↑ "World War I" on Countrystudies.us
- ↑ Shlaim, Avi, The United States and the Berlin Blockade, 1948-1949: a study in crisis decision-making, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1983
- ↑ Knickmeyer, Ellen (2007-06-18). "Gaza Straining At Egypt's Door". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/17/AR2007061701357.html. Retrieved 2010-04-01.
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