Scorched Earth (disambiguation)
Scorched earth is the military strategy or operational policy of destroying everything useful to the enemy in areas that cannot be defended.
Scorched earth
On 24 February 1917, the German army made a strategic scorched-earth withdrawal from the Somme battlefield to the prepared fortifications of the Hindenburg Line, thereby shortening the front line they had to occupy. Since a scorched-earth campaign requires that there be a war of movement, World War I provided little opportunity in general for this policy as it was a stalemated war fought mostly in the same concentrated area for its entire duration.