Does it really change the outcome of the war? Does a country fall when the capital city is captured?
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Because it’s the seat of government, most of the ruling and leading the war is going to be done there, and it will be harder to lead a country somewhere else that doesn’t have that infrastructure.
Also it’s a symbolic thing as well. That country couldn’t protect its most important city, that would demoralize their forces.
The importance of the capital in modern times is more symbolic in most cases, as governments can easily relocate. However, the capital is usually (but not always) the most populous city and often the most important economic centre. Losing the capital means losing a *lot* of people and power. If the enemy has soldiers walking into the capital’s streets, the war is pretty much over. The people know that the government can’t protect them in their safest place, so resistance will often collapse and with no one in the capital to take over, defeat is all but guaranteed.
The war can still continue, but it becomes much more difficult to continue without a centralised government and command structure.
This was the rationale behind Russia’s strike on Kyiv last February. If they succeeded, they could have paralysed the Ukrainian response as their civilian and many military leaders would have been captured. Without a central coordinated command, the units in the field would be less likely to coordinate defensive moves and be taken down individually by other forces.
But taking the capital isn’t always the “instant win” condition. Many countries have strong economic and military centres elsewhere, especially if the country is very big. Washington DC, for example, is hardly a large important city. It is symbolic, but the President and Congress often aren’t even there and can relocate to any number of more distant locations and the military is much more spread out across the country. So if Canada marches down and burns the White House again, you end up with a lot of pissed off Americans.
If the US invades Canada and captures Ottawa in the first week, I don’t think most people would notice.
One of two reasons. If the opposing government is still operating out of the capital, capturing the capital means capturing the government. Capturing the government means controlling the opposing side. You can imprison their leaders, or kill them, or ransom them in exchange for surrender. If the opposing government *isn’t* operating out of the capital, then capturing the capital lets you install your own puppet government for the country instead. This gives your puppet government a legitimacy bonus.
There’s obviously the symbolic part of it. You’re disrupting their government. They look powerless. Also, most countries are oriented around their capitals. They’re massive logistical hubs. You’re damaging their ability to wage war.
Government, parliament and top officials like the head of State are usually in the capital city. Until you have a half-functioning government in charge you haven’t captured the whole country, because the parliament and government can still enact laws (maybe assigning extraordinary powers), the top government officials are still there and so on.
It’s not as important as it used to be, but it carries immense symbolic meaning. Strategically it’s important because it’s the seat of the government, but this only matters if you can capture it with the government staff still there. If they manage to flee then there’s no real strategic purpose in occupying a capital. It still demoralises the enemy a lot if their capital is captured.
However it’s overall not a prerequisite to win a war to occupy the enemy’s capital city.
Symbolic Importance: The capital city represents the seat of political power and the heart of a nation. Capturing it sends a powerful message to both the people of the nation and the international community. It can demoralize the enemy and boost the morale of the attacking force. Symbolically, it signifies that the invading force has control over the government and can dictate the direction of the conflict.
Political Control: Governments often have their headquarters, administrative offices, and key decision-makers located in the capital city. Capturing the capital allows the attacking force to gain control over the central authority, disrupt governance, and potentially force the enemy leadership into retreat or surrender. It can destabilize the enemy’s political structure and create a power vacuum that the attacking force can exploit.
Strategic Advantage: The capital city often serves as a hub for transportation, communication, and infrastructure networks. By capturing it, the attacking force gains control over vital resources and strategic assets, such as major airports, seaports, railway systems, and government-controlled institutions. This can give them a significant advantage in terms of logistics, mobility, and the ability to project power.
Symbolic Legitimacy: Capturing the capital city can also grant the attacking force a sense of legitimacy. By taking control of the seat of government, they can claim to represent the rightful authority, potentially attracting support from both the local population and international actors who view the captured capital as the legitimate source of power.
Psychological Impact: The capture of a capital city can have a profound psychological impact on the enemy and its population. It can create fear, uncertainty, and a sense of vulnerability among the civilian population. This can potentially lead to public disapproval of the enemy’s leadership, erosion of support, and increased chances of a surrender or negotiated settlement.
Morale is one of the most important factors in war. Morale wins or loses wars.
Seeing the capital taken by the enemy is one of the worst demoralizers in war because it signifies the beginning of the end. The capital is one of the most fortified and protected positions so if it falls then it indicates you could not defend your most valuable position, you have no chance at winning anymore.
Also the capital tends to be one of the most populated cities in a country. Labor, factories and industry is very important in war. If the capital is taken, it means you lose all that labor and industry which now belongs to the enemy. This is why cities and towns in general are very important to capture in war. Barren countryside is less important but can be useful if it is strategic in nature such as surrounding a city or town or main road.
Capital cities tend to be central, they tend to be important administrative and industrial centres, and they also tend to be one of the, if not the, biggest priorities for the defending army. So if you lose your capital city, that usually means you have lost huge swathes of territory and much of your ability to produce weapons, and that your bureaucracy and logistics are in chaos, and that your army has been devastated.
I suppose one example of a country losing control of its capital but ultimately winning the war was France in the Hundred Years War. But war was very different back then. There must be more recent examples, but none spring to mind except small countries whose territory was recovered for them by a more powerful ally.
Immediate counterexample: The gouvernment of Yemen lost the capital city years ago, and they haven’t fallen yet.
It usually works the other way round: Gouvernments tend to defend their capital city with everything they have.
Not only because te capital is usually economically and logistically and symbolically important but also because of the trivial fact that the families and friends of the people in the gouvernment usually live there.
So, “the capital city falling” is often synonymous with “there is not much of a defending army left in the country”.
But none of these things are a given. For example, if someone managed to take over the gouvernment buildings in D.C. through a surprise airborne attack or something, you can be sure that the rest of the country wouldn’t just crumble because of that.
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