Does it really change the outcome of the war? Does a country fall when the capital city is captured?
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Not all nations will be able to maintain advanced command and control functions outside of their headquarters.
A national government on the run will be less capable.
It’s also valuable not just for what it *does* but for what it represents. Most nations will fight hard to protect their Capitol. If a Capitol falls, it’s a strong indicator the nation is losing.
If the goverment isnt too stuppid to flee/move, then you get them when you get the capital – and then u can pretty much dictate their policies AND then end of the war by making them surrender. If they move, there is normaly still vital agencies like the tax system and police main HQ, main court HQ and the offices of the ministries so you can cripple or hinder their ability to function and govern themself or have the resourses.
If they moved out and have decentralized their goverment body all around the country, there is still some pretty big bonus’ for capturing their capital. Normaly, the capital is the largest or one of the largest cities in the country, so you just in 1 swoop took a big part of their ppl as hostages (yes, you are not ment to do that by the geneve convention…. but just the treath of it is big… and not every1 actualy follows the geneva covention even though they agreed to it… just liik at Russia atm). And its a big symbolic thing to say ‘you couldnt even hold on to your own capital, you basicly just lost’ and its can be a major moral boost for your troops and moral lost for their troops.
Prior to Napoleon it was regarded as vitally important as they contained most of the production as well as the seat of government, so those cities were well protected, so by capturing hem you had basically defeated the country. Napoleon focused on defeating the opposing army in the field rather than on cities. this meant his mobile armies weren’t tied to one location while besieging a city. By defeating the opposing armies meant that there were no troops left to defend cities so they then surrendered when his armies were near rather than risk being destroyed.
There are a few parts to it as has been mentioned in other posts.
First the capital city will usually be a center of political power in the country. In that way if it’s captured then a lot of that can be disrupted. I’m practice what that means is that changes in the overall direction of the war (such as planning to recapture the capital) may not be communicated or communicated as efficiently, knowledge feeding into those decisions may not be able to get to the right people as efficiently. Plus there is going to be confusion about who is actually in charge for a while as there will be a possibility that people at the top of the chains of command have been captured.
Second the capital city will likely be a major concentration of administrative power. Similar to political power above this means that there can be a major disruption of the flow of information that’s required for fighting the war. The political direction can be solid and unified, but if the information in what is needed and where it’s needed can’t be transmitted efficiently then that makes things much more difficult. This goes both ways as it would be reasonable for some military units to “go dark” rather than reporting their position and status as normal and potentially sending that information to the enemy.
Third is that the capital city is also going to be a concentration of economic power. That will make it more difficult to fight the war as it means that buying necessary supplies, paying troops and the workers supporting them becomes more problematic with the enemy in control of the banks. That goes double for international transactions.
The final problem is morale. If the enemy has taken the capital city then it will seem to a lot of people like they’ve effectively won. That will cause a lot of military operations to be less efficient because of the morale loss ( who’s going to fight harder, a soldier who believes that they can stop the enemy winning, or a soldier who believes the enemy has already won)
There are ways to mitigate each of these problems, and modern technology can help a lot in that regard too. None of them separately or together guarantee that if you take an enemy’s capital city that you’ll then win, but the enemy will have to do things pretty spectacularly in order to win after that
Capturing the capital is really just a symbol and the country doesn’t necessarily fall. For example, Napoleon captured Moscow in September 1812. However, he couldn’t stay long and ultimately was devastated in Russia. Great Britain captured Philadelphia (the revolutionary capital) in 1777 and Washington D.C. in 1814. Neither of those events spelled the end of the USA. In contrast, in the US civil war, General Grant ignored Richmond and simply tried to destroy Lee’s army. That was ultimately a better strategy.
Its symbolic more than anything, and in many countries the capitol is the largest city with the most important industrial bases. Its worth noting though that when Napoleon went into Moscow, it was largely abandoned. While St Petersburg was the capitol at the time it shows that governments and people can move and wait it out, So while its possible for it to be a coup de grace it might not be under certain circumstances. Sometimes just threatening to march on a capitol can be all it takes to bring one side to the negotiating table, that was Lee’s strategy going to Gettysburg, Had he won, he would have marched on Washington, then forced a negotiation that probably would have ended hostilities.
Depends. You don’t need to defeat a people, only their will to fight.
If people are armies and tanks and planes, then there is a military order of command. And depending on the culture, the military may just be the government, and if you bribe someone to tell everyone else to stand down, or you will kill them, kill their family, bomb all their possessions ect. They may listen but will need a way to save face and show everyone the jig is up. So it is a performance, one thing everyone can point to and say, yep, we are done here.
If the people are farmers with guns defending their property and loved ones from rape and murder, they don’t give a shit about a bunch of rich assholes from the government that taxes them telling them the jig is up.
Unless you’re playing Civilization, capturing the capital is mostly for bragging rights. Sure, it could demoralize the opposition….or get them 10x more fired up.
Moral is key in any conflict. Losing your capital which for many nations is the seat of power likely and economic center as well as potential a cultural center and symbol can really damage moral. Once people lose will to fight the war is over and taking a capital can go a long way towards that.
Morale changes how soldiers fight, that’s why the scary weapons and armors existed now if you get their capital… Imagine their families lands king etc all under enemies hands what is left ?
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