Well poisoning
Encyclopedia
Well-poisoning is the act of malicious manipulation of potable water
resources in order to cause illness or death, or to deny an opponent access to fresh water resources.
Well poisoning has been historically documented as strategy during wartime since antiquity
, and was used both offensively (as a terror tactic to disrupt and depopulate a target area) and defensively (as a scorched earth
tactic to deny an invading army sources of clean water). Rotting corpses (both animal and human) thrown down wells were the most common implementation; in one of the earliest examples of biological warfare
, corpses known to have died from common transmissible diseases of the Pre-Modern era such as bubonic plague
or tuberculosis
were especially favored for well-poisoning.
Additionally, well poisoning was one of the three gravest Antisemitic accusations made against Jews during this period (the other two being host desecration
and blood libel
). Similar accusations were also made of Koreans living in Japan
in the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. In both cases the accusation was never substantiated, but did lead to widescale persecution and pogrom
s against the group so accused.
tactic at least since ancient times. In 1462, for example, Prince Vlad III the Impaler
of Wallachia
utilized this method to delay his pursuing Ottoman
Turk adversaries. Whilst retreating though Turkish-controlled Bulgaria
, across the Danube
River and back to the capital of Wallachia that same year, Vlad's army employed the poisoning of wells and other sources of water, as well as other scorched earth tactics en route to his country on both sides of the Danube, meaning that he deliberately killed his own people who were unfortunate enough to fall victim to his heinous strategies. Nearly 500 years later during the Winter War
, the Finns rendered wells unusable by planting animal carcasses or feces in them in order to passively combat
invading Soviet forces. During the 20th century, the practice of poisoning wells has lost most of its potency and practicality against an organized force as modern military logistics
ensure secure and decontaminated supplies and resources. A few religions have laws condemning such scorched earth
tactics. Most notably Islam
, in its scripture, dictates that water-bodies may not be poisoned even during a battle and enemies must be allowed access to water.
(often identified as bubonic plague
) throughout the late Middle Ages. Crowded cities were especially hard hit by the disease, with death tolls as high as 50% of the population. In their distress, emotionally distraught survivors searched desperately for an explanation.
The city-dwelling Jews of the Middle Ages, living in walled-up, segregated ghetto
districts, aroused suspicion. An outbreak of plague thus became the trigger for pogrom
s, with hundreds of Jews burned at the stake, or rounded up in synagogues and private houses that were then set aflame.
With the decline of plague in Europe, these accusations lessened, but the term "well-poisoning" remains a loaded one that continues to crop up even today among anti-Semites around the world.
Walter Laqueur
writes in his book The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day:
have surfaced. Cases include that of rotting chicken carcases found in a well at At-tuwani
near Hebron
in 2004, although suspected settlers blamed Arab infighting. In the following years, various NGOs reported similar occurrences, accusing settlers of deliberately contaminating cisterns.
Accusations of well-poisoning have also been brought up against Serbs
. Most notoriously, Serbs were accused of poisoning Kosovo Albanians. There are also accusations of well-poisoning as a part of the Srebrenica massacre
.
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
resources in order to cause illness or death, or to deny an opponent access to fresh water resources.
Well poisoning has been historically documented as strategy during wartime since antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
, and was used both offensively (as a terror tactic to disrupt and depopulate a target area) and defensively (as a scorched earth
Scorched earth
A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...
tactic to deny an invading army sources of clean water). Rotting corpses (both animal and human) thrown down wells were the most common implementation; in one of the earliest examples of biological warfare
Biological warfare
Biological warfare is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi with intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war...
, corpses known to have died from common transmissible diseases of the Pre-Modern era such as bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
or tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
were especially favored for well-poisoning.
Additionally, well poisoning was one of the three gravest Antisemitic accusations made against Jews during this period (the other two being host desecration
Host desecration
Host desecration is a form of sacrilege in Christianity involving the mistreatment or malicious use of a consecrated host— the sacred bread used in the Eucharistic service or Mass...
and blood libel
Blood libel
Blood libel is a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, usually Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays...
). Similar accusations were also made of Koreans living in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
in the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. In both cases the accusation was never substantiated, but did lead to widescale persecution and pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s against the group so accused.
In warfare
Well poisoning has been used as an important scorched earthScorched earth
A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...
tactic at least since ancient times. In 1462, for example, Prince Vlad III the Impaler
Vlad III the Impaler
Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia , also known by his patronymic Dracula , and posthumously dubbed Vlad the Impaler , was a three-time Voivode of Wallachia, ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462, the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans...
of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
utilized this method to delay his pursuing Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
Turk adversaries. Whilst retreating though Turkish-controlled Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, across the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
River and back to the capital of Wallachia that same year, Vlad's army employed the poisoning of wells and other sources of water, as well as other scorched earth tactics en route to his country on both sides of the Danube, meaning that he deliberately killed his own people who were unfortunate enough to fall victim to his heinous strategies. Nearly 500 years later during the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...
, the Finns rendered wells unusable by planting animal carcasses or feces in them in order to passively combat
Indirect approach
The Indirect approach was a strategy described and chronicled by B. H. Liddell Hart after World War I, was Liddell Hart's attempt to find a solution to the problem of high casualty rates in conflict zones with high force to space ratios, such as the Western Front on which he served. The strategy...
invading Soviet forces. During the 20th century, the practice of poisoning wells has lost most of its potency and practicality against an organized force as modern military logistics
Military logistics
Military logistics is the discipline of planning and carrying out the movement and maintenance of military forces. In its most comprehensive sense, it is those aspects or military operations that deal with:...
ensure secure and decontaminated supplies and resources. A few religions have laws condemning such scorched earth
Scorched earth
A scorched earth policy is a military strategy or operational method which involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area...
tactics. Most notably Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, in its scripture, dictates that water-bodies may not be poisoned even during a battle and enemies must be allowed access to water.
Medieval accusations against Jews
Despite some vague understanding of how diseases could spread, the existence of viruses and bacteria was unknown in medieval times, and the outbreak of disease could not be scientifically explained. Any sudden deterioration of health was often blamed on poisoning. Europe was hit by several waves of Black DeathBlack Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
(often identified as bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
) throughout the late Middle Ages. Crowded cities were especially hard hit by the disease, with death tolls as high as 50% of the population. In their distress, emotionally distraught survivors searched desperately for an explanation.
The city-dwelling Jews of the Middle Ages, living in walled-up, segregated ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
districts, aroused suspicion. An outbreak of plague thus became the trigger for pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s, with hundreds of Jews burned at the stake, or rounded up in synagogues and private houses that were then set aflame.
With the decline of plague in Europe, these accusations lessened, but the term "well-poisoning" remains a loaded one that continues to crop up even today among anti-Semites around the world.
Walter Laqueur
Walter Laqueur
Walter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator. He was born in Breslau, Germany , to a Jewish family. In 1938, Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust...
writes in his book The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day:
There were no mass attacks against "Jewish poisoners" after the period of the Black Death, but the accusation became part and parcel of antisemitic dogma and language. It appeared again in early 1953 in the form of the "doctors' plotDoctors' plotThe Doctors' plot was the most dramatic anti-Jewish episode in the Soviet Union during Joseph Stalin's regime, involving the "unmasking" of a group of prominent Moscow doctors, predominantly Jews, as conspiratorial assassins of Soviet leaders...
" in Stalin's last days, when hundreds of Jewish physicians in the Soviet Union were arrested and some of them killed on the charge of having caused the death of prominent Communist leaders... Similar charges were made in the 1980s and 1990s in radical Arab nationalist and Muslim fundamentalist propaganda that accused the Jews of spreading AIDSAIDSAcquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
and other infectious diseaseInfectious diseaseInfectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
s.
Contemporary accusations
In recent years, unconfirmed reports of well contamination by Israeli settlers in the West BankWest Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
have surfaced. Cases include that of rotting chicken carcases found in a well at At-tuwani
At-tuwani
At-Tuwani is a small Palestinian village in the South Hebron Hills. Many of the village’s residents live in caves. The village is located south-west of the village of Yatta. Approximately one kilometer away lies Tel Tuwani, near the Israeli settlement Ma’on...
near Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
in 2004, although suspected settlers blamed Arab infighting. In the following years, various NGOs reported similar occurrences, accusing settlers of deliberately contaminating cisterns.
Accusations of well-poisoning have also been brought up against Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
. Most notoriously, Serbs were accused of poisoning Kosovo Albanians. There are also accusations of well-poisoning as a part of the Srebrenica massacre
Srebrenica massacre
The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, refers to the July 1995 killing, during the Bosnian War, of more than 8,000 Bosniaks , mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of...
.