The retreating army adopted a scorched-earth policy, burning bridges and crops so the invading forces would have nothing to use.
scorched-earth policy = extreme strategy of ruining or giving up your own resources so an enemy or rival gains as little as possible
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Fearing a hostile takeover, the company’s leaders chose a scorched-earth policy, selling off key assets to make the firm less attractive to the buyer.
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He follows a scorched-earth policy.†
(source)
John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, 1994
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She was beginning to wonder how useful her scorched-earth policy had been to her all these years.†
(source)
Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones, 2002
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The Japanese "loot all, kill all, burn all" scorched-earth policy in North China would eventually reduce the population from forty-four million to twenty-five million.†
(source)
James Bradley, Flags of Our Fathers, 2000