Hadrian's Wall vs Great Wall of China?

Question

Which one do you consider more effective?
Which one do you find more sustainable?
Which one would you prefer to use, if you were an Emperor?

Answer 1

Neither was effective or worked except politically. Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man. Armies have no trouble crossing them, and both walls were easily crossed. The Great Wall of China nearly bankrupted the Chinese, and cost 100,000 lives to build, and the Mongols had no problem crossing. To your last question, they were both failures, so Hadrian's Wall was the best cause it cost the least.

Answer 2

Zencow is correct in respect of the Great Wall of China. It was largely designed to provide several solutions to the border 'problem', but was by no means the 'single answer'. It acted not only as a barrier, but also as an alarm system (forts located along the wall communicated with semaphore by day and signal fires by night) and a 'military highway' along which men and horses could be moved swiftly (through sometimes otherwise impenetrable mountainous areas).

Traders and smugglers (who were far more common than invading armies) could be 'funneled' though gates where taxes were paid. Even invading armies could be 'funneled' through breaks in the wall into the the path of armies and fortresses on the frontier. It's not that the wall was impenetrable (although it was formidable), but that given the choice an army (or a trader or smuggler) will go for some other route than one dominated by watchtowers (and large forts at greater intervals) spaced every few hundred yards along the length of the Great Wall.

Another part of the strategy was to set up 'client states' on the 'far' side of the wall. These were 'friendly' states who were encouraged (either through fear or bribery - or both) to act as the real front line against the real hostile folk who lived 'further out'. The Great Wall in that case was actually a fall-back position, a rallying point, and was of course manned by reliable Chinese troops. In terms of the cost in lives the Great Wall probably gave greater service to the Chinese than say the pyramids of Egypt, even thought the cost might have been similar.

Pretty much everything said here so far also holds completely true for Hadrian's Wall. These weren't 'follies', but carefully considered military (and trade control) solutions for their time. They might look insubstantial to us (used to the idea af tanks and aeroplanes), but to a foot soldier or horseman six hundred (or two thousand) years ago they were formidable barriers.

Answer 3

I've read somewhere that the Great Wall of China wasn't meant to keep the Mongol invaders out, but rather force them to take predictable exits, which then could be intercepted by pursuing Chinese forces. This could be just a revisionist view, but if true, then I would have to say that the Chinese were more successful.

As far as I know, the Hadrian's wall was more of a symbolic boundary marker, rather than a true defensive structure.

Answer 4

Neither worked very well, as they were both incredibly resource hungry, and with the appropriate strategy could (and were) breached often times. Both empires required a considerably large amount of resources to maintain and man them. They weren't popular with the soldiers stuck there either. An effective and popular emperor doesn't need a wall. The fallback for empirical inability.

Answer 5

The Great Wall is, of course, more impressive, imposing. Hadrian's Wall is charming and naive. I see them as history and have a hard time envisioning how they could have been effective at one time.

Answer 6

GREAT WALL says it all - - - - as much as I adore Hadrian his wall was barely a wall & a ditch and ineffective against agressive hordes. The Great Wall is visible from the SPace Station.

Peace...