[A humble request: If you can, please donate to help me carry on tracing word histories. Thank you.]
The phrase to burn one’s bridges behind one, and its variants, mean: to commit oneself to a course from which there is no retreat.
This phrase alludes to a military tactic in which an army destroys the route by which it might be pursued, but as a result also cuts off its means of retreat.
The following, for example, is from Extract of a Letter from Utrecht, April 7, published in The Ipswich Journal (Ipswich, Suffolk, England) of Saturday 22nd April 1758 [page 1, column 3]—reprinted from the London Chronicle:
Behold the French, not on the Rhine, except a few of them, but a good Way behind it, and even on the Maese. All their Allies, the Elector of Cologn, the Elector Palatine, &c. are inexpressibly embarrassed. The Count of Clermont is become melancholy, depressed, and sullen. What Work hath he not to do? Full of Belleisle’s Maxims *, he wanted to bring every Offender to condign Punishment, in an Army where Discipline is no longer known. He did not forget M. de St. Chamont, who neglected to burn the Bridge of Verden behind him, for which the Troops smarted severely.
* This refers to the political and military principles laid down by the Marshal of France and statesman Charles Fouquet (1684-1761), Duc de Belle-Isle.
The earliest figurative uses of to burn one’s bridges behind one and variants that I have found indicate that this phrase originated in U.S. politics—these early figurative uses are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From the Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, Tennessee, USA) of Thursday 15th July 1852 [page 2, column 2]:
“Burnt the Bridge.”—The whigs in this region have, for some time, been consoling themselves with a telegraphic report from the Louisville Journal, which stated that Mr. Gentry would support Gen. Scott, inasmuch as the Whig National Convention had adopted a platform that he could approve, and “Old Hasty” had placed himself upon it. But this proves to be a mistake. On the 2d inst., after the whig platform and nominations had been received in Washington City, we learn by private advices, that Mr. Gentry said he had nothing to retract; that “he had burned the bridge behind him, and there was no possibility of retreat now, even if he desired it.”
2-: From a correspondence from Washington, District of Columbia, dated Wednesday 14th December 1853, published in the New-York Daily Times (New York City, New York, USA) of Friday 16th December 1853 [page 1, column 3]:
The President […] has the advantage of position, and cannot be dislodged. The beseigers [sic] have the power of hemming him in, but must starve to death themselves in exercising the power, without even a possibility of getting inside the beleaguered walls. But they have cast prudence to the winds, and burned every bridge behind them; so that there seems to be nothing for them to do now but rush on to destruction.
3-: From a correspondence from Washington, District of Columbia, dated Thursday 10th December 1857, published in the Pennsylvania Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) of Friday 11th December 1857 [page 2, column 3]:
The universal topic of interest is Senator Douglas’ great speech yesterday, on Kansas matters. […] There is not another man of eminence in the Democratic party who could, or would have dared, thus to set that party and the Administration at defiance. […]
[…] Mr. Douglas has proved himself, by this act of self-immolation, one of the greatest spirits of the age. […] He has fairly passed the Rubicon; he has burned the bridges behind him; for him there can be no faltering or turning back; destruction awaits him if he retrogades [sic]; while, if success attends his onward efforts, there is nothing to which he may not aspire.
—Note: Quotations 4 & 5 below mention one “R. J. Ryan, Esq.”, i.e., “Dick Ryan”:
4-: From The Evansville Daily Enquirer (Evansville, Indiana, USA) of Monday 11th October 1858 [page 2, column 2]:
Dick Ryan, in his speeches on Tuesday and Friday nights, said that in going over to the opposition he had burned the bridges behind him in his track. Jim Shanklin, in replying, on Saturday night, said that he had noticed that these democratic politicians who leave the party and burn bridges behind them, always take good care to see that the water is shallow enough to wade back to the other bank again whenever they fail to find the promised land on the other side, and desire to recross.
5-: From a letter that Dick Ryan wrote to the Democratic Party of Vigo County, who had invited him to address them on the political topics of the day—letter published in the Daily Evening Enquirer (Evansville, Indiana, USA) of Monday 10th October 1859 [page 2, column 2]—in this letter, “the difficulties” refers to “the differences which prevailed among Democrats last year”:
The difficulties of which I have spoken, and the course I saw proper to pursue during their progress, are, it seems to me, of too recent occurrence, and, doubtless, too fresh in the minds of all, to justify me in the belief that I could at this time materially or sensibly benefit the prospects of your County ticket by addressing your people on the somewhat hackneyed and worn out political topics of the day. It would scarcely look modest for one who, in the year of our Lord, 1858, proudly and defiantly boasted that he had burned the bridges behind him, and that, in drawing the sword, he had flung away the scabbard, to go into the same regions of country in 1859, and appeal to those whose ears are yet ringing with the harsh notes of his rebellious and insurrectionary way [sic] cry, to stand by the organization of the party and sustain, with willing suffrages, the regular Democratic ticket.
6-: From an account of the opening session of the South Carolina Convention, held on Monday 17th December 1860 in the Baptist Church, at Columbia, South Carolina—account published in The Charleston Daily Courier (Charleston, South Carolina, USA) of Tuesday 18th December 1860 [page 1, column 2]:
Mr. Keitt […] said I am ready to take the State out of the Union. I am ready to go now and forever, and to go at once, and to burn the bridges behind us. (Applause.)
