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A Memorable History of Deception and Spy Capers

Khalid Elhassan June 7, 2020 34 min

Operation Mincemeat - World War II — Items recovered from Major Martin and his briefcase. BBC

10. Baiting the Trap

As Alexander the Great rode off with his cavalry to the right side of the field at Gaugamela, the Persian cavalry opposite shadowed him. The Persian horsemen rode parallel to Alexander, to make sure he did not outflank the Persian line. That was the goal of Alexander’s deception: to remove as much of the Persian cavalry from their initial position as possible.

Alexander had a surprise for the Persian cavalry: while riding off toward the right, he had some light infantry, or hypaspists, keeping pace with him, to his right. The hypaspists were concealed from Persian sight by Alexander’s cavalry, which lay between the Persians and the Macedonian monarch’s light infantry. The result was three parallel lines moving towards the right side of the field. There was the Persian cavalry, then Alexander’s cavalry, whom the Persians could see, and Alexander’s light infantry, whom the Persians could not see.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.