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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

9. Springing the Trap

The Persian cavalry kept shadowing Alexander and his cavalry as they moved to the right of the battlefield at Gaugamela. Eventually, the Persians got ahead of the Macedonians and outflanked what they assumed had been Alexander’s attempt to outflank them. Then, having gained what they assumed the “advantage” over their enemy, the Persian cavalry charged.

Alexander’s deception had worked, because getting charged by the Persian cavalry on that side of the field was what the great conqueror had hoped his enemy would do. When the Persian cavalry shadowed Alexander and kept pace with him as he rode to the right of the field, a gap had opened in the Persian line. A gap where the Persians had cavalry originally been at the start of the battle. Alexander’s goal all along had been to carry out a deception that drew the Persian cavalry out of position in order to produce that very gap (see map above). A gap into which Alexander intended to charge.

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.