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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

8. Reaping the Rewards of a Great Deception

Alexander’s master stroke at the Battle of Gaugamela. Wikimedia

When the Persian cavalry charged Alexander the Great’s cavalry, he unleashed the light infantry hypaspists who had accompanied him, of whose presence the Persians were unaware. While the hypaspists engaged the Persian cavalry, Alexander left them to it, along with most of his cavalry, to keep the enemy horsemen busy. He then neatly disengaged his elite Companion Cavalry from the fray. Turning direction, Alexander led the Companion Cavalry in a wedge formation, straight for the gap in the Persian line where the Persian cavalry had been at the start of the battle.

Ancient mosaic depicting the decisive moment when Alexander the Great’s charge at the Battle of Gaugamela sent Darius III fleeing. Wikimedia

A gap where the Persian king, Darius, happened to be. It was a surgical strike that won the day. Seeing a furious cavalry charge headed straight at him, without enough cavalry of his own in position to challenge Alexander, Darius panicked and fled the battlefield. The result was a decisive Macedonian victory.

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.