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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

32. History’s Greatest Ambush

In 217 BC, Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca, who had recently invaded Italy, goaded the commander of a Roman army sent to oppose him into a rash pursuit. On June 24^th, 217 BC, Hannibal used deception and guile to lure his pursuers into a trap along the northern shore of Lake Trasimene. There, he sprang on his unsuspecting pursuers history’s largest tactical military ambush.

Hannibal had defeated two Roman armies in northern Italy in 218 BC, so Rome’s consuls for 217 BC were sent to deal with him. One of the consuls, Gaius Flaminius, gathered the survivors of the earlier defeats. Reinforced by new recruits, he formed them into an army of about 30,000 men and marched south to defend Rome.

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.