History of military deception.
Ancient Egypt
According to a story from an ancient Egyptian papyrus, in about 1450 BC, an Egyptian army under Pharaoh Thutmose III and his general Djehuty besieged the Caananite city of Yapu (later Joppa and now Jaffa). Unable to gain entry, they resorted to deception. Djehuty hid several soldiers in baskets and had the baskets delivered to the town with the message that the Egyptians were admitting defeat and sending tribute. The people of Yapu accepted the gift and celebrated the end of the siege. Once inside the city, the hidden soldiers emerged from the baskets, opened the city gates, and admitted the main Egyptian force. The Egyptians then conquered the city.
Ancient Greece The Iliad and The Odyssey, epic poems composed between the 9th and 6th centuries BC, are credited to the Ancient Greek author Homer. These poems contain details of the Trojan War, presumed by the Greeks to have been fought in approximately the 13th century BC. The Odyssey provides the details of the Trojan Horse, a successfully executed deception. After several years of stalemate, a Greek leader, Odysseus, devised a deception. Over three days, the Greeks constructed a hollow wooden horse, which they inscribed as an offering to the goddess Athena in prayer for safe return to their homes. The Greeks then pretended to depart the area around Troy, giving the impression that they had sailed for Greece. Rather than risk offending Athena, the Trojans brought the horse into the city. That night, Greek soldiers concealed inside the horse came out of their hiding place and opened the city gates. The main force of Greek soldiers who had actually remained nearby then entered the city and killed the inhabitants.
Ancient China
In 341 BC, troops under the general Sun Bin of the state of Qi faced battle with the forces of the state of Wei. Knowing that Wei regarded the army of Qi as inferior and cowardly, Sun Bin decided to use Wei's perception to his advantage. When Qi's forces invaded Wei, Sun Bin ordered them to light 100,000 camp fires on the first night. On the second night, they lit 50,000. On the third, 30,000. Sun Bin's deception caused the Wei forces led by general Pang Juan to believe Qi faced mass desertions. Rushing to attack what they believed to be an inferior army, the Wei forces assaulted Qi's troops at a narrow gorge, not knowing Sun Bin's soldiers had prepared it as an ambush site. When Pang Juan's troops reached the gorge they observed that a sign had been posted. Lighting a torch to see the message, the Wei commander read "Pang Juan dies beneath this tree". The lighting of the torch was the signal for Qi to initiate the ambush. Sun Bin's army quickly routed Pang Juan's and Pang Juan committed suicide.
Ancient Carthage During the Second Punic War, the Carthaginian general Hannibal employed deception during the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC. In preparing to face a Roman force led by Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro, Hannibal had 40,000 soldiers, as compared to the over 80,000 that had been amassed by Rome. To overcome the Roman advantage in numbers, Hannibal placed his less experienced and disciplined Gauls in the center of his formation, arranged to bulge out towards the Romans. On either side of his line, Hannibal positioned his experienced and disciplined Libyan and Gaetuli infantry. Hannibal intended for the Gauls to give way to the advancing Romans, with the center of his line bending but not breaking. Seeing the Gauls appear to retreat, the Romans would advance into the bowl shape or sack created by the bending of Hannibal's line. Once inside the sack, the African infantry positioned on the left and right would wheel inwards and attack the Roman flanks. In combination with the Carthaginian cavalry, the infantry on the flanks would continue moving until they encircled the Romans and could attack their rear. The battle unfolded as Hannibal had envisioned. Only 10,000 Romans escaped, with the rest either killed or captured. The battle came to be seen as evidence of Hannibal's genius for tactical generalship, while it was among the worst defeats suffered by Ancient Rome.
Ancient Rome During the Gallic Wars, in 52 BC Roman commander Julius Caesar attempted to engage the forces of tribal leader Vercingetorix in open battle in what is now central France. Vercingetorix kept the River Elave (now Allier) between Caesar's forces and his own. His troops destroyed or removed the bridges and mirrored the movements of Caesar's troops, preventing Caesar from crossing the river. Caesar responded by hiding forty of his sixty cohorts and arranging the remaining twenty to give the appearance of sixty as viewed from the opposite riverbank. The twenty cohorts continued to march along the river, and Vercingetorix's troops continued to mirror their movements. Caesar then led the forty hidden cohorts back to a repairable bridge, had it fixed, led his troops across, and sent for the other twenty cohorts to rejoin him. Now on the same side of the river as Vercingetorix, Caesar was able to engage the Gallic tribes in battle as he intended.
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire frequently used deception to aid its military success. A favored tactic was to exaggerate the size of their army, which would cause their enemies to surrender or flee. When he fought the Naimans in 1204, Chinggis Khan ordered his soldiers to light five campfires each, giving the impression of a more numerous army. In 1258 Möngke Khan invaded Sichuan with 40,000 soldiers, and spread rumors of 100,000 in an effort to intimidate his enemy.
When confronting numerically superior forces, the Mongols often sent troops behind their own lines to raise dust with branches tied to their horses' tails, which created the impression that reinforcements were en route. Mongol soldiers had more than one horse each, and to exaggerate the size of their army, they would compel prisoners or civilians to ride their spare horses within sight of the enemy, or mount dummies on their spare horses. To make their forces appear smaller, the Mongols would ride in single file, minimizing dust and making the hoofprints of their horses more difficult to count. Mongol armies also used the feigned retreat. A typical tactic was to deploy the mangudai, a vanguard unit that would charge the enemy, break up its formation, and then fall back in an attempt to draw the enemy into a position more favorable to the Mongols.
Middle Ages Examples of deception occurred during the Crusades. In 1271, Sultan Baybars captured the formidable Krak des Chevaliers by handing the besieged knights a letter, supposedly from their commander, ordering them to surrender. The letter was fake, but the knights believed it was genuine and capitulated.
Renaissance In an event from the early 1480s that was recounted in Washington Irving's Conquest of Granada, during the Granada War, the Alhama de Granada was besieged by Moors. During the siege, a portion of the fortress' outer wall was destroyed after the earth beneath it was washed away in a violent storm. To conceal the breach, the Conde de Tendilla, leader of the Spanish defenders, directed the erection of a cloth screen. The screen deceived the Moors because it was painted to resemble stone, and no Moorish besiegers ventured close enough to spot the fakery. The wall was repaired over the next several days, and the Moors did not learn of the gap in the Alhama's defenses.
Colonial Africa
In 1659, the kingdom of Denmark–Norway constructed Fort Christiansborg near what is now Accra in Ghana. Used to control commerce in slaves, as well as raw materials including gold and ivory, the site changed hands several times between Denmark–Norway, Portugal, and Sweden, sometimes by force, sometimes by purchase. In 1692, Nana Asamani, the king of the Akwamu people, planned to capture the fort from Denmark–Norway. Disguising himself as a cook and interpreter, he obtained work at the fort, where over the next year he became proficient in the Danish language and conducted reconnaissance to learn about the activities of the facility's occupants and the people with whom they traded.
After gaining familiarity with Fort Christiansborg's occupants and operations, in 1693 Asamani informed the Danish traders who occupied it about a group of Akwamu who desired to purchase weapons and ammunition, and suggested they were so anxious to buy that the Danes should inflate their prices. Lured by the prospect of large profits, the Danes bartered with the 80 Akwamu that Asamani had brought to the fort. When the Danes allowed the Akwamu to inspect rifles and prepare to test-fire them, the Akwamu instead used the guns to commence an attack on the Danes. Caught by surprise, the Danes were quickly overpowered and ejected from Fort Christiansborg. The Akwamu occupied the post for a year before Asamani agreed to sell it back to Denmark–Norway. Asamani kept the keys as a trophy, and they are still in the possession of the Akwamu.
French and Indian War
During the Seven Years' War in North America (known in the United States as the French and Indian War), British commander James Wolfe attempted throughout the summer of 1759 to force French commander Louis-Joseph de Montcalm to come out of his well-defended position in Quebec City. When artillery fire that destroyed most of the city did not produce the desired effect, Wolfe employed a deception strategy called "uproar east, attack west" Wolfe ordered Admiral Charles Saunders to move the British fleet on the Saint Lawrence River to a position opposite one of Montcalm's main camps east of Quebec City. This demonstration gave the appearance of preparations for an upcoming attack. Montcalm was deceived, and moved troops to guard against a British assault from that location.
Wolfe's soldiers at Quebec City capitalized on the favorable balance of forces created by the deception. First, they opened a road from the riverbank to the city heights. Next, they deployed into battle formation on a farmer's field near the city walls. Caught by surprise, Montcalm knew he would not be able to withstand a siege and had no choice but to fight. On 13 September 1759, the French were decisively beaten in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. The loss of Quebec led to defeat in the war and France was forced to cede Canada to the British.
American Revolution
Siege of Boston As head of the Continental Army, George Washington used deception in an effort to equalize the odds in the fight against the larger, better-equipped, and better-trained British army and its Hessian auxiliaries. During the siege of Boston from April 1775 to March 1776, the newly organized Continental Army suffered from numerous equipment and supply shortages. Among the most critical was a lack of gunpowder, which was so acute that in a battle, Washington's troops would be able to fire no more than nine bullets per man. To conceal their lack of gunpowder from the British, Washington's quartermaster soldiers filled gunpowder casks with sand and shipped them from Providence, Rhode Island to the Continental Army's depots. The deception convinced British commanders not to launch sorties during the siege.
Battle of Long Island