Excerpt from Ambushes and Surprises: Being a Description of Some of the Most Famous Instances of the Leading Into Ambush and the Surprise of Armies, From the Time of Hannibal to the Period of the Indian MutinyThe surprises recorded in the last two chapters occurred in our own time. Their right to a. Place in this volume will be denied by no one. I will add that the subjects of both have been studied by me with the greatest care. If I have not, as I am conscious I have not, brought into the prominence they deserved the names Of many gallant soldiers, it is because in so short a sketch it has been im possible to individualise the actions of all. I hope, how ever, I may be allowed to cherish the conviction that, at all events, I have been unjust to no one.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A historian of military intelligence presents a revelatory account of ancient Greek battle tactics, including the use of espionage and irregular warfare. There are two images of warfare that dominate Greek history. The better known is that of Achilles, the Homeric hero skilled in face-to-face combat and outraged by deception on the battlefield. The alternative model, also taken from Homeric epic, is Odysseus, ‘the man of twists and turns’ who saw no shame in winning by stealth, surprise or deceit. It is common for popular writers to assume that the hoplite phalanx was the only mode of warfare used by the Greeks. The fact is, however, that the use of spies, intelligence gathering, ambush, and surprise attacks at dawn or at night were also a part of Greek warfare. While such tactics were not the supreme method of defeating an enemy, they were routinely employed when the opportunity presented itself.