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    The Art of Military Deception
    The Art of Military Deception
    The Art of Military Deception
    Ebook311 pages6 hours

    The Art of Military Deception

    By Mark Lloyd

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    About this ebook

    This in-depth analysis of military deception examines tactics employed across centuries and continents, from ancient times to WWII.

    The art of military deception is as old as warfare itself. It has been a vital part of virtually every successful campaign ever recorded, and yet has been largely overlooked in the annals of military history. In The Art of Military Deception, Mark Lloyd corrects this oversight with a wide-ranging analysis of strategies and tactics through the ages.

    Lloyd treats this much-neglected aspect of warfare thematically rather than chronologically covering such topics as disinformation campaigns, lies on the home front, and psychological warfare. He draws on a wide range of examples to show the elaborate techniques which have been employed in the struggle to outwit the enemy. Particularly fascinating is his analysis of the fatal error of self-deception.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateDec 4, 2003
    ISBN9781473811966
    The Art of Military Deception
    Author

    Mark Lloyd

    Mark Lloyd served in Vietnam as a US Army Green Beret. He worked two years as a police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department before joining the Drug Enforcement Administration as a special agent, where he worked for thirty-one years on foreign and domestic assignments. Lloyd currently lives in Bentonville, Arkansas.

    Read more from Mark Lloyd

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    • 3/5
      The book covers the period of World War I to the US effort in Iraq.
      One interesting section deals with SELF-DECEPTION : Hitler's belief that he could conquer Russia; Goering's
      belief that the Luftwaffe would overcome the RAF; some in the US said that Japanese could never fly planes or,
      because of poor eyesight, could not shoot accurately.

      Covered in some detail were the deception plans to deceive the Germans into thinking that Calais was the
      real objective, German efforts to deceive Stalin before launching their invasion and the well known
      " Man Who Never Was ".

      Throughout time phony radio broadcasts, leaflets, appeals from POWs to surrender, etc. were used to
      make an untruth believable. A wide range of these methods in many parts of the world were discussed.

    Book preview

    The Art of Military Deception - Mark Lloyd

    CHAPTER ONE:

    The Unworthy Foe

    Generals rarely, if ever, set out to lose battles. The fact that they do nonetheless can be attributed to a number of factors. Most of these fall into the catagories of bad luck, bad judgement or ineptitude. However, occasionally a campaign is doomed from the start. As often as not this is due to the fact that one adversary has completely underestimated the worth of the other.

    For centuries Europeans have assumed that it is their right to wage war successfully, particularly against non-European adversaries. Traditionally, even within Europe, certain countries have regarded their armies as inherently superior to others. In 1415 the French allowed themselves to be lured into bloody defeat at Agincourt by giving battle to the ‘inferior’ English in a muddy field of the latter’s chosing. Prevented by the terrain from deploying, and forced by the atrocious conditions to advance at no more than a trot, the French cavalry elite were massacred by the English and Welsh bowmen before they could even join battle.

    Over 450 years later the French again paid a terrible price for underestimating the worth of their enemy. In 1870 they allowed themselves to be duped by Bismarck into declaring war on Prussia, and in a few months of bloody fighting were soundly defeated on all fronts. In an ignominious peace they were forced to cede the province of Alsace and most of Lorraine, agreed to pay reparations of five billion francs, and suffered the indignity of an army of occupation until they had done so. Prussia had proved the worth of her Army in highly successful campaigns against Denmark in 1864 and Austria in 1866, but France had refused to learn the lessons of history and had instead chosen to rely on the unproven, and in this instance patently untrue, preparedness of her armed forces.

    In 1940 French complacency, and an unerring belief in the infallibility of her tired and largely outdated army, led to its wholesale destruction at the hands of the Nazi panzers. German tactics should not have come as a shock to the Franco-British allies. They had been well documented by Heinz Guderian in 1937, yet they had been ignored by the traditionalists who had refused to allow for the possibility of military evolution.

    Latterly the Americans have found themselves guilty of the same self-deceipt. In Vietnam they failed to differentiate between technology and ability, and assumed that they had a right to defeat the peasant armies of the Communist North. When they found themselves in an environment in which their technology was of little use, and in which victory or otherwise depended on the skills and resolution of the individual soldier, they were heavily defeated.

    In many cases self-inflicted defeat has occurred when an imperial power has failed to appreciate the worth of a colony or former colony. Thus it was with Britain in the later 18th century when her American colonies began to flex their muscles and demand greater fiscal autonomy.

    Disaster in the Americas

    With the Treaty of Paris in 1763 and the end of the French wars, both Britain and the colonies looked forward to a period of stability. However, this was not to be, and peace brought with it new-found tensions. Nearly bankrupted by the war, Britain found herself having to station 10,000 extra troops in the American colonies which were now expanding fast to fill the void left by the French. Britain felt that the cost of these troops should be met by the colonists. They, on the other hand, resented the presence of the Redcoats whom they saw more as a restraint on territorial growth than a protection against the frontier Indians whom they had earlier proved inept in fighting. More fundamentally they were adamant that, by providing excellent militia throughout the war, the costs of which had been borne locally, they had contributed more than adequately to the campaign and should not now have to suffer higher taxation.

    In 1773, in response to the recently passed Tea Act, a group of colonists stole aboard a number of tea clippers in Boston harbour and threw their precious cargoes into the sea. When Britain retaliated by closing the harbour and placing Massachusetts under military rule confrontation became inevitable. Determined to resist military rule, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress began to stockpile ammunition and supplies in Concord, a small settlement some 32km from Boston. General Gage, commanding the British garrison, reacted forcefully, sending a force of 700 men to seize the illegal stores.

    However, the minutemen, an elite among the militia, were forewarned and formed on the village green at Lexington to block the advance. A brief firefight ensued after which the militia retired having sustained eight dead. The British proceeded to Concord but during their return to Boston were harried throughout by militia snipers. The British regulars had to call upon the assistance of a relief force to secure their safety and suffered 276 casualties. The militiamen suffered 95 dead and injured, a demonstration of the latter’s excellent use of guerrilla tactics. Within days the key forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point were seized by the rebels.

    The militiamen had proved themselves excellent adversaries who were clearly determined to fight the war on their own terms. Notwithstanding, the British continued to fight the insurrection by the tried and tested tactics of large-scale set-piece battlefield engagements. Foreseeing the need for a regular, disciplined force to protect the colonies against the inevitable onslaught, the settlers’ Continental Congress adopted the irregular New England Army assembled around Boston and appointed George Washington its Commander-in-Chief.

    At the outset the Continental Army consisted almost entirely of infantry supplemented by irregular cavalry and artillery. However, in striking contrast to the British who failed to adapt, the Americans set up a training programme which was highly professional, comprehensive and adapted specifically for American conditions. Cadres returned to their units to inaugurate local training programmes, thus ensuring that the new tactics were disseminated throughout the Army.

    After five years of sporadic fighting, and the intervention of the French, the British were forced to surrender. Had they attempted to adapt their tactics to the environment their logistical advantages might well have proved decisive in forcing a different outcome. Their failure to accept the worth of the local insurgents proved fatal. It would do so again.

    African Adventures

    During the course of the late 19th century Britain involved herself in a series of disastrous brush wars in southern Africa. In each case Imperial might should have prevailed. However, the failure of the establishment of the day to realize the potential of the enemy led the British to neglect a series of fundamental military tenets with fatal consequences.

    When the Zulus began to menace the Boer settlements in the Transvaal the Boers, however unwillingly, sought the protection of the British military. The British High Commissioner, Sir Bartle Frere, determined to destroy the Zulu forces and, acting on his own initiative and against the wishes of the Government in London, ordered Lord Chelmsford to march into Zululand in January, 1879. The Zulu people had, by then, acquired a formidable military organization under successive warrior kings, yet Chelmsford deceived himself that their destruction would be a mere formality. His arrogance was to cost the lives of 1,600 men, half of them

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