Military deception

Military deception refers to attempts to mislead enemy forces during warfare. This is usually achieved by creating or amplifying an artificial fog of war via psychological operations, information warfare, visual deception and other methods. As a form of strategic use of information (disinformation), it overlaps with psychological warfare. To the degree that any enemy that falls for the deception will lose confidence when it is revealed, he may hesitate when confronted with the truth.

Deception in warfare dates back to early history. The Art of War puts great emphasis on the tactic. In modern times military deception has developed as a fully fledged theorem. Misinformation and visual deception were employed during World War I and came into even greater prominence during World War II. In the build up to the 1944 invasion of Normandy the Allies executed one of the largest deceptions in military history, Operation Neptune, helping them achieve full tactical surprise.

Types of deception

Fake airbase and aircraft

Broadly, military deception can take both strategic and tactical form. Deception across a strategic battlefield was uncommon until the modern age (particularly in the world wars of the 20th century), but tactical deception (on individual battlefields) dates back to early history. In a practical sense military deception employs visual misdirection, misinformation (for example, via double agents) and psychology to make the enemy believe something that is untrue. When referring to deception in the military doctrines of the Soviet Union and Russia, the Russian loanword maskirovka (literally: camouflage, concealment) is sometimes used.

There a numerous examples of deception activities across this history of warfare, such as:

Feigned retreat

Leading the enemy, through a false sense of security, into a pre-positioned ambush.

Fictional units

Either faking entirely fictional forces or over-emphasising the size of your army.

Smoke screen

A tactical deception involving smoke or other form of cover to hide battlefield movements.

Trojan horse

Gaining admittance to a fortified area under false pretences, to later let in a larger attacking force.

Strategic envelopment

A small force distracts the enemy whilst a much larger force moves to attack from the rear. A favoured tactic of Napoleon.

History

Deception has been a part of warfare from the dawn of history. Early examples exist in the ancient dynasties of Egypt and China; Sun Tzu's famous work The Art of War discusses many deceptive tactics. Hannibal, widely recognised as one of the finest military commanders in history, made extensive use of deception in his campaigns.

The Ancient Greeks were noted for several forms of tactical deception. They certainly invented smoke screens during the Peloponnesian War and later stories refer to the famous Trojan horse which allowed them to defeat Troy.

In his 52 BC conquest of Gaul, Julius Ceasar successfully used tactical deception to achieve a crossing of the river Allier. His opponent, Vercingertorix shadowed Caesar's force from the opposite bank, contesting any attempted crossing. Ceasar camped overnight in a wood; when departing the following day he left a third of his force behind, splitting down the remainder to appear as his full strength. Once the coast was clear the hidden forces rebuilt a smashed crossing and established a bridgehead. One volume of Roman aristocrat Frontinus's Stratagems, written in the first century AD, deals entirely with deception. Despite this, ancient Rome generally despised the tactic.

Opinion on military deception was divided following the fall of the Roman empire. The chivalrous countries in western Europe considered the tactic to be underhand. Whilst Eastern armies considered it a key skill; the Byzantine general Belisarius was particularly noted for using deception against overwhelming odds.

Middle ages

The Normans set aside the chivalrous nature of western states and embraced the concept of a feigned retreat (a favourite Byzantine tactic brought back by Norman mercenaries). William the Conqueror appears to have used this tactic successfully during the the Battle of Hastings, although the actual events are disputed by scholars. Whatever the truth, the battle has at least been used as a famous example of the tactic.

Mongol armies also used the feigned withdrawal; the mangudai were a suicide vanguard unit that would charge the enemy, break and retreat to try and draw them into more favourable ground. Mongol warlords also made use of disinformation tactics, spreading (or encouraging) rumours about the size and effectiveness of their forces. They even made use of visual deception; cavalry often kept numerous reserve horses, and these were mounted with straw dummies. On the battlefield the Mongols used many tactical deceptions – from lighting fires as a smokescreen to luring opponents into traps.

Other examples of deception exist during the Crusades. In 1271 Sultan Baybars successfully captured the formidable Krak des Chevaliers by handing the besieged Knights a letter, supposedly from their commander, ordering them to surrender. It was, of course, faked, but the Knights duly capitulated. At around the same time, in England, the Welsh Tudurs were seeking a pardon from the price Henry Percy had placed on their head. They decided to capture Percy's Conwy castle; by posing as a carpenter one of their small band was able to gain access to the castle, a variant on the trojan horse tactic, and let in his compatriots.

Despite all of these early examples, warfare in the middle ages was disorganised and lacked any formal tactics or strategy. Armies were unlike the previous Roman legions, untrained and unprepared. Military strategy was similarly ad hoc, meaning that deception strategies varied in effectiveness across the civilised world.

Renaissance

However, the dawn of the Renaissance period would change all of this. Military scholars at the time, such as Niccolo Machiavelli, rejected Medieval tactics. Instead they referred back to earlier Roman and Greek writers for their strategems.

Revolutionary wars

Main article: French Revolutionary Wars

In the late 1700s the newly formed French First Republic clashed with many of the other European powers. Deception began to be used formally on the battlefield as well as in broader strategy.

In 1797, during the battle of Fishguard, British commander John Campbell, 1st Baron Cawdor bluffed French invaders into surrendering to his much smaller force. In response to a French request for terms of surrender, including safe passage home, Cawdor replied; "The Superiority of the Force under my command, which is hourly increasing, must prevent my treating upon any Terms short of your surrendering your whole Force Prisoners of War." Cawdor's response was an outrageous bluff, but inexplicably the enemy commander (American William Tate) believed the British to be substantially reinforced, and surrendered.

In a notable use of a similar strategem at the Siege of Detroit during the Anglo-American War of 1812, the British Major General Isaac Brock and the Native American chief Tecumseh used a variety of tricks, including letters which exaggerated the size of their own forces and marching a body of Natives past American observers several times, to fool the American Brigadier General William Hull into thinking that he faced overwhelming numbers of British regular troops and hordes of uncontrollable Indians. Fearing a massacre by the Indians, the elderly Hull capitulated, surrendering the town and the attached fort and an army which outnumbered Brock's and Tecumseh's forces.

However, the master deceiver of this period was Napoleon Bonaparte; the French military commander and politician whose strategies influenced much of modern warfare. Napoleon made significant use of tactical deception during his campaigns and, later, of strategic deception. In 1796, at the Battle of Lodi, he successfully achieved a crossing of the River Po. In a reversal of Caesar's tactic centuries earlier, Napoleon mounted a token crossing attempt against a strong Austrian force under Johann Beaulieu. Meanwhile the bulk of his force moved up river and obtained an uncontested bridgehead at Piacenzam before attacking their enemies rear guard. He referred to this tactic as manoeuvre sur led derrières (strategic envelopment).

American Civil War

Main article: American Civil War

Stonewall Jackson made good use of deception during the American Civil War. In 1862, following a series of harrying attacks along the Shenandoah valley, his army marched in secret to attack McClellan at Richmond, Virginia. Jackson spread rumours that he was heading in a different direction, and even sent engineers to survey the fictional route. His army was kept under strict orders - not allowed to talk about, or even know, where they actually were, or were headed.

Second Boer War

Dummy Long Tom artillery position deployed during the Second Boer War

Probably one of the most eponymous deceptions of the modern era was Robert Baden-Powell's defence of Mafeking during the Second Boer War. Baden-Powell had been dispatched to the North West province of South Africa shortly before the outbreak of war with orders to raise a small force and conduct a harrying war against the Boer flanks (to draw their forces away from key British positions on the coast).

Baden-Powell realised his small force was not capable of offensive operations. So he bluffed entry to Mafeking, by obtaining permission for an "armed guard in Mafeking to protect the stores". As authorities had not specified the size of the guard Baden-Powell moved his whole force into the town, his first of many deceptions over the next year.

The Boers sent 8,000 men to besiege Mafeking. Baden-Powell's force amounted to less than 1,500 men and officers; he realised that deceit would be key to holding the town. The scale and audacity of his subsequent deceptions made Baden-Powell a war hero in England.

As the Boers advanced Baden-Powell had sent a letter to a friend inside Transvaal warning of the imminent approach of more British troops. He knew the friend was dead and hoped the letter would fall into Boer hands – it did, and 1,200 troops sat uselessly watching the Southern approaches for this fictional force. At Mefeking Baden-Powell set up fake forts at some distance from the town, one marked as his own headquarters soon drew enemy attention. These fortifications held up the Boers allowing Baden-Powell to improve Mafeking's defences. He set locals to carrying boxes of "mines" around the town (in fact, they were full of sand), information which soon leaked back to the enemy. When "minefield" signs sprang up around the town a short while later the Boers took it for granted they were real.

See also: Siege of Mafeking

World War I

Europa

World War 1 Australian troops carrying a dummy Mark IV tank, intended to deceive German forces during the following day's assault on part of the Hindenburg Line (September 1918)

Deception carried out on part of the Hindenburg Line in September 1918

Palestine

Also in September 1918, before the Battle of Megiddo (1918) the Egyptian Expeditionary Force commanded by General E. Allenby, masked the movement of three cavalry division from the eastern end of the front line to the western end on the Mediterranean Sea, where the successful infantry breakthrough was exploited by the mounted divisions. These divisions moved under cover of darkness, to naturally camouflaged areas in olive and orange groves, behind the front line. Meanwhile the remaining mounted division reinforced with infantry maintained the illusion that the valley was fully garrisoned.

They achieved this deception by building a bridge in the valley, infantry were repeatedly marched into the Jordan Valley (Middle East) during the day, driven out by motor lorry at night, and marched back in the next day. In the vacated regimental lines the tents which were left standing, 142 fires were lit each night and 15,000 dummy horses, made from canvas and stuffed with straw, wore real horse–rugs and nose–bags. Every day mules dragged branches up and down the valley (or the same horses were ridden backwards and forwards all day, as if taking the animals to water) to keep up the normally thick clouds of dust.

Further Allenby's staff disseminated a mass of false information and clues, including a grand race meeting to be held on the day the battle began. And Fast’s Hotel in Jerusalem was suddenly evacuated, sentry boxes placed at its entrances and rumours spread that it was to become Allenby’s advanced headquarters in preparation for a renewal of the Transjordan campaign eastwards towards Amman and Es Salt.

During the concentration of Allenby's force on the western end of the front line, German and Ottoman aircraft were unable to carry out reliable aerial reconnaissances as the British and Australian aircraft had virtual complete dominance of the skies. Only four of their aircraft succeeded in crossing the lines during the period of concentration, prior to Megiddo as against over 100 during one week in June.

Though these deceptions did not induce Liman von Sanders, commander of the Ottoman Army in Palestine, to concentrate his forces on the eastern flank, nor did he concentrate his forces on the western flank. Allenby was, thereby able to concentrate a superior force by five to one in infantry and even more in artillery on the Mediterranean flank opposing the Ottoman XXII Corps, where the main attack was successfully made.

World War II

Before Operation Barbarossa, the German High Command masked the creation of the massive force arrayed to invade the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and heightened their diplomatic efforts to convince Joseph Stalin that they were about to launch a major attack on Britain.

Amongst the Allies several individuals pioneered deception at both the strategic and operational level. Dudley Clarke and his 'A' Force, based in Cairo, developed much of the Allied deception strategy form early 1941. The London Controlling Section was formed in September 1941 in response to Clarke's success; after a slow start the department was taken over by John Bevan in 1942, who worked on successful strategies such as Operation Bodyguard.

Before D-Day, Operation Quicksilver portrayed "First United States Army Group" (FUSAG), which was merely a skeleton headquarters commanded by General Omar Bradley, as a genuine large army group commanded by General George Patton. In Operation Fortitude South, the Germans were then persuaded that FUSAG would invade France at the Pas-de-Calais. British and American troops used false signals and the messages of double agents to deceive German intelligence organizations and radio intercept operators. Contrary to popular myth, dummy equipment played a negligible role in the operation, for the Germans were unable to mount reconnaissance over English territory in the face of total Allied control of the air. This had the desired effect of misleading the German High Command as to the location of the primary invasion, thus inducing them to keep reserves away from the actual landings. Erwin Rommel and Hitler himself were the primary targets of this operation: convinced that Patton would lead the invasion, Rommel was caught off guard and unwilling to react strongly, as Patton's illusionary FUSAG had not yet landed. The Germans awaited this landing for many crucial weeks, finally concluding that it would not take place because of Allied success in breaking out from the Normandy bridgehead. Confidence and speed was reduced enough that the German response to the beachhead was weaker than it would otherwise have been.

Opinions on the value of military deception

The value of military deception is subject to a difference of opinions among military pundits. For example, the two books that are usually considered the most famous classics on warfare Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Clausewitz' On War seem to have diametrically opposed views on the matter. Sun Tzu greatly emphasizes military deception and considers it the key to victory. Clausewitz on the other hand argues that a commander has a foggy idea of what is going on anyway and that creating some sort of false appearance, particularly on a large scale, is costly and can only be acceptable from a cost-benefit-analysis point of view under special circumstances.

As a more modern example, the British military writer John Keegan seems to come close to Clausewitz' opinion in this particular matter, despite normally being highly critical of Clausewitz. In his book Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda he gives several historical examples of situations where one side held a great information advantage over his opponent and argues that in none of these cases was this decisive in and of itself for the outcome.

References

Bibliography

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