The Art of War - Khamkoo

speeded, as must be done in such enterprises: but in wooded or mountainous
places, and hence capable of ambush, part of your forces can be
well hidden, so that the enemy may be assaulted, suddenly and without
his expecting it, which will always be the cause of giving you the victory.
And sometimes it has been very important, while the battle goes on, to
plant voices which announce the killed of the enemy Captain, or to have
defeated some other part of the army; and this often has given the victory
to whoever used it. The enemy cavalry may be easily disturbed by
unusual forms (sights) or noises; as did Croesus, who opposed camels to
the cavalry of his adversaries, and Pyrrhus who opposed elephants to
the Roman cavalry, the sight of which disturbed and disorganized it. In
our times, the Turk routed the Shah in Persia and the Soldan in Syria
with nothing else than the noise of guns, which so affected their cavalry
by their unaccustomed noises, that the Turk was able easily to defeat it.
The Spaniards, to overcome the army of Hamilcar, placed in their first
lines chariots full of tow drawn by oxen, and when they had come to
battle, set fire to them, whence the oxen, wanting to flee the fire, hurled
themselves on the army of Hamilcar and dispersed it. As we mentioned,
where the country is suitable, it is usual to deceive the enemy when in
combat by drawing him into ambushes: but when it is open and spacious,
many have employed the making (digging) of ditches, and then
covering them lightly with earth and branches, but leaving several places
(spaces) solid in order to be able to retire between them; then when the
battle is started, retire through them, and the enemy pursuing, comes to
ruin in them. If, during the battle, some accident befalls you which dismays
your soldiers, it is a most prudent thing to know how to dissimulate
and divert them to (something) good, as did Lucius Sulla, who,
while the fighting was going on, seeing that a great part of his forces had
gone over to the side of the enemy, and that this had dismayed his men,
quickly caused it to be understood throughout the entire army that
everything was happening by his order, and this not only did not disturb
the army, but so increased its courage that it was victorious. It also
happened to Sulla, that having sent certain soldiers to undertake certain
business, and they having been killed, in order that his army would not
be dismayed said, that because he had found them unfaithful, he had
cunningly sent them into the hands of the enemy. Sertorious, when undertaking
an engagement in Spain, killed one who had pointed out to
him the slaying of one of his Heads, for fear that by telling the same to
the others, he should dismay them. It is a difficult matter to stop an army
already in flight, and return it to battle. And you have to make this
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