Psychological Warfare

[derek]

The BBC website has an article today about psychological warfare, and states this:

“Military historians date psy-ops back to the days of Alexander the Great and Ghenghis Khan, who would both deliberately spread rumours and misinformation ahead of battles to help subdue their enemies.”

Adopting Persian customs, being crowned pharaoh, and marrying Roxane were all ways of pacifying a conquered territory, and I’m sure Alexander had plenty of spies working ahead of the army as it advanced, but I can’t think of any examples in the sources where he obviously used propaganda as a campaign weapon. The nearest I can think is the claim that he was a god, and he didn’t (as far as I’m aware) actively promote that idea to the enemy. Besides, it wasn’t false information as he believed it himself.

Do you think this was just a throw-away comment by the reporter, or are there actual examples in the sources?

Derek

This is the BBC article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7464430.stm

[amyntoros]

The BBC website has an article today about psychological warfare, and states this:

“Military historians date psy-ops back to the days of Alexander the Great and Ghenghis Khan, who would both deliberately spread rumours and misinformation ahead of battles to help subdue their enemies.”
. . . . . .
Do you think this was just a throw-away comment by the reporter, or are there actual examples in the sources?

This is the BBC article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7464430.stm

Hmm, this is a difficult one. There's ample evidence of Alexander utilizing psychology, but if the accurate definition of psy-ops is to deliberately spread rumours and misinformation to the enemy then evidence is harder to find. For instance, the crucifixion of so many men outside Tyre was a loud psychological message to any other city that might have thought of challenging Alexander, but there's no actual rumor involved because I've absolutely no doubt that Alexander would have done the same again if needed.

I think the battle of the Rock in Bactria might fit - as in Alexander sending his men up in the dark and then having them proclaim their presence to the enemy "as if the Macedonians could fly." At the very least it's an example of misinformation because in reality Alexander had only a few dozen soldiers up on the Rock – he definitely couldn't mount an attack from up there, but the enemy did not know this.

Building and leaving huge beds, chairs and altars behind in India was a psychological ploy, although it wasn't meant to deter the enemy before a battle but to indicate to those who might come upon the place later that "the Macedonians were giants," so it doesn't quite fit.

The information given out in India before the mutiny is an example of psychological warfare, IMO. For example, (Plutarch Alexander 62) reports that:-

The river, they were told, was four miles across and one hundred fathoms deep, and the opposite bank swarmed with a gigantic host of infantry, horsemen and elephants. It was said that the kings of the Ganharidae and the Praesii were waiting for Alexander's attack with an army of eighty thousand cavalry, two hundred thousand infantry, eight thousand chariots and six thousand fighting elephants . . .

Plutarch claims these stories were true because Sandrocottus later gave Seleucus five hundred elephants and "overran the whole of India with an army of six hundred thousand men," but I think one must identify the tales which the Macedonians were told as rumor with intent to deter. The problem is figuring out whether the psy-op was Indian or Macedonian! It's quite likely that the Indians spread the rumors to disillusion Alexander's men and prevent him from going further, but at least one scholar has suggested that Alexander spread those rumors himself so it would appear as if HE did not want to return, but was forced to give in to his men. (We had a thread on this subject quite some time ago.) However, once again it does not fit into a category of Alexander spreading rumor to the enemy.

All in all, and taking into consideration the fact that Alexander often used psychological tactics to persuade or inspire his men, I'm fairly certain that there must be examples of him using such against the enemy. I'll try and think of some later unless our other members beat me to it!

Best regards,

[athenas owl]

Would the "drill" used to rattle the Taulantians and thus escape the trap count?

[Paralus]

Would the "drill" used to rattle the Taulantians and thus escape the trap count?

Possibly. Although, as Amyntoros writes above, this actually occurred. It did frighten the daylights out of the Illyrians though.

More along the psychological line woyld be the letters - if true as reported - to Darius from the upstart pretender to Asia designed to goad Darius into the climactic showdown.

[aleksandros]

psycological warfare.

the phalanx showoff in complete silence and suddenly the war scream before charging the illirians.

the continuous false alarms in Hydaspes.

the presence of Alexander had a major psycological impact on later campaigns since many thought of him as invincible.

[marcus]

The BBC website has an article today about psychological warfare, and states this:

“Military historians date psy-ops back to the days of Alexander the Great and Ghenghis Khan, who would both deliberately spread rumours and misinformation ahead of battles to help subdue their enemies.”

While everyone's comments help shed some light on Alexander's use of psychological tactics during his campaigns, I admit that I am still desperately trying to think of a single example of what you quoted from the BBC article.

I'm thinking this is another case of "let's say that Alexander the Great did it, because he probably did ..."

ATB

[Phoebus]

Hydaspes might qualify... if deliberately trying to mislead your opponent via maneuver counts as "rumours" and "misinformation".

That certainly meets the criteria for today's official "deception" doctrine, but I don't know that either the example or "rumours" and "misinformation" count as psychological warfare.

The crucifixions at Tyre might meet be interpreted as psychological warfare, but even so they did not work--Gaza resisted, after all.

Honestly, there wasn't much point to the Macedonians using psychological warfare to begin with. Such tactics take time to develop and I think speed and maneuver served Alexander better.

A side note: I doubt that psychological warfare was used against the Macedonians in India, either. The numbers strike me as the same sort of invention used for Persian numbers earlier; and I think the revelation that Ocean was not "just beyond the river" was enough to get these men to decide to turn around.

[derek]

I thought of a couple more incidents over the weekend, though neither fit the BBC description. At Corinth, Alexander produced an Ephesian who made an impassioned plea for the league to invade and liberate the Troad. Handy that. At Telmessus, he used dancing girls to drug the guards and open the gates.

The exaggerated numbers of Indian troops and dimensions of the Ganges is definitely a good example of rumour and misinformation to fool the enemy, and oversizing the equipment left behind at the camp on the Hyphasis is another good example, but the first was used against Alexander and the second was more to deter the enemy from following his retreating army. The deceptions at the Hydaspes probably come nearest to the BBC statement.

“Military historians date psy-ops back to the days of Alexander the Great and Ghenghis Khan, who would both deliberately spread rumours and misinformation ahead of battles to help subdue their enemies.”

I’d say the reporter made that quote without going into it too deeply.

However, Alexander must have employed spies and agents by the hundreds, and rumour and misinformation would have been a tactic they used often. No specific stories may have come down to us in the sources, but that doesn’t mean they never happened, just that no single incident was battle-turning enough to be worth mentioning.

Derek