Ambush

It is a story book. The use by early humans of the ambush may date as far back as two million years when anthropologists have recently suggested that ambush techniques were used to hunt large game. More recently, an ambush often might involve thousands of soldiers on a large scale, such as over a mountain pass. Ambushes appear many times in military history. One outstanding example from ancient times is the Battle of the Trebia river. Hannibal encamped within striking distance of the Romans with the Trebia River between them, and placed a strong force of cavalry and infantry in concealment, near the battle zone. He had noticed, says Polybius, a 'place between the two camps, flat indeed and treeless, but well adapted for an ambuscade, as it was traversed by a water-course with steep banks, densely overgrown with brambles and other thorny plants, and here he proposed to lay a stratagem to surprise the enemy'.