The same handful of ideas decide battles across the ages. This is a plain-language glossary of the most important military tactics and terms, each defined in a sentence or two and shown with a famous example from history. Jump to any term below.
Double envelopment (pincer movement)
A double envelopment, or pincer movement, is an attack that strikes both flanks of an enemy at once and closes around it, trapping the force in the middle. The classic example is the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, where Hannibal let the Roman centre push forward, then wrapped his wings around it and destroyed a much larger army.
Pyrrhic victory
A pyrrhic victory is a win so costly that it ruins the victor, a triumph almost as damaging as a defeat. It is named after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, who beat the Romans in the 3rd century BC at such heavy loss that he is said to have remarked that another such victory would undo him.
War of attrition
A war of attrition is won not by a single decisive blow but by grinding the enemy down through continuous losses until they can no longer fight. Verdun and the Somme, both in 1916, are the classic examples, months of battle measured in casualties rather than ground.
Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg, German for lightning war, is a fast, concentrated assault that uses armour, aircraft and mobility to break through and encircle before the enemy can react. It defined Germany's early victories in the Second World War, from the German invasion of Poland in 1939, resisted at Wizna, to the fall of France in 1940.
Feigned retreat
A feigned retreat is a false flight, a pretended rout used to lure a disciplined enemy out of position so they can be turned on and destroyed. At the Battle of Hastings in 1066 the Normans are said to have used it to draw the Anglo-Saxons out of their shield wall.
Flanking maneuver
A flanking maneuver is an attack on the side or rear of an enemy line rather than its front, where a formation is weakest and least able to respond. Turning a flank has decided battles from antiquity to the modern age; a full flanking attack on both sides becomes a double envelopment.
Scorched earth
Scorched earth is the deliberate destruction of anything useful to an advancing enemy, crops, shelter and supplies, so that the invader is starved and worn down. Russia's retreat before Napoleon in 1812 is the most famous example, and it helped destroy his army.
Fabian strategy
A Fabian strategy avoids pitched battle and instead wears the enemy down by delay, harassment and cutting supply lines. It is named after the Roman general Fabius Maximus, who used it against Hannibal in Italy in 217 BC, refusing the open battle Hannibal wanted.
Phalanx
A phalanx is a dense block of infantry fighting shoulder to shoulder behind a wall of shields and long spears. It dominated Greek warfare for centuries; see how it measured up to the Roman legion in phalanx vs legion.
Cavalry charge
A cavalry charge is a massed attack by horsemen at speed, using shock and momentum to shatter an enemy line. One of the largest in history came at the relief of Vienna in 1683, when the winged hussars swept down from the hills onto the Ottoman camp.
Siege
A siege is the surrounding and blockade of a fortified town or castle to force its surrender by assault or starvation. It has decided the fate of empires; explore the greatest sieges in history.
Last stand
A last stand is a fight held to the end against hopeless odds, often a defeat that is remembered far longer than many victories. From Thermopylae onward, see the greatest last stands in history.
Oblique order
An oblique order is an attack that masses overwhelming force on one end of the enemy line while holding the rest back, striking at an angle rather than all along the front. Epaminondas of Thebes used it to crush Sparta at Leuctra in 371 BC, and Frederick the Great made it famous again in the 18th century.
Shield wall
A shield wall is a line of infantry standing shoulder to shoulder with overlapping shields, a wall of wood and iron that is very hard to break from the front. The Anglo-Saxons held one for hours at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 before it was finally drawn apart.
War elephant
A war elephant was a living tank of the ancient world, used to trample infantry, break lines and terrify horses. Hannibal famously brought them across the Alps, and he fielded a line of them when Scipio beat him at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC.
Combined arms
Combined arms means using different kinds of troops together, infantry, cavalry, missiles and, later, artillery and aircraft, so that each covers the others' weaknesses. Alexander's pairing of phalanx and cavalry at Gaugamela in 331 BC is an early masterclass.
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is irregular, hit-and-run fighting by small, mobile bands who avoid open battle and wear a stronger enemy down. The word itself, Spanish for little war, comes from the resistance to Napoleon in Spain after 1808.
Total war
Total war is a war in which a nation mobilises its whole society and economy and accepts few limits on targets or methods. The Second World War is the clearest example; see the greatest battles of the Second World War.
Encirclement
An encirclement, sometimes called a cauldron, traps an enemy army in a pocket with no line of retreat, so it must break out or be destroyed. The German Sixth Army was encircled and lost at Stalingrad in 1942 to 1943.
Ambush
An ambush is a surprise attack launched from concealment against an enemy on the move. Hannibal destroyed a Roman army in a classic ambush at Lake Trasimene in 217 BC, trapping it against the shore in morning mist.
Hoplite
A hoplite was a heavily armoured citizen soldier of ancient Greece, fighting with spear and large round shield in the ranks of the phalanx. See how that formation fared against Rome in phalanx vs legion.
Decisive battle
A decisive battle is one that settles a war or the fate of a state in a single stroke, rather than one of many. Gaugamela, Hastings and Waterloo were all decisive; meet them among the greatest battles of all time.
Rout
A rout is the sudden collapse of a beaten army into panicked flight, when order breaks and soldiers think only of escape. Most of the killing in ancient and medieval battles came not in the fighting but in the rout that followed.
Siege train
A siege train is the heavy equipment an army drags along to break into a fortified place, from ancient rams and towers to gunpowder cannon. It was slow and vulnerable but decided the greatest sieges in history.
Sources
These definitions are written from established military history; where a term has a disputed origin or use we say so. Each links to a battle that shows it in action. See our editorial approach.