Editing Pincer movement (section)

== History ==
The earliest mention of a pincer attack is in a related formation of [[Padmavyuha]] or [[Chakravyuha]] in the Indian Epic Mahabharata.

[[Sun Tzu]], in ''[[The Art of War]]'' (traditionally dated to the 6th century BC), speculated on the maneuver but advised against trying it for fear that an army would likely run first before the move could be completed. He argued that it was best to allow the enemy a path to escape (or at least the appearance of one), as the target army would fight with more ferocity when surrounded. Still, it would lose formation and be more vulnerable to destruction if shown an avenue of escape.

The maneuver may have first been used at the [[Battle of Marathon]] in 490 BC. The historian [[Herodotus]] describes how the Athenian general [[Miltiades the Younger|Miltiades]] deployed 900 [[Plataea]]n and 10,000 Athenian [[hoplite]]s in a U-formation with the wings manned much more deeply than the center. His enemy [[First Persian invasion of Greece#Size of the Persian force|outnumbered]] him heavily, and Miltiades chose to match the breadth of the Persian [[battle line]] by thinning out the center of his forces while reinforcing the wings. In the course of the battle, the weaker central formations retreated, allowing the wings to converge behind the Persian battle line and drive the more numerous but lightly armed Persians to retreat in panic.

The maneuver was used by [[Alexander the Great]] at the [[Battle of the Hydaspes]] in 326 BC. He launched his attack at the Indian left flank, and the Indian king [[Porus the Elder|Porus]] reacted by sending the cavalry on the right of his formation around in support. Alexander had positioned two cavalry units on the left of his formation, hidden from view, under the command of [[Coenus (general)|Coenus]] and Demitrius. The units were then able to follow Porus's cavalry around, trapping them in a classic pincer movement.

A famous example of its use was at the [[Battle of Cannae]] in 216 BC, when [[Hannibal]] executed the maneuver against the Romans. Military historians cite it as the first successful use of the pincer movement that was recorded in detail,<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.28thmasscob.org/reconac.PDF
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20020113200048/http://www.28thmasscob.org/reconac.PDF
 | archive-date = 2002-01-13
 | archive-format = PDF file —viewed as cached HTML—
 | title = Appendix C  | format = PDF file —viewed as cached HTML— | work = The complete book of military science, abridged | access-date = March 25, 2006}}</ref> by the Greek historian [[Polybius]].

It was also later used by [[Khalid ibn al-Walid]] at the [[Battle of Walaja]] in 633, by [[Alp Arslan]] at the [[Battle of Manzikert]] in 1071 (under the name ''crescent tactic'') and by [[Saladin]] at the [[Battle of Hattin]] in 1187.

[[Genghis Khan]] used a rudimentary form known colloquially as the ''horns'' tactic. Two enveloping flanks of horsemen surrounded the enemy, but they usually remained unjoined, leaving the enemy an escape route to the rear. It was key to many of Genghis's early victories over other Mongolian tribes.

It was used at the [[Battle of Mohács]] by [[Süleyman the Magnificent]] in 1526 and by [[Field Marshal]] [[Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld]] at the [[Battle of Fraustadt]] in 1706.

Even in the horse-and-musket era, the maneuver was used across many military cultures. A double envelopment was deployed by the Iranian conqueror [[Nader Shah]] at the [[Battle of Kirkuk (1733)]] against the Ottomans; the Turco-Persian army, under Nader, flanked the Ottomans on both ends of their line and encircled their centre despite being numerically at a disadvantage. In another [[Battle of Kars (1745)|battle at Kars in 1745]], Nader routed the Ottoman army and subsequently encircled their encampment. The Ottoman army soon after collapsed under the pressure of the encirclement. Also during the [[Battle of Karnal]] in 1739, Nader drew out the Mughal army which outnumbered his own force by over six to one, and managed to encircle and defeat a significant contingent of the Mughals in an ambush around [[Kunjpura]] village.

[[Daniel Morgan]] used it at the [[Battle of Cowpens]] in 1781 in [[South Carolina]]. [[Zulu people|Zulu]] [[impi]]s used a version of the maneuver that they called the [[impi#Tactics|''buffalo horn'']] formation.

The maneuver was used in the [[blitzkrieg]] of the armed forces of [[Nazi Germany]] during [[World War II]], developing into a complex, multidisciplinary endeavor. It involved fast movement by mechanized armor, artillery barrages, air force bombardment, and effective radio communications, with the primary objective of destroying enemy [[command and control]] chains, undermining enemy troop morale and disrupting supply lines. During the [[Battle of Kiev (1941)]] the Axis forces managed to encircle the largest number of soldiers in the history of warfare. Well over half-a-million Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner by the end of the operation.