Turn back the clock about eight hundred years, to the time of perhaps the greatest campaign of the greatest strategist in history, Genghis Khan. Ingenuity at its best! On balance, when two opponents understand military strategy relatively equally, the more ingenious win. Outnumbered inside and outside, Caesar protected himself from both directions and attacked strategically as opportunities presented, which won him the day. However, Caesar’s ingenuity resulted in his eventual victory. Caesar correctly anticipated they’d return with a relief Celtic army and again displayed ingenuity by building circumvallation again, but outside his army! The relief army of between 100,000 and 250,000 Celts did arrive. However, a small group of Celtic cavalry escaped. Though Celts countered him, Caesar managed to successfully completed these fortifications. To compensate for lower numbers Caesar ingeniously built an encircling set of fortifications around the besieged area, called circumvallation. So Caeser besieged Alesia with a numerically inferior force of sixty thousand, despite conventional wisdom calling for a large numerical superiority for a siege. A frontal assault risked an unacceptable levels of casualties.

Located on a hill, surrounded by river valleys, strongly fortified Alesia was occupied by eighty thousand fierce Celts, under Vercingetorix. The famous Battle of Alesia displayed “thinking outside the box” by Julius Caesar.

Total war genghis khan