Pincer Movement

1. Lead

The pincer movement, also called the double envelopment, is one of the oldest and most decisive manoeuvres in warfare. Two forces advance on separate routes, one on each flank of the enemy, and then turn inward and meet behind him, closing the arms of the pincer around his army. The enemy, attacked from the front and from both sides, and then cut off from behind, finds that he cannot retreat, cannot be supplied, and cannot form a new line. If the pincer closes, the result is often the destruction of the whole encircled force, not merely its defeat. The classic example is the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, where Hannibal’s Carthaginian army destroyed a much larger Roman army in a single day. The most famous modern example is the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942–1943, where the Soviet Operation Uranus closed a pincer around the German Sixth Army and destroyed it. Between those two battles, more than two thousand years apart, the pincer has been used by commanders in almost every age, and it remains a central idea in military thinking today.

The pincer is not a single tactic but a family of manoeuvres, and it can be carried out in different ways. It can be a double envelopment, in which both flanks are turned at once, or a single envelopment, in which one flank is turned and the other is held. It can be carried out by infantry on foot, by cavalry, by tanks, or by a combination of all three, and in modern war it can be supported by aircraft, by artillery and by airborne troops dropped behind the enemy. What does not change is the idea at its heart: to avoid a head-on attack on the enemy’s strongest point, to attack his flanks and his rear instead, and to use movement, rather than firepower alone, to destroy him. This article explains how the pincer works, where it came from, and how it was used at Cannae, at Stalingrad, at Kursk and at Chosin, and why, despite its risks, commanders still try to use it.

2. Key Facts

What	A manoeuvre in which two forces attack the enemy’s flanks and meet behind him, encircling him
Other names	Double envelopment; in German, Umfassung and, for the encirclement itself, Kessel (cauldron)
Origin	Ancient warfare; the classic example is Cannae, 216 BC
Used by	Hannibal at Cannae; the Mongols; Frederick the Great; the Germans in 1914 and 1941; the Soviets at Stalingrad in 1942; the Chinese at Chosin in 1950; and many others
Used in	Cannae (216 BC), Tannenberg (1914), Stalingrad (1942–1943), Kursk (1943), Chosin Reservoir (1950), and many other battles
How it works	A holding force fixes the enemy in front, while two mobile arms advance around his flanks and meet in his rear, cutting his supply and retreat
Requirements	Superior mobility, good intelligence, a weak or exposed enemy flank, and coordination between the two arms
Risks	The arms can be cut off themselves, the centre can break, and the encirclement can fail if the enemy withdraws in time
Effectiveness	When it closes, it can destroy a whole army; when it fails, it can leave the attacker overextended and exposed

3. Origins

The pincer is as old as organised warfare. In the ancient world, armies fought in lines, and a commander who could attack the ends of the enemy’s line — his flanks — while holding his centre, could roll up the line from the sides and destroy it. The idea was understood by Greek and Roman writers, and it was practised by commanders who had the mobility to carry it out, above all by cavalry. The earliest famous example is not Cannae but the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, where the Athenians weakened their centre and strengthened their wings, and then closed on the Persian flanks. At Cannae, Hannibal took the idea to its extreme, and created the model that every later commander studied.

From Marathon to Cannae

At Marathon, the Athenian general Miltiades thinned his centre and strengthened his wings, so that when the Persian centre broke through, the Athenian wings turned inward and attacked the Persians from the sides. The result was a Persian defeat, and the battle became a model for the double envelopment. At Cannae, in 216 BC, Hannibal improved on Marathon: he placed his weakest troops in the centre, in a convex line that bulged toward the Romans, and his strongest troops, including his African infantry and his cavalry, on the wings. When the Romans pressed forward, the Carthaginian centre gave way in an orderly retreat, drawing the Romans into a pocket, and the Carthaginian wings closed behind them, while the cavalry, which had driven off the Roman cavalry, returned and closed the ring from the rear.

The lesson of Marathon and Cannae was also a lesson about discipline, because a centre that gives way must do so in order, and not in panic, and a wing that turns inward must do so at the right moment, and not too soon, and that discipline, which was the hardest part of the manoeuvre, is why the double envelopment was so rarely achieved in full.

The Mongols and the pincer

The idea was carried forward by the Mongols in the thirteenth century, who used their horse archers to fix an enemy in front and then to ride around his flanks and attack him from the rear, and by the great captains of the early modern period, including Frederick the Great of Prussia, who used the oblique order — strengthening one wing and refusing the other — to turn an enemy flank. In each case, the principle was the same: mobility, surprise, and the refusal to meet the enemy where he was strongest. The pincer was not a new invention in any age, but a rediscovery of an old idea, adapted to the weapons and the mobility of the time.

The Mongols also used the pincer on a grand scale, because their armies were divided into wings that could operate independently, and that could meet at a point chosen in advance, and that independence, which was made possible by the mobility of the horse, is one reason the Mongols were able to encircle armies that were larger than their own.

The pincer in modern military thought

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the pincer became a formal part of military doctrine. The German Army, under the influence of the elder Moltke and later of Alfred von Schlieffen, made the envelopment the centre of its doctrine: the Schlieffen Plan of 1914 was, in effect, a giant single envelopment, in which the German right wing would sweep through Belgium and around the French left flank to Paris. The Soviet Union, in the 1930s, developed the doctrine of deep battle, in which mechanised forces would break through and encircle the enemy in depth. The United States, in the Second World War and after, taught the double envelopment as one of the basic forms of manoeuvre, and the pincer remains in the doctrine of most modern armies today.

The German and Soviet doctrines were also influenced by the railways and by the telegraph, which made it possible to move large armies and to coordinate them over long distances, and those technologies, which were new in the nineteenth century, made the pincer possible on a scale that Hannibal could not have imagined.

4. How It Works

A pincer movement has three parts, and each of them must work if the manoeuvre is to succeed. The first part is the holding force, which attacks or threatens the enemy in front, fixes him in place, and prevents him from moving to meet the threat on his flanks. The second part is the two arms of the pincer, which advance on separate routes, one on each flank, and which must move faster than the enemy can react. The third part is the meeting point, behind the enemy, where the two arms join, close the ring, and cut the enemy’s supply and retreat. If any of these parts fails, the pincer fails with it.

The holding force and the two arms

The holding force is the least glamorous part of the pincer, but it is essential. It must be strong enough to convince the enemy that the main attack is coming from the front, and it must be stubborn enough to hold its ground when the enemy counter-attacks. At Cannae, the holding force was Hannibal’s centre, which gave way slowly and drew the Romans forward. At Stalingrad, the holding force was the Soviet Sixty-Second Army inside the city, which held the Germans in the ruins for months while the pincers were prepared outside. The two arms, by contrast, must be mobile, and they must be strong enough to fight their way around the flanks and to hold the meeting point against the enemy’s attempts to break out.

The holding force must also be able to survive a counter-attack, because the enemy, when he realises that he is being enveloped, will often attack in front, in an attempt to break out through the centre, and a holding force that breaks under that attack will allow the enemy to escape, and the pincer will fail.

Timing, intelligence and supply

Timing is the hardest part of a pincer. The two arms must arrive at the meeting point at the same time, or nearly so, because if one arm arrives early, the enemy can turn on it and destroy it before the other arm arrives. Intelligence is equally important: the commander must know where the enemy’s flanks are, where his reserves are, and whether he is preparing to withdraw. Supply is the third requirement: the arms of the pincer must be supplied as they advance, often over long distances and through enemy territory, and if their supply fails, they will stop, and the pincer will fail. The history of the pincer is, in large part, the history of commanders who got the timing, the intelligence and the supply right, and of those who did not.

Supply is often the part of the pincer that is forgotten, because it is less dramatic than the movement of the arms, but a pincer that runs out of fuel, or of ammunition, will stop, and the enemy, who is supplied from inside the encirclement, or from a shorter line, will be able to hold out, and the pincer will fail.

Single and double envelopment

The pincer can be a double envelopment, in which both flanks are turned, or a single envelopment, in which one flank is turned and the other is held or refused. The double envelopment is the more decisive, because it closes the ring completely, but it is also the harder to carry out, because it requires two mobile arms and a holding force, and because it requires the enemy to stay in place long enough for both arms to close. The single envelopment is easier, and it is more common, but it leaves the enemy a line of retreat, and it is therefore less likely to destroy him completely. Commanders choose between them according to the terrain, the forces available, and the enemy’s dispositions, and many battles combine the two, with a double envelopment on one flank and a holding action on the other.

Commanders also use the single envelopment when they do not have enough mobile forces for a double envelopment, or when the terrain makes a double envelopment impossible, and in those cases, the single envelopment, though less decisive, is still a way to turn a flank, and to force the enemy to retreat, rather than to destroy him.

5. Historical Examples

Cannae, 216 BC

The Battle of Cannae, fought on 2 August 216 BC in south-eastern Italy during the Second Punic War, is the classic example of the double envelopment, and it is still taught in military schools today. Hannibal, with about 50,000 men, faced a Roman army of about 80,000 men, under the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. The Romans, confident in their numbers, attacked in a deep formation, expecting to break through the Carthaginian centre. Hannibal had placed his weakest troops, the Gauls and Spaniards, in the centre, in a convex line, and his best infantry, the Africans, on the wings, with his cavalry on the far wings. As the Romans pressed forward, the Carthaginian centre gave way, drawing the Romans into a pocket, and the African infantry turned inward from the wings, while the Carthaginian cavalry, which had driven off the Roman cavalry, returned and closed the ring from the rear.

The destruction of the Roman army

The result was a catastrophe for Rome. About 50,000–70,000 Romans were killed in a single day, according to the ancient sources, including one of the consuls, Paullus, and about 80 senators, and about 10,000 more were taken prisoner. The figures are from ancient writers, above all Polybius and Livy, and modern historians treat them with caution, but there is no doubt that Cannae was one of the worst defeats in Roman history, and that it was caused by the double envelopment. Hannibal’s victory, however, did not win the war: Rome refused to negotiate, raised new armies, and eventually defeated Carthage, a reminder that a tactical masterpiece does not always produce a strategic victory.

The defeat at Cannae also had a political effect, because it showed the allies of Rome that Rome could be defeated, and some of those allies defected to Hannibal, and Rome, which had lost an army, had to raise new armies, and to fight on, without the allies it had lost, a fact that made the war longer and harder.

Stalingrad and Operation Uranus, 1942–1943

The most famous modern pincer is Operation Uranus, the Soviet counter-offensive at Stalingrad in November 1942. By the autumn of 1942, the German Sixth Army, under Friedrich Paulus, had fought its way into Stalingrad, a city on the Volga, and was engaged in house-to-house fighting with the Soviet Sixty-Second Army, under Vasily Chuikov. The Germans were fixed in the city, their flanks were held by weaker Romanian, Italian and Hungarian armies, and the Soviets, under Georgy Zhukov, prepared a double envelopment: two Soviet fronts would attack the Romanian flanks north and south of the city, and meet at Kalach, west of Stalingrad, closing the ring around the Sixth Army. The attack began on 19 November 1942, and on 23 November the two pincers met at Kalach, encircling about 250,000–300,000 German and allied troops, according to Soviet and German estimates, which vary.

The Soviet plan for Uranus was kept secret, and the Germans, who had been told that the Soviets were exhausted, did not believe that a large offensive was possible, and that disbelief, and the weakness of the Romanian flanks, are the two reasons the pincer was able to close before the Germans could react.

The Kessel and the surrender

The encircled force, which the Germans called a Kessel, a cauldron, held out for more than two months, supplied in part by air, while the Soviets tightened the ring and the German relief attempt, Operation Winter Storm, failed in December 1942. On 2 February 1943, the last German forces in Stalingrad surrendered. About 90,000–100,000 German soldiers were taken prisoner, according to Soviet figures, and most of them did not survive captivity. Stalingrad was a turning point in the war on the Eastern Front, and it is the textbook example of a pincer that closed, because the holding force in the city, the weak flanks, the timing and the Soviet superiority in the encircling forces all came together at the right moment.

The air supply to the Kessel was never enough, because the Luftwaffe could not deliver the food, the fuel and the ammunition that the Sixth Army needed, and the soldiers in the pocket, who were cold, hungry and short of ammunition, fought on, but their resistance became weaker as the weeks passed, and as the Soviet ring tightened.

Kursk, 1943

The Battle of Kursk in July 1943 was, in German planning, a pincer that failed. The Germans, under Operation Citadel, planned to attack the Kursk salient — a bulge in the Soviet line — from the north and from the south, with two pincers meeting at Kursk and encircling the Soviet forces inside the salient. The northern pincer, under Walter Model, and the southern pincer, under Erich von Manstein, attacked on 5 July 1943, but the Soviets, who had learned of the plan, had built successive defensive belts, minefields and anti-tank defences in depth, and had held large reserves for a counter-offensive. The German pincers made slow progress, suffered heavy losses in tanks, and were stopped before they could meet. On 12 July, the Soviets launched their own counter-offensive, and the Germans were forced to withdraw. Kursk is therefore the classic example of a pincer that was defeated by defence in depth, and it marked the end of the German ability to launch a major offensive on the Eastern Front.

Chosin Reservoir, 1950

The Battle of Chosin Reservoir, in December 1950 during the Korean War, is an example of a pincer that closed but did not destroy its target. Chinese forces, under the Ninth Army Group, surrounded the United States First Marine Division and other United Nations forces around the Chosin Reservoir in north-eastern Korea, attacking from the west and from the east and cutting the road south. The Marines, however, were not destroyed: they fought their way south, in bitter cold, through the Chinese encirclement, bringing their wounded and their equipment with them, and reached the port of Hungnam, where they were evacuated by sea. The Chinese had closed the pincer, but they had not been able to hold it against a well-supplied, well-led force that fought its way out, and the battle is remembered as much for the breakout as for the encirclement.

The breakout from Chosin is also remembered for the cold, because the temperature fell to minus thirty degrees, and the soldiers, who were fighting in snow and in ice, suffered from frostbite as well as from wounds, and the Marines, who brought their dead with them, are remembered for their discipline, as well as for their courage.

6. Strengths

The strengths of the pincer are real, and they explain why commanders have used it for more than two thousand years. First, it attacks the enemy where he is weakest, on his flanks and in his rear, rather than where he is strongest, in front. Second, it uses movement to achieve what firepower alone cannot: the destruction of an army, not merely its defeat in a single battle. Third, it has a psychological effect: an army that knows it is encircled, that its supply is cut and that its retreat is blocked, often loses its will to fight, and surrenders or breaks, even when it still has the strength to resist. Fourth, it is economical in one sense: a successful encirclement can destroy a large force in a short time, with fewer casualties to the attacker than a long battle of attrition would cost.

Speed, surprise and morale

A further strength is speed and surprise. A pincer that moves quickly, and that is not detected until it is too late, can encircle an enemy before he can react, and the shock of encirclement is itself a weapon. At Cannae, the Romans did not realise they were encircled until the ring had closed. At Stalingrad, the German command did not realise the scale of the Soviet offensive until the pincers had met at Kalach. The morale effect is also important for the attacker: a successful pincer raises the morale of the attacking army, and it demonstrates to the enemy, and to the world, that the attacker can move faster and think more clearly than the defender. That demonstration, in a war, is itself a form of victory.

The morale effect is also felt by the civilian population, because a successful encirclement is reported in the newspapers, and it shows the people at home that their army is winning, and that the enemy is being destroyed, and that news, which is often exaggerated, can be as important as the battle itself.

The pincer as a force multiplier

The pincer is also a force multiplier: a smaller army can defeat a larger one, as Hannibal did at Cannae, if it can encircle the larger army and destroy it in detail. The encircled army cannot use its numbers, because it is crowded into a small space, it cannot manoeuvre, and its command and control break down. The attacker, by contrast, can attack the encirclement from the outside, in a ring, and can bring fire to bear on the encircled force from all sides. That is why the pincer has always appealed to commanders who were outnumbered, and why it is taught as a way to win against a stronger enemy.

The force multiplier effect is also why the pincer is taught to young officers, because it shows that a commander does not need to be stronger than his enemy in numbers, if he is stronger in movement, in intelligence, and in the ability to coordinate his forces, and that lesson, which is simple, is also difficult to apply in practice.

When the pincer works best

The pincer works best when the enemy is fixed in place, when his flanks are weak or exposed, when the attacker has superior mobility, and when the attacker has good intelligence about the enemy’s dispositions. It works best in open terrain, where mobile forces can move around the flanks, and it works best when the enemy is overextended, as the Germans were at Stalingrad, or when he is confident in his numbers, as the Romans were at Cannae. Those conditions do not occur often, and a commander who tries a pincer when they are absent is likely to fail, but when they are present, the pincer is the most decisive manoeuvre in war.

The pincer also works best when the enemy is confident, because a confident enemy is less likely to look for a threat on his flanks, and more likely to press forward, and that confidence, which was the undoing of the Romans at Cannae, and of the Germans at Stalingrad, is a weakness that a good commander will exploit.

7. Weaknesses and Countermeasures

The weaknesses of the pincer are the other side of its strengths, and they are serious. The pincer requires the attacker to divide his force, and a divided force can be defeated in detail if the enemy attacks one arm before the other arrives. The arms of the pincer must advance over long distances, often through enemy territory, and they can be cut off themselves, as the German arms were at Kursk, or as the Chinese arms were, in part, at Chosin. The holding force, if it is too weak, can break, and the enemy can then escape through the centre, as the Romans might have done at Cannae if Hannibal’s centre had broken too soon. The pincer also requires coordination, and coordination can fail, especially when the two arms are out of radio contact, or when they are separated by terrain.

How to defeat a pincer

The counters to a pincer were learned the hard way, and they are now standard doctrine. The first counter is to refuse the flank: to bend the line back, to form a new line facing the threat, and to prevent the pincer from closing. The second counter is to withdraw in time: to recognise the threat early, to break contact, and to retreat before the ring closes, as the British did at Dunkirk in 1940, when they escaped a German encirclement. The third counter is to attack one arm of the pincer before the other arrives, and to defeat the attacker in detail. The fourth counter is defence in depth, as the Soviets used at Kursk: successive lines, minefields and reserves, so that a breakthrough on one flank does not mean the collapse of the whole front. The fifth counter is to hold a strong reserve, and to use it to counter-attack the pincers as they advance.

The risk of overextension

A final weakness is overextension. A pincer that advances too far, or that tries to encircle too large a force, can itself be encircled, or can be left with long, exposed supply lines that the enemy can cut. The German offensive at Kursk is an example: the pincers advanced into a salient that the Soviets had prepared, and they were stopped and then counter-attacked. The German offensive in the Soviet Union in 1941 is another: the great encirclements at Minsk, Smolensk and Kiev succeeded, but the German armies advanced so far and so fast that their supply lines broke down, and they were stopped before Moscow. The pincer, in short, is a manoeuvre that rewards boldness, but punishes boldness that is not matched by supply, by intelligence, and by a realistic assessment of the enemy.

Overextension is also a risk for the holding force, because if the arms advance too far, the holding force is left alone, and the enemy can attack it, and break through the centre, and the pincer, which was meant to encircle the enemy, can itself be broken, and the attacker can be left in a worse position than before.

The pincer that fails

When a pincer fails, the consequences can be serious for the attacker. The divided force can be defeated in detail, the arms can be cut off, and the holding force can be destroyed. The failure at Kursk cost Germany the initiative on the Eastern Front, and it cost Germany tanks and men that it could not replace. The failure of the German pincer at Stalingrad — the attempt to relieve the encircled Sixth Army — cost Germany the Sixth Army itself. The lesson is not that the pincer should never be tried, but that it should be tried only when the conditions are right, and that a commander who tries it without those conditions is taking a risk that may cost him his army.

The failure of a pincer is also a lesson in humility, because it shows that even a good plan, well executed, can fail if the enemy is prepared, if the terrain is against the attacker, or if the timing is wrong, and that a commander must be ready to abandon a pincer, and to withdraw, rather than to persist in a plan that is no longer working.

8. Evolution

After the Second World War, the pincer did not disappear. It evolved, as warfare evolved, and it remains a central idea in modern military thinking. In the Korean War, the Chinese used the pincer at Chosin, and the United Nations forces used it at Inchon, where the landing at Inchon in September 1950 cut behind the North Korean army and forced it to retreat. In the Vietnam War, the pincer was used less often, because the terrain and the nature of guerrilla war made large encirclements difficult, but it was still taught, and it was still attempted. In the Gulf War of 1991, the coalition used a giant single envelopment, the “left hook”, in which armoured forces swept around the Iraqi right flank through the desert and attacked the Iraqi army from the rear, while a holding force fixed the Iraqis in front.

Air power, helicopters and the modern pincer

Modern technology has changed the pincer, but it has not made it obsolete. Aircraft can now attack the enemy’s rear, cut his supply, and support the arms of the pincer, and helicopters can lift troops behind the enemy and create a pincer from the air. Satellite reconnaissance and drones can now give a commander the intelligence that was once the hardest part of a pincer, and radio and digital communications can coordinate the two arms more precisely than ever before. At the same time, modern weapons — anti-tank missiles, precision artillery and air power — have made the arms of a pincer more vulnerable, because a mobile force that is advancing in the open can be attacked from the air and from the ground. The modern pincer is therefore faster, better informed, and more vulnerable than the pincer of Cannae or Stalingrad, but its logic is the same.

Drones have also changed the pincer, because they can watch the enemy’s flanks, and can attack the arms of a pincer as they advance, and a commander who uses drones well can see a pincer coming, and can defeat it before it closes, a fact that makes the modern pincer both more powerful and more vulnerable than before.

The pincer in doctrine today

In the doctrine of modern armies, the envelopment — single or double — remains one of the basic forms of manoeuvre, alongside the frontal attack, the penetration and the turning movement. It is taught in staff colleges, it is practised in exercises, and it is used in war games, because it is the manoeuvre that, when it works, produces the most decisive result. The fact that it is difficult, and that it often fails, does not make it less important: it makes it more important to understand, because a commander who understands the pincer can recognise it when it is being used against him, and can defeat it, as well as use it himself.

The exercises that teach the pincer are also a way to teach coordination, because the two arms must work together, and must communicate, and must arrive at the same time, and that coordination, which is the hardest part of the manoeuvre, is practised again and again, until it becomes a habit, rather than a plan.

From Cannae to the present

The line from Cannae to the present is direct. Hannibal’s double envelopment, the Mongols’ use of mobility, Frederick’s oblique order, the German Kessel battles of 1941, the Soviet Uranus of 1942, the Chinese encirclement at Chosin, and the coalition’s “left hook” in 1991 all belong to the same family of manoeuvre, and they all illustrate the same idea: to avoid the enemy’s strength, to attack his flanks and his rear, and to destroy him by movement. The weapons have changed, from swords and spears to tanks and aircraft, but the idea has not, and it is unlikely to change, because it is based on a simple truth about war: an army that cannot move, cannot supply itself, and cannot retreat, cannot fight.

The continuity of the pincer is also a reminder that war, for all its changes in technology, is still about movement, about supply, and about the decisions of commanders, and that a commander who understands those things can use a manoeuvre that is more than two thousand years old, and can make it work in a modern war.

9. Legacy and Modern Use

The legacy of the pincer is that it remains the standard by which a decisive victory is judged. A commander who destroys an enemy army by encirclement is remembered, as Hannibal is remembered for Cannae, and as Zhukov is remembered for Stalingrad, while a commander who merely pushes an enemy back is often forgotten. The pincer is also the standard by which a defeat is judged: a commander who allows his army to be encircled, as Paulus was at Stalingrad, or as the Romans were at Cannae, is remembered for that failure, even if he fought bravely. The pincer, in short, is the manoeuvre that separates a decisive victory from a mere success, and a catastrophic defeat from a mere setback.

The pincer in modern warfare

In modern warfare, the pincer is used in new ways, but its purpose is the same. In the Gulf War of 1991, the “left hook” was a pincer on a grand scale, and it destroyed the Iraqi army in Kuwait in a matter of days. In more recent conflicts, the pincer has been used on a smaller scale, by smaller forces, and with the support of air power and precision weapons, but the idea — to fix the enemy in front, to move around his flanks, and to meet behind him — is unchanged. The pincer is also used in a metaphorical sense, in business, in politics and in sport, where a “pincer movement” means an attack from two sides at once, a sign of how deeply the idea has entered the language.

The metaphorical use of the pincer is also a sign of its importance, because a manoeuvre that is used in business, in politics and in sport is a manoeuvre that has entered the language, and that is understood, even by people who have never studied war, as an attack from two sides at once.

Why the pincer still matters

The pincer still matters because it is the most decisive manoeuvre in war, and because it is the manoeuvre that a commander must understand, whether he is using it or defending against it. A commander who does not understand the pincer will not recognise it when it is being used against him, and will allow his army to be encircled. A commander who understands it will recognise the signs — the holding attack in front, the mobile forces on the flanks, the threat to his supply — and will withdraw, or counter-attack, in time. That understanding is the legacy of Cannae and Stalingrad, and it is the reason the pincer is still taught in every military school in the world.

A commander who understands the pincer can also use it as a threat, because the threat of encirclement can force an enemy to withdraw, even if the pincer is never closed, and that threat, which is a form of psychological warfare, can be as effective as the encirclement itself, and can achieve a victory without a battle.

The pincer in popular memory

In popular memory, the pincer is remembered through its great examples: Cannae, Stalingrad, and, in the Second World War, the great Kessel battles of 1941. Films, books and documentaries return to those battles, because they are dramatic, because they are decisive, and because they illustrate a simple idea that anyone can understand: two arms closing around an enemy. The pincer is therefore not only a military manoeuvre but a story, and the story is told and retold, because it is a story of movement, of surprise, and of destruction, and because it is a story that has been true for more than two thousand years.

The story of the pincer is also told in schools, where children learn about Cannae and Stalingrad, and where they learn that a smaller army can defeat a larger one, if it moves faster and thinks more clearly, and that lesson, which is about war, is also a lesson about life, and about the importance of thinking, rather than only of strength.

10. Assessment by Historians

Historians assess the pincer as one of the most effective manoeuvres in warfare, but also as one of the most difficult to carry out, and they are divided about how often it has really worked. Some historians, following the German military writer Alfred von Schlieffen, who studied Cannae obsessively, regard the double envelopment as the ideal form of battle, and they judge every commander by whether he achieved it. Other historians, following the British writer B. H. Liddell Hart, regard the pincer as one form of manoeuvre among others, and they argue that the indirect approach — attacking the enemy’s supply, his communications and his will, rather than his army — is often more effective than a direct attempt at encirclement.

Schlieffen, Liddell Hart and the debate

The debate between Schlieffen and Liddell Hart is the central debate about the pincer. Schlieffen, who was Chief of the German General Staff from 1891 to 1906, studied Cannae and made it the model for the German Army, and his plan for a war with France — the Schlieffen Plan — was an attempt to repeat Cannae on a grand scale, by enveloping the French army from the north. The plan failed in 1914, because the German right wing was weakened, because the French withdrew in time, and because the German supply lines broke down. Liddell Hart, writing after the First World War, argued that Schlieffen had misunderstood Cannae, and that the indirect approach — the attack on the enemy’s supply and communications — was more important than the encirclement itself. The debate continues, and it is taught in staff colleges as a question, not as a settled answer.

The debate is also taught as a lesson in the dangers of a single idea, because Schlieffen, who was obsessed with Cannae, made the double envelopment the centre of German doctrine, and the German Army, which followed his idea, was led into a plan that failed in 1914, and that failure shaped the First World War, and the Second World War that followed it.

What modern historians conclude

Modern historians, who have the benefit of the archives of the Second World War and of later wars, conclude that the pincer is most effective when it is used against an enemy who is fixed, who is overextended, and whose flanks are weak, and that it is least effective when it is used against an enemy who is mobile, who has reserves, and who can withdraw in time. They also conclude that the pincer is not a substitute for supply, for intelligence, or for a realistic assessment of the enemy, and that a commander who relies on the pincer alone, without those things, is likely to fail. The pincer, in their view, is a tool, and like any tool, it works well when it is used in the right circumstances, and badly when it is used in the wrong ones.

Modern historians also use the archives to show that the pincer was often attempted, and often failed, and that the battles that are remembered — Cannae and Stalingrad — are the exceptions, rather than the rule, and that most attempts at encirclement ended in a partial success, or in a failure, rather than in the destruction of an army.

The pincer and the study of war

The study of the pincer is therefore the study of war itself: of movement, of supply, of intelligence, of morale, and of the decisions that commanders make under pressure. Cannae, Stalingrad, Kursk and Chosin are not only battles, but case studies, and they are studied not because they are the only examples of the pincer, but because they show, in different ways, what the pincer can do and what it cannot do. That is why the pincer remains in the curriculum of every military school, and why it remains, more than two thousand years after Cannae, one of the first manoeuvres that a young officer is taught.

The study of the pincer is also a study of the commanders who used it, and of the decisions they made, and of the mistakes they made, and that study, which is about people as much as about manoeuvre, is why the pincer is still taught, and why it is still studied, more than two thousand years after Cannae.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a pincer movement?
A pincer movement, or double envelopment, is a manoeuvre in which two forces attack the enemy’s flanks and meet behind him, encircling him and cutting his supply and retreat.

What is the most famous example of a pincer movement?
Cannae in 216 BC, where Hannibal destroyed a much larger Roman army, and Stalingrad in 1942–1943, where the Soviet Operation Uranus encircled the German Sixth Army, are the two most famous examples.

How does a pincer movement work?
A holding force fixes the enemy in front, while two mobile arms advance around his flanks and meet in his rear, closing the ring and cutting his supply and retreat.

Why did the German pincer fail at Kursk in 1943?
The Soviets had built defence in depth — successive lines, minefields and reserves — and the German pincers made slow progress, suffered heavy tank losses, and were stopped before they could meet.

What is the difference between a single and a double envelopment?
In a double envelopment, both flanks are turned at once and the ring is closed completely. In a single envelopment, one flank is turned and the other is held, leaving the enemy a line of retreat.

Is the pincer movement still used today?
Yes. The envelopment remains a basic form of manoeuvre in modern military doctrine, supported now by aircraft, helicopters, drones and digital communications, as in the coalition “left hook” in the Gulf War of 1991.

Sources

1. Polybius, The Histories, Book III, and Livy, History of Rome, Book XXII — Cannae, 216 BC, Roman losses of about 50,000–70,000 killed, cross-checked against modern histories.
2. Adrian Goldsworthy, Cannae: Hannibal’s Greatest Victory (2001) — Cannae, Hannibal’s dispositions, and the double envelopment.
3. Antony Beevor, Stalingrad (1998) — Operation Uranus, 19–23 November 1942, the meeting at Kalach, and the surrender on 2 February 1943.
4. David Glantz and Jonathan House, When Titans Clashed (1995) — Kursk, Operation Citadel, and Soviet defence in depth in July 1943.
5. Roy Appleman, Escaping the Trap: The US Army X Corps in Northeast Korea, 1950 — Chosin Reservoir, December 1950, and the breakout to Hungnam.
6. Wikipedia, “Pincer movement”, “Battle of Cannae”, “Battle of Stalingrad” and “Battle of Kursk” — definitions, dates and figures, cross-checked against the histories above.