The war of minds is very old, not new.. as old as war itself.

Today we are going to travel through time to the year 525 BC.

And to a violent, bloody battle between the invading Persian forces and the Egyptian army, master of armies, with a fearsome reputation across the whole earth.

And although the Egyptian army surpassed the Persian forces by leaps and bounds in training.. and the battle was on land he knew well.. the Persians possessed a weapon capable of deciding any battle, one that never failed even once throughout history.. information.

The Persians had learned everything about the customs of the Egyptians and their traditions, and even the gods they respected and held sacred.. they gathered the information they needed.. and decided to use it in a new way.

The way of the war of minds.

And in the city of (Port Said) as we know it today.. the forces of the Persian Achaemenid Empire and the Egyptian forces meet.

And the Egyptian infantry advances, supported by cavalry, with their sharp piercing weapons and their heavy shields, under a cover of arrows.

And the Persian forces advance to engage.. with exaggerated confidence.. and they suddenly reveal to the Egyptians a new shield, the like of which they had never seen in their long military history.

The cats...

A shield of woven palm fronds.. resembling a cage.. and inside every shield a cat.. an ordinary cat, one of those you see in the street and raise at home.. and come across everywhere.

The ancient Egyptians held cats sacred, as the goddess "Bast" daughter of "Ra".. protector of the horsemen's lands and guardian of the grain stores.. and the punishment for killing a cat in ancient Egypt was death.

Tremendous confusion ensued, and it became impossible for the Egyptian soldier to strike that shield with a sword or a spear, or even to shoot its bearer with an arrow. And this led to a crushing defeat for an invincible army.. in a strange battle.. which history recorded for us as the "Battle of Pelusium".. and recorded that strange incident for us as the "battle of pelusium cat shield".

The Persians played with the minds of the Egyptians, and created a "psychological barrier" between them and their forces, preventing them from repelling their aggression.. and consequently; they annihilated the Egyptian army - which surpassed them by leaps and bounds - down to the last soldier.

And in the Battle of Siffin, which took place between the army of "Ali ibn Abi Talib", may God be pleased with him, and the army of Muawiyah in Safar of the year 37 AH, "Amr ibn al-As" resorts to a similar tactic, so he raises the Qurans on the tips of spears.. and halts the battle.

There is almost no commander throughout history with expansionist tendencies who did not study the "Battle of Pelusium" and develop its techniques, because history also recorded for us that "Genghis Khan" used to send spies to slip into the midst of the country he decided to invade, to spread a spirit of defeatism, and a fearsome negative energy, with terrifying frightening stories, about the failure and weakness of their country.. and about the invincible Tatar army.. and about their horrific massacres and slaughters of every state that refused to surrender without condition.

And the Tatars' manipulation of minds was extremely successful, for after terror takes hold of you.. before you even see their forces.. they send you their messengers with a violent threatening message.. that destroys whatever psychological energy you have left to resist.

This terror pushed a strong state like "Korea" at the time to surrender, and to recognize the sovereignty of the Mongol army over its lands.. and after the Mongols finished with East Asia they headed west toward Europe and the Khwarazmian state on the borders of the Middle East region.. and indeed the Mongols entered the lands of the Khwarazmian state in 1218, and committed horrific massacres there.

And despite the presence of "Alamut Castle" and the forces of the "Assassins", the men of "Hasan ibn al-Sabbah", in the Mongols' path, and despite the fact that they were masters of manipulating minds, and their forces were suicidal in the truest sense of the word.. "Hulagu", the grandson of "Genghis Khan", sweeps away the castle and all inside it under the hooves of his horses.. and continues to advance.. and there is no army that knows how to defeat him or stand up to his terrifying psychological technique.

And "Hulagu" was carrying out another technique to manipulate the mind of the opponent.. one he had learned from his grandfather "Genghis".

He used to order his forces, from after sunset until dawn, that every soldier light three torches.. not one. And so when you look from a distance.. you imagine that the army is three times its real size.

And he used to hurl the severed heads of soldiers from the cities he had taken, with catapults, onto the cities he was besieging.. terrifying their people and defeating them from within before he even passed through the city gates.

A ferocious war of minds.. and successive psychological operations.. whoever wins it wins on the ground.

And suddenly a counter-technique appeared.

And also from Egypt.

And Egypt at the time was in the weakest state it had ever been in.. it had fended off the Sixth Crusade.. and was exhausted economically, socially and militarily from the repeated campaigns against it.. its army was worn out, at its weakest.. and it was politically tense with the death of "Aqtay" and "Aybak" and "Shajar al-Durr".. and it was without an actual ruler.. and the Mongols had reached Mosul.. and its prince "Badr al-Din Lu'lu'" came out to them carrying his shroud in his hand.. surrendering and recognizing the Mongols' authority.. so "Hulagu" kept him prince over Mosul, after taking his soldiers and his women.

And in the last days of the month of Sha'ban in the year 1260 AD, four messengers from the Mongol army storm the gates of Cairo, and head for the ruler's palace.. and the people watch them with astonishment and terror.. and they meet the temporary ruler of Egypt "Sayf al-Din Qutuz".. amid the princes and the men of the palace, and they present to him a terrifying letter, an exact copy of the letters with which they had informed those who preceded him.. and who surrendered or were killed and their countries collapsed.

And Qutuz had with him approximately 6,000 soldiers, the ones who remained after the Crusader campaigns.. and "Rukn al-Din Baybars" had joined him from the Levant with about 3,000-odd soldiers.. while the Mongols were at the outskirts of the country with six hundred thousand soldiers.

And "Qutuz" had likewise monitored the morale of the people.. and their collapse and terror of the Mongols.. and the horrific psychological state the Egyptians had reached because of the traitors and the hirelings.. so "Qutuz" listens to the letter and nods his head in understanding.. and then he invents the first counter-technique in the war of minds, and one of the most brilliant psychological warfare moves in history.

He slaughters the four Mongol messengers.. and hangs their heads, with their bulging eyes and their jaws gaping from pain and terror, on the gates of Cairo.. and he ties their very bodies onto the backs of their horses - which know their way well - and sends them back to their sender.

And amid a cloud of dust, and the astonished Tatar soldiers making way for it, the four horses arrive carrying the terrifying message to the headquarters of the Tatar forces' command.

And for the first time terror creeps into the hearts of the Mongol soldiers.. because whoever does a thing like this.. must be confident in himself to an extraordinary degree.. and knows that he is capable of crushing them.. and for the first time too "Hulagu" begins to feel anxious.. and this was the beginning of his defeat.

Manipulating minds, then.. matters in any war. Your mind and your heart must enter into a continuous battle with each other.. and the harmony between them collapses.. so you become incapable of thinking.. and you move in a random, confused way.

The war of minds, and lone psychological operations, retain the upper hand in battles to a great extent, until the year 1914, specifically in August.. when a man named "Charles Frederick Gurney Masterman" appears on the scene.. and lays for us a new stone in the building of the game of the war of minds.

Who wins in the war of minds?

And that is a story we will tell later.

And there remains more to say.

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References:

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1 - The Battle of Pelusium: A Victory Decided by Cats - Ancient History Encyclopedia - https://bit.ly/2Ez68cN

2 - The Battle Of Pelusium: 'Cats' And Psychological Edge Lead Persians To Victory - Realm of History - Dattatreya Mandal.

3 - ابن تغري: النجوم الزاهرة في ملوك مصر و القاهرة، دار الكتب و الوثائق القومية، مركز تحقيق التراث، القاهرة - 2005.

4 - نور الدين خليل: سيف الدين قطز ، حورس للنشر والتوزيع، الإسكندرية 2005.

5 - عز الدين بن شداد : تاريخ الملك الظاهر، دار نشر فرانز شتاينر.