A guy named Arminius (Armin or Hermann) in Germania’s Teutoberg Forest used these tactics against three legions of Roman regulars led by a guy named Varus.
Julius Caesar wrote about this Roman defeat in De Bello Gallico a little more than 2000 years ago.
I take that back. Caesar did not write about this battle, since it happened about fifty years after he died. Tacitus, Suetoneus and others, however, did.
Amazing how rusty folks’ memory can get when they are almost fifty years out of college.
Sorry. The Teutoburg massacre occurred in approximately 9 A.D, during the reign of the emperor Augustus. Caesar’s De BELLO GALLICO was largely written by 44 A.D, some 50 years earlier.