United States or Brunei ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This convoy has of course to be guarded throughout, which means a very attenuated and consequently weakened force, an attack on one part of which might be carried on without the knowledge of the rest of the column, or the possibility of its giving much help anyway. When we left Lindley we had a sharp rearguard action, and the Boers pushed their attack very vigorously.
The tactics of our Division were simple. In the early days, when we thought that we had merely a determined rearguard in front of us, we attacked. Bridges you will remember the tale were most heroically built. The third brigade was on their right in a position I will describe later. Well, the two brigades attacked, and attacked with artillery support, but they could not advance.
"He then gave orders to have the main body of his cavalry move towards Green Castle; and I distinctly heard him give orders to the Major to remain in town with fifty men as rearguard, and to send on the army mail, which was expected there about six the next evening. I made up my mind that it would be a small mail he would get, as I proposed to myself to be postmaster for once.
The Boer general, who for a day and a half had been fighting a constant succession of rearguard actions with Kitchener's infantry, took his measures promptly to meet this new dilemma. He first tried to seize positions of command which would give him control of the ford. In this French was the quicker, and headed him.
During this march and following ones we frequently saw the bodies of men floating down the river or stranded in shoals. They were probably the Sikhs killed with Ross, or perhaps some of Edwardes' party. By 4.30 P.M. the rearguard had crossed the cliff, and, rounding the shoulder of a spur, descended to a plain, bare of vegetation, with the exception of the inevitable wormwood.
We reached the earthworks thrown. up early in the year for the defense of the place, he had almost wholly disappeared, carrying off all his stores and munitions of war except some little subsistence and eleven pieces of artillery. A strong rearguard remained to cover the retreat, and on my front the usual encounters between advancing and retreating forces took place.
When the rearguard broke before the onset of the Ghilzyes, unable to keep pace with the pursued, he turned, fought, and, overpowered by numbers, fell beneath the swords and knives of an unsparing foe. The force halted at Gundamuck. The political managers of affairs in Afghanistan fancied that this would prove the termination of disturbances in that country.
"This is an extraordinary state of affairs, isn't it? In case there are any Bosche rearguard patrols, we'll keep this side of the ruins as much as possible." The village was practically on the top of a ridge of hills. I stood under the shadow of some tree-stumps and gazed around. What a scene of desolation it was.
He therefore ordered the rearguard to join the centre, and both to close up to the advance, doubling his files so as to occupy with his column the whole practicable part of the road, and to present such a front as its breadth admitted.
Meanwhile Drucour had made several sorties against the British front, while Boishebert had attacked their rear with a few hundred Indians, Acadians, and Canadians. Boishebert's attack was simply brushed aside by the rearguard of Amherst's overwhelming force. The American Rangers ought to have defeated it themselves, without the aid of regulars.
Word Of The Day