United States or Mauritius ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All he could gather under his banner were about eight hundred half-armed and undisciplined men,—a sorry show with which to face an army of over one hundred and twenty thousand men, many of them veterans of the recent wars.
The general reported that he had caused the assembly to be sounded again and again, without more than a tenth part of the troops paying the slightest heed to the summons. The army was without cavalry, without waggons for carrying supplies, without an ambulance train in fact, it was nothing but a half-armed mob.
Headed by the blacksmith, however, the bravest of the party stood their ground, giving blow for blow as the horsemen rode among them. The latter must have been aware that the musketeers were advancing to their support, and this for very shame made them eager to finish the fight with the half-armed citizens with whom they were contending.
The French men-at-arms, as they still dashed down on the ranks, met the same fate as their predecessors; and, hurled wounded from their dying horses, were thrust through by the short lances of the half-armed Welshmen, who rushed hither and thither through the midst of the fight.
First allow an enemy to entrench, and then fight him! See the destruction brought upon the British at Bunker's Hill yet our troops there were only militia; raw, half-armed clodhoppers, and not a mortar, or carronade, not even a swivel only their ducking-guns! What, then, are we to expect from regulars, completely armed, with a choice train of artillery, and covered by a breastwork."
Then came a strong company of wild half-armed shepherds from the great plains which extend from the Blackdowns on the south to the Mendips on the north very different fellows, I promise you, from the Corydons and Strephons of Master Waller or Master Dryden, who have depicted the shepherd as ever shedding tears of love, and tootling upon a plaintive pipe.
If one-armed people existed almost everywhere in every continent; if people were found in every intermediate stage, some with the mere germ of the second arm, some with the second arm half-grown, some with it nearly complete; we should then argue 'the first race cannot have had two arms, because men have always been fighting, and as two arms are a great advantage in fighting, one-armed and half-armed people would immediately have been killed off the earth; they never could have attained any numbers.
There were frequent skirmishes between the soldiery and promiscuous bands of peasants, citizens, and students; conflicts in which the Spaniards were invariably victorious. What could such half-armed and wholly untrained partisans effect against the bravest and most experienced troops in the whole world?
The enemy, expecting an easy conquest, and that the Romans were few and half-armed, were overpowered with the sounds of trumpets and glitter of arms, which were then magnified in proportion as they were unexpected; and they fell like men who, as they are void of moderation in prosperity, are also destitute of conduct in distress. Arminius fled from the fight unhurt, Inguiomer severely wounded.
In these the Spaniards were invariably successful, for whatever may be said of their cruelty and licentiousness, it cannot be disputed that their prowess was worthy of their renown. Romantic valor, unflinching fortitude, consummate skill, characterized them always. What could half-armed artisans achieve in the open plain against such accomplished foes?
Word Of The Day