tend to increase his disorganisation.--This it will principally effect
by the character of continuous flight, which his retreat will thus
assume. Nothing has such a depressing influence on the soldier, as the
sound of the enemy's cannon afresh at the moment when, after a forced
march he seeks some rest; if this excitement is continued from day to
day for some time, it may lead to a complete rout. There lies in it a
constant admission of being obliged to obey the law of the enemy, and of
being unfit for any resistance, and the consciousness of this cannot do
otherwise than weaken the moral of an Army in a high degree. The effect
of pressing the enemy in this way attains a maximum when it drives
the enemy to make night marches. If the conqueror scares away the
discomfited opponent at sunset from a camp which has just been taken
up either for the main body of the Army, or for the rear-guard, the
conquered must either make a night march, or alter his position in
the night, retiring further away, which is much the same thing; the
victorious party can on the other hand pass the night in quiet.

The arrangement of marches, and the choice of positions depend in this
case also upon so many other things, especially on the supply of the
Army, on strong natural obstacles in the country, on large towns,
&c. &c., that it would be ridiculous pedantry to attempt to show by a
geometrical analysis how the pursuer, being able to impose his laws on
the retreating enemy, can compel him to march at night while he takes
his rest. But nevertheless it is true and practicable that marches
in pursuit may be so planned as to have this tendency, and that the
efficacy of the pursuit is very much enchanced thereby. If this is
seldom attended to in the execution, it is because such a procedure
is more difficult for the pursuing Army, than a regular adherence to
ordinary marches in the daytime. To start in good time in the morning,
to encamp at mid-day, to occupy the rest of the day in providing for the
ordinary wants of the Army, and to use the night for repose, is a
much more convenient method than to regulate one's movements exactly
according to those of the enemy, therefore to determine nothing till the
last moment, to start on the march, sometimes in the morning, sometimes
in the evening, to be always for several hours in the presence of the
enemy, and exchanging cannon shots with him, and keeping up skirmishing
fire, to plan manoeuvres to turn hi