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ployment into attack formation. It will often be of advantage for a Rear Guard to take up a delaying position one or two hours before dark, as the enemy will then have to attack with darkness approaching and may wish to defer the attack until daylight, thus gaining several hours for the protected force. "The first position taken up by a Rear Guard after an unsuccessful fight must be held longer, as a rule, than the subsequent positions, because when once the defeated army has got well away along the roads and has regained some semblance of organisation, the march continues without interruption unless some obstacle has to be crossed" (General Haking, "Staff Rides"). It can also be noted that as it is seldom the intention of the Rear Guard commander to deliver a decisive counter-attack, he can detail a very large proportion of his force to hold the successive positions, with local reserves, for purely local counter-attacks; and for the same reason, an obstacle in front of his position (which would make that position unsuitable for the Active Defence, as it would prevent the advance of the General Reserve to the decisive counter-attack) is most welcome in the Delaying Action of a Rear Guard fighting for time for its Main Body. When at length a line of resistance is evacuated, the heavy artillery will be withdrawn first to move to a distant fire position, then the slow moving infantry and the light artillery (under the protective fire of the aircraft and mobile troops), and last the cavalry and other mobile troops, who by reason of their superior mobility, can hang on to the last and can protect the flanks of the Rear Guard as they fall back, before {124} resuming their work as a Rear Party, observing and resisting the advanced troops of the pursuing force. During a close pursuit the Rear Guard commander will be called upon to exercise all his faculties and to exert all his tactical ability in handling his command. One of the most anxious times before him will be when the Main Body is passing through a defile, as such a passage will not only delay its march but will make its columns particularly vulnerable and helpless. In the case of defiles Napoleon's maxim must be borne in mind: "It is contrary to the principles of war to let one's parks and heavy artillery enter a defile if the other end is not held also." At _Sannah's Post_ (March 31, 1900) the train was permitted to enter a defile caused by the banks of the
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