ve at night. An ill-timed halt of part of a column may cause as
much mischief as a rout.

If the rear-guard is closely pressed, the army should halt in order to
relieve it by a fresh corps taken from the second mass, which will halt
with this object in view. The enemy seeing eighty thousand men in
battle-order will think it necessary to halt and collect his columns;
and then the retreat should recommence at nightfall, to regain the space
which has been lost.

The third method, of retreating along several parallel roads, is
excellent when the roads are sufficiently near each other. But, if they
are quite distant, one wing separated from the center and from the other
wing may be compromised if the enemy attacks it in force and compels it
to stand on the defensive. The Prussian army moving from Magdeburg
toward the Oder, in 1806, gives an example of this kind.

The fourth method, which consists in following concentric roads, is
undoubtedly the best if the troops are distant from each other when the
retreat is ordered. Nothing can be better, in such a case, than to unite
the forces; and the concentric retreat is the only method of effecting
this.

The fifth method indicated is nothing else than the famous system of
eccentric lines, which I have attributed to Bulow, and have opposed so
warmly in the earlier editions of my works, because I thought I could
not be mistaken either as to the sense of his remarks on the subject or
as to the object of his system. I gathered from his definition that he
recommended to a retreating army, moving from any given position, to
separate into parts and pursue diverging roads, with the double object
of withdrawing more readily from the enemy in pursuit and of arresting
his march by threatening his flanks and his line of communications. I
found great fault with the system, for the simple reason that a beaten
army is already weak enough, without absurdly still further dividing its
forces and strength in presence of a victorious enemy.

Bulow has found defenders who declare that I mistake his meaning, and
that by the term _eccentric retreat_ he did not understand a retreat
made on several diverging roads, but one which, instead of being
directed toward the center of the base of operations or the center of
the country, should be eccentric to that focus of operations, and along
the line of the frontier of the country.

I may possibly have taken an incorrect impression from his language, and