Attacker

“ Cursing, several of the attackers sprang for them, too, they were seized, and rough hands clapped over their mouths.
But, attacked thus unexpectedly though they were, and without weapons, the boys fought desperately. ”

“ The great pictures of the desperate battles of the mail-clad warriors of the cross and the Saracens are given with graphic fidelity, the figures in the huge tableaux nearly or quite the size of life, and the hand-to-hand encounter of sword, cimeter, battle-axe, and mace, or the desperate struggles in the "imminent deadly breach," the fierce escalade, the terrific charge, or the desperate assault, represented with a force, vigor, and expression that almost make one's blood tingle to look upon them. ”

“ It is as if they [85] could not, even for one evening, forget the struggle for existence, and as if they regarded a dinner or a dance as an engagement with the enemy; a brisk assault to carry by storm some place that has long stood a regular siege—a lively skirmish in which everything that comes to hand is a weapon for either attack or self-defence. ”

“ They broke through the lines and all assailed the one in whom they saw the compensation for their loss. The end you know! Now accept a word of advice from an old soldier: The assault is not a race; not he who first, but he who most surely meets the enemy, approaches victory. ”

“ Protect him in battle. Let neither the arrows nor the bullets of the enemy strike his body, or if they must strike it, let them not pierce his flesh, but turn them aside, so that they shall do him no harm. ”

“ Antonyms: Prepositions:
We were attacked by the enemy with cannon and musketry.
ATTACK, n. Synonyms:
An attack may be by word; an aggression is always by deed. An assault may be upon the person, an aggression is upon rights, possessions, etc. An invasion of a nation's territories is an act of aggression; an intrusion upon a neighboring estate is a trespass. Onslaught signifies intensely violent assault, as by an army or a desperado, tho it is sometimes used of violent speech. ”

“ From beneath their feet rose always the subterranean rumbles of revolt. Violent death ever stalked in their midst; bomb and knife and bullet were looked upon as so many fangs of the roaring abysmal beast they must dominate if humanity were to persist. ”

“ Attacking. The act of making a general assault or onset for the capture of a post, fort, etc., or the breaking of a body of troops. Previous to an assault on a fortified position, the artillery ought to support the other troops by a combined fire of guns, howitzers, and small mortars, so that, if possible, the fire may be simultaneous, as such diversity of projectiles would tend to distract the defenders, and prevent them from extinguishing any fires among buildings, besides throwing them into confusion at the moment of assault. ”

“ Assault is the rush of an armed force upon enemy forces in the battlefield, or upon intrenchments, fortifications, habitations, villages, or towns, such rushing force committing every violence against opposing persons and destroying all impediments. Siege is the surrounding and investing of an enemy locality by an armed force, cutting off those inside from all communication for the purpose of starving them into surrender or for the purpose of attacking the invested locality and taking it by assault. Bombardment is the throwing by artillery of shot and shell upon persons and things. ”

“ And to such injuries it is oftentimes a point of prudence, as well as duty to submit, rather than contend. But it does not follow, that because we are forbidden to resist such slight attacks, we may not defend ourselves when the assault is of a capital kind. ”

“ I seem to see them marching, with brave, bright faces and eager feet, to meet the foe. I hear the distant boom of cannon, growing fainter as they press the retreating enemy. And then, alas! many come back to me mutilated, bleeding, dying, yet with ardor unquenched, repressing moans of anguish that they may listen for the shout of victory: wrestling fiercely with the King of Terrors, not that they fear to die, but because his chill grasp palsies the arm that would fain strike another blow for the right. ”

“ The men stood side by side, grasping their weapons firmly in their hands ready for an attack, which, it is true, merely afforded them the hope of an honorable death, for if it once came to fighting they were lost, but minute after minute passed, and the assault was not made. ”

“ Our troopers were pointing and slashing; well, and of course at first I myself... What would you have! An enemy's an enemy. Yet a sort of sickening awe crept into my heart. There was no tumult—only a low deep murmur dwelt over them interspersed with louder cries and groans while that mob kept on pushing and surging past us, sightless and without feeling. A smell of scorched rags and festering wounds hung in the air. My horse staggered in the eddies of swaying men. ”

“ When a column is sent to an assault, the men at the head know they are sent to their death, and that the glory of victory will be for those who passing over their dead bodies enter the enemy's position. ”

“ With those horrid yells still sounding in their ears, and those ghastly sights of blood and carnage still fresh in their memories, they fancied they heard, in every passing gust that stirred the dead leaves, warning whispers of the stealthy approach of the dreaded enemy, and that in every waving thicket he might be lurking for them in ambush. ”

“ They narrate the mode of approaching the enemy, the onset, the battle, all the little particulars of which are detailed: but they seem to dwell with particular pleasure on the conduct of individuals of the enemy, as it appeared immediately before they received the death blow; if there was any movement of the body, or emotion exhibited upon the countenance of the victim, that betrayed a want of firmness, or fear of death, at that awful juncture, the account excites much laughter in the audience. ”

“ This assault is a battle between two men, who mean hard fighting, keen swordsmen, dodgy, artful, and slippery, who bring to bear all their science, employ every trick they can think of, and throw themselves body and soul into the fight. ”

“ In the thick of the battle, of which the warriors do not complain of the rigors, except with an unintelligible noise.
When my people defended themselves with me against the spears of the enemy, I did not refrain from the spears through cowardice, but the place of my advance had become too strait. ”

“ Yet guests but ill-entreated; for they lack their shields of war, No spear in the hand they carry and with no sax are girt. Lo, these are the dreaded foemen, these once so strong to hurt; The men that all folk fled from, the swift to drive the spoil, The men that fashioned nothing but the trap to make men toil. ”

“ I had heard, and that from authority which appeared not to be doubted, that you had been mad enough to engage in a duel, notwithstanding all the principles which I have endeavored to instill into your mind; that you had killed your adversary, and that the slain man was your cousin Henry. Now I have ever held, and have endeavored to teach you to hold, that dueling is not only murder, but murder of the most aggravated kind. The slaughter of the man may take place by accident--by a hasty blow in a moment of passion--in self-defense, when suddenly assailed--or in a general tumult or commotion ”

“ The attack, if properly directed, and vigorously followed up, will, like the assault of the woman suffragists upon equally ancient instinctive promptings, be unexpectedly successful. The walls of the fortress are thin and the defenders the wraiths of a dim past. ”

“ The clumsiest and, so far as rude and blood-thirsty attack could contrive them, the most deadly weapons were the first used; the sudden destruction of life, not the art of defence, being the brutal instinct of the vengeful, cunning, and cowardly savage, or the treacherous manslayer. ”

“ Though it was a piece of military etiquette that he should take no weapon into the field, he was at liberty to hurl back at his adversaries any of the spears which he could catch. Should one of the enemy’s spears bring him to the ground, or should he be successful in killing an adversary, there was an immediate struggle for the possession of the dead body, which is looked upon much as is a flag among ourselves, to be defended or captured at all risks, even of life. ”

“ Seeing the invaders approach, the defenders went out to meet them, and gave them battle on the open space in front of the pa; but the sound of the guns, and the sight of men falling as by the hand of some invisible enemy, so terrorised the defenders that their lines were soon broken, and they fled, a demoralised host, back to their stronghold, which was immediately stormed and taken with great slaughter. ”

“ He hit the right person, the man that was marked for destruction, whom, if they had taken alive, as was designed, perhaps Ben-hadad would have spared. Those cannot escape with life whom God hath doomed to death. 2. He hit him in the right place, between the joints of the harness, the only place about him where this arrow of death could find entrance. No armour is of proof against the darts of divine vengeance. Case the criminal in steel, and it is all one, he that made him can make his sword to approach him. ”

“ Scrambling over the bulwarks, they fairly hewed their way into the mass of brown men, hacking, stabbing, shooting, cursing, cheering—a line of grim-faced fighters sweeping forward as remorselessly as death. ”

“ He that shall oppose an assault only with a shield to receive the blow, or in any more respectful posture without a sword in his hand, to abate the confidence and force of the assailant will quickly be at the end of his resistance, and will find such a defence serve only to draw on him the worse usage: this is as ridiculous a way of resisting, as Juvenal thought of fighting, ‘Ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo p. ”

“ The face and those parts of the body whose defence in the assault we unjustifiably neglect have blood which your enemy may cause to flow. Your adversary is not picked out by yourself. The choice of chance, he may be short or tall, strong or weak, your inferior, your equal, or your superior in physique. ”

“ There is an excited feeling when assailing, which stimulates even the weak-hearted, and drowns the thought of danger. The tumultuous enthusiasm of the assault spreads from man to man, and timid spirits catch a gallant frenzy from the brave. ”

“ Sufficient affirmation on both sides, Conflict again precipitated. One combatant gets overwhelming advantage, and follows it up from the way other combatant screams bloody murder. Bloody murder gurgles and dies out, undoubtedly throttled by a stranglehold. ”

“ The attack was one of those frontal attacks, which in this war, against the new weapons, have added so much to the lists of killed and wounded and to the prestige of the men, while it has, in an inverse ratio, hurt the prestige of the men by whom the attack was ordered. ”

“ On this, every one of the miscreants, emboldened by his fall, wanted to fire his gun at him, or strike him with blows of the sledge-hammer, or stab him with a knife or swords, every one wanted to draw a drop of blood from the fallen hero, and tear off a shred from his garments. ”

“ Picture a cut-throat, shave half his head, leaving a tuft of hair on the back by which he kindly assists his victor to decapitate him, expecting a like consideration in return, long drooping moustachios, clad in Turkish clothes, a belt full of cartridges, with revolver and murderous-looking yataghan artistically displayed—of such was this congregation. Men who half-an-hour afterwards would shoot an enemy in the course of a vendetta, or otherwise, without any thought of remorse. ”

“ When they have thus gained sufficiently upon the enemy, they will suddenly raise themselves in their saddles, and come like a rushing blast, all fluttering with feathers, shaking their mantles, brandishing their weapons, and making hideous yells. ”

“ We look back with contempt on the denunciations of the enemy, ‘which, sown in serpents’ teeth, have arisen for us in armed men,’ and we look with gratitude to our new-created host, which retorted the insult, and changed the invader into the invaded. ”

“ They stand ever at the forefront dealing desperate blows right and left, now fist and skull, now broad-sword and battle-axe, now with the flash and boom of artillery; while 201the little fellows run out ever and anon from the ranks and deliver a telling blow between the eyes of an antagonist. ”

“ They draw knives on each other on the slightest provocation, and in their amusements, as you know, there is nothing that in their eyes can rival a bullfight; it is little wonder, then, that in war they are savage and, as you would say, even bloodthirsty. ”

“ The assault being the most severe phase of the combat, it is necessary, in order to face it and push it through, that the will of each individual be transformed largely by habits and reflexes. Therefore, hold each day an assault exercise over ground which resembles in detail that over which the real assault will have to be made. ”

“ An easily-repelled attack was first made on the outwork in the day-time, probably more with the view of blinding the besieged to the nature of the main operations than with any expectation of succeeding in an open assault, with every disadvantage of the ground to contend against. ”

“ If you succeed in capturing an antagonist who has made a murderous assault upon you, common sense, and a regard for your own safety and the peace of society, require at least that his weapons, or the power of using them, should be taken from him. ”

“ The enemy attacked vigorously, met with an unexpectedly vigorous resistance, hesitated, failed to push their action home, and lost an opportunity which seldom occurred again—an opportunity which has now gone for ever. ”

“ ASSAULT, a furious effort to carry a fortified post, camp, or fortress, where the assailants do not screen themselves by any works. While an assault during a siege continues, the batteries cease, for fear of killing their own men. An assault is sometimes made by the regiments that guard the trenches of a siege, sustained by detachments from the army. ”