Vanguard

“ And if I can’t head a army, and lead the vanguard on to glory and to victory, I can tussle with the little guerillas of wrong, that are let loose in society; I can grapple with the solitary pickets that Error sends out ahead of his army to see how the land lays, and if the enemy is asleep on a post. ”

“ The most skilled men-of-war, and among them my Lord the Bastard and the Marshal de Boussac, mounted on the finest of war-steeds, formed the vanguard. Then under the leadership of Captain La Hire, who knew the country, came the horse of the Duke of Alençon, the Count of Vendôme, the Constable of France, with archers and cross-bowmen. Last of all came the rear-guard, commanded by the lords of Graville, Laval, Rais, and Saint-Gilles. [1280]
The Maid, ever zealous, desired to be in the vanguard; but she was kept back. She did not lead the men-at-arms, rather the men-at-arms led her. ”

“ The vanguard pushed rapidly forward, hoping to surprise the place, and ignorant that, behind the ridge of thick forests on their right, among a tangled growth of beech-trees in the gorge of a brook, three hundred ambushed warriors lay biding their time. ”

“ Within fifty paces of the vanguard I dug my heels into the horse’s sides and bounded across to the head of the convoy of a dozen Spahis. A solitary rider journeying across the desert is such an unusual spectacle that the ferocious-looking advance guard, fearing attack, shouted and lowered their rifles. ”

“ Thurley was eager to speak. “Why, then, can I understand your vision?” hoping for but one reply.
“Because you are one of the vanguard! Another of my secrets! There are never many of the vanguard, and we are not always rich or great or talented. Sometimes the vanguard of civilization are humble and their earthly record most uninteresting. But have you never thought to yourself there were just a few, rare souls who—who understand? Who can smile at the trials the world seeks to escape from and sometimes sob at the vapid joys for which the world strives so unceasingly? ”

“ They are the vanguard—the sappers and miners of returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. ”

“ The soldiers of the vanguard who escaped the disaster were seized with terror, turned upon their heels, rushed back upon their center, trampled it down, threw it into a panic, and spread consternation, crying that the passage of the breach was mined under the feet of the besiegers. ”

“ By a combination of such evolutions, a vanguard, of inferior numbers, avoids brisk actions and general engagements, and yet delays the enemy long enough to give time for the main army to come up, for the infantry to deploy, for the general-in-chief to make his dispositions, and for the baggage and parks to file into their stations. ”

“ They are the shining vanguard that protects us, the great eternal framework which upholds our country, the forces of the mighty past which illuminate it and protect it against enemies and revolutions. ”

“ Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.—The foregoing and their savage multitudes of revolutionists are to be the vanguard of the evil host. ”

“ Far in advance of the main body of the toilers is the vanguard, a group of twenty of the acknowledged leaders of the men. It is at their suggestion that the cowed wretches have mustered up courage enough to cross the bridge and enter upon the interdicted boulevard. So it is incumbent upon them to show no trepidation.
Immediately behind them are the more adventurous ones, followed by the women and children, who, like angels, tread where men fear to go. The great mass of the crowd is composed of the workmen of the town. The faint-hearted and the cowardly bring up the rear. ”

“ But if any one of the commons went in front of the vanguard in battle, he was to rise from a slave into a freeman, and from a peasant into a nobleman; but if he were nobly-born already, he should be created a governor. So great a guerdon did valiant men earn of old; and thus did the ancients think noble rank the due of bravery. For it was thought that the luck a man had should be set down to his valour, and not his valour to his luck. ”

“ The art of a general of the vanguard, or of the rear-guard, is, without hazarding a defeat, to hold the enemy in check, to impede him, to compel him to spend three or four hours in moving a single league: tactics point out the methods of effecting these important objects, and are more necessary for cavalry than for infantry, and in the vanguard, or the rear-guard, than in any other position. The Hungarian Insurgents, whom we saw in 1797, 1805, and 1809, were pitiful troops. ”

“ The language could not have been more noble and patriotic, and modesty, as usual, tempered the tone of the authoritative eloquence.
"We do not aspire," he said, "to being the vanguard in this great battle of thought about to take place in the town of Sarrio, but we do aspire to fighting like common soldiers, for we do expect a place in the rear-guard. There we shall fight like good men, and if we finally fall vanquished, we will envelop ourselves in the sacred banner of progress." ”

“ I have a force which will look down all opposition, and that force is but the vanguard of a much greater—If, contrary to your own interest and the just expectation of my country, you should take part in the approaching contest, you will be considered as enemies, and the horrors and calamities of war will stalk before you. ”

“ The rearguard, in a sense, is just as important as the vanguard and should not be seen as a caboose or as a group of lesser or inferior people. In any guerrilla war the rearguard is as important as the vanguard, and the rearguard in this case is the people who do the door to door organizing, the explaining, the interpretation through writing, speaking, appearances before the mass media. ”

“ But he is a double-dyed villain; for when I sent the Vanguard there, he seized every Frenchman and French vessel in the place, saying that it was his part to do that. The which he released so soon as the Vanguard departed.”
“I should make short work with the Bey. One can only trust these Orientals when one does not need them.” ”

“ A short time afterwards the vanguard broke into the town, consisting of about thirty men, clothed in blue faced with gold, and scarlet waistcoats with gold lace; and, being "likely men," they made a good appearance. They were drawn up in the market-place, and remained there two hours; at the same time the bells were rung, and bonfires were lighted, in order to do away with the impression that the Chevalier's vanguard had been received disrespectfully. ”

“ By this shrewd arrangement the risk of them all falling into the hands of the enemy was greatly reduced, as those in the lead could give warning to those in the rear, and, though they might suffer themselves, enable their comrades to beat a retreat if the odds were all against them, or dash forward to the support of the vanguard if there was anything like equal terms to be had. ”

“ Yes, these are very true and very good words and we would he satisfied if Rabocheye Dyelo understood them, and if it refrained from saying in the next breath things that are the very opposite to them. Surely, it is not sufficient to call ourselves the "vanguard," it is necessary to act like one; we must act in such a way that all the other units of the army shall see us, and be obliged to admit that we are the vanguard. And we ask the reader: Are the representatives of the other "units" such fools as to take merely our word for it when we say that we are the "vanguard"? ”

“ If the Vanguard is held up by the enemy who is ascertained to be inferior in strength to the Advanced Guard, the commander will transmit information to the Main Body and will attack vigorously to disperse the enemy, in order that the movements of the Main Body may not be delayed. ”

“ The good genius of the empire suggested that, as their speech, arms, and appearance, resembled those of the enemy, they might be permitted unopposed to take post in the defile with their light-armed forces, and thus secure it for the passage of the rest of the army, of which he proposed that the Varangians, as immediately attached to his own sacred person, should form the vanguard. ”

“ It is at least much more probable than that a falsehood should have been allowed to pass unchallenged.
[8] This word, which is of course French but was adopted in English with the same signification, definitely means a body of men, originally mailed horsemen, drawn up together; but it implies nothing as to their formation or strength. The usual practice was to form three; the vanguard, which became ordinarily the right when in line of battle; the rearguard, which similarly became the left; and the main battle or centre. ”

“ The courage and generalship you have displayed in this battle are superhuman. Nothing is impossible with you. So you keep a handful of men to protect the vanguard. And under the cover of your soldiers, let me cross the bridge with the majority of them. ”

“ These are the vanguard, the flower of Kafir chivalry, who are escorting the daughter of a chieftain to her new home in a kraal on the opposite range of hills. They make it a point of honor to go as quickly as possible, for they are like the stroke oar and give the time to the others. After them come the male relatives of the bride, a motley crew, numerous, but altogether wanting in the style and bearing of the warriors. ”

“ Fanning and myself were appointed to the command of the vanguard, in conjunction with Mr Wharton, a wealthy planter, who had brought a strong party of volunteers with him, and whose mature age and cool judgment, it was thought, would counterbalance any excess of youthful heat and impetuosity on our part. Selecting ninety-two men out of the eight hundred, who, to a man, volunteered to accompany us, we set out for the mission. ”

“ Because, as the vanguard consists of their picked wild desperates, resolute for mischief, such as neither fear God nor regard their fellow-creatures, but understand themselves bound to hurry from the road whatever is displeasing to themselves, so the rear-guard consists of misproud serving-men, who, being in charge of the baggage, take care to amend by their exactions upon travelling-merchants and others, their own thefts on their master's property. ”

“ The Spanish vanguard, under Colonel Hernandez, attacked the vanguard, center and rear guard of the rebels in the central streets of the town, driving them with continuous volleys and fierce cavalry charges into the outskirts of the town. Up to this point we had killed ten insurgents. ”

“ A forced march of fifty leagues to secure an advantage may result in failure to the leader of the vanguard, for only half his men will arrive.
After a forced march of thirty leagues to secure an advantage, only two-thirds of the army will be available. ”

“ And a many leaped and left her; but, God rest ’em! some were braver;
Some held by her, firing steady till she blew to God knows where.”
At the shock, he said, the Vanguard shook through all her timbers oaken ”

“ Dragoons are necessary for the support of light cavalry in the vanguard, the rear-guard, and the wings of an army; cuirassiers are little adapted for van and rearguards: they should never be employed in this service but when it is requisite to keep them in practice and accustom them to war. ”

“ In 429 they crossed over into Africa, under their king Genseric, and conquered all the Roman dominions in that country. Genseric subsequently invaded Italy, and took and plundered Rome in 455. The Vandals continued masters of Africa till 535, when their kingdom was destroyed by Belisarius, and annexed to the Byzantine empire.
Van-foss. In fortification, a ditch dug without the counterscarp, and running all along the glacis, usually full of water.
Vanguard. That part of the army which marches in front.
Vanquish. To conquer; to overcome; to subdue in battle, as an enemy. ”

“ Moreover, whom one generation destroyed, succeeding243 generations have honored; it is impossible to get the rear rank in line with the vanguard. But wherein has evil triumphed or the law of good been set aside? ”

“ Listen, army of the Vandals. We shall fight to-day, not for victory alone; we are struggling for all we are and have,--the kingdom of Genseric and its renown, the wives and children in yonder tents, who will become slaves if we yield. To-day we must look death and the enemy closely in the eye. The King has commanded that this battle is to be fought by the Vandals with the sword only, not with bow and arrow, not with lance and spear. Look, I cast my own spear from me; you will do the same; with sword in hand, press close to the body of the foe. ”

“ For all the Vandals, fellow soldiers, the struggle is in behalf of those things which you have just heard the king recount, but for you, in addition to all the other considerations, it so happens that you are vying with yourselves. For you have recently been victorious in a struggle for the maintenance of our rule, and you have recovered the island for the empire of the Vandals; there is every reason, therefore, for you to make still greater display of your valour. For those whose hazard involves the greatest things must needs display the greatest zeal for warfare also. ”

“ For there is not a friendly city, no, nor any other stronghold, in which we may put our trust and have confidence concerning ourselves. But if we should show ourselves brave men, it is probable that we shall still overcome the enemy in the war; but if we should weaken at all, it will remain for us to fall under the hand of the Vandals and to be destroyed disgracefully. ”