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will be withdrawn first to move to a distant fire position, then the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