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.

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.

If the light troops of Maria Theresa's times became formidable, it was by their excellent organization, and, above every thing, by their numbers.

To imagine that such troops could be superior to Wurmser's hussars, or to the dragoons of Latour, or to the Archduke John, would be entertaining strange ideas of things; but neither the Hungarian Insurgents, nor the Cossacks, ever formed the vanguards of the Austrian and Russian armies; because to speak of a vanguard or a rear-guard, is to speak of troops which manoeuvre.