In the first place your example would have prevented their breaking, and in the second you could have covered their retreat.

As it is, I fear that but few of the three thousand who were with me will reach Philippsburg.

I shall be glad if you yourself will remain near me.

If your regiment were going to keep together I would not take you from them, but being broken up into fragments, you could exercise no supervision over them in the darkness." Hector at once called the officers together, and gave them the necessary orders.

"You understand," he said, "that your main object is not so much to save yourselves, though that is most important, but to enable the cavalry to beat back the Bavarian horse." It was a terrible march; both horse and foot made their way along with difficulty through the darkness.