If you determine to fight vigorously until night, you may expose yourself to a complete defeat before that time arrives; and if a forced retreat must begin when the shades of night are shrouding every thing in darkness and obscurity, how can you prevent the disintegration of your army, which does not know what to do, and cannot see to do any thing properly? If, on the other hand, the field of battle is abandoned in broad daylight and before all possible efforts have been made to hold it, you may give up the contest at the very moment when the enemy is about to do the same thing; and this fact coming to the knowledge of the troops, you may lose their confidence,--as they are always inclined to blame a prudent general who retreats before the necessity for so doing may be evident to themselves. Moreover, who can say that a retreat commenced in the daylight in presence of an enterprising enemy may not become a rout? When the retreat is actually begun, it is no less difficult to decide whether a forced march shall be made to get as much the start of the enemy as possible,--since this hurried movement might sometimes cause the destruction of the army, and might, in other circumstances, be its salvation. All that can be positively asserted on this subject is that, in general, with an army of considerable magnitude, it is best to retreat slowly, by short marches, with a well-arranged rear-guard of sufficient strength to hold the heads of the enemy's columns in check for several hours. Retreats are of different kinds, depending upon the cause from which they result. A general may retire of his own accord before fighting, in order to draw his adversary to a position which he prefers to his present one. This is rather a prudent maneuver than a retreat. It was thus that Napoleon retired in 1805 from Wischau toward Brunn to draw the allies to a point which suited him as a battle-field. It was thus that Wellington retired from Quatre-Bras to Waterloo. This is what I proposed to do before the attack at Dresden, when the arrival of Napoleon was known. I represented the necessity of moving toward Dippoldiswalde to choose a favorable battle-field. It was supposed to be a retreat that I was proposing; and a mistaken idea of honor prevented a retrograde movement without fighting, which would have been the means of avoiding the catastrophe of the next day, (August 26, 1813.) A general may retire in order to hasten to the defense of a point threatened by the enemy, either upon the flanks or upon the line of retreat. When an army is marching at a distance from its depots, in an exhausted country, it may be obliged to retire in order to get nearer its supplies. Finally, an army retires involuntarily after a lost battle, or after an unsuccessful enterprise.