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"The Plattsburg Manual A Handbook for Military Training"

If you are unsuccessful in the bayonet fight or
forced to retire from your trenches during the fire fight your
artillery, cavalry and any formed reserves in the rear will cover your
withdrawal, which, if possible, should be made straight to the rear, one
part covering the withdrawal of the other part, and so on. Reorganize at
the first opportunity.


CHAPTER III
PATROLLING

Everything else being equal the army that possesses the most accurate
information about the enemy will win. Military history recites the fact
that almost every important battle has been either lost or won because
of information or lack of information that one side had or did not have
of the other side. It is by the use of patrols that the most valuable
information of the enemy is usually obtained.
There are many kinds of patrols, but it is with reconnoitering or
information seeking patrols that this chapter deals.

DUTIES OF A PATROL

Each reconnoitering patrol is given a certain mission (duty) to perform.
The name, "reconnoitering," meaning to survey, to view, indicates that
its first duty is to get information, and information is always greatly
increased in value if the enemy does not know it has been obtained.


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