The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Cavalry General by Xenophon: simultaneously; since, while one detachment is retiring after
delivering its attack, a charge pressed home from the opposite quarter
cannot fail to throw the enemy into confusion and to give safety to
your friends.
[17] N.B. Throughout this treatise the author has to meet the case of
a small force of cavalry acting on the defensive.
How excellent a thing it is to endeavour to ascertain an enemy's
position by means of spies and so forth, as in ancient story; yet best
of all, in my opinion, is it for the commander to try to seize some
coign of vantage, from which with his own eyes he may descry the
movements of the enemy and watch for any error on his part.[18]
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