Bulow has found defenders who declare that I mistake his meaning, and that by the term eccentric retreat he did not understand a retreat made on several diverging roads, but one which, instead of being directed toward the center of the base of operations or the center of the country, should be eccentric to that focus of operations, and along the line of the frontier of the country.
I may possibly have taken an incorrect impression from his language, and in this case my criticism falls to the ground; for I have strongly recommended that kind of a retreat to which I have given the name of the parallel retreat. It is my opinion that an army, leaving the line which leads from the frontiers to the center of the state, with a view of moving to the right or the left, may very well pursue a course nearly parallel to the line of the frontiers, or to its front of operations and its base. It seems to me more rational to give the name of parallel retreat to such a movement as that described, designating as eccentric retreat that where diverging roads are followed, all leading from the strategic front.
However this dispute about words may result, the sole cause of which was the obscurity of Bulow's text, I find fault only with those retreats made along several diverging roads, under pretense of covering a greater extent of frontier and of threatening the enemy on both flanks.
By using these high-sounding words flanks, an air of importance may be given to systems entirely at variance with the principles of the art. An army in retreat is always in a bad state, either physically or morally; because a retreat can only be the result of reverses or of numerical inferiority. Shall such an army be still more weakened by dividing it? I find no fault with retreats executed in several columns, to increase the ease