Definition & Meaning | English word REAR-GUARD

Definitions of REAR-GUARD

1. Of, or relating to, a rearguard.
2. Of, or relating to, resistance in politics, etc.

Examples of Using REAR-GUARD in a Sentence

• During the French invasion of Russia in 1812, Bagration commanded one of two large Russian armies (Barclay de Tolly commanded the other) fighting a series of rear-guard actions.
• However, Napoleon's victory did not lead to the collapse of the coalition, and the weather and the uncommitted Russian reserves who formed an effective rear-guard precluded a major pursuit.
• They arrived at Thermopylae by late August or early September; the outnumbered Greeks held them off for seven days (including three of direct battle) before their rear-guard was annihilated in one of history's most famous last stands.
• There General McClellan had left a rear-guard under General Fitz John Porter, while the rest of the army crossed the river.
• In the Dutch Republic, he served under Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne, frequently distinguishing himself by his skill and bravery; and when Turenne was killed by a cannon shot in 1675, he commanded the rear-guard during the retreat of the French army.
• His long rear-guard retreat from the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain is understandable, as Sherman used his numerical superiority for constant large flanking movements.
• They performed military construction and rear-guard services, repaired tanks and military equipment, as well as some tasks in the industrial and social-service sectors, were subject to military law and disciplinary regulations, were commanded by NVA officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs), and received engineer training and political education.
• However, irregulars can excel at many other combat duties besides main-line combat, such as scouting, skirmishing, harassing, pursuing, rear-guard actions, cutting supply, sabotage, raids, ambushes and underground resistance.
• By 4 June, the 90th were again fighting rear-guard actions on the line Ponte Orsino - Trevi and had retreated further north.
• Successively, the French were defeated in several smaller battles: the Battle of Sabugal, Fuentes de Onoro, Battle of Condeixa, Battle of Casal Novo, and the Battle of Foz de Arouce, in addition to Michel Ney's rear-guard action at the Battle of Pombal.
• In the early morning of 11 November he and Gazan departed from Dürenstein to seize Stein and Krems, presuming the Russians had either abandoned the settlements or left only a small rear-guard behind.
• Morris took his battalion to France on 12 August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I and was killed in action on 1 September, during the Retreat from Mons when the 4th (Guards) Brigade formed a rear-guard for the 2nd Division in La forêt de Retz near Villers-Cotterêts where he is buried in the Guards' Grave.
• The Austro-Hungarians conducted a rear-guard action, but lost Orsova along with the west bank of the Cerna on 4 September, retreating north of Mehádia.
• The Battle of Venta del Pozo, also known as the Battle of Villodrigo by the French and Spanish, was a rear-guard action fought as part of the Peninsular War on 23 October 1812 between an Anglo-German force led by Major-General Stapleton Cotton against French cavalry under Major-Generals Jean-Baptiste Curto and Pierre François Xavier Boyer.
• On Sunday night, October 16, 1859, at about 11 PM, Brown left three of his men behind as a rear-guard, in charge of the cache of weapons: his son Owen Brown, Barclay Coppock, and Francis Jackson Meriam.
• On 4, 5 and 6 July the Tungan forces streamed out of Kashgar towards Khotan, apparently expecting Ma Zhongying to follow with the rear-guard, as he had done during the retreat from Korla to Kashgar.
• For about a month, the insurgents' regimented troops used Terni as a rear-guard for war efforts against Rieti and Civita Castellana; however, Papal resistance, the failure of France to help, and the reaction of Austria, which had in the meantime retaken the Legations, induced Sercognani to abandon the enterprise.

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