"Pitched battle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Isle of Man; but, on his namesake following him thither, he doubled back to Orkney, and, after killing all the adherents of his enemies there, crossed over to Caithness with a strong force. In a pitched battle "near Wick," said to have been fought at Clairdon near Thurso, he slew Harald Ungi, and utterly defeated his army, in 1198.[40] Harold the Old then endeavoured to make terms with the king, and offered him a large ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... always avoid a pitched battle. In irregular fighting we are as good as they—better, for we can move more quickly—but when it comes to fighting in order of battle, we have no chance with them, whatever. Their cavalry, the other day outside Tarichea, were like wolves ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... be 'sat upon' by a coroner's jury, who having learned from a 'horse-doctor' that he was 'dead as a door-nail, so there was an end,' returned their verdict accordingly, just as he returned to his senses, when an angry altercation and a pitched battle between the body and the coroner winds up the lay with ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Babylonian territory he seems to have had some difficulty in forcing Bitiliashu, the Kassite king who then occupied the throne of Babylon, to a decisive engagement. But by a skilful disposition of his forces he succeeded in hemming him in, so that the Babylonian army was compelled to engage in a pitched battle. The result of the fighting was a complete victory for the Assyrian arms. Many of the Babylonian warriors fell fighting, and Bitiliashu himself was captured by the Assyrian soldiers in the midst of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... you on the 19th day of October at Cedar Run, whereby, under the blessing of Providence, your routed army was reorganized, a great National disaster averted, and a brilliant victory achieved over the rebels for the third time in pitched battle within thirty days, Philip H. Sheridan is appointed a major-general in the United ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... than a regular pitched battle between the McGregors and the McRaes of the Sixteenth, and all on Ranald's account, too, ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... at times; in slight skirmishes pretty often; and once, at least, as the reader will find to his mortification, if he is wicked enough to take the side of the Philistines, a most smashing victory in a pitched battle. But even then, and whilst the hurrahs were yet ascending from our jubilating lips, the freezing remembrance came back to my heart of that deadly depression which, duly at the coming round of the morning and evening watches, travelled with me like my shadow on our approach to the memorable ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... policy. History pins him to that folly. But in another respect the interview with Lyons on July 20 and the letter to Adams of the day following overthrow for both Seward and for the United States the accusations sometimes made that it was the Northern disaster at Bull Run, July 21, in the first pitched battle with the South, which made more temperate the Northern tone toward foreign powers[234]. It is true that the despatch to Adams was not actually sent until July 26, but internal evidence shows it to have been written ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... Mr. Charlton, this is precisely a case in which we will not accept a pitched battle, if we can help it. After a while, when the prosecuting parties feel less bitter toward you, we might get some of the evidence mislaid, out of the way, or get some friend on the jury, or—well, we might manage somehow to dodge trial on the case as ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... have foretold the destruction of their nation, as well as the coming of the Saxons, and afterwards that of the Normans; and I think a circumstance related by Aulus Gellius worth inserting in this place. On the day that Caius Caesar and Cneius Pompey, during the civil war, fought a pitched battle in Thessalia, a memorable event occurred in that part of Italy situated beyond the river Po. A priest named Cornelius, honourable from his rank, venerable for his religion, and holy in his manners, in an inspired moment ...
— The Description of Wales • Geraldus Cambrensis
... month, and then again moved on after our enemy, our cavalry, pontoon bridges, and artillery coming on by the most convenient passes of the mountains. While on the march we often had slight skirmishes with the enemy, but no regular pitched battle until we came to the Nivelle, where Soult had taken up a strong position. There our army halted in line, determined to attack and proceed if possible into France, as nothing more remained to be done in the Peninsula, Pampeluna having been obliged, owing to shortness of provisions, to surrender ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... "Comprehensive Dictionary" first appeared in print. On the publication of his "Universal and Critical Dictionary," in 1846, it was renewed, and, not to speak of occasional skirmishes during the interval, the appearance of Dr. Worcester's enlarged and finished work brought matters to the crisis of a pitched battle. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... Beaulieu was not yet two-and-twenty, but he counted himself a grown man, and a very accomplished cavalier into the bargain. Lads were early formed in that rough, warfaring epoch; and when one has been in a pitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed one's man in an honourable fashion, and knows a thing or two of strategy and mankind, a certain swagger in the gait is surely to be pardoned. He had put up his horse with due care, and supped with due deliberation; ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... of the Feast of Bairam that we set out, and when we arrived at Adrianople, the city was illuminated and the street was filled with joyful crowds. News had arrived to the effect that a pitched battle had been fought between the Russian army and the forces of Raouf Pasha, and the Turks were reported to have been magnificently victorious. But Adrianople saw another sight next morning when the trains from ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... our informant, "the news of this affray nearly caused a pitched battle between Bajice and Cetinje, which was only prevented by the energetic action of the Prince. He called the two clans together before his palace and with marvellous judgment picked out the ring-leaders and imprisoned them, and the rest were sent home with ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... and these he more than realized. Having the 30 good fortune to be concerned with so ill-organized and disorderly a description of force as that which at all times composed the bulk of a Turkish army, he carried victory along with his banners; gained many partial successes; and at last, in a pitched battle, overthrew the Turkish force opposed to him, with a loss of 5000 ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... every day in our coming campaign, which I well foresee will be terribly severe. At first our generals did not know how to use cavalry, and beyond escort and picket duty little was asked of it. Now all this is changed. Cavalry has its part in every pitched battle, and in the intervals it has many severe conflicts of its own. Daring, ambitious leaders are coming to the front, and the year will be one of great and hazardous activity. My chief regret is that Hilland's wound did not disable him wholly from further service in the field. Still he will come ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... of it to obedience and tribute, but not, apparently, by means of any such centralized bureaucratic organization as the Assyrians had established. Just before his father's death he had beaten the Egyptians in a pitched battle under the walls of Carchemish, and subsequently had pursued them south through Syria, and perhaps across the frontier, before being recalled to take up his succession. He had now, therefore, no rival or active competitor in Syria, and this part of the lost ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... the laurels of Poitiers were flung on the ground; after vainly attempting Rheims and Paris, Edward was constrained, by cruel weather and lack of provisions, to retreat toward his ships; the fury of the elements made the retreat more disastrous than an overthrow in pitched battle; horses and men perished by thousands, or fell into the hands of the pursuing French. Chaucer, who had been made prisoner at the siege of Retters, was among the captives in the possession of France when the treaty of Bretigny — the "great peace" — was concluded, in May, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... the Austrians at Hatszeg, in the valley of the Streiu. Here on the 14th a pitched battle was begun in a mountain defile, which lasted two days and resulted in the defeat of a force of Magyars. On the 18th General von Staabs, commanding a large force of German troops, attacked the Rumanians in the Hatszeg sector, and after a very hot fight thrust ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... himself forty days afterwards [24] with the rest of his forces Yet were not the enemy aftrighted at his assault but met him in arms; for their skill was that of warriors, but their boldness was the boldness of robbers: when therefore it came to a pitched battle, they put to flight Herod's left wing with their right one; but Herod, wheeling about on the sudden from his own right wing, came to their assistance, and both made his own left wing return back from its flight, and ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... historical importance. Ulster had now for some time been in a state bordering on anarchy; not only were the secret societies constantly at war, but marauding bands, pretending to belong to one or other of the societies, were ravishing the country. Something like a pitched battle was fought between the Protestants and the Defenders, in which the Defenders, although they were the stronger party and made the attack, were utterly routed. In the evening, the victors agreed to form ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... circumstances, enabled us to ascertain the situation. The Committee could no longer hesitate: I myself renounced the hopes which I had based upon a grand manifestation, upon a powerful reply to the coup d'etat, upon a sort of pitched battle waged by the guardians of the Republic against the banditti of the Elysee. The Faubourgs failed us; we possessed the lever—Right, but the mass to be raised, the People, we did not possess. There was nothing ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... raised and disciplined a body of cavalry called the Ironsides. These men were all fanatics in religion and fought with a sternness and vigor which carried all before them. In the eastern counties they had already done great service; but this was the first pitched battle at which they had been present. Their onslaught proved irresistible. The Royalist cavalry upon the left were completely broken, and the Roundhead horse then charged down upon the rear of the king's infantry. Had Rupert ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... in which Rough Riders and colored regulars covered themselves with glory, was only a first brisk skirmish between the advanced outposts of opposing armies, but its influence on both sides was equal to that of a pitched battle. It furnished a notable example of the steadiness and bull-dog tenacity of the American regular, as well as the absolute fearlessness and determination to win, at any cost, of the dudes and cowboys banded ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... when the Romans understood, on those days which we call Sabbaths they threw nothing at the Jews, nor came to any pitched battle with them; but raised up their earthen banks, and brought their engines into such forwardness, that they might do execution the next day. And any one may hence learn how very great piety we exercise towards God, and the observance of his laws, since the priests were not at all hindered from their ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... was determined to avoid a pitched battle, placed a strong force at Joko to watch his motions, and separating the remainder of his army into small detachments, ordered them to overrun the country, and seize upon the inhabitants, before they ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... was killed by the bursting of a shell in his own intrenchments, but Sir William Johnson took the command, and nothing could withstand that brave and skilful fellow. Aubrey came to Pouchot's relief with at least a thousand men collected from the other forts, but was beaten in a pitched battle before the place, which had to surrender at discretion, and the governor and garrison were made prisoners, but were allowed to march out with the honours of war. This and the loss of Frontenac make the English masters of ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... opened fire on our rear; but to this a stop was speedily put by a flag of truce, improvised from a ramrod and a white handkerchief. We were allowed to fire only three or four volleys in return. This skirmishing tries courage, I believe, more than a pitched battle. To lie on the ground for hours, two or three miles in front of your main body, ten feet from the nearest man, and be fired at without firing yourself or making any noise, is a different thing from standing in your place amid the throng and all the noise, excitement, and enthusiasm of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... would have stayed and fought, however uneven and hopeless the battle. But he found the girl a mental block to all thoughts of open, pitched battle on the shadowy, moonsilvered slopes. He might surprise the pursuers and flush them by some type of ambush. But they would be too many for him, and his feeble try would end ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... I. mentions a pitched battle against the Muskhu, who numbered 20,000 men; and another against Kiliteshub, King of Kummukh, in his first campaign. In one of the following campaigns he overcame the people of Saraush and those of Maruttash, and also 6000 Sugi; later on ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... one battle sweeps away! How it purges families of younger brothers, highways of robbers, and cities of cuckold-makers! There is nothing like a pitched battle for these brisk addle-heads! Your physician is a pretty fellow, but his fees make him tedious, he rides not fast enough; the fools grow upon him, and their horse bodies are poison proof. Your pestilence ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... to leave their mark, until Howesha, in a moment of absolute terror, twisted and met her teeth in the upper portion of the back part of Taffadaln's hind-leg, of which there is no tenderer part in the camel's anatomy, following which action ensued a pitched battle. ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... respecting the terror which the name of the Medes inspired, and the prostration of men's spirits before the apparently resistless career of the Persian arms. It is therefore, little to be wondered at, that five of the ten Athenian generals shrank from the prospect of fighting a pitched battle against an enemy so superior in numbers, and so formidable in military renown. Their own position on the heights was strong, and offered great advantages to a small defending force against assailing masses. They deemed it mere foolhardiness to descend into the plain to be trampled down by the Asiatic ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... be, events shaped a different course for us, perhaps because the Abati got wind of our intention and had no stomach for a pitched battle with desperate men. As it happened, this night from sunset on to moonrise was one of a darkness so remarkable that it was impossible to see anything even a foot away, also a wind blowing from the east made sounds very inaudible. Only ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... him in charge of his coloured following, darkies who had never realised that slavery was abolished. To make sure of this, he read them a proclamation that he had composed, which announced that General Forrest had reorganised the shattered Southern armies and defeated the North in one pitched battle. The negroes believed him implicitly. They passed a vote declaring it a good thing ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Smith's intention to raise a large-sized row it was apparent that he had been successful. Rebstock, driven to desperation, held council after council to determine what to do. Sorties were discussed, ambushes considered, and a pitched battle was planned. But, while ideas were plentiful, no one aspired to lead an attack ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... unmercifully beaten; and when a West Virginia boy was discovered on the Ohio side, he was pounced upon in the same manner. One day a vast number of boys, about one hundred and fifty on a side, met by appointment upon the ice and engaged in a pitched battle. Every conceivable missile was used, including pistols. The battle, says the local paper, raged with fury for about two hours. One boy received a wound behind the ear, from the effects of which he died the next morning. More recently the boys of a large manufacturing ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... us whether a Pitched battle can take place on land. Answer.—Certainly not. When we speak of a battle being Pitched we mean that it has ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... rebellious. It is not so long since the railway employes of Pennsylvania, striking work upon an every-day quarrel between employer and employed, took possession of the iron highways of the State, intercepted communication, seized the great railway arsenal of Pittsburg, and fought a pitched battle against the militia, as obstinate and almost as sanguinary as the minor combats of the Civil War. While we write, another strike of the same class has suspended the traffic of the great Western railway line. In three States the ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... many perverted stories of their adventure immediately got abroad in Willoughby. Telson's highly-coloured version made it appear that a pitched battle had been fought between Game and the new captain, resulting in the defeat of the former chiefly through Telson's instrumentality and assistance. As, however, this narrative did not appear in the same dress two hours running, it was soon taken for what it was worth, and most fellows preferred ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... was not easy to recognise the young Guthrie Carey of old Redford days in this stern, tough, substantial man, steady as a rock amid the winds and waves of incalculable fate. Just now he had the look of a military commander braced for a pitched battle. And the V.C. has been won for many a less courageous enterprise than that on which ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... execution. Hwanti, the emperor who had the courage to punish this powerful noble, was the last able ruler of the Hans. His reign was, on the whole, a brilliant one, and the Sienpi tribes, who had taken the place of the Hiongnou, were, after one arduous campaign, defeated in a pitched battle. The Chinese were on the verge of defeat when their general, Twan Kang, rushed to the front, exclaiming: "Recall to your minds how often before you have beaten these same opponents, and teach them again to-day that in ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... the essence of a stupid, weak, or otherwise ill-regulated mind (of such a murderer's mind, in short), to recognise in this set off, a something that diminishes the base and coward character of murder. "In a pitched battle, I, a common man, may kill my adversary, but he may kill me. In a duel, a gentleman may shoot his opponent through the head, but the opponent may shoot him too, and this makes it fair. Very well. I take this man's life for a reason I have, or choose to think ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... New England that did not have some trouble with its neighbor. In 1666 Stamford and Greenwich came to blows over their dividing line, and in 1672 men from New London and Lyme attempted to mow the same piece of meadow and had a pitched battle with clubs and scythes. Not many years later the inhabitants of Windsor and Enfield "were so fiercely engag'd" over a disputed strip of land, reported an eye-witness, that a hundred men met to decide this controversy by force, "a resolute combat" ensuing between ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... applied fire to all the houses, with a thoroughness and method which showed that this was not the work of stragglers or camp-followers, but that it was the result of a settled plan. At last news came that the Russians had resolved to fight a pitched battle at Borodino, and the spirits of ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... pasturage of the country, and no sooner bad the clover sprung up in the new clearings than the Southdown ram got hoven upon it and died. The two remaining rams, not having been accustomed to much high living since their arrival at Newera Ellia, got pugnacious upon the clover, and in a pitched battle the Leicester ram killed the Cotswold, and remained solus. An epidemic appeared among the cattle, and twenty-six fine bullocks died within a few days; five Australian horses died during the first year, and everything seemed to be ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... scattering of Municipals and Legals. The Municipal forces were rushing up toward the dome, and surprised Legals were frantically arriving in trucks. There was the beginning of a pitched battle right at the spot where ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... completely victorious. Berkeley is driven to Accomac, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake, but, succeeding in capturing a fleet sent to oppose him, he returns with this and captures Jamestown. Beaten by Bacon in a pitched battle, he again retires to Accomac, and the colony comes fully under the power of his antagonist, the colonists agreeing even to fight England should it interpose on the governor's side, when a decisive change in affairs is brought about by ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... British fighting service do men unduly dwell upon the loss of fallen comrades, for it is quite justly held that the man who yields up his life in the service of his country has done a glorious thing, whether he falls in a pitched battle deciding the fate of an empire, or in some such obscure and scarcely chronicled event as the attack upon a slave factory. He is, where such is possible, laid in his last resting-place with all the honourable observance ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... another man hath when he hath taken a cup too much." Baxter says of him, complainingly, "he would not dispute with me at all." But, in the midst of such an army, he could not lack abundant opportunity for the exercise of his peculiar powers of argumentation. At Amersham, he had a sort of pitched battle with the contumacious soldiers. "When the public talking day came," says he, "I took the reading-pew, and Pitchford's cornet and troopers took the gallery. There did the leader of the Chesham men begin, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Babylonia. But the difficulties which stood between them and their homes were of a very different character. How were they to find their way back, or obtain provisions, in defiance of a numerous hostile cavalry, which, not without efficiency even in a pitched battle, would be most formidable in opposing their retreat? The line of their upward march had all been planned, with supplies furnished, by Cyrus:—yet even under such advantages, supplies had been on the point of failing, in one part of the march. They ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... are the children of the fiend, And they have power until the end of Time, When God shall fight with them a great pitched battle And hack ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... greater and more hopeful. It is a kind of illusion easy to produce. A particular shape of cloud, the appearance of a particular star, the holiday of some particular saint, anything in short to remind the combatants of patriotic legends or old successes, may be enough to change the issue of a pitched battle; for it gives to the one party a feeling that Right and the larger ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reader of mine who visited Naples under the old disorder of things, when the Bourbon and the Camorra reigned, will like to hear that the pitched battle which travellers formerly fought, in landing from their steamer, is now gone out of fashion. Less truculent boatmen I never saw than those who rowed us ashore at Naples; they were so quiet and peaceful that they harmonized perfectly ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... into his councils. He was as ignorant of the army which he commanded as of the country which he occupied. Nor was he a great general. He had been principally occupied in France in hunting and hanging the poor Protestants of Dauphiny and the Cevennes. He had never fought a pitched battle; and his incapacity led to the defeat of the Irish at Athlone, and afterwards ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... length appeared cased in complete armour and on horseback; how they drove the Turk from Nicaea over against Constantinople, where he had fixed his imperial city, to the farther borders of Asia Minor; how, after defeating him in a pitched battle at Dorylaeum, they went on and took Antioch, and then at length, after a long pilgrimage of three years, made conquest of Jerusalem itself, I need not here relate. To one point only is it to our present purpose ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... on the 20th and the 22d to bring about a general pitched battle arose from the unfortunate policy pursued from Dalton to Atlanta, and which had wrought 'such' demoralization amid rank and file as to render the men unreliable in battle. I cannot give a more forcible, though ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... On September 4, 1260, a date much to be remembered in the history of these times, the banished Ghibelines, aided by eight hundred of Manfred's German horse, seized the opportunity of hostilities between the Florentines and the Sienese to meet their opponents in a pitched battle. This took place on the Arbia, near the fortress of Montaperti, to the east of Siena.[17] The Guelfs were utterly routed, partly, it would seem, through the incompetence of some of the Elders who accompanied the army, and who, civilians ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... rueful countenance, for he had hoped to have settled this war in a pitched battle; and there were few things the worthy man seemed to enjoy more than a stand-up fight on level ground. A fair field and no favor was his delight; but climbing the hills was his mortal aversion. He was somewhat too corpulent and short of ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... pleased with himself that he quite wished for another occasion of displaying his bravery; and, what with use, and what with the increasing spirit of pugnacity, he was as sincere as Ralf Percy in abusing the French for never coming to a pitched battle. Perhaps, indeed, Malcolm spoke even more eagerly than Ralf, in his own surprise and gratification at finding himself no coward, and his fear lest Percy should detect that he ever had been supposed to ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Marne. Far and away from a spectacular point of view, the most interesting portion of that decisive conflict was among the hills and valleys and woods of Lorraine, where over a front of eighty miles the Bavarians and the French swayed back and forth in fierce pitched battle. For the Bavarians were striking at the French right flank toward the gap of Miracourt and the German Crown Prince was striking in the Argonne at the same time that Von Kluck was striking at the French left. The Bavarians and the crown prince failed, while Von Kluck extended ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... themselves in the wood; the other was, that by this time the Marechal Schomberg, with the horse of the van, began to get back through the lane, and to make good the ground from whence the other had been beaten, till at last by this means it came to almost a pitched battle. ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... conflict, skirmish; rencounter^, encounter; rencontre^, collision, affair, brush, fight; battle, battle royal; combat, action, engagement, joust, tournament; tilt, tilting [Mediev.]; tournay^, list; pitched battle. death struggle, struggle for life or death, life or death struggle, Armageddon^. hard knocks, sharp contest, tug of war. naval engagement, naumachia^, sea fight. duel, duello [It]; single combat, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... weeks before during his struggle to keep the German center from being pierced. Then it had been mainly infantry fighting at close range; now it was the labored pounding of heavy guns, the pushing ahead of trench-work preparatory to another pitched battle. ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... even compulsory, with members who may, within certain limits, choose their own time for speaking. All the cream of debate is now skimmed before the dinner-hour. At the close of a pitched battle, the two Leaders of Party, as heretofore, wind up the debate. But their opportunity for orating is severely circumscribed. The audience in the House of Commons does not begin to reassemble after dinner till half-past ten. Rising at that ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Tigers, when well matched, fight head to head and mouth to mouth, as do nearly all other carnivora, and at the same time they strike with their front paws. One of the finest spectacles I ever witnessed was a pitched battle between two splendid tigers, in a cage which afforded them ample room. With loud, roaring coughs, they sprang together, ears laid tight to their heads, eyes closed until only sparks of green and yellow fire flashed through four narrow slits, and their upper lips snarling high up to ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... unworthy of the name of a campaign. Vendome, who commanded the French, though at the head of a gallant army above eighty thousand strong, had too much respect for his formidable antagonist to hazard any offensive operation, or run the risk of a pitched battle, unless in defence of his own territory. On the other hand, Marlborough, harassed by the incessant opposition of the Dutch deputies, and yet not strong enough to undertake any operation of importance without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... rapidity! In spite of all the obstacles placed in her path, not only by the enemies of her country, but by those nearest to the ear of the King, Orleans had been delivered in four days' time, the English host had been in a week driven out of their strongholds on the Loire, and defeated in a pitched battle! The King unwillingly, and with many of his Court opposed to the enterprise, after passing through a country strongly occupied by the enemy without having lost a man, had by the tact and courage of Joan of Arc been enabled to reach Rheims; and after this successful ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... shall see. On the day when I retire from office, we will go together. But you are not a Deputy, my friend. Many men want your place; but for me, you would be out of it by this time. Yes, I have fought many a pitched battle to keep you in it.—Well, I grant you your two requests; it would be too bad to see you riding the bar at your age and in the position you hold. But you stretch your credit a little too far. If this appointment gives ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... friends fought a pitched battle with the countless forces of the enemy on the plains of Esthonia. Their heads fell before him like autumn leaves, and their scattered limbs were strewn about in heaps like straw or rushes. His horse waded in blood and bones to the belly; for the Kalevide slaughtered ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... frontier without attracting attention, and as soon as he possibly could he held a consultation with their Commander, who was an old and experienced warrior. Following his advice, he decided to have a pitched battle as soon as the enemy advanced, and this Brandatimor lost not a moment in doing, as he was perfectly persuaded that he was now going to make an end of the war and utterly vanquish Farda-Kinbras. But no sooner had he given the order ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... which shall serve us better than all the plunder here. No harm must come to that youngster; his life is worth thousands to us." Then, turning to Luke, he continued, "I'm loth to hurt you; yet what can I do? You must have the worst of it if we come to a pitched battle. I therefore advise you, as a friend, to draw off your forces. We are three to three, it is true; but two ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... arrival of these reinforcements added new fuel to the old feuds of the Beni-Modhar, and the Yemenis or Beni-Kahttan; and a desperate civil war raged till 746, when the Khalif's lieutenant, the Emir Abu'l-Khattar, who supported the Yemenis, was killed in a pitched battle fought near Cordova. The leader of the victorious tribe, Yusuf Al-Fehri,[11] now assumed supreme power, which he exercised nearly ten years as an independent ruler, without reference to the court of Damascus. The state of affairs in the East, indeed, left little leisure to the Umeyyan khalifs ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... overspread the circumjacent country. It looks not unlike a gorgeous sunset, throwing its splendor over the heaven of my countenance. It will behoove me to show myself as little as possible, else people will think I have fought a pitched battle. . . . The Devil take the stick of wood! What had I done, that it should bemaul me so? However, there is no pain, though, I think, a very ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... arrived. Dohna's strength was numerically about the same as the king's, and with his thirty thousand men Frederick had no doubt that he would make but short work of the eighty thousand Russians, of whom some twenty-seven thousand were the Cossack rabble, who were not worth being considered, in a pitched battle. Deceiving the Russians as to his intentions by opening a heavy cannonade on one of their redoubts, as if intending to ford the river there, he crossed that evening twelve miles lower down and, after some manoeuvring, faced the ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... the field had experienced such terrible disasters, and the fortune of war seemed so fickle, now lighting upon one banner and now upon another, that all parties were wary, practicing the extreme of caution, and disposed rather to act upon the defensive. Though not a single pitched battle was fought, the allies, outnumbering the Prussians, three to one, continually gained fortresses, intrenchments and positions, until the spirit even of Frederic was broken by calamities, and he yielded to despair. He no longer hoped to be able to preserve ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... of the genius of Parma as a general, and of the soundness of his views as to Philip's policy. Henry was throttling Paris; by masterly movements Parma evaded the pitched battle, for which Bearnais thirsted, yet compelled his adversary to relinquish the siege. Nevertheless, Henry's activity was hardly checked; and when Parma, in December, returned to the Netherlands, he found the Spanish provinces in a deplorable state, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... to the wishes of the Prince the Duke had made the fatal mistake of waiting two days, and all that time the enemy had been throwing up their formidable trenches. It was the famous field of Malplaquet, the last on which Marlborough was fated to fight a pitched battle. The object of Villars was to prevent the Allies from taking Mons, not far away, to northwards, the siege of which was in progress. Marlborough had lost heavily at Tournai; Villars, behind his defences, had suffered comparatively little. ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... spring with his great army, Sir Archie, I will assuredly adopt the course which you point out, seeing that we could not hope to withstand so great an array in a pitched battle; but the case is different now. In the first place all the castles and towns are in the hands of the English, and from them Pembroke can draw such provision as he needs. In the second place his force is not so superior to our own but that we ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... unimitated action: He has left the conflict open, and the defeated chief on the field that He may win not simply against the chief, but through that victory may win the whole prodigal race back to His Father's home circle again. But the great pitched battle is yet to come. I would better say a pitched battle, for the greatest one is past. Jesus rides into the future fight a Victor. Satan will fight his last fight under the shadow and sting of a defeat. Satan is apparently trying hard to get a Jesus. That ...
— Quiet Talks on Prayer • S. D. (Samuel Dickey) Gordon
... destruction of that fierce viceroy had been resolved upon, it was not until after much doubt and hesitation, and against his original judgment, that that course of action was entered upon which ended in the victory of Plassey. He knew the risk that was run in fighting a pitched battle against a force nearly twenty times larger than his own; and had the viceroy been either a respectable ruler or a good soldier, the English, humanly speaking, must have then failed as signally as their predecessors of 1687; but as he was as destitute of humanity as of courage and skill, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... A political pitched battle was imminent. The Ministers declined to withdraw their confidence from the Lord High Commissioner, though they passed on him censure for his hasty and independent proceedings. That the members of Government had a high appreciation ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... signal encouragement to those who had joined the revolt against the Union, but as no blood had been spilled, and as the garrison had been starved out rather than shelled out, there was a limit to enthusiasm over the result. But now a pitched battle had been fought within cannon sound of the National Capital, and the forces of the Union had been put to flight. Jefferson Davis had come from Richmond during the battle, and telegraphed to the Confederate Congress that the night had "closed upon a hard-fought ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... troop were drunk. The following scene ensued. Two of the gallant heroes, being deprived of the chance of making war upon the old women and boys at Salisbury, who had the week before pelted their Cornet, actually stripped and had a pitched battle. All command was at an end. The Serjeant-major fruitlessly endeavoured to call them to order; they were all now become too vain and too valiant to be under the controul of any one. Some had mounted their horses, and swore ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... who would not come to terms with Limahon, but on the contrary had killed him in order to do the king of China a favor. This Omocon, when he saw that the corsair was defeated and without any hope of getting ships, and ascertained that Limahon could not engage in a pitched battle, and concluding that the consummation had come, said that he would go to notify the Yncuanton of Chinchiu. Then he offered to take some of the religious with him, saying that he would take as many as wished to go. Accordingly ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... in the darkness, and arrived safe home on the stoker's chin. With a tiger-like roar of fury, the stoker charged, and on the engineer's dodging conjecturally aside, fell heavily over the parish boundary-stone. He rose, foaming, and a pitched battle ensued, in which the combatants saw nothing but the brilliant showers of stars evoked by an occasional head-blow, and the general advisability of homicide. Toward dawn fatigue overcame them. The stoker lay down and declined ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... me upon the horns of a dilemma. Let that pass, for the moment, however. What I want, now, is that each of you should, in as few words as possible, express your opinion upon the Prince's suggestion that I should take the whole of my ships into Port Arthur roadstead and engage the enemy in a pitched battle." ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... saw that to attempt to carry out his orders, now, would bring on something like a pitched battle, and he therefore waved his men back, ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... the steep slippery bank to report progress. After a little while he returned to say that the river-side was not far off, where boats could be hired for the upward journey. The word given, the porters threw themselves upon my packages; a pitched battle ensued, out of which issued the strongest Spanish Indians, with their hardly earned prizes, and we commenced the ascent of the clayey bank. Now, although the surveyors of the Darien highways had considerately cut steps up the steep incline, they had become ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... nearly reached as by that of Sparta. The Spartan spent his life in the barrack and the mess-room; his amusements were the exercises of the parade ground. For many generations a Spartan force had never been defeated in a pitched battle. We have had, in modern times, some instances of a hectoring soldiery arrogantly prancing amongst populations whose official defenders it had defeated in battle; but nonesuch could vie with the Spartans ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... subprefectures, and municipal buildings in order to read the day's news. At times it was entirely false, at others some slight success of the French arms was magnified into a victory, and a petty engagement became a pitched battle. The news in the French newspapers was usually very belated and often quite unreliable, though now and again telegrams from London were published, giving information which was as near to the truth as the many English war correspondents on both sides could ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... a civil war. We are past that fear. Recollect that, in one county alone, there have been within a few weeks sixty murders or assaults with intent to murder and six hundred burglaries. Since we parted last summer the slaughter in Ireland has exceeded the slaughter of a pitched battle: the destruction of property has been as great as would have been caused by the storming of three or four towns. Civil war, indeed! I would rather live in the midst of any civil war that we have had in England during the last two hundred years than in some parts of Ireland ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... remains of the vanquished to the care of Viscount de Turenne, his near relative. Henry showed a simple and modest joy at his splendid triumph. It was five and twenty years since the civil war commenced, and he was the first Protestant general who had won a pitched battle; he had to regret only twenty-five killed, whereas the enemy had lost more than three thousand, and had abandoned to him their cannon, together with twenty-nine flags or standards. The victory was so much the more glorious in that it was gained over an army superior in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... in 1886. Just previous to that fatal catastrophe, a series of great strikes had occurred in and about that city. At the McCormick Reaper Works a crowd of men was being addressed by Spies, an anarchist, when the "scabs" left the factory. A pitched battle ensued. The police were called, and, when they were assaulted with stones, they opened fire on the crowd, shooting indiscriminately men, women, and children, killing six and wounding many more. Spies, full of rage, hurried to the office ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... on Broadway walking at a furious pace uptown. He had no idea how furious the pace until he suddenly noticed that he was an object of mild curiosity. He slackened his speed, conscious at last that big forces were fighting within the first pitched battle for the ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... neighbor—was the sense of humor and of sarcasm they encouraged. To hurl dead donkey against your enemy's town-wall passed for a good joke, and discredited his honor more than the loss of a hundred fighting men in a pitched battle. Frontier fortresses received insulting names, like the Perugian Becca di questo, or like the Bolognese Grevalcore. There was much, in fact, in these Italian wars which reminds one of the hostilities between rival houses in ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... feathers and having all their hair shaved excepting one large lock, which is plaited and hangs down on the right side of the head. This unfortunate people could make only a poor resistance to the Egyptian trained infantry and powerful chariot force. They were completely defeated in a pitched battle; numbers of the chiefs were made prisoners, while the people generally fled to their caves, where they remained hidden, "like jackals, through fear of the king's majesty." Seti, having struck terror into their ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... were at this time causing Marie Antoinette great anxiety. One of her most frequently expressed wishes had been that the French fleet should have an opportunity of engaging that of England in a pitched battle, when the judicious care which M. de Sartines had bestowed on the marine would be seen to bear its fruit. But when the battle did take place, the result was such as to confound instead of justifying her patriotic expectations. In April, the English Admiral Rodney ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... dressed out in a gown and mortar-board, and the whole party then sallied out to battle. From time immemorial it has been the custom at Oxford for the town-people and the scholars to engage, at least once a year, in a wild scrimmage, and the pitched battle was now due. No doubt it was not quite fair for the men of Brazenface to bring the Putney Pet up from London for the occasion; but for some years Gown had been defeated by Town, and they were resolved ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... with no little interest a pitched battle between a wooden-legged sailor and a French stevedore. The sailor, although he was wanting in one of his limbs, was said to be a valuable seaman one who would never shrink from work of any kind. He would go aloft in a gale or in a calm, and lend a hand at reefing or furling as promptly ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... from his ships, leading the troops who were on board, and terrified the inhabitants so much that they shut themselves up in their strongholds. The men of Sikyon alone ventured to meet him at Nemea, and them he overthrew in a pitched battle, and erected a trophy. Next he took on board troops from the friendly district of Achaia, and, crossing over to the opposite side of the Corinthian Gulf, coasted along past the mouth of the river Achelous, overran Akarnania, drove the people of Oeneadae to the shelter of their ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... his head, to be borne instead over the Cross, which the priests had brought from their church to greet him. He then organised his military forces, and hearing that Rasul Khan had marched out towards the city at the head {115} of 3000 men, he resolved on fighting a pitched battle. He divided his infantry into three divisions, commanded respectively by Pedro Mascarenhas, Dom Garcia de Noronha, and himself; and he placed his cavalry, amounting to about thirty troopers, under Manoel de Lacerda. Owing to the Portuguese ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... existence of this army, it took up a position between Novarra and Milan, cutting off all communication between the duke and his capital. He was therefore compelled, in spite of his inferior numbers, to prepare for a pitched battle. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... A pitched battle between Zeppelins, battle cruisers, and submarines on the German side, and destroyers, land batteries, aeroplanes and sea planes on the British side, took place in the morning of April 25, 1916, near Lowestoft. A number of aeroplanes and sea planes rose to attack the Zeppelins ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... the idea of the word "reserve," as elsewhere used in war. The reserve in battle is that portion of the force which is withheld from engagement, awaiting the unforeseen developments of the fight; but no general would think of carrying on a pitched battle with the smaller part of his force, keeping the larger part in reserve. Rapid concentration of effort, anticipating that of the enemy, is the ideal of tactics and of strategy,—of the battle-field and of the campaign. It is that, likewise, of the science of mobilization, in its modern ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... might address you who is not on our side, and if you were then to show him your fans, there would be a fearful scandal; the other party is quite as hot-headed as we are, and many a pitched battle has taken place between the Teresiani and the Prussiani. Come, sir; I must accompany you. We will not go by the canal, but through the small by-streets; they will lead us quickest to the Riva di Schiavoni, and then to the Rialto, which is ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... the skiffs were brought ashore and released from their two days' confinement, and Abel's train and Skipper Ed's train, after the manner of Eskimo dogs, immediately engaged in a pitched battle. They began by snarling and snapping at one another with ugly, bared fangs, and then followed a rush toward each other and they became a rolling, tumbling mass of fearsome, fighting creatures, and had to be beaten asunder with stout sticks before they could ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... "and that shall soon be settled." And thereupon he flew with his Queen to the residence of the bear, and called to him from the entrance, "Old grumbler, why have you insulted my children? That shall cost you dear, for we will decide the matter by a pitched battle." ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... nowadays-to conceive the effect these smugglers had upon life thereabouts and then. They were the power to which everything else deferred. They used to overrun the country in great bands, and brooked no interference with their business. Not long before they had defeated regular troops in a pitched battle on the Marsh, and on the very day I went away I remember we couldn't do our carting because the smugglers had given us notice they would need our horses in the evening. They were a power in the land where there was violence ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... murder of Caesar in B. C. 44. In it he describes the conspiracy of L. Sergius Catilina, a man of noble birth and high rank, but ruined circumstances; its discovery, and the punishment of the conspirators at Rome in B. C. 63; and its final and complete suppression in a pitched battle at the beginning of ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... glimpse of the same Fra Roberto da Lecce at Rome, in the year 1482. The feuds of the noble families della Croce and della Valle were then raging in the streets of Rome. On the night of April 3 they fought a pitched battle in the neighborhood of the Pantheon, the factions of Orsini and Colonna joining in the fray. Many of the combatants were left dead before the palaces of the Vallensi; the numbers of the wounded were variously estimated; and all Rome seemed ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... army. I had always believed in the French army, and have more reason now than ever to believe in it. There was no doubt that if a French corps and a German corps were set the task of marching a hundred miles to a strategic position, the French would arrive first and win the day in a pitched battle. But no one knew this better than that German Staff whose superiority, as von Moltke said, would always ensure victory. Was the French army ready? Could it bring the fullness of its strength into the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the Old Steamboat Wharf, where Big Alec's ark was lying. An ark is a house-boat of small though comfortable dimensions, and is as necessary to the Upper Bay fisherman as are nets and boats. We were both curious to see Big Alec's ark, for history said that it had been the scene of more than one pitched battle, and that it ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... tale. I told you how I was out with the Minute Men in '76 at Moore's Creek, where we fought the Scotchmen. It was our first pitched battle, and I opine it smelled somewhat of severity on both sides—no quarter was asked, and the Tory MacDonalds fought like fiends for King George, small cause as they had to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... days, whose heroic nose and conquering chin you have so often made me draw: I jest with the utmost freedom of spirit even in the moment of battle: yes, for within an hour I shall give battle, a pitched battle—to my dear pew-dwelling aunt. Fortunately, audacity and courage never failed me, and I burn with impatience for the engagement with my ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Diebitsch hurried across Bulgaria in forced marches. Coming up in Reshid's rear he could either fall upon Shumla or force the Turks to open battle. He chose the latter course. The Turks, harried in their rear, attempted to regain the roads to Shumla. On June 10, the two forces met in a pitched battle at Kulevtcha. Reshid was badly defeated, losing 5,000 men and forty-three guns, but made good his retreat to Shumla. Diebitsch had to lay siege to Shumla. Soon after this, Silistria fell into the hands of the Russians. Turning Varna over to the Bulgarians, and ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... in a novel. Perhaps, as indeed is pretty generally the fact in such cases, a capacity of reading again is required in the person as well as one of being read again in the book. The late Mr. Mark Pattison was not a friend of mine, and we once had a pitched battle; nor was he in any case given to borrow other people's expressions. But he was a critic, if he was anything, and he once did me the honour to repeat verbatim—whether consciously or not I cannot say, but in the very periodical where it had originally appeared—a sentence of mine about ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... dangerous position he remained shut up for several weeks. He finally succeeded in throwing across a light bridge by which his army regained the left bank on the night of July 4. Finding their position turned the Austrians took up their stand on the tableland of Wagram. On July 6 another pitched battle was fought, which, in the number of combatants engaged and in the losses inflicted on both sides, must rank with the later conflicts of Borodino and Leipzig. A hard won victory rested with the French, but it was not such a victory as that of Austerlitz or Jena, though it secured the neutrality, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... hurrying to sack Aberdeen when he was met by Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, the gentry of the northern Lowlands, mounted knights, and the burgesses of the towns, some eighteen miles from Aberdeen, at Harlaw. There was a pitched battle with great slaughter, but the Celts had no cavalry, and the end was that Donald withdrew to his fastnesses. The event is commemorated by an old literary ballad, and in Elspeth's ballad in Scott's ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... carp ran their heads against the tightly drawn meshes; the men were obliged to beat down the marine giants with loaded staves. The fishes became furious; the cold-blooded creation showed itself capable of heroic devotion, and rose against the invaders in pitched battle. The struggle ended in the defeat of the fishes. The dog-fish were knocked on the head, the net shook out many beautiful white fogasch and schille; but the fogasch-king would not ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... the 9th, there was heavy fighting, and on the 10th another pitched battle took place. This time the ground was more open, and the artillery was employed with terrible effect on both sides. It ended, however, as the previous battles had done, by ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... crowds until my departure from the city. Arriving at the caravanserai, my valiant protectors undertake to keep the following crowd from entering the courtyard; the crowd refuses to see the justice of this arbitrary proceeding, and a regular pitched battle ensues in the gateway. The caravanserai-jees reinforce the soldiers, and by laying on vigorously with thick sticks, they finally put the rabble to flight. They then close the caravanserai gates until the excitement has subsided. Khoi is a city of perhaps ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... would make him foam at the mouth, and they sent in several requests that they might be allowed to shoot him for their own protection. The boys in camp had no special love for the M. P.'s either, and there was very nearly a pitched battle when Nipper appeared one day with two raw welts across his back, suspicion being ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... assistance of the Campanians, which was readily granted. Thereupon the Samnites turned their arms against the Campanians, and, after occupying Mount Tifata, which overlooks the city of Capua, they descended into the plain, and defeated the Campanians in a pitched battle at the very gates of Capua. The Campanians, being shut up within the city, now applied for assistance to Rome, and offered to place Capua in their hands. The Romans had only a few years previously concluded an alliance ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... covering the mountains. Thou shouldst burn the house of that person whom thou punishest with death. And thou shouldst never permit beggars and atheists and thieves to dwell in thy kingdom. By a sudden sally or pitched battle by poison or by corrupting his allies, by gift of wealth, by any means in thy power, thou shouldst destroy thy foe. Thou mayest act with the greatest cruelty. Thou shouldst make thy teeth sharp to give a fatal bite. And thou should ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... principle she would place contending parties by surprise in the very situation which of all others they most wished to avoid, and then give the signal for a pitched battle, by begging the enemies would shake hands with one another. Now she had heard it reported in Yorkshire that there was some coolness between the Elmours and Miss Turnbull; but she was morally certain there could be no truth in this report, for ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... should be out-generalled by Mr Slope: and just at present it appeared probable that Mr Slope would turn his flank, steal a march on him, cut off his provisions, carry his strong town by a coup de main, and at last beat him thoroughly in a regular pitched battle. The archdeacon felt that his flank had been turned when desired to wait on Mr Slope instead of the bishop, that a march had been stolen when Mr Harding was induced to refuse the bishop's offer, that his provisions would ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... hoped that after one pitched battle they should be able to advance upon Jerusalem, but they had reckoned without the climate ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty |
