the.com/retreat
Walking backward on purpose, which armies and overworked executives both swear is strategy.
means To withdraw or pull back from a position, situation, or difficulty — whether that's an army falling back, or a person stepping away to rest and reflect.
from From the Old French 'retret,' the past participle of 'retraire,' meaning to draw back or pull away — itself from the Latin 'retrahere,' a tidy compound of 're-' (back) and 'trahere' (to drag or pull), the same 'trahere' lurking in 'tractor' and 'attract.' So at its root, a retreat is literally a dragging-of-oneself backward, which feels about right whether you're a routed regiment or someone fleeing email for a weekend in the woods.
- military art
- Sun Tzu called retreat a legitimate path to victory
- bugle call
- Armies retreated to specific trumpet songs
- silent kind
- Some meditation retreats forbid speaking for ten days
- napoleon's lesson
- His Russian retreat lost over 400,000 men
- etymology
- From Latin retrahere, literally to pull back
dunkirk evacuation — 338,000 allied troops evacuated from france in may 1940 during wwii
napoleon's retreat from moscow — french grande armée lost 400,000+ soldiers retreating in winter 1812
gallipoli withdrawal — british and anzac forces evacuated 120,000 troops from turkey in december 1915