Rear Guard - Contemporary Usage

Contemporary Usage

The commonly-accepted definition of a rear guard in military tactics was largely established in the battles of the late 19th century. Before the mechanization of troop formations, most rear guard tactics originally contemplated the use of cavalry forces. This definition was later extended to highly mobile infantry as well as mechanized or armored forces.

Narrowly defined, a rear guard is a covering detachment that protects the retreating main ground force element (main body), or column, and is charged with executing defensive or retrograde movements between the main body and the enemy to prevent the latter from attacking or interfering with the movement of the main body.

A more expansive definition of the rear guard arose during the large-scale struggles between nation-states during the First and Second World Wars. In this respect, a rear guard is a minor unit of regular or irregular troops that protect the withdrawal of larger numbers of personnel (military or civilian) during a retreat, by blocking, defending, delaying, or interfering with advancing enemy forces in order to gain time for the remainder to regroup and reorganize. Rear guard actions may be undertaken in a number of ways, either in defense, such as by defending strongpoints or tactically important terrain, or by pre-emptively assaulting the enemy as he prepares his own offensive operations with a spoiling attack. One example of a contemporary rear guard action is that fought by small units of the Serbian Army to protect the Serbian Army, its royal family, and Serbian refugees from advancing forces of the Central Powers during their retreat through Albania and Montenegro in 1915-1916. The nature of combat in rear guard actions involving combat between armies of nation-states is typically desperate and vicious, and rear guard troops may be called upon to incur heavy casualties or even to sacrifice all of their combat strength and personnel for the benefit of the withdrawing forces.