Direction

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Direction

DIRECTION. When a military writer speaks of going down a body of water, he means in the direction of flow. Burgoyne's offensive, for example, advanced up Lake Champlain from Canada to New York. No difficulty is encountered in the case of streams that run from north to south, as does the Hudson, but frequent errors are made as a result of thinking that north always means up, as it does on the conventional map. The left bank of a stream is the one on an observer's left as he or she faces downstream. The left flank of a formation is the left side as its members face the enemy; unless the enemy is retreating, his left flank is on the side of your right flank.

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