"Base of operations" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about three days ago. They wanted to take the old fortifications so as to control the road and use the place as a base of operations. It could hardly be called a big battle, but was more probably in the nature of a reconnaissance in force with four or five regiments of cavalry. This part of Belgium is the only place on the whole field of operations where cavalry can be used ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... dated 17th inst. 6-1/2 P.M., says the scouts report large masses advancing on Fredericksburg, and it may be Burnside's purpose to make that town his base of operations. (Perhaps for a pleasant excursion to Richmond.) Three brigades of the enemy had certainly marched to Fredericksburg. A division of Longstreet's corps were marched thither yesterday, 18th, at early dawn. Lee says if the reports of the scouts be confirmed, the entire corps will follow ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... superiority of France at sea had been a constant embarrassment. From this difficulty the capture of Calais would do much to deliver him, for Dover and Calais together bridled the Channel. Nor was this all. Not only would the possession of the town give Edward a base of operations against France, but it afforded an easy means of communication with the only sure allies of England, the towns of Flanders. Flanders seemed at this moment to be wavering. Its Count had fallen at Crecy, but his son Lewis le Male, though his sympathies were as French as his father's, was ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... United States army, and established his headquarters at Mobile. He repulsed the English at Fort Bowyer, on Mobile Point, and awaited orders from Washington to attack them at Pensacola, where, through the sympathy of the Spaniards who were then in possession of the Florida peninsula, they had their base of operations. ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... them who withdrew from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.' If he thus threw down his tools whenever he came to a little difficulty, and said, 'As long as it is easy work, and close to the base of operations, I am your man, but if there is any sacrifice wanted you must look out for somebody else,' he was not precisely a worker after Paul's own heart. And the best way to treat him was as the Apostle did; and to say to Barnabas' indulgent proposal, 'No! he would not do the work before, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... August 23d found me, after a speedy and pleasant trip southward, safely ensconced in the sanctum of my good friend Mr. Knapp, the head of the Special Relief Department. Starting from that base of operations, I spent two crowded weeks in ceaseless inquiries. Every avenue of information was thrown wide open. Two days I wandered, but not aimlessly, from office to office, from storehouse to storehouse, from soldiers' home to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... field hospital in an ambulance wagon of the second line of assistance. From the field hospital he is transferred as soon as possible by the ambulance train to the general hospital at the advanced base of operations, and from there in due time in another train to the base of operations at the coast, from which he is ultimately either returned to duty or sent home in a hospital ship. The organization by which these requirements are fulfilled is the following: ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... doctor to earn even the most modest competence from a people of such scandalous health, and so MacLure had annexed neighbouring parishes. His house—little more than a cottage—stood on the roadside among the pines toward the head of our Glen, and from this base of operations he dominated the wild glen that broke the wall of the Grampians above Drumtochty—where the snow-drifts were twelve feet deep in winter, and the only way of passage at times was the channel of the river—and the moorland district westward ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... of 1812-14, between Great Britain and the United States, the weak Spanish Governor of Florida—for Florida was then Spanish territory—permitted the British to make Pensacola their base of operations against us. This was a gross outrage, as we were at peace with Spain at the time, and General Jackson, acting on his own responsibility, ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... and forth, time and again, over the whole of northern Sonora and the southern half of Arizona, then comprised in Pimeria Alta, the upper land of the Pimas, and Papagueria, the land of the Papagos. His base of operations was a mission he established in Sonora; the mission of Dolores, founded in 1687. For some thirty years Kino laboured in this field with tireless energy, flinching before no danger or difficulty. He was the first white man to see the extraordinary ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... a chain of military stations and commercial depots, distant at intervals of three days' march, throughout Central Africa, accepting Gondokoro as the base of operations. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... object, unless a person has learnt and accustomed himself to honour and pursue what is noble rather than his own selfish interests. This gives a great field for the flatterer in friendship, who finds a wonderful base of operations in our self-love, which makes each person his own first and greatest flatterer, and easily admits a flatterer from without, who will be, so he thinks and hopes, both a witness and confirmer of his good opinion of himself. For he that lies ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... admirably conducive to the attainment of the end in view. He was permitted to encircle the slender, yielding waist with one arm as he sat by her side on the sofa, and to retain possession of her hand with the other; but any advanced movement from this base of operations was firmly and unhesitatingly repressed. At one moment, when the attacking party seemed to be on the point of pressing his advances with more vigour than before, it chanced that the Diva coughed; and ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... winter nap he still tasted pork and mutton from the autumn raid. Henceforth he must have more of that diet. So the reason for his changing his base of operations will be readily seen. One day's journey would carry him back into the wilderness, with its fine resources for fishing and hunting, while a day's travel in the opposite direction would bring him to the outskirts of the settlements, within easy striking distance ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... was passing, and capture a portion of our supply trains. Thus every day brought a battle or a skirmish, and its accession to the list of sick and wounded; and for a period of about three weeks, until Warrenton Junction was reached, the national army had no base of operations, nor any reinforcements or supplies. The sick had to be carried all that time over the rough roads in wagons or ambulances. Miss Barton with her wagon train accompanied the Ninth Army Corps, as a general purveyor for the sick. Her original supply of comforts was very considerable, and her men ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... having cleared the way, Hooker moved forward promptly on the 18th to occupy the gaps. The Twelfth Corps were sent to Leesburg, the Fifth to Aldie, and the Second to Thoroughfare Gap. The other corps formed a second line in reserve. This covered Washington and gave Hooker an excellent base of operations. ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... MAMSELLE'S SECRET, by Mrs. Marlitt. And that sentence is constructed upon the most approved German model. You observe how far that verb is from the reader's base of operations; well, in a German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and I have heard that sometimes after stringing along the exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry and have to go to press without ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... they succeed in doing this they would have us in a peculiarly tight place, as, once posted in force well down on our right flank, they would then at least be able to harass us badly in our communications with Rensburg, which is our main base of operations. It is there that the General has his headquarters; it is from there that we keep in touch, per medium of the railway and telegraph lines, with the rest of the British Army in South Africa. It is from there that we draw all our supplies of fodder and ammunition. ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... Commander, General Dearborn, divided his army of invasion into three parts, intending first to secure a base of operations at the three important points of Detroit, Niagara, and Queenston, and thence to overrun the Upper Province. He was confident that, with the help of the disaffected colonists, these columns would soon be able to converge and march together ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... generals must now make their choice between permitting themselves to be cut off from their base of operations and sources of supply and reinforcement, and attempting to reach Forsyth, in which case they will have to give us battle. The movement from Neosho leaves no doubt that they intend to fight. It is said by the deserters that Price would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... delight of all; for, cooped up in what were after all but narrow quarters, they longed for a sight of the green and beautiful forests, of which they had heard so much. They were still far from the destination which the admiral had marked as his base of operations. They cruised along for days, with the land often in sight, but keeping for the most part a long distance out; for they feared that the knowledge of their coming might be carried, by the natives, to the Spaniards in the towns; ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... raid of de Villiers, in the winter of 1747, convinced the English that so long as Chignecto was in possession of the French, and was used as a base of operations to defy the English Government, there could be no lasting peace or security for settlers of British blood. Taking this view of the matter, Governor Cornwallis determined to take measures to drive the French from the Isthmus. The unsettled state of ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... children were drilled in their parts with a military exactitude; obedience and punctuality became cardinal virtues. The vast importance of the undertaking was insisted upon with scrupulous iteration. It was a manoeuvre, an army changing its base of operations, a ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... of the conversation was that the next day at noon the mother was seen in factory yard with two pots of eatables from Marya's culinary establishment, while Marya herself transferred her base of operations ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... by an armed host, but it is only conquered by the establishment of fortresses. Words are the fortresses of thought. They enable us to realize our dominion over what we have already overrun in thought; to make every intellectual conquest the base of operations ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... or at any rate abstain from opposing them; a host of young and ardent investigators seek for and find inspiration and guidance in Mr. Darwin's great work; and the general doctrine of evolution, to one side of which it gives expression, obtains, in the phenomena of biology, a firm base of operations whence it may conduct its conquest of the ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... devoutly to be hoped for in view of events which had transpired in Central Asia. Khiva had been captured by the Russians. This Khanate intervened between Bokhara and the Caspian Sea, which the Russians used as their base of operations on the west. The plea of necessity was again put forward, and it might have been urged as forcibly on geographical and strategic grounds as on the causes that were alleged for the rupture. They ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Manor is an old house, near the mouth of the Thames, which is convenient, on account of its secret vaults and situation, as the base of operations in a Jacobite conspiracy. In consequence its owner, a kindly, quiet, book-loving squire, who lives happily with his sister, bright Mistress Amoril, finds himself suddenly involved by a treacherous steward in the closest meshes of the plot. He is conveyed ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... which he was able to obtain from the Mexicans, not connected with his band, concerning the places that the miners used as temporary depositories for their gold; and it was information of this sort that led Ramerrez and his men to choose a certain Mexican settlement in the mountains as a base of operations: namely, the tempting fact that a large amount of gold was stored nightly in the Polka Saloon, at the neighbouring camp on ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... perhaps have remained satisfied with such a result. But Ali did not look upon the suzerainty of a canton as a final object, but only as a means to an end; and he had not made himself master of Tepelen to limit himself to a petty state, but to employ it as a base of operations. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... mostly so bad, that they became the cause of endless discord where harmony was essential. In the seventies the idea was to restore the old French-Canadian life so as not only to make Canada proof against the disaffection of the Thirteen Colonies but also to make her a safe base of operations against rebellious Americans. In the eighties the great concern of the government was to make a harmonious whole out of two very widely differing parts—the long-settled French Canadians and the newly arrived United Empire Loyalists. In the nineties each of these ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... that the resources for a war of sieges could alone be looked for. It was there, too, that the most direct, the shortest, and in fact the only secure channel of communication with Carthage could be opened: to a Punic as to a British army, the true base of operations is the sea, the worst possible base for that of any other military power. Beyond all question, it was to the judicious choice of the south of Italy as his stronghold, and the combined skill and policy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... without favouritism or party consideration of any sort. Colonel Merewether, an officer of known talent, was appointed to make the preliminary preparations, and to select the spot best suited for the base of operations. The reconnoitring party selected a place called Mulkutto, in Annesley Bay, on the shores of the Red Sea, for that object. In the previous month, Sir Robert Napier, then Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay Army, was appointed to command the Abyssinian expedition, ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... other gentlemen." It was a desperate deed of determined men, a deed which foreshadowed the burning of Norfolk by patriots in the American Revolution a century later to prevent the British from using it as a base of operations. ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... British Navy, owing to the nature of the campaign in general and of the enemy's force in particular, was of that inconspicuous character which obscures the fact that without the Navy the operations could not have been undertaken at all, and that the Navy played to them the part of the base of operations and line of communications. Like the foundations of a building, these lie outside the range of superficial attention, and therefore are less generally appreciated than the brilliant fighting going on at the front, to the maintenance of which they are all the ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... localities. The account of their designation, and of their labours in Cyprus, Pamphylia, Lycaonia, and the surrounding regions, occupies two whole chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. The importance of their mission may be estimated from this lengthened notice. Christianity now greatly extended its base of operations, and shook paganism in some of its strongholds. In every place which they visited, the apostles observed a uniform plan of procedure. In the first instance, they made their appeal to the seed of Abraham; as they were themselves learned ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... shore to hit a small boat dancing on the waves in the daytime, and at night it is almost impossible. I suggested, therefore, that we might be re-enforced and provisioned by means of a number of small boats, supplied from several naval vessels as a base of operations. The same idea had occurred to Captain Fox; and on the present occasion he had brought thirty launches to be used for this purpose. They were to be manned by three hundred sailors, and in case they ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... of the city the greatest of Scott's difficulties. Vera Cruz, his base of operations, was two hundred and sixty miles distant; Puebla, his nearest supply-depot, eighty miles. He had abandoned his communications. His army was dependent for food on a hostile population. In moving round Lake Chalco, and attacking the city from the south, he ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... dry statistical details, over which we have spent some little time and care; but they furnish a base of operations. Yet something more remains to be added. We have, it is true, about two thousand names of places and five hundred of counties purely American, or at least due to American taste. In most instances the county-names are repeated in some of the towns within their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... of war, our cruisers in foreign waters were cut off from their base of operations, and the German Reservists in North and South America were prevented from returning home owing to the British Command of the Sea. Measures to assist them were therefore taken by the German Nationals and German ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... be bold and decided, but that to over-stretch the distance is worse than stepping short, because it leaves one in a position from which it is hard to recover. Having made your attack, you want to be in a position of easy retreat to the base of operations, which is ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... As a base of operations I had chosen the most southerly point we could reach with the vessel — the Bay of Whales in the great Antarctic Barrier. We hoped to arrive here about January 15. After having landed the selected shore party — about ten men — with materials for a house, equipment, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... later he decided that he was acclimated. He had secured a base of operations in the shape of a room on the seventh floor, his check was safely deposited in the hotel bank, and he was half-way through a lunch which had caused him already to look on New York not only as the finest city in the ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Alexandria, on the Potomac, with half the regiment. Washington, with the other half, had pushed forward to the storehouse at Wills Creek, which was to form the base of operations. Besides these, Captain Trent, with a band of backwoodsmen, had crossed the mountain to build a fort at the forks of the Ohio, where ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... I was satisfied that day; but the old oak was always a favourite resort, even when nothing particular was in hand. From thence, too, as a base of operations, we made expeditions varying in their object with the season of ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... acquainted with the inns and taverns of London than any man of his time. That Thames-side hostelry was evidently a favourite resort of the diarist. On both occasions of his visits to Southwark Pair he made the inn his base of operations as it were, especially in 1668 when the puppet-show of Whittington seemed "pretty to see," though he could not resist the reflection "how that idle thing do work upon people that see it, and even ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... First and most directly, the cold itself is a distinct obstacle to the comfort of many of these creatures; as a secondary result of this cold, the food of many animals disappears entirely in winter. Most of our birds meet this difficulty by changing their base of operations. When the north grows cold these creatures fly to the south. Some of their migrations cover enormous stretches of country. Our bobolink, so well known and loved by all watchers of spring migrations, passes twice a year between the latitude of New York and Rio Janeiro. ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... defensive, relieve the frontiers of Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania, and in the end add a vast territory to the domain of the republic. In the accomplishment of all these designs the soil of Kentucky was to be used as a base of operations. ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... the attitude of the Dattos became very menacing. Datto Andong actually cut a trench just outside the walled town of Jolo as a base of operations against the Americans. It was evident that an important rising of chiefs was contemplated. Major Scott having called upon the biggest chief, Panglima [262] Hassan, to present himself and account for ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... town derives its name (Wynd-Caleton) flows at its foot. The history of Wincanton is miscellaneous but unromantic. In 1553 travellers gave the place a wide berth on account of the plague. In the Great Rebellion a Parliamentary garrison used the town as a base of operations against Sherborne Castle. In the Revolution the Prince of Orange (William III.) had here a brisk but successful skirmish with a squad of James's Dragoons. The prince's lodgings are still pointed out in South Street. The town, however, contains no antiquities. ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... stranger, who might have belonged to that reckless epoch, and who bore every evidence of being a successful Pike County miner out on a "spree," appeared at one of the tables with a negro coachman bearing two heavy bags of gold. Selecting a faro-bank as his base of operations, he began to bet heavily and with apparent recklessness, until his play excited the breathless attention of every one. In a few moments he had won a sum variously estimated at from eighty to a hundred thousand dollars. A rumor went round the room that it was ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... of the official atmosphere, I hesitated over my next move. Lessard's high-handed squelching of MacRae had thrown everything out of focus. We'd planned to report at headquarters, see Lyn, if she were at Walsh, and then with Pend d' Oreille as a base of operations go on a still hunt for whatever the Writing-Stone might conceal. That scheme was knocked galley-west and crooked, for even when MacRae's term expired he'd get a long period of duty at the Fort; he'd lost his rank, and as a private his coming and going would be according to barrack-rule ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... proof, revise. drawing, scheme, schematic, graphic, chart, flow chart (representation) 554. forecast, program, programme, prospectus; carte du pays [Fr.]; card; bill, protocol; order of the day, list of agenda; bill of fare &c (food) 298; base of operations; platform, plank, slate [U.S.], ticket [U.S.]. role; policy &c (line of conduct) 692. contrivance, invention, expedient, receipt, nostrum, artifice, device; pipelaying [U.S.]; stratagem &c (cunning) 702; trick &c (deception) 545; alternative, loophole; shift &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... well known to those familiar with events at the beginning of the war, that the Washington authorities decided to change McClellan's base of operations in the movement against the rebel capital (Richmond, Va.), to the Peninsula. Accordingly, in the spring of 1862, over one hundred thousand men and material of the Army of the Potomac, at that time, and subsequently, the largest ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various |
