Wellington played a similar part in the Spanish peninsula.

To merely remain in a defensive attitude, yielding gradually to the
advances of the enemy, without any effort to regain such positions or
provinces as may have fallen into his power, or to inflict on him some
fatal and decisive blow on the first favorable opportunity; such a
system is always within the reach of ignorance, stupidity, and
cowardice; but such is far from being the true Fabian system of
defensive war.

"Instead of finding security only in flight; instead of habitually
refusing to look the enemy in the face; instead of leaving his march
undisturbed; instead of abandoning, without contest, points strong by
nature or by art;--instead of all this, the true war of defence seeks
every occasion to meet the enemy, and loses none by which it can annoy
or defeat him; it is always awake; it is constantly in motion, and never
unprepared for either attack or defence. When not employed in efforts of
courage or address, it incessantly yields itself to those of labor and
science. In its front it breaks up roads or breaks down bridges; while
it erects or repairs those in its rear: it forms abbatis, raises
batteries, fortifies passes, or intrenches encampments; and to the
system of deprivation adds all the activity, stratagem, and boldness of
_la petite guerre_. Dividing itself into detachments, it multiplies its
own attacks and the alarms of the enemy. Collecting itself at a single
point, it obstructs his progress for days, and sometimes for weeks
together. Does it even abandon the avenues it is destined to defend? It
is but for the purpose of shielding them more securely, by the attack of
his hospitals, magazines, convoys, or reinforcements. In a word, by
adopting the maxim, that the _enemy must be made to pay for whatever he
gains_, it disputes with him every inch of ground, and if at last it