Italy's membership of the Triple Alliance was always subject to two conditions, first, that the Alliance was to be purely defensive, and second, that Italy would never support either of her partners in war against England.

So far as the Romans were concerned, they were essentially defensive wars, the proper objects of which were to hold the passes of the Pyrenees, to detain the Macedonian army in Greece, to defend Messana and to bar the communication between Italy and Sicily.

16061619 The states-general now resolved to confine their military operations to a war merely defensive.

All her wars were virtually defensive, to maintain the honor, safety, and dignity of the nation.

With the readjustment of her tresses, Haguna recovered the marvellously defensive self-possession that had been momentarily disturbed.

These men, warriors and politicians at one and the same time, in a high social position and in the flower of their age, could not reconcile themselves to the Constable de Montmorency's system, defensive solely and prudential to the verge of inertness; they thought that, in order to repair the reverses of France and for the sake of their own fame, there was something else to be done, and they impatiently awaited the opportunity.

And soas in a tablebe it witty words, of which TACITUS is full; sentences, of which LIVY; or similitudes, whereof PLUTARCH: straight to lay it up in the right place of his storehouseas either military, or more specially defensive military, or more particularly, defensive by fortificationand so lay it up.