Violent end met by destitute retreating soldiers (5)
I believe the answer is:
troop
'soldiers' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'violent end met by destitute retreating' is the wordplay.
'end' suggests the final letters.
'met by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'destitute' becomes 'poor' ('poor' can be similar in meaning to 'destitute').
'retreating' is a reversal indicator.
The final letter of 'violent' is 't'.
'poor' back-to-front is 'roop'.
't'+'roop'='TROOP'
(Other definitions for troop that I've seen before include "Body of soldiery" , "Large group (of soldiers?)" , "Force" , "Group of kangaroos" , "platoon?" .)