Bad as was the position selected, the way in which it was occupied was still more strange. The Captain-General had divided his host into two halves, the one consisting of the first division of the army of Galicia and of the vanguard brigade, the other of the fourth Galician division and the raw ‘Army of Castile.’ Blake with the first-named force was drawn up in a short, compact formation, three lines deep, at the south-eastern front of the hill, the ‘Plateau of Valdecuevas,’ as it is called. His right looked down into the plain, his left, in the centre of the plateau, stood quite ‘in the air.’ But nearly a mile to his left rear, and quite out of sight, lay the other half of the army, just too far off to protect Blake’s exposed flank if it should be attacked, and in a very bad position for defending itself. Why Cuesta ranged his left wing (or second line, if it may so be called) low down on the reverse slope of the plateau, and in a place where it could not even see Blake’s corps, it is impossible to conceive. Toreño hazards the guess that, in his arrogant confidence, he placed Blake where he would have to bear the stress of the battle, and might probably lose ground, intending to come up himself with the left wing and restore the fight when his colleague should be sufficiently humbled. Such a plan would not have been outside the scope of the old man’s selfish pride. Bessières, marching up from the east, came in sight of the Spaniards in the early morning. He at once deployed his whole army, and advanced in battle array over the plain. In front was a slight cavalry screen of Lasalle’s chasseurs; next came Mouton’s division, deployed to the right, and Merle’s division, with Sabathier’s brigade, to the left of the country-road which leads, over the plateau, towards Medina de Rio Seco. The Imperial Guard, horse and foot, and the bulk of Lasalle’s cavalry brigade were in reserve behind the centre. On getting near the enemy’s position, Bessières soon discovered the two halves of the Spanish army and the broad gap which lay between them. His mind was at once made up: he proposed to contain Cuesta with a small force, and to fall upon and envelop Blake with the rest of his army before the Captain-General of Castile could come to his aid. This excellent plan was carried out to the letter, thanks to the incapacity of Cuesta.