month later that the number of troops brought forward to the line of the Ebro approached the total strength of the host of the intrusive King. The offensive operations of Blake and Palafox did not commence till the second half of September, when the columns of the ‘Grand Army’ were already drawing near to the Pyrenees, and all possible chance of success had long gone by. They were not developed till October, when the counter-stroke of the French was fully prepared. From August 15 down to the day of the battle of Zornoza (October 31) there are two months and a half of wasted time, during which the Spaniards did nothing more than stir up an ineffectual rising in Biscay and gradually push to the front scattered corps whose total did not amount to much more than 100,000 men. The troops of Bonaparte on the other hand--now under the orders of Jourdan, who arrived at Miranda on August 25[341]--had little to do but to ward off the feeble attempts to cut their communications in Biscay, and to incorporate, brigade by brigade, the numerous reinforcements which kept marching in from Bayonne. For even ere the three veteran corps from Germany came to hand, there was a continuous stream of troops pouring across the Pyrenees. Most important, perhaps, of all the arrivals was that of Marshal Ney, the toughest and most resolute of all the Emperor’s fighting-men, who brought with him a spirit of enterprise and confidence which had long been wanting in the army of Spain[342]. [341] See his _Mémoires_ (pp. 66, 67) for the situation at this date. [342] He arrived at Irun on Aug. 30 (_Madrid Gazette_, Sept. 17th, 1808). SECTION VI: CHAPTER II CREATION OF THE ‘JUNTA GENERAL’