‘In any other country of Europe,’ wrote Marshal Jourdan, ‘the gaining of two such successes as Medellin and Ciudad Real would have reduced the country-side to submission, and have enabled the victorious armies to press forward to new conquests. In Spain the reverse was the case: the greater the disaster suffered by the national troops, the more willing were the population to rise and take arms. Already the communications between Victor and Sebastiani were cut: several bearers of dispatches were massacred, and even some detachments cut off. An insurrection almost burst out at Toledo, where a garrison of insufficient strength had been left. It was only averted by the providential arrival of an officer with a reinforcement of 500 men. The communications of the 1st Corps with Madrid were in no better state: bands of insurgents gathered in the valley of the Tietar, and threatened to fall upon Almaraz and to break the bridge of boats. The King had to send down in haste 600 bayonets from Madrid to preserve this all-important post[196].’ At the same time the road from Almaraz to Salamanca was closed by a trifling Spanish force of two battalions under the brigadier Carlos d’España which had been levied about Caceres and Bejar, and occupied the pass of Baños. It was aided by a battalion of the Loyal Lusitanian legion, which Sir Robert Wilson had sent forward from Almeida. Thus Lapisse at Salamanca could only communicate with Victor at Merida by the circuitous route of Arevalo, Madrid, and Almaraz. [196] Jourdan, _Mémoires_, pp. 187-8.