On the day after Ferrol was occupied, Soult received the last communication from the Emperor which was to reach him for many a day[203]. It was dated from Valladolid on January 17. We have already had occasion to refer to it more than once, while dealing with the controversies of King Joseph and Marshal Victor. This dispatch repeated the Emperor’s former orders, with some slight concession in the matter of dates. Instead of reaching Oporto on February 1 the Marshal was to be granted four extra days, and after taking Oporto on February 5, he was to reach Lisbon on the sixteenth instead of the tenth. Soult was also told that he would not have to depend on his own resources alone: Victor with the 1st Corps would be at Merida by the time that the 2nd Corps was approaching the Portuguese capital: he would be instructed to send a column in the direction of Lisbon, to make a diversion in favour of the attack from the north, and at the same time Lapisse from Salamanca should move on Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida. Bessières was, so the Emperor said, under strict orders to send Lapisse forward into Portugal the moment that the news should reach him that the 2nd Corps had captured Oporto. This combination sinned against the rules of strategy, as they had to be practised in Spain. The Emperor had yet to realize that in order to make operations simultaneous, when troops starting from bases several hundred miles apart are to co-operate, it is necessary that their generals should be in free communication with each other. But Soult, when he had advanced into Portugal, was as much out of touch with the other French corps as if he had been operating in Poland or Naples. It was literally months before accurate information as to his situation and his achievements reached Salamanca, Merida, or Madrid. The movements of Victor and Lapisse being strictly conditioned by the receipt of news concerning Soult’s progress, and that news being never received, or received too late, the combination never did and never could take place. Napoleon had forgotten to reckon with the ubiquitous Spanish insurgent: here, as in so many cases, he was unconsciously assuming that the bearer of dispatches could ride freely through the country, as if he were in Saxony or Lombardy; and that Soult could make known his movements and his desires as often as he pleased. French critics of the Emperor generally confine themselves to censuring him for sending the 2nd Corps to attempt unaided a task too great for it[204]; this is not quite fair, for he had intended to support Soult by two strong diversions. The real fault lay in ignoring the fact that in Spain combined operations, which presuppose constant communication between the participants, were practically impossible. The same error was made in 1810, when Drouet was told to co-operate in Masséna’s invasion of Portugal, and in 1811 when Soult was directed to lend a helping hand to that same invasion.