[129] Heudelet, writing from Talavera on Jan. 13, assured the King that he had certain information, by English deserters, that Wellington’s army, 16,000 foot and 7,000 cavalry, was at Merida, Badajoz, and Elvas on Dec. 31. As a matter of fact, the army had marched off between Dec. 9 and Dec. 20, and Wellington himself had retired into Portugal on Christmas Eve. On the day when Heudelet wrote he and his head quarters were at Vizeu, in the Beira. There was nothing to be feared from the west when Wellington had taken his departure. Albuquerque’s small force was powerless, and if Del Parque moved down from the Sierra de Francia into the valley of the Tagus, the 6th Corps could make a corresponding movement. Ney had now returned to take command at Salamanca, and the confidence of his troops, shaken somewhat by Marchand’s incapable leadership, was now restored. Behind Ney and Kellermann were the innumerable battalions of the new reinforcements from Germany, the head of whose column had now reached Burgos. The King’s rear, therefore, was well guarded when he began his great offensive movement against Andalusia. SECTION XVIII: CHAPTER III ANDALUSIA OVERRUN: CADIZ PRESERVED. JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1810 On the 19th of January, 1810, the unfortunate Areizaga began to receive from all quarters dispatches which left him no doubt that the fatal hour had arrived, and that the whole of his line, from Villamanrique on the east to Almaden on the west, was about to be assailed by the enemy. From every point on his front of 150 miles, his subordinates sent him in reports to the effect that strong hostile columns had come up, and had thrust in their outposts. Indeed, Zerain, from his remote cantonment on the extreme left, had announced that an overwhelming force, coming from the direction of Ciudad Real, had beaten him out of the town of Almaden as early as the 15th, and had compelled him to retire towards the south-west, leaving the direct road to Cordova uncovered. This was, of course, the corps of Victor, whose flanking movement was already threatening to cut the line of communication between La Carolina and Seville. But it would take some days for the 1st Corps to pass the rugged defiles of the Sierra de Los Pedroches, which lie between Almaden and the valley of the Guadalquivir. An even more pressing danger seemed to be foreshadowed from the less-remote right of the Spanish line, where Vigodet reported, from the pass of Villamanrique, that he had been driven in to his final fighting position at Montizon, by a French column marching up from Villanueva de los Infantes. In the centre, the enemy had advanced to Santa Cruz de la Mudela, where the roads to all the group of passes about the Despeña-Perros branch off, but had not yet shown how many of them he intended to use. Areizaga could not determine whether some of the French movements were mere demonstrations, or whether every one of them portended a real attack on the morrow.