Zerain was too far off to be helped; but Vigodet’s demands for assistance were so pressing that the Commander-in-Chief sent off to his aid, on the night of the 19th, the one division which he had hitherto kept in reserve at La Carolina, the 4,000 bayonets of Castejon. This left him only three divisions--those of Zayas, Lacy, and Giron, not more than 9,000 men in all, to defend the high-road to Madrid and the subsidiary passes on its immediate flank. [Illustration: ANDALUSIA, to illustrate the Campaign of 1810.] As a matter of fact, the appearance of the French advanced guards implied a genuine attack at every possible point of access. King Joseph had resolved to carry the whole of the defiles by a simultaneous onslaught on the morning of the 20th. His policy seems to have been one of very doubtful wisdom, for it would have been as effective to pierce the Spanish line at one point as at four, and he could have concentrated an overwhelming force, and have been absolutely certain of success, if he had launched his main body at one objective, while demonstrating against the rest. He had preferred, however, to cut up his army into four columns, each of which assailed a different pass. Sebastiani, on the extreme French left, separated by a gap of twenty miles from the main column, was the enemy who had driven in Vigodet at the opening of the Villamanrique pass. He had with him the remains of his own 4th Corps--of which such a large proportion had been left behind in New Castile,--a body of about 10,000 men[130]. His orders were to force the defile in his front, and to descend into the plain in the rear of the Spanish centre, by way of Ubeda and Linares, so as to cut off the enemy’s retreat towards Murcia, and to envelop him if he should hold the Despeña-Perros too long. [130] Viz. by the ‘morning states’ of January 15, in the French War Office, Sebastiani had: Polish Division, 4,809 men; 58th of the Line, 1,630 men; Milhaud’s Dragoons, 1,721 men; Perreymond’s Light Horse, 1,349 men; Artillery and Engineers, 569 men; or a total of 10,078 sabres and bayonets.