But on reaching La Guardia, Areizaga seemed suddenly to realize the dangers of his movement. No doubt it was the news that Victor was almost in his rear that paralysed him, but he halted on the ninth, when a bold advance would certainly have enabled him to seize Aranjuez, by evicting the small force under Milhaud and Sebastiani. For three fatal days, the 9th, 10th, and 11th of November, the Spanish main body remained halted in a mass at La Guardia, as if for the special purpose of allowing the enemy to concentrate. On the eleventh Areizaga at last began to move again: he sent forward the whole of his cavalry, supported by Zayas and his Vanguard division, to press back the force in his front. They found Milhaud’s five regiments of dragoons ranged in line of battle before the small town of Ocaña, and supported by Sebastiani’s Polish infantry. Freire advanced, using his triple superiority of numbers to turn both flanks of the French cavalry; Milhaud, after some partial charges, retired behind the Poles, who formed a line of six battalion squares. The Spanish horse made a half-hearted attempt to attack them, but were repelled by their rolling fire before they came to close quarters, and drew back. It was now four o’clock in the afternoon, and the Spanish infantry was only just beginning to come up. Zayas and Freire agreed that it was too late to begin a second attack, and put off fighting till the next morning. But during the night the French evacuated Ocaña and retired to Aranjuez, wisely judging that it would be insane to wait for the arrival of the Spanish main body. They had lost about fifty men, Freire’s cavalry just over two hundred. Next day [November 12], Areizaga brought up the whole of his army to Ocaña, and his cavalry reconnoitred up to the gates of Aranjuez and the bridge of Puente La Reyna. Sebastiani made ready to defend them, and having been joined by the German division from Toledo, wrote to Soult to say that he would resist to the last extremity, in order to gain time for the arrival of Victor’s corps and the other troops which were marching up from the west and north[96]. The attack which he expected was never delivered. Areizaga, nervous about the presence of the 1st Corps on his flank, had resolved to shift his army eastward to get further away from it. Abandoning his line of communication by La Guardia and Madridejos, he marched his whole force by cross-roads parallel to the Tagus up to La Zarza, and seized the fords of Villamanrique, twenty-five miles above Aranjuez, on the Madrid-Albacete road. If Victor, as he supposed, had been manœuvring on his flank, this movement would have cut him off from his base in Andalusia, and have left him only the mountains of Murcia as a line of retreat. But, as a matter of fact, the 1st Corps was no longer at Ajofrin or Mora, but had been called behind the Tagus, so that his retreat was safer than he supposed. [96] Sebastiani to Soult, night of the twelfth-thirteenth, from Aranjuez.