Even allowing for the fact that Areizaga had been the victim of the Junta’s insensate resolve to make an offensive movement on Madrid, it is impossible to speak with patience of his generalship. For a combination of rashness and vacillation it excels that of any other Spanish general during the whole war. His only chance was to catch the enemy before they could concentrate: he succeeded in doing this by his rapid march from the passes to La Guardia. Then he waited three days in deplorable indecision, though there were only 10,000 men between him and Madrid. Next he resumed his advance, but by the circuitous route of Villamanrique, by taking which he lost three days more. Then he halted again, the moment that he found Victor with 20,000 men in his front, though he might still have fought at great advantage. Lastly he retreated, yet so slowly and unskilfully that he was finally brought to action at Ocaña by the 34,000 men of Mortier and Sebastiani. He was sent out to win a battle, since Madrid could not be delivered without one, and knew that he must fight sooner or later, but threw away his favourable opportunities, and then accepted an action when all the chances were against him. For he must have known by this time the miserable quality of his cavalry, yet gave battle in a vast plain, where everything depended on the mounted arm. In the actual moment of conflict he seems to have remained in a hypnotized condition on his church-tower, issuing hardly an order, and allowing the fight to go as it pleased. Yet he was, by all accounts, possessed of personal courage, as he had proved at Alcañiz and elsewhere. Apparently responsibility reduced him to a condition of vacillating idiocy. Perhaps the most surprising fact of the whole business is that the Junta retained him in command after his fiasco, thanked him for his services, and sent him an honorary present--as it had done to Cuesta after Medellin with somewhat better excuse. He was its own man, and it did not throw him over, even when he had proved his perfect incompetence. To complete the narrative of the deplorable autumn campaign of 1809, it only remains to tell of the doings of Albuquerque and Del Parque. The former played his part with reasonable success; he was ordered to distract the attention of the enemy from the army of La Mancha, and did what he could. Having got some 10,000 men concentrated at Almaraz, he sent one column over the Tagus to demonstrate against the 2nd Corps from beyond the river, and with another threatened the bridge of Talavera from the near side. But Heudelet, now in command of the 2nd Corps, soon found that there was no reality in his demonstration, and that he was not supported by the English, though he had given out that Wellington was close in his rear. After skirmishing around Talavera from the 17th to the 22nd of November, the Duke hastily recrossed the river on hearing the news of Ocaña, and resumed his old positions.