Del Parque’s campaign was more vigorous and more unfortunate. While he lay in the passes above Bejar and Baños, he got early news of the withdrawal of Godinot’s and Marcognet’s troops toward Madrid, when Soult summoned them off to reinforce the main army. He reasoned that since he had now only the 6th Corps, shorn of one of its brigades, in his front, he might repeat the success of Tamames, for Marchand was weaker than he had been in October, while he himself was far stronger. Accordingly he disregarded an order from the Junta to extend his operations southward, and to join Albuquerque in the valley of the Tagus. Instead, he marched once more upon Salamanca on November 18, the day before the disaster of Ocaña. He drove in an outlying brigade of Marchand’s force from Alba de Tormes, and pressed it vigorously back towards the main body. Conscious that with his 10,000 men he could not hope to face 30,000, Marchand promptly evacuated Salamanca on December 19, and retired, just as he had done in October, behind the Douro, concentrating his whole corps at Toro. He sent urgent demands for help both to Kellermann at Valladolid, and to Soult at Madrid. By the time that they arrived Areizaga had been dealt with, and the army in New Castile could spare as many reinforcements as were required. Marcognet’s brigade, the one which had been borrowed from the 6th Corps, was first sent back from Segovia, the point which it had reached in its southward march, and Gazan’s division of the 5th Corps was ordered by Soult to follow. Meanwhile Del Parque, still ignorant of the disaster in the south, had occupied Salamanca on November 20, and on the following day moved out towards Cantalapiedra and Medina del Campo, with the object of throwing himself between Marchand and Kellermann and the capital. This was an excellent move, and, but for what had happened at Ocaña, might have had considerable results, since the Army of the Left ought to have made an end of the small French force in Old Castile.