The third main section of Soult’s troops consisted of the two infantry and one cavalry divisions which had lately formed the 4th Corps, and had, since their first arrival in the South, been told off for the occupation of the kingdom of Granada. The whole of the coast and the inland from Malaga as far as Baza fell to their charge. The corps had been a strong one--16,000 foot and 4,000 horse--but was shortly to be reduced; the order of December 30, recalling troops for the expected Russian war, took off the whole Polish infantry division of Dembouski, 5,000 bayonets: the regiment of Lancers of the Vistula, who had won such fame by their charge at Albuera, was also requisitioned, but did not get off till the autumn. But in the last month of the old year the Poles were still present and available, and Soult was far from expecting their departure. Yet even before they were withdrawn the garrison of the kingdom of Granada was by no means too strong for the work allotted to it. The greater part of its available field-force had been drawn to the south-west, to curb the insurrection of the _Serranos_ of the Ronda mountains, and the inroads of Ballasteros. The forces left in Granada itself and the other eastern towns were so modest that Soult protested, and apparently with truth, that he could not spare from them even a small flying column of all arms, to make the demonstration against Murcia in assistance of Suchet’s operations which the Emperor ordered him to execute. Nothing, as it will be remembered, was done in this direction during December and January, save the sending out of Pierre Soult’s raid[101], a mere affair of a single cavalry brigade. [101] See above, p. 81. The total force of the Andalusian army was still in December as high as 80,000 men on paper. But after deducting the sick, the garrison of Badajoz--5,000 men,--the troops of Drouet, entirely taken up with observing and containing Hill, the divisions in the Lines before Cadiz, and the obligatory garrisons of Granada, Malaga, Cordova, and other large towns, the surplus left over for active operations was very small. At the most ten or twelve thousand men, obtained by borrowing from all sides, could be formed to act as a central reserve, prepared to assist Drouet in Estremadura, Victor in the Cadiz region, or Leval in the East, as occasion might demand. During the two crises when Soult brought up his reserves to join Drouet, in the winter of 1811-12 and the spring of 1812, their joint force did not exceed 25,000 men. The Marshal was resolved to hold the complete circuit of Andalusia, the viceroyalty which brought him so much pride and profit; and so long as he persisted in this resolve he could make no offensive move, for want of a field army of competent strength.