Starting from Montanches near Caçeres on December 30th--three days after Hill’s expedition had begun--Morillo crossed the Guadiana, and after making a fruitless dash at Belalcazar, the isolated French garrison which protected the northernmost corner of Andalusia, marched straight on by Agudo and Sarceruela into the heart of La Mancha, where he seized Ciudad Real, its capital [January 15]. The small French force quartered there fled at his approach, which was wholly unexpected--no Spanish army had ever marched up the valley of the Guadiana before. On the next day Morillo attacked Almagro, where there was a garrison of 500 men; but before he had made any impression he was surprised by the arrival of General Treillard, with a column hastily gathered from the posts along the high-road. The Spanish general refused to fight, and, abandoning Ciudad Real, withdrew with little loss into the passes of the Sierra de Guadalupe, where his enemy declined to follow. Since Hill had by this time abandoned Merida and returned to Portugal, Morillo felt his position to be uncomfortably isolated, and feared that French troops from Estremadura or from the Tagus valley might intercept his way homeward. The danger turned out to be imaginary, and on reaching Truxillo on January 30 the column was able to rest unmolested for a fortnight at that important strategical point, and then to retire at leisure to Montanches, its original starting-point. Thus ended an extraordinary raid, which, though it had no positive results whatever, demonstrated two things clearly enough--one was the marching power of the Spanish infantry, which between December 28 and January 30 covered 250 miles of vile mountain roads in bitter weather, and came back intact with little loss[136], the other was the slightness of the French hold on La Mancha, where the appearance of a small brigade of 3,000 men upset the whole country-side. Morillo was only driven off by a concentration of many small garrisons, and, when they were withdrawn, the local guerrillero bands overran the land. Their chiefs, El Medico [Palarea], Chaleco, and others, did an immense amount of damage while the French were concentrated, and ravaged up to the very gates of Madrid. Chaos reigned in New Castile till Foy’s and Sarrut’s divisions came back from the Alicante expedition, and dispersed themselves along the valley of the Tagus at the beginning of February. For, as we have often had occasion to remark before, every province of Spain required not only to be conquered but to be held down by a permanent garrison. The moment that it was left too lightly held, the guerrilleros came down from the hills, occupied all the open country, and cut all communications.