The only dangerous possibility was the intervention of Marmont with five or six divisions of the Army of Portugal, as had happened at the time of the operations on the Caya in June 1811. Wellington, as we have seen in his directions to Baccelar and Castaños, thought this intervention probable. But from the disposition of Marmont’s troops at the moment of his own departure from Freneda, he thought that he could count on three weeks, or a little more, of freedom from any interference from this side. Two at least of Marmont’s divisions (Souham and Bonnet) would almost certainly be left in the North, to contain the Galicians and Asturians. Of the other six only one (Foy) was in the valley of the Tagus: the rest were scattered about, at Salamanca, Avila, Valladolid, &c., and would take time to collect[254]. Wellington was quite aware of Marmont’s difficulties with regard to magazines; he also counted on the roughness of the roads, the fact that the rivers were high in March, and (most of all) on the slowness with which information would reach the French marshal[255]. Still, here lay the risk, so far as Wellington could know. What he could not guess was that the movement which he feared had been expressly forbidden to Marmont by his master, and that only on March 27th was permission granted to the Marshal to execute the march to Almaraz. By that time, as we have already seen, it was too late for him to profit by the tardily-granted leave. [254] For Wellington’s speculations (fairly correct) as to Marmont’s distribution of his troops, see _Dispatches_, viii. p. 618, Feb. 19, to Graham. [255] Wellington to Victor Alten, March 5, _Dispatches_, viii. p. 649, makes a special point of ‘the difficulties which the enemy experiences in getting intelligence’ as a means of gaining time for himself. But it was the possibility of Marmont’s appearance on the scene, rather than anything which might be feared from Soult, which made the siege of Badajoz a time-problem, just as that of Ciudad Rodrigo had been. The place must, if possible, be taken somewhere about the first week in April, the earliest date at which a serious attempt at relief was likely to be made[256]. [256] Napier (iv. p. 98) tries to make out that Wellington’s siege began ten days later than he wished and hoped, by the fault of the Portuguese Regency. I cannot see how Badajoz could have been invested on the 6th of March, when (as the route-directions show) the head of the marching column from the Agueda only reached Portalegre on the 8th. The movement of the army was not delayed, so far as I can see, by the slackness of Portuguese management at Lisbon or Elvas. But Wellington certainly grumbled. Did he intend that Hill alone should invest Badajoz, before the rest of the army arrived?