Montbrun, his substitute, had drawn together his forces in La Mancha by the 29th of December, but receiving from d’Armagnac, who was already on the move with 3,000 men, the assurance that the road from Cuenca to Valencia was practically impassable at midwinter, and that he could certainly get no guns along it, he resolved to take another route towards the scene of active operations. Accordingly he set out to march by the road San Clemente, Chinchilla, Almanza, which runs across the upland plain of La Mancha and Northern Murcia, and does not cross rough ground till it nears the descent to the sea-coast on the borders of Valencia. The column did not leave San Clemente and El Probencio till January 2, and (as we shall see) was too late to help Suchet, who had brought matters to a head long before it drew near him. Meanwhile d’Armagnac, though his force was trifling[52], had been of far greater use. He had reoccupied Cuenca, but finding (as he had informed Montbrun) that the roads in that direction were impracticable, had swerved southward, avoiding the mountains, and getting to Tarazona in La Mancha, marched towards the passes of the Cabriel River, and the road on to Valencia by way of Requeña. His approach being reported to Blake, who had no troops in this direction save two battalions under Bassecourt, the Captain-General was seized with a natural disquietude as to his rear, for he had no accurate knowledge of the French strength. Wherefore he directed General Freire, with the succours which he had been intending to draw up from Murcia, to abandon the idea of reinforcing the main army, and to throw himself between d’Armagnac and Valencia [November 20]. The French general, beating the country on all sides, and thrusting before him Bassecourt’s small force and the local guerrilleros, marched as far as Yniesta, and forced the passage of the Cabriel at Valdecañas, but finding that he had got far away from Montbrun, who did not march till many days after he himself had started, and being informed that Freire, with a very large force, was coming in upon his rear, he stopped before reaching Requeña and turned back towards La Mancha[53]. He had succeeded, however, in preventing Freire from reinforcing Valencia, and the Murcian succours never got near to Blake. He even for a time distracted troops from the main Spanish army, for Zayas was sent for some days to Requeña, and only returned just in time for the operations that began on December 25th. The net outcome, therefore, of Montbrun’s and d’Armagnac’s operations was simply to distract Freire’s division from Valencia at the critical moment--an appreciable but not a decisive result. [52] Apparently four or five battalions of the German division gathered from La Mancha, and a brigade of dragoons. Joseph calls it in his _Correspondance_ 3,000 men, when describing this operation (Joseph to Berthier, Nov. 12, 1811).