Suchet’s plan of attack, which he carried out the moment that Reille joined him, and even before the latter’s rearmost brigade had got up into line, was a very ambitious one, aiming not merely at the forcing of the Guadalaviar or the investment of Valencia, but at the trapping of the whole Spanish army. It was conducted on such a broad front, and with such a dispersion of the forces into isolated columns, that it argued a supreme contempt for Blake and his generalship. Used against such a general as Wellington it would have led to dreadful disaster. But Suchet knew his adversary. The gist of the plan was the circumventing of the Spanish lines by two columns which, starting one above and the other below Valencia, were to cross the river and join hands to the south of the city. Meanwhile the main front of the works was to be threatened (and if circumstances favoured, attacked) by a very small fraction of the French army. Near the sea Habert’s division was to force the comparatively weak line of works at the estuary, and then to cut the road which runs from Valencia between the Mediterranean and the great lagoon of the Albufera. Far inland the main striking force of the army, composed of the divisions of Harispe and Musnier, with all the cavalry, and with Reille’s three brigades following close behind, was to pass the Guadalaviar at Ribaroja, three or four miles above Manises, and from thence to extend along the south front of the Spanish lines, take them in the rear, and push on so as to get into touch with Habert. Compère’s weak Neapolitan brigade was to block the bridge-heads out of which Blake might make a sally northward. Palombini’s Italians were to press close up to Mislata, which Suchet judged to be the weakest point in the Spanish lines, and to deliver against it an attack which was to be pushed more or less home as circumstances might dictate. The whole force employed (not counting Pannetier’s brigade, which had not yet joined Reille) was just 30,000 men. Of these 25,000 were employed in the flanking movements; less than 5,000 were left to demonstrate against Blake’s front along the lines of the Guadalaviar.