Now Suchet, when deprived of Reille’s aid, and at the same time directed to send back to France his six Polish battalions, was left with a very inadequate force in Valencia--not much more than half what he had at his disposition on January 1. It would seem that the Emperor overrated the effect of the capture of Blake and the destruction of his army. At any rate, in his dispatches to Suchet, he seemed to consider that the whole business in the East was practically completed by the triumph at the New Year. The Marshal was directed ‘to push an advanced guard towards Murcia, and put himself in communication with the 4th Corps--the eastern wing of Soult’s army--which would be found at Lorca[77].’ But the operations of the troops of the Army of Andalusia in this quarter were limited to the appearance for two days at Murcia of Pierre Soult’s small cavalry raid, of which Suchet got no news till it was passed and gone. He was left entirely to his own resources, and these were too small for any further advance: the Emperor not only took away both Reille and the Poles, but sent, a few days later, orders that Palombini’s Italian division, reduced by now to 3,000 men by its heavy casualties on December 26th, should be sent into southern Aragon against Duran and Montijo. The departure of Palombini (February 15th) left Suchet with less than 15,000 men in hand. It must be remembered that the conquest of a Spanish province always meant, for the French, the setting aside of a large immobilized garrison, to hold it down, unless it were to be permitted to drop back into insurrection. It was clear that with the bulk of the kingdom of Valencia to garrison, not to speak of the siege of the still intact fortress of Peniscola, Suchet would have an infinitesimal field-force left for the final move that would be needed, if Mahy and Freire were to be crushed, and Alicante and Cartagena--both strong places--to be beleaguered. [77] See Suchet’s _Mémoires_, ii. pp. 237-8.