‘The passage which we reconnoitred a little below Villa Gonzalo unites all the qualities which one could desire, and I should be in favour of it, were it not for the fact that after debouching on this point we should have to form up for the attack under the fire of the enemy, and should be compelled immediately to assail his whole army, in a position which he knows and has thought out, and where very probably he has entrenched himself. I think, therefore, that it would be more prudent and more advantageous to force him to shift his position, and to commit himself to an action on ground which we and not he will have chosen--or else to retreat[167]. I have sent three officers along the upper Tormes: they have reconnoitred and found practicable three fords between Exeme and Galisancho[167].’ From the comparison of these two interesting dispatches we see that Jourdan desired a battle in the style of Wagram, where the attacking army crosses a river, and breaks through the over-long line of an enemy deployed along heights at some distance from the water’s edge. But Soult (to use an anachronism) feared a battle in the style of Fredericksburg, where the assailant, debouching from narrow fords or bridges, attacks in heavy masses a well-prepared position, held by an enemy who has had time to settle down comfortably into it, and to entrench the most suitable points. Soult was eminently justified in his criticism of Jourdan’s plan: the most noteworthy remark to be made upon it is that this was the battle which Wellington wanted. He wished to be attacked frontally by the fords between Alba and Huerta, and had made all his arrangements. On the other hand, Jourdan’s criticism of Soult was equally cogent. If the French armies, keeping in a mass, crossed the upper Tormes far above Alba, Wellington had the choice between fighting in a new position (e. g. behind the river Zurgain), and absconding, before his flank should be threatened seriously. He could, indeed, move off, practically unmolested, towards Ciudad Rodrigo, and not merely (as Jourdan suggested) by the more northern line toward San Felices and Almeida.