After much discussion, and with reluctance[281], Wellington accepted the modifications--thinking that the other things conceded gave him practically all that he needed. He was to find out his error in the year that followed. He had not guarded himself against seeing officers with whom he was satisfied removed from his field-army under the pretence of promotion, or of transference to other duties, or of political offences. He had forgotten to demand that he should have the power of _retaining_ as much as that of _dismissing_ generals. In this way he was deprived of the services of Castaños and afterwards of Giron, both of whom he was anxious to keep. Successors technically unobjectionable, whom he had no wish to ‘blackball,’ were substituted for them, to his deep regret. And another evasion of his intention was that officers whom he had intended to disgrace, and had removed from the front, were given posts elsewhere which could not be called ‘divisional’ or ‘separate’ commands, but were quite desirable; and so while the letter of the bargain was kept, the purpose of inflicting punishment on such people was foiled. Another long controversy was provoked by Wellington’s proposal that the small armies should be amalgamated, and that unnecessary captain-generals with their staffs should be got rid of. Much but not all of what he asked was conceded. The Murcian and Valencian armies were consolidated, and given the new name of the ‘Second Army’--the Catalan army being still the ‘First Army’. But they were not amalgamated with the Andalusian command (now the ‘Third Army’), as Wellington suggested. And similarly the Estremaduran, Castilian, and Galician armies, with the outlying Cantabrian division, ceased to be the 5th, 6th, and 7th Armies, and took the new name of the Fourth. And a great reduction of staffs and removal of contending military authorities was procured, by nominating Elio, commander of the new 2nd Army, to be Captain-General of Murcia and Valencia, Del Parque of the 3rd Army to be Captain-General of Granada and Jaen, and Castaños to be Captain-General alike of Estremadura, Galicia, and Castile. This was all to the good, but the Cortes refused Wellington’s other proposal, that the civil government in each province should be placed under the control of the army-commanders. Declaring that it was constitutionally impossible to abolish the independence of the civil power, the Cortes yet conceded that the _jefe político_ (or provincial prefect) and the Intendant should obey the Captain-General ‘in all matters relating to the Army[282],’ also that nine-tenths of the revenue in each province should be allocated to the military budget. This would have worked if all parties concerned had been both willing and competent; but it remained a melancholy fact throughout the next campaign that the army-commanders could seldom get either money or food from the civil authorities, and that most essential operations were delayed by the