There can be no doubt that Napoleon undervalued the power of the Spanish guerrilleros, just as he undervalued the resources and the enterprise of Wellington. From the first moment of his return from Russia he had continued to impress on Joseph and Jourdan the necessity for pacifying the North, before the season for regular campaigning should have arrived, and Wellington should have taken the field. But his theory that the winter was the best time for dealing with the bands was rather specious than correct. For although the short days, the snow in the passes, and the swollen torrents were, no doubt, great hindrances to that freedom of movement which was the main strength of the guerrilleros, they were even greater hindrances to combined operations by bodies of regular troops. Rapid marches are impossible off the high roads in Northern Spain, during the midwinter months; and it was only by combined operations and the use of large forces that the insurgents could be dealt with. Indeed, the country roads were practically impassable for any regular troops in many regions. What officer would risk detachments in upland valleys that might be found to be blocked with snow, or cut off from their usual communication by furious streams that had overflowed the roads and made fords impracticable? Winter marches in unexplored hills are the most deadly expedients: all the weakly soldiers fall by the way--had not Drouet lost 150 men in passing the Guadarrama during the early days of December--and the Guadarrama was crossed by one of the few great royal roads of Spain? What would be the losses of columns sent out on cross-roads and caught in blizzards, or in those weeks of continuous rain which are not uncommon in the sub-Pyrenean region? The Emperor’s view was that Caffarelli had failed in his task from want of resourcefulness. He was always trying to parry blows rather than to strike himself: he allowed the insurgents to take the initiative, and when they had executed some tiresome raid would set out in a pursuit which was seldom useful, since they naturally outran him[384]. He was always marching to deliver or revictual some threatened garrison, anywhere between Santoña and Pampeluna, instead of setting himself to destroy the main agglomeration of hostile forces. Now Caffarelli, it is true, was no great general, and may have been on occasion wanting in vigour. But the best reply to the criticism of him sent from Paris is to observe that his successor, Clausel, universally acknowledged to be the most active officer in Spain, failed in exactly the same way as his predecessor, even when he had been lent 20,000 veteran troops to aid him in his task.