Napoleon’s orders had told Clausel to attack at all points at once, and to lose no time in setting to work. But it was quite clear that no general synchronized move could be made, until the divisions borrowed from Reille had all arrived. What active operations meant, before the reinforcements had come up, had been sufficiently proved by Abbé’s defeat at Tiebas: and Clausel’s own doings in March were equally discouraging, if not so disastrous. He had resolved to carry out one of the Emperor’s urgent orders by capturing Castro-Urdiales, the touching-place of British cruisers and the one fortified port which the Allies possessed on the Biscay coast. Undervaluing its strength, he marched out on March 21 with the bulk of Palombini’s Italian division and a single French battalion, intending to take it by escalade. For he had been told that its ancient walls had been indifferently repaired, and were almost without guns. When, however, he had reached the neighbourhood of Castro on the 22nd, he had to own on inspection that the enterprise would be hopeless--his commanding engineer, the historian Vacani[391]--maintained that it would take 6,000 men and a siege train of at least six heavy guns to deal with the place. And, as subsequent events showed, this was quite true. Castro is built on a rocky spit projecting into the sea, with a stout wall 20 feet high drawn across the isthmus which joins the headland to the coast. The narrow front of this wall, from water to water, had been well repaired; there were some 20 guns mounted, and an old castle on the extreme sea-ward point of the spit served as a citadel or inner fortification. Mendizabal and his lieutenant, Campillo, had come down from the interior with three or four thousand men, and were visible on the flank, ready to fall upon the Italian column if it should approach the town, through the labyrinth of vineyards and stone fences which covered its outskirts.