The year 1812 was packed with great events, and marked in Spain no less than in Russia the final turn of the tide in the history of Napoleon’s domination. But the end was not yet: when Wellington entered Madrid in triumph on August 12th, the deliverance of the Peninsula was no more certain than was the deliverance of Europe when the French Emperor evacuated Moscow on October 22nd. Vittoria and Leipzig were still a year away, and it was not till they had been fought and won that the victory of the Allies was secure. The resources of the great enemy were so immense that it required more than one disaster to exhaust them. No one was more conscious of this than Wellington. Reflecting on the relative numbers of his own Anglo-Portuguese army and of the united strength of all the French corps in Spain, he felt that the occupation of Madrid was rather a _tour de force_, an admirable piece of political propaganda, than a decisive event. It would compel all the scattered armies of the enemy to unite against him, and he was more than doubtful whether he could make head against them. ‘I still hope,’ he wrote to his brother Henry, the Ambassador at Cadiz, ‘to maintain our position in Castile, and even to improve our advantages. But I shudder when I reflect upon the enormity of the task which I have undertaken, with inadequate powers myself to do anything, and without assistance of any kind from the Spaniards[1].... I am apprehensive that all this may turn out but ill for the Spanish cause. If, for any cause, I should be overpowered, or should be obliged to retreat, what will the world say? What will the people of England say?... That we made a great effort, attended by some glorious circumstances; that from January 1st, 1812, we had gained more advantages for the cause, and had acquired more extent of territory by our operations than any army ever gained in such a period of time against so powerful an enemy; but that unaided by the Spanish army and government, we were finally overpowered, and compelled to withdraw within our old frontier.’