The object of dividing the advancing army into two columns was not merely to make it more easy for the troops to find food in a desolate country, but much more to carry out a strategical plan. If the whole army had moved by the high road through La Mancha, it would have had no power to communicate with the Army of Portugal. The King’s idea was that the northern column, which marched by Cuenca, and which he himself accompanied, would ultimately get into touch with Souham, who had been directed--by dispatches which reached him too late or not at all--to follow Wellington in such a way that he would be able to outflank him on the Upper Douro, and open up communications by the route of Aranda, the Somosierra Pass, and Guadalajara, with the main French Army. But Souham, when he commenced his advance against Wellington on October 18th, had no order from the King later than a letter of October 1st, written before Soult had arrived in the kingdom of Valencia. He received no more dispatches while engaged in his pursuit of Wellington, and was unaware of Joseph’s later plans, so that when he reached Valladolid he made no endeavour to feel to his left, towards Aranda, but rather extended himself to his right, in the direction of Tordesillas and Toro, a movement which took him entirely away from the direction in which the King hoped to find him. They did not get into touch, or combine their operations in any way, till November had arrived. At the same time the advance of a large body of troops by the route of Cuenca turned out most profitable in the end to the French strategy, for it was precisely this flanking column, of great but unknown strength, which compelled Hill to abandon his intention of defending the lines of the Tagus or the Tajuna. However he might place himself opposite Soult’s army coming from the South, he had this threatening force beyond his eastern flank, turning his positions by roads too remote for him to guard.