On October 15th, when the French advance had actually begun, the allied troops in New Castile were disposed with an outer screen, mainly consisting of Spanish troops, and a central nucleus of Hill’s own Anglo-Portuguese placed in cantonments between Madrid and the Tagus. Bassecourt was at Cuenca with 3,000 men; Elio, with Freire’s Murcian horse and a weak division of infantry--5,000 men in all--was watching the high roads from Albacete and Requeña to Madrid, in front of Tarancon. Penne Villemur’s cavalry with Morillo’s infantry--3,500 men at the most--lay across the great chaussée from Andalusia, about Herencia and Madridejos[125]. These troops formed the outer screen--not taking account of the Empecinado, who was (as usual) on the borders of New Castile and Aragon, worrying Suchet’s garrisons in the latter kingdom. Behind Penne Villemur, and south of the Tagus, were Long’s British and H. Campbell’s Portuguese cavalry brigades, in La Mancha, at Toboso, Villacanas, and other places. All the rest of the British troops were north of the Tagus, in the triangle Madrid-Toledo-Fuentedueñas, as were also D’Urban’s Portuguese horse and Carlos de España’s Spanish infantry division. When the advance of Soult and King Joseph developed itself, Hill drew everything back behind the Tagus, save Bassecourt’s division at Cuenca, which being evicted from that place by Drouet on the 20th did not retire towards Madrid, but went up into the mountains, and ultimately by circuitous routes rejoined the Alicante army.