Marmont then took the line of the Duero, having fortified posts at Zamora and Toro, and broken the bridges there and at Puente Duero and Tudela also, preserving only that of Tordesillas. His left was at Simancas on the Pisuerga, which was unfordable, and the bridges at that place and Valladolid were commanded by fortified posts. His centre was at Tordesillas and very numerous; his right on heights opposite the ford of Pollos, which Wellington seized instantly as it gave him a passage, though a difficult one and unfit for a large force. Head-quarters were then fixed at Rueda, and the army disposed with a head against the ford of Pollos and bridge of Tordesillas, the rear on the Zapardiel and Trabancos rivers to meet any outbreak from the Valladolid side. Marmont’s line of defence, measured from Valladolid to Zamora, was sixty miles; from Simancas to Toro above thirty; but the actual occupation was not above twelve; the bend of the river gave him the chord, the allies the arc, and the fords were few and difficult. It was Wellington’s design to force Marmont by the co-operation of the Gallician and other Spanish forces to live on his fixed magazines; Castaños however, like all Spanish generals, failed in the hour of need. Marmont had then the means of rendering the campaign futile if not disastrous to the British general, but with a false judgment threw away his actual advantages by striving to better them. Bonet’s recall from the Asturias was a great error. Napoleon and Wellington had alike foreseen the importance of holding that province; the one ordered, the other calculated on its retention, and their judgment was now vindicated. The Gallicians and Asturians immediately moved by the coast towards Biscay, where the maritime expedition from Coruña, a large one under Sir Home Popham, had descended on several points; Caffarelli therefore retained the reinforcement destined for Marmont, and that marshal, by gaining six thousand men under Bonet, lost twelve or thirteen thousand of the army of the north, and opened all the northern provinces to the Spaniards.