Lord Wellington had left General Spencer with an army to straiten Ciudad Rodrigo and watch Marmont, who had succeeded Massena; but Marmont could from the Salamanca country cross the mountains and join Soult to disturb the siege of Badajos, and in that case Spencer, who had a shorter line, was to join Wellington. With this precaution it was hoped the place might be taken. But though no operation in war is so certain as a modern siege, if the rules of art are strictly followed, no operation is less open to irregular daring: the engineer can neither be hurried nor delayed without danger. Now the time required by the French to gather in force depended on Marmont, whose march from Salamanca by the mountain passes could not be stopped by Spencer: it was also possible for him to pass the Tagus on the shortest line by fords near Alcantara. But Beresford’s siege had damaged the carriages of the battering guns, eleven days were required to repair them, and the scanty means of transport for stores was diminished by carrying the wounded from Albuera: hence more than fifteen days of open trenches, including nine days of fire, could not be expected. With good guns, plentiful stores and regular sappers and miners, this time would have sufficed; but none of these things were in the camp, and it was a keen jest of Picton to say, “_Lord Wellington sued Badajos in formâ pauperis_.” His guns were of soft brass, false in their bore, and the shot of different sizes, the largest being too small; the Portuguese gunners were inexperienced, there were few British artillery-men, few engineers, no sappers or miners, and no time to teach the troops of the line how to make fascines and gabions. Regular and sure approaches against the body of the place, first reducing the outworks, could not now be attempted; yet Beresford’s lines against the castle and Fort Christoval might be renewed, avoiding his errors; that is to say, by pushing the attacks simultaneously and with more powerful means. This plan was adopted, and something was hoped from the inhabitants, something from the effect of Soult’s retreat after Albuera. The battering train was of fifty pieces, a convoy of engineers’ stores came up from Alcacer do Sal, and a company of British artillery was on the march from Lisbon to be mixed with the Portuguese, making a total of six hundred gunners. Volunteers from the line acted as assistant engineers, and a draft of three hundred intelligent infantry soldiers, including twenty-five artificers of the staff corps, were employed as sappers.