The dire slaughter at Oporto was followed up by a variety of important operations, but before these are treated of, it is essential to narrate the contemporaneous events on the Tagus and the Guadiana, for the war was wide and complicated, and the result depended more upon the general combinations than upon any particular movements. OPERATIONS OF THE FIRST AND FOURTH CORPS. It has been already related that marshal Victor, after making a futile attempt to surprize the marquis of Palacios, had retired to his former quarters at Toledo, and that the conde de Cartoajal, who succeeded the duke of Infantado, had advanced to Ciudad Real with about fourteen thousand men. Cuesta, also, having rallied the remainder of Galluzzo’s army, and reinforced it by levies from Grenada, and regular troops from Seville, had fixed his head-quarters at Deleytosa, broken down the bridge of Almaraz, and with fourteen thousand infantry and two thousand five hundred cavalry, guarded the line of the Tagus. The fourth corps remained at Talavera and Placentia, but still holding the bridge of Arzobispo. [Sidenote: Imperial Muster-rolls, MSS.] The reserve of heavy cavalry was now suppressed, and the regiments were dispersed among the _corps d’armée_, but the whole army, exclusive of the king’s guards, did not exceed two hundred and seventy thousand men, and forty thousand horses, shewing a decrease of sixty-five thousand men since the 15th of November. But this number includes the imperial guards, the reserve of infantry, and many detachments drafted from the corps;--in all forty thousand men, who had been struck off the rolls of the army in Spain, with a view to the war in Germany; hence the real loss of the French by sword, sickness, and captivity, in the four months succeeding Napoleon’s arrival in the Peninsula, was about twenty-five thousand--a vast number, but not incredible, when it is considered that two sieges, twelve pitched battles, and innumerable combats had taken place during that period. Such was the state of affairs when the duke of Belluno, having received orders to aid Soult in the invasion of Portugal, changed places with the fourth corps. Sebastiani was then opposed to Cartoajal, and Victor stood against Cuesta. The former fixed his head-quarters at Toledo, the latter at Talavera de la Reyna, the communication between them being kept up by Montbrun’s division of cavalry, while the garrison of Madrid, composed of the king’s guards, and Dessolle’s division, equally supported both. But to understand the connection between the first, second, and fourth corps, and Lapisse’s division, it is necessary to have a clear idea of the nature of the country on both sides of the Tagus.