3º.--When, at last, the king’s reiterated orders obliged Lapisse to put his troops in motion, he made a demonstration against Ciudad Rodrigo, so feeble that it scarcely called the garrison to the ramparts, and then as if all chance of success in Portugal was at an end, breaking through the pass of Perales, he reached Alcantara and rejoined the first corps; a movement equally at variance with Napoleon’s orders and with good military discretion; for the first directed him upon Abrantes, and the second would have carried him upon Viseu. The march to the latter place, while it insured a junction with Soult, would not have prevented an after movement upon Abrantes: the obstacles were by no means so great as those which awaited him on the march to Alcantara, and the great error of abandoning the whole country, between the Tagus and the Douro, to the insurgents would have been avoided. Here then was one direct cause of failure; but the error, although great, was not irreparable. If Soult was abandoned to his own resources, he had also obtained a firm and important position in the north, while Victor, reinforced by ten thousand men, was enabled to operate against Lisbon, by the Alemtejo, more efficaciously than before. But Victor seems to have been less disposed than Lapisse to execute his instructions. VICTOR. 1º.--The inactivity of this marshal after the rout of Ucles has been already mentioned. It is certain that if the fourth and first corps had been well handled, neither Cuesta nor Cartoajal could have ventured beyond the defiles of the Sierra Morena, much less have bearded the French generals and established a line of defence along the Tagus. Fifty thousand French troops should, in two months, have done something more than maintain fifty miles of country on one side of Madrid. 2º.--The passage of the Tagus was successful, but can hardly be called a skilful operation, unless the duke of Belluno calculated upon the ignorance of his adversary. Before an able general and a moveable army, possessing a pontoon train, it would have scarcely answered to separate the troops in three divisions on an extent of fifty miles, leaving the artillery and parc of ammunition, protected only by some cavalry and one battalion of infantry, within two hours march of the enemy, for three days. If Cuesta had brought up all his detachments, the Meza d’Ibor might have been effectually manned, and yet ten thousand infantry, and all the Spanish cavalry, spared to cross the Tagus at Almaraz, on the 17th; in this case Victor’s artillery would probably have been captured, and his project certainly baffled.