The false dealing of the junta no prudence could guard against; but experience proves that, without extraordinary good fortune, some accident will always happen to mar the combinations of armies acting upon “_double external lines_.” And so it was with respect to Venegas; for that general, with a force of twenty-six thousand men, suffered himself to be held in check for five days by three thousand French, and at the battle of Almonacid shewed that he knew neither when to advance nor when to retreat. The patience with which sir Arthur Wellesley bore the foolish insults of Cuesta, and the undaunted firmness with which he fought to protect the Spanish army, require no illustration. When the latter fell back from St. Ollalla on the 26th, it was impossible for the British to retreat with honour; and there is nothing more memorable in the history of this war, nothing more creditable to the personal character of the English chief, than the battle of Talavera, considered as an isolated event. Nevertheless, that contest proved that the allies were unable to attain their object; for, notwithstanding Victor’s ill-judged partial attacks on the night of the 27th and morning of the 28th, and notwithstanding the final repulse of the French, all the advantages of the movements, as a whole, were with the latter. They were, on the 31st of July, including the garrison of Toledo, still above forty thousand men; and they maintained their central position, although it was not until the 1st of August that Soult’s approach caused any change in the views of the allied generals; and this brings us to the fundamental error of sir Arthur Wellesley’s operations. That so able a commander should engage himself in the narrow valley of the Tagus with twenty thousand British and forty thousand Spanish troops, when fifty thousand French were waiting for him at the further end, and above fifty thousand more were hanging on his flank and rear, shews that the greatest masters of the art may err. He who wars walks in a mist through which the keenest eyes cannot always discern the right path. “_Speak to me of a general who has made no mistakes in war_,” said Turenne, “_and you speak of one who has seldom made war_.” Sir Arthur Wellesley thus excused his error:--“When I entered Spain I had reason to believe that I should be joined by a Spanish army in such a respectable state of discipline and efficiency, as that it had kept in check, during nearly three months after a defeat, a French army, at one time superior, and at no time much inferior.”