The combined movement of the French was desirable, from the greatness of the object to be gained, and safe, from the powerful force on each point. The occasion was so favourable that, notwithstanding the imprudent heat of Victor, the reluctance of Ney, and the unsteady temper of the king, the fate of the allies was, up to the evening of the 3d, heavy in the scale. Nevertheless, as the central position held by the allies, cut the line of correspondence between Joseph and Soult, the king’s despatches were intercepted, and the whole operation, even at the last hour, was baffled. The first element of success in war is, that every thing should emanate from a single head; and it would have been preferable that the king, drawing the second and fifth corps to him by the pass of the Guadarama, or by that of Avila, should, with the eighty thousand men thus united, have fallen upon the allies in front. Such a combination, although of less brilliant promise than the one adopted, would have been more sure; and the less a general trusts to fortune the better:--she is capricious! When one Spanish army was surprised at Arzobispo, another completely beaten at Almonacid, and when Wilson’s Portuguese corps was dispersed at Baños, the junta had just completed the measure of their folly by quarrelling with the only force left that could protect them. The French were, in truth, therefore, the masters of the Peninsula; but they terminated their operations at the very moment when they should have pursued them with redoubled activity; for the general aspect of affairs and the particular circumstances of the campaign were alike favourable. Napoleon was victorious in Germany; and of the British expeditions against Italy and Holland, the former had scarcely struggled into life,--the latter was already corrupting in death. Hence, Joseph might have been assured that he would receive reinforcements, but that none, of any consequence, could reach his adversaries; and, in the Peninsula, there was nothing to oppose him. Navarre, Biscay, Aragon, and the Castiles were subdued; Gerona closely beleaguered; and the rest of Catalonia, if not quiescent, totally unable to succour that noble city. Valencia was inert; the Asturias still trembling; and in Gallicia there was nothing but confusion. Romana, commanding fifteen thousand infantry, but neither cavalry nor artillery, was still at Coruña, and durst not quit the mountains. The duke del Parque held Ciudad Rodrigo, but was in no condition to make head against more than a French division. The battle of Almonacid had cleared La Mancha of troops. Estremadura and Andalusia were, as we have seen, weak, distracted, and incapable of solid resistance. There remained only the English and Portuguese armies, the one being at Jaraceijo, the other at Moraleja.