The favourable moment for action so long watched for by Wellington came at last. An imperial decree had remodelled the French armies. That of Aragon was directed to give up four divisions to form a new corps, under Reille, called the “_army of the Ebro_,” whose head-quarters were at Lerida. The army of the south was recomposed in six divisions of infantry and three of cavalry, besides the garrison of Badajos, and marshal Victor returned to France, discontented, for he was one of those whose reputation had been abated by this war. His divisions were given to generals Conroux, Barrois, Villatte, Laval, Drouet, Daricau, Peyremont, Digeon, and the younger Soult, Phillipon continuing governor of Badajos. The reserve of Monthion was broken up, and the army of the north, destined to maintain the great communications with France and to reduce the Partidas, on that line, was ordered to occupy the districts round Santander, Sebastian, Burgos, and Pampeluna, and to communicate by the left with the new army of the Ebro: it was also exceedingly reduced in numbers; for the imperial guards, seventeen thousand strong, were required for the Russian war, and marched in December to France. And besides these troops, the Polish battalions, the skeletons of the cavalry regiments, and several thousand choice men destined to fill the ranks of the old guard were drafted; so that not less than forty thousand, of the very best soldiers, were withdrawn, and the maimed and worn-out men being sent back to France at the same time, the force in the Peninsula was diminished by sixty thousand. [Sidenote: 1812. January.] The head-quarters of the army of the north arrived at Burgos in January, and a division was immediately sent to drive Mendizabel from the Montaña de Santander; but as this arrangement weakened the grand line of communication with France, Marmont was ordered to abandon the valley of the Tagus and fix his head-quarters at Valladolid or Salamanca. Ciudad Rodrigo, the sixth and seventh governments, and the Asturias, were also placed under his authority, by which Souham and Bonet’s division, forming together about eighteen thousand men, were added to his army; but the former general returned to France. These divisions however, being pressed by want, were extended from the Asturias to Toledo, while Montbrun was near Valencia, and meanwhile Soult’s attention was distracted by Tarifa, and by Hill’s pursuit of Drouet. Thus the French armies, every where occupied, were spread over an immense tract of country; Marmont deceived by the seemingly careless winter attitude of the allies, left Ciudad Rodrigo unprotected within their reach, and Wellington jumped with both feet upon the devoted fortress. CHAPTER III. SIEGE OF CIUDAD RODRIGO. [Sidenote: 1812. January.]