This was an excellent plan no doubt, but Napoleon never lost sight of that great principle of war, so concisely expressed by Sertorius when he told Pompey that a good general should look behind him rather than before. The emperor acting on the proverb that fortune favours the brave, often urged his lieutenants to dare desperately with a few men in the front, but he invariably covered their communications with heavy masses, and there is no instance of his plan of invasion being shaken by a flank or rear attack, except where his instructions were neglected. His armies made what are called points, in war, such as Massena’s invasion of Portugal, Moncey’s attack on Valencia, Dupont’s on Andalusia; but the general plan of operation was invariably supported by heavy masses protecting the communications. Had his instructions, sent from Dresden, been strictly obeyed, the walls of Lerida and Taragona would have been destroyed, and only the citadels of each occupied with small garrisons easily provisioned for a long time. The field army would thus have been increased by at least three thousand men, the moveable columns spared many harassing marches, and Catalonia would have offered little temptation for a descent. But notwithstanding this error of Suchet, Maitland’s troops were too few, and too ill-composed to venture the investment of Taragona. The imperial muster-rolls give more than eighty thousand men, including Reille’s divisions at Zaragosa, for the armies of Aragon and Catalonia, and twenty-seven thousand of the first and thirty-seven thousand of the second, were actually under arms with the eagles; wherefore to say that Decaen could have brought at once ten thousand men to the succour of Taragona, and, by weakening his garrisons, as many more in a very short time, is not to over-rate his power; and this without counting Paris’ brigade, three thousand strong, which belonged to Reille’s division and was disposable. Suchet had just before come to Reus with two thousand select men of all arms, and as O’Donel’s army had since been defeated near Alicant, he could have returned with a still greater force to oppose Maitland.