Souham’s pursuit after the cavalry combat at Vente de Pozo was feeble. Wellington, speaking of his own army, said, “no troops were ever less pressed by an enemy.” The king’s orders were however positive not to fight, and as the English general continually offered Souham battle in strong positions, the man had no power to do mischief. Soult’s pursuit of Hill, which was also remarkably cautious, arose from other motives. He was not desirous of a battle, and until the Guadarama was passed, Hill had the larger force, for then only was the whole French army united. The duke of Dalmatia wished to have marched in one great mass through La Mancha, leaving only a small corps, or a detachment of Suchet’s army, on the Cuenca road; but the king united the whole of the army of the centre, his own guards and seven thousand men of the army of the south, on the Cuenca line, and there were no good cross communications except by Taracon. Soult therefore advanced towards the Tagus with only thirty-five thousand men, and from commissariat difficulties and other obstacles, he was obliged to move by divisions, which followed each other at considerable distances; when his advanced guard was at Valdemoro, his rear-guard not having reached Ocaña was two marches distant. The danger of this movement is evident. Hill might have turned and driven him over the Tagus; or if his orders had permitted him to act offensively at first, he might, after leaving a small corps on the Upper Tagus, to watch the king, have passed that river at Toledo, and without abandoning his line of operations by the valley of the Tagus, have attacked Soult while on the march towards Ocaña. The latter in despite of his numerous cavalry must then have fallen back to concentrate his forces, and this would have deranged the whole campaign. The duke of Dalmatia, who thought Ballesteros was with Hill, naturally feared to press his adversary under such a vicious disposition of the French army, neither could that disposition be changed during the operation, because of the want of good cross roads, and because Souham had been taught that the king would meet him on the side of Guadalaxara. In fine Soult had learned to respect his adversaries, and with the prudence of a man whose mental grasp embraced the whole machinery of the war, he avoided a doubtful battle where a defeat would, from the unsettled state of the French affairs, have lost the whole Peninsula. Wellington had Portugal to fall back upon, but the French armies must have gone behind the Ebro.