Here Wellesley first had practical experience of the weakness of his Spanish allies. The talk of their generals and officers “was like the maddest boastings of Don Quixote, their conduct in action was that of his squire.”[36] Supplies promised were not forthcoming. Plundering was therefore far from uncommon, and the British army was by no means well disciplined at that time. Even their own general recognised this. “The army,” he writes, “behaves terribly ill. They are a rabble who cannot bear success any more than Sir John Moore’s army could bear failure.... They plunder in all directions.” But they were only very raw soldiers after all, and hungry men are not easily kept in order when food exists, and they can have none of it unless they take it by force. At Talavera, for example, the men had only “a few ounces of wheat in the grain throughout that day” of battle. Cuesta obstinately took his own line, and suffered for it. He would not attack the French, when Wellesley proposed to do so, but went to bed! Taking the initiative himself afterwards, he was roughly handled, and fell back in disorder, but was finally persuaded to make a stand at Talavera. The Allies numbered some 53,000 men, with 100 guns, of which the British counted 19,000. The French, under the nominal supreme command of Joseph, numbered 50,000 seasoned troops and 80 guns. These took the offensive. Early in the day, some 10,000 of the Spanish broke and fled, taking Cuesta with them. Whittingham, formerly the military attaché at Baylen and now brigadier, helped to stop the gap thus made by bringing up some Spanish battalions of stiffer metal. So the army held its own, the French fell sullenly back, and thus ended the first day’s battle. At daybreak, the combat was renewed, and, owing to the intense heat of the day, somewhat intermittently. During one of these lulls, both combatants ran to assuage their thirst at a stream that ran between the armies, and conversed amicably until the bugler on both sides sounded the “fall in,” and the recent friends met again as foes. So the battle was renewed with varying fortune, until, as evening drew on, the French retired to their original position. During the latter part of the day a vigorous cavalry charge was made by the 23rd Light Dragoons and Arentschild’s Hussars of the German Legion on the head of a French column, but, meeting with a deep ravine, the former plunged confusedly into it; but they still managed to reach the enemy’s square, where they were practically annihilated, though they undoubtedly paralysed the enemy for a time. But Arentschild, wiser in his generation, wheeled aside, exclaiming, “I will not kill my young mens.” * * * * *