The operations consisted almost entirely of manoeuvres which had for their object the obtaining or the denial to the enemy of food-supplies.
Everywhere on the centre the Christians gained the upper hand, but their victory was almost turned into a defeat by the mistaken manoeuvres of Doria.
Some interesting manoeuvres now took place, Wellington moving parallel and close to Marmont, but more to the north, making for the fords of Aldea Lengua and Santa Marta on the Tormes nearer to Salamanca, and being under the belief that the Spaniards held the castle and ford at Alba on that river.
Ulmanis, confined on the steamer " Saratov " at Libau, had no fighting force at his disposal, and his attempts to call the population to arms were opposed as pro-Bolshevik manoeuvres.
The twelve who replaced the council of nine (as these had previously replaced the council of the nobles) consisted - both as individuals and as a party - of ignorant, incapable, turbulent men, who could neither rule the state with firmness nor confer prosperity on the republic. They speedily broke with the nobles, for whose manoeuvres they had at first been useful tools, and then split into two factions, one siding with the Tolomei, the other, the more restless and violent, with the Salimbeni and the noveschi (partisans of the nine), who, having still some influence in the city, probably fomented these dissensions, and, as we shall see later on, skilfully availed themselves of every chance likely to restore them to power.
