the capital if Bessières' campaign in the north took a turn for the worse and Spanish armies appeared on the horizon. Yet at no time was Dupont's Andalusian expedition altogether scrapped. Savary continued to issue vague orders promising reinforcements at an undisclosed date while Napoleon fumed at the prospect of abandoning even Andújar to the Spaniards. With events hanging in the air, Dupont chose to hold his ground along the Guadalquivir, sacking and occupying the town of Bailén and the provincial capital of Jaén, instead of completing his retrograde movement to the strong positions atop the sierra's defiles. Napoleon wrote lightly, "even if he suffers a setback, ...he will just have to come back over the Sierra." Spain prepares On learning of the French incursion into the southern provinces, General Francisco Javier Castaños, guessing Dupont's intentions, prepared to entrench his army in a fortified camp across from the strongpoint of Cádiz, but Dupont's retrograde movement rendered these precautions unnecessary. Setting up a General Headquarters in Utrera, Castaños organized the Army of Andalusia into four divisions under Generals Theodor von Reding, Antonio Malet (whose staff included a young San Martín, then a captain in the Spanish Army), Félix Jones, and a fourth (reserve) under Manuel la Peña. Colonel Juan de la Cruz Mourgeón led an additional column of some 1,000 skirmishers, armed peasants, and other light infantry. Stalled on the Guadalquivir While Dupont lingered at Andújar with two divisions (Generals Gabriel Barbou des Courières and Maurice Ignace Fresia), attempting to master the strategic Madrid—Seville highway and the wide plains which it crossed, Castaños' four divisions advanced steadily from the south and guerrillas from Granada marched to bar the road to the sierra and La Mancha beyond. Vedel's division was posted east to Bailén with a view to guarding these nearby mountain passes and on 1 July Vedel was forced to dispatch a brigade under General Louis Victorin Cassagne to curb the advance of the guerrillas on Jaén and La Carolina, stretching the French line still further east. Meanwhile, General Liger-Bélair, with 1,500 men, moved into a forward post at Mengíbar, a village on the south bank of the Guadalquivir. At Andújar a tower by the river was fortified and small field works constructed on the south bank to forestall an enemy crossing, but, the Guadalquivir being fordable at so many points, and open to fire from the surrounding hills, Dupont's defences