SECTION III: CHAPTER II

OPERATIONS IN THE NORTH: THE SIEGE OF SARAGOSSA

Having watched the failure of the expeditions by which Napoleon had hoped to complete the conquest of Southern Spain, we must turn our eyes northward, to Madrid and the long line of communications which joined the capital to the French base of operations at Vittoria, Pampeluna, and San Sebastian. At the moment when the Valencian and Andalusian expeditions were sent out from Madrid and Toledo, Murat had still under his hand a large body of troops, the second and third division of Moncey’s corps, the second and third of Dupont’s, and the 5,000 horse and foot of the Imperial Guard—in all more than 30,000 men. Bessières, if the garrison of the northern fortresses and some newly arrived reinforcements are added to his original force, had more than 25,000. With these the grand-duke and the marshal had to contain the insurrection in Northern Spain, and to beat back the advance of the army of Galicia.

The furthest points to the north and east to which the wave of insurrection had washed up were Logro?o and Tudela in the Ebro valley, Santander on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, and Palencia and Valladolid in Old Castile. All these places lay in Bessières’ sphere of action, and he promptly took measures to suppress the rising at each point. On June 2 a column sent out from Vittoria reoccupied Logro?o, slaying some hundreds of half-armed peasants, and executing some of their leaders who had been taken prisoners. On the same day a stronger force, six battalions and two squadrons under General Merle, marched from Burgos on Santander. Driving before him the insurgents of the Upper Ebro valley, Merle advanced as far as Reynosa, and was about to force the defiles of the Cantabrian Mountains and to descend on to Santander, when he received orders to return and to take part in suppressing the more dangerous rising in the plains of Old Castile. News had arrived that the captain-general, Cuesta, was collecting a force at Valladolid, which threatened to cut the road between Burgos and Madrid. To deal[p. 141] with him Bessières told off Merle, and another small column of four battalions and two regiments of chasseurs under his brilliant cavalry-brigadier, Lasalle, one of the best of Napoleon’s younger generals. After sacking Torquemada (where some peasants attempted an ineffectual resistance) and ransoming the rich cathedral town of Palencia, Lasalle got in touch with the forces of Cuesta at the bridge of Cabezon, where the main road from Burgos to Valladolid crosses the river Pisuerga. On the eleventh of June Merle joined him: on the twelfth their united forces, 9,000 strong, fell upon the levies of the Captain-general.

Throughout the two years during which he held high command in the field, Gregorio de la Cuesta consistently displayed an arrogance and an incapacity far exceeding that of any other Spanish general. Considering the state of his embryo ‘army of Castile,’ it was insane for him to think of offering battle. He had but four cannon; his only veteran troops were 300 cavalry, mainly consisting of the squadrons which had accompanied Ferdinand VII as escort on his unhappy journey to Bayonne. His infantry was composed of 4,000 or 5,000 volunteers of the Valladolid district, who had not been more than a fortnight under arms, and had seen little drill and still less musketry practice. It was absolutely wicked to take them into action. But the men, in their ignorance, clamoured for a battle, and Cuesta did not refuse it to them. His dispositions were simply astounding; instead of barricading or destroying the bridge and occupying the further bank, he led his unhappy horde across the river and drew them up in a single line, with the bridge at their backs.

On June 12 Lasalle came rushing down upon the ‘army of Castile,’ and dashed it into atoms at the first shock. The Spanish cavalry fled (as they generally did throughout the war), the infantry broke, the bridge and the guns were captured. Some hundreds of the unfortunate recruits were sabred, others were drowned in the river. Cuesta fled westwards with the survivors to Medina de Rio Seco, abandoning to its fate Valladolid, which Lasalle occupied without opposition on the same evening. The combat by which this important city was won had cost the French only twelve killed and thirty wounded.

This stroke had completely cleared Bessières’ right flank: there could be no more danger from the north-west till the army of Galicia should think proper to descend from its mountains to[p. 142] contest with the French the dominion of the plains of Leon and Old Castile. The marshal could now turn his attention to other fronts of his extensive sphere of command. After the fight of Cabezon Merle’s division was sent northward, to conquer the rugged coastland of the province of Santander. There were frightful defiles between Reynosa and the shore of the Bay of Biscay: the peasants had blocked the road and covered the hillsides with sungahs. But the defence was feeble—as might be expected from the fact that the district could only put into the field one battalion of militia[109] and a crowd of recent levies, who had been about three weeks under arms. On June 23 Merle finished clearing the defiles and entered Santander, whose bishop and Junta fled, with the wreck of their armed force, into the Asturias.

Meanwhile the troops under Bessières had been equally active, but with very different results, on the Middle Ebro and in the direction of Aragon. It was known at Burgos and at Bayonne that Saragossa had risen like the rest of the Spanish cities. But it was also known that there was hardly a man of regular troops in the whole kingdom of Aragon: here, as in Old Castile or in Santander, the invaders would have to deal only with raw levies, who would probably disperse after their first defeat. Saragossa itself, the central focus of the rising, was no modern fortress, but a town of 60,000 souls, surrounded by a mediaeval wall more fitted to assist in the levy of octroi duties, than in a defence against a regular army. Accordingly the column under Lefebvre Desnouettes, which was directed to start from Pampeluna against the Aragonese insurgents, was one of very moderate size—3,500 infantry, 1,000 horse, and a single battery of field artillery[110]. But it was to be joined a few days later by another brigade[111] and battery, which would bring its total force up to something more than 6,000 men.

The resources of the kingdom of Aragon were large, but the patriots were, when the war broke out, in a condition most unfavourable for strenuous action. The province was one of those which had been denuded of its usual garrison: there only remained part of[p. 143] a cavalry regiment, the ‘King’s Dragoons,’ whose squadrons had been so depleted that it had only 300 men and ninety horses, with a weak battalion of Volunteers of Aragon—some 450 men—and 200 gunners and sappers. In addition there had straggled into Saragossa about 500 men from various Spanish corps at Madrid, Burgos, and elsewhere, who had deserted their colours when the news of the insurrection reached them. This was a small cadre on which to create a whole army, but the feat was accomplished by the energetic young man who put himself at the head of the rising in the middle valley of the Ebro. Joseph Palafox, the second son of a noble family of Aragon, had been one of the suite which accompanied Ferdinand VII to Bayonne, and was an indignant spectator of the abominable treachery which there took place. When the tragedy was over he was fortunate enough to escape to Spain: he retired to his native district, took a prominent part in rousing the Aragonese, and was chosen by them as Captain-general when the weak or incapable Guillelmi was deposed. He was only twenty-eight years of age, and had no military experience, for he had only served in the peaceful ranks of the king’s bodyguard[112]. He had been a courtier rather than a soldier, yet at the critical moment of his life it can[p. 144]not be denied that he displayed a courage and energy which justified the high opinions which the Aragonese entertained of him. He kept Saragossa clean from the plague of political assassination, which was so rife in every other corner of Spain. He wisely got his appointment as Captain-general confirmed by the Cortes of Aragon, which he summoned to meet in its ancient form. He found out the most capable leaders of the populace, and always asked their advice before taking any important step. But his main virtue was his untiring activity: considering the procrastination and want of organizing power displayed by most of the Spanish generals, his talent for rapid work seems remarkable. He was only placed in power on May 26, and by June 8 he was already engaged with the French. In this short time he had raised and organized seven regiments of new levies—7,400 men in all. They were stiffened with the deserters from Madrid, and commanded by such retired and half-pay officers as could be got together. There were some scores of cannon in the arsenal of Saragossa, but hardly any gunners, and a very small store of ammunition. Palafox started a powder factory and a manufactory of small arms, turned the workmen of the Canal of Aragon into a corps of sappers, and made a general levy of horses to remount his single regiment of dragoons, and to provide his artillery with draught animals. This was but the commencement of Palafox’s activity: ere Saragossa was saved he had raised the whole kingdom, and got more than 30,000 men under arms[113].

Already by the eighth of June he had hurried out a small force to meet Lefebvre Desnouettes at Tudela, the frontier town on the Ebro, which in the Middle Ages had been known as ‘the key of Aragon.’ This force, which consisted of 2,000 of his new levies, was placed under the command of his own elder brother the Marquis of Lazan, who had escaped from Madrid under the pretext that he would bring pressure to bear upon the Captain-general and induce him to submit to Murat. The marquis, though joined by[p. 145] 3,000 or 4,000 peasants and citizens of Tudela, was easily routed by the French column, and forced back to Mallen sixteen miles nearer to Saragossa. Lefebvre followed him, after having executed a certain number of the notables of Tudela and sacked the town. Reinforced by more of his brother’s new levies, Lazan offered battle again at Mallen, in a bad position, where his men had little protection against the enemy’s artillery and the charges of his Polish lancers. He was naturally routed with severe losses. But even then the Aragonese were not broken in spirit: Palafox himself marched out with the remainder of his new levies, some of whom had not been five days under arms. At Alagon, only seventeen miles from the gates of Saragossa, he drew up 6,000 infantry (of whom 500 were regulars) 150 dragoons and four guns, trying to cover himself by the line of the Canal of Aragon and some olive groves. It is hardly necessary to say that his artillery was overpowered by the fourteen pieces of the French, and that his infantry gave back when furiously assailed by the Poles. Palafox charged at the head of his two squadrons of dragoons, but was wounded in the arm and had his horse killed under him. His routed followers carried him back into the city, where the majority took refuge, while the more faint-hearted fled beyond it to Alcaniz and other points in Upper Aragon.

Elated by three easy victories, Lefebvre thought that there was nothing more to do but to enter Saragossa in triumph. He was much deceived: the citizens were standing at bay behind their flimsy defences, having recovered in a single night from the dismay caused by the arrival of the broken bands who had fought at Alagon. The military conditions were not unlike those which Moncey had to face in another region, a fortnight later: Saragossa like Valencia lies in an extensive plain, with its northern side washed by the waters of the Ebro, and its eastern by those of the shallow and fordable Huerba: but its southern and western fronts are exposed to attack from the open. It was surrounded by a brick wall of ten to twelve feet high, interrupted in several places by convents and barracks whose blank back-faces continued the line of the enceinte[114]. Inside the wall were the crowded lanes in which dwelt the 60,000 citizens, a tangle of narrow streets save the one broad Coso which intersects the place from east to west. The[p. 146] houses were mostly solid and lofty structures of brick and stone, with the heavy barred windows and doors usual in Spain. The strength, such as it was, of Saragossa consisted not in its outer shell, but in the closely packed houses, convents, and churches, each of which might serve at need as a small fortress. Many of them were solid enough to resist any form of attack save that of being battered by artillery. When barricades had been thrown across the lanes from side to side, each square of buildings would need to be assaulted and captured piecemeal. But none of the French officers who arrived in front of Saragossa on June 15, 1808, had any conception that the problem about to be presented to them was that of street-fighting carried on from house to house. There had been many sieges since the war of the French Revolution began, but none carried on in this manner. In Italy or Germany no one had ever heard of a city which tried, for want of bastions and curtains, to defend itself by barricades: such places always saved themselves by an obvious and blameless surrender.

But if a siege was coming, there was one position just outside the town which was clearly destined to play a chief part in it. Just across the Huerba lay a broad flat-topped hill, the Monte Torrero, which rose to the height of 180 feet, and overlooked all the south side of the place. It was such a splendid vantage-ground for siege-batteries, that the defenders were bound to hold it, lest it should fall into the power of the French. It should have been crowned by a strong detached fort, or even by an entrenched camp. But Palafox in the short time at his disposal had only been able to throw up a couple of open batteries upon it, and to loophole the extensive magazines and workshops of the Canal of Aragon, which were scattered over the summit of the hill, while the canal itself flowed, as a sort of outer defence, around its further foot.

Saragossa had two other outlying defences: the one was the Aljafferia, an old square castle with four towers at its corners, which had been the abode of Moorish emirs, and of Aragonese kings, but now served as the prison of the Inquisition. It lay a couple of hundred yards outside the western gate (Puerto del Portillo) of the city. It was a solid brick structure, but quite unsuited to resist a serious artillery attack. The second outwork was the suburb of San Lazaro beyond the Ebro: it was connected with Saragossa by a new and handsome bridge, known as the[p. 147] ‘Puente de Piedra,’ or ‘Stone Bridge.’ Cannon were mounted at its southern end so as to sweep its whole length.

On June 15, Lefebvre-Desnouettes appeared before the city, driving before him some Spanish outposts which he had met upon the way. He resolved at once to carry the place by storm, a task which, considering the weakness of its walls, did not seem impossible, and all the more so because the gates stood open, each defended only by an earthwork containing two or three guns. The French general, neglecting the Monte Torrero and its commanding slopes, attacked only the western front between the gate of Portillo, near the Ebro, and the gate of Santa Engracia, close to the banks of the Huerba. His French brigade assailed the northern and his Polish regiment the southern half of this long line of walls and buildings. His two field-batteries were run up into the fighting line, to batter the earthworks and to reply to the Spanish guns. The only reserve which he kept in hand consisted of his brigade of cavalry.

The resistance offered to Lefebvre was of the most irregular sort: Palafox himself was not present, and his second-in-command, Bustamante, seems to have done little in the way of issuing orders. The 6,000 half-trained levies which had fought at Alagon had not recovered their organization, and were hopelessly mixed in the line of defence with 4,000 or 5,000 armed citizens of all ages and classes who had gone to the walls, each parish under the charge of two or three local leaders, who paid little obedience to the commands of the regular officers.

The Captain-General himself had started out that morning at the head of 150 dragoons, and 200 infantry, all regulars, by the road beyond the Ebro. He had told his subordinates that he was intending to raise in Upper Aragon a force with which he would fall on Lefebvre’s line of communications, and so compel him to abandon his attack on the city. But there is no doubt that he had really conceived grave doubts as to the possibility of Saragossa defending itself, and intended to avoid being captured within its walls. He wished to have the power of continuing the struggle outside, in case the French should penetrate into the city. On the morning after the fight at Alagon, bruised and wounded, he was in a pessimistic frame of mind, as his resolve shows. But there is no occasion to brand him, as does Napier, with timidity: his previous and his subsequent conduct preclude such a charge. It was merely an error of judgement: the Captain-General should have[p. 148] stayed behind to defend his capital, and have sent his brother Lazan, or some other officer whom he could trust, to raise the country-side in the rear of the French[115]. His retirement might well have discouraged the Saragossans and led to deplorable results; but as a matter of fact, Lefebvre’s attack began so soon after he had ridden out over the bridge, that the news of his departure had not yet got abroad, and the populace were still under the impression that he was among them. It was not till the fighting was over that he was missed.

Lefebvre-Desnouettes before Saragossa was in exactly the same position as Moncey before Valencia, and acted in the same way, pushing forward a rather reckless attack on the city in full confidence that the Spaniards would not stand before an assault pressed home. He had, moreover, the advantages of being able to attack a wider front, of having no ditches and inundations to cramp his operations, and of dealing with walls even weaker than those of Valencia, and defended by artillery of which very few were pieces of heavy calibre.

The first attack was delivered in the most dashing, not to say foolhardy, style. At the gate of Santa Engracia a squadron of Polish lancers, who led the van, charged into and over the small battery which covered the ingress into the city. Their wild rush carried them right into the place, in spite of a dropping fire of musketry directed upon them from every house that they passed. Turning into a broad lane to the left, these headstrong horsemen rode forward, losing men at every step, till they were brought to a stand in the Plaza del Portillo, where the majority were shot down; a very few succeeded in escaping by the way along which they had come. The Polish infantry, which should have followed closely on the heels of the lancers, penetrated no further than the earthwork at the gate, where it got closely engaged with the Spaniards who held the neighbouring convent of Santa Engracia. Exposed in the open street to a heavy fire from behind walls and windows, the leading battalion gave way, and retired into the olive groves and buildings outside the gate.

[p. 149]

Meanwhile the French brigade of Lefebvre’s division attacked the gates of Portillo and the Carmen and the adjoining cavalry barracks. At the last-named post they scaled the walls, which were particularly low and weak at this point, and got into the city. But at the gates the batteries in the narrow ingress held them back. After a sharp skirmish, a general rush of peasants, soldiers, and citizens, swept out the invaders from the cavalry barracks, and the front of defence was restored. Lefebvre would have done well to pause before renewing his assault: but (like Moncey at Valencia) he was loth to believe that the enemy would face a persistent attempt to break in. He accordingly ordered both the columns to renew their attacks: for some time it seemed likely that he might succeed, for the French forced both the Carmen and the Portillo gates and reoccupied the cavalry barracks, while the Poles burst in for a second time at Santa Engracia. But it proved impossible to make any further advance into the city, where every house was full of musketeers and the narrow lanes were blocked with artillery, which swept them from end to end. When it became clear that the enemy were making no further progress, the Spaniards rallied behind the Bull-Ring on the Portillo front, and in the convent of Santa Engracia on the southern front, and swept out the decimated battalions of Lefebvre by a determined charge[116].

It is not surprising to find that the assailants had suffered very heavily in such a desperate attack on walls and barricades teeming with defenders worked up to a high pitch of patriotic frenzy. Lefebvre lost 700 men, and left behind him at the Portillo gate several guns which had been brought up too close to the place, and could not be dragged off under the dreadful musketry fire from the walls, and the flanking discharges from the neighbouring castle of Aljafferia. The Spaniards, fighting under cover except at the moment of their final charges, had suffered comparatively little: their loss is estimated at not much over 300 men. They might well be proud of their success: they had certainly showed a heroic spirit in fighting so obstinately after three crushing defeats in the open field. That a practically unfortified town should defend itself by street-fighting was a new idea: and that[p. 150] peasants and citizens (there were not 900 regulars in the place) should not only hold out behind walls, but execute desperate charges en masse, would till that day have been regarded as impossible by any soldier of Napoleon. Every thinking man in the French army must have looked with some dismay on the results of the fight, not because of the loss suffered, for that was a mere trifle, but because of the prospect of the desperate national resistance which had evidently to be faced.

Meanwhile, Lefebvre-Desnouettes retired for some thousands of yards from the city, and pitched his camp facing its western front. He sent pressing letters asking for reinforcements both to Madrid and to Bayonne, and attempted no offensive action for ten days. If he sent a formal summons of surrender to the Saragossans, it was to waste time and allow fresh troops to arrive, rather than with any hope that he could intimidate the citizens. He was himself more likely to be attacked during the next few days than to make any forward movement. But he was already beginning to receive reinforcements: on June 21 there arrived two battalions of the 2nd Regiment of the Vistula, and more troops were behind.

Palafox, on the other hand, received much unexpected encouragement from the combat of the sixteenth. On receiving the news of it at Belchite on the following morning, he sent back his brother, the Marquis de Lazan, giving him the command of the city, and bidding him tell the Saragossans that he would endeavour to raise the siege in a very few days. There was already a considerable body of insurgents in arms in South-western Aragon, under the Baron de Versage, who had raised at Calatayud two battalions of new levies[117], and gathered in some fugitives from the Spanish garrison of Madrid. Palafox ordered the baron to join him with every man that he could bring, and their two detachments met at Almunia on June 21, and from thence marched towards Saragossa by the road which leads down the valley of the Xalon by Epila. At the last-named place they were only fifteen miles from Lefebvre-Desnouettes’ camp, and were already threatening the French communications with Logro?o and Vittoria. But their army was still very small—no more than 550 regular infantry, 1,000 men of Versage’s new regiments, 350 cavalry, and a couple of thousand[p. 151] levies of all kinds, among whom were noted a company of eighty armed Capuchin friars and a body of mounted smugglers.

The French general had now to make up his mind whether he would raise the siege and fall upon Palafox with his whole army, or whether he would dare to divide his scanty resources, and maintain the attack on the city with one part, while he sent a containing force against the Captain-General’s bands. He resolved to take the latter course—a most hazardous one considering the fact that he had, even with his last reinforcements, not much more than 6,000 sound men in his camp. He dispatched the Polish Colonel Chlopiski with the first regiment of the Vistula, one French battalion, a squadron of lancers and four guns to hold back Palafox, while with the 3,000 men that remained he executed several demonstrations against outlying parts of the defences of Saragossa, in order to distract the attention of the citizens.

This very risky plan was carried out with complete success. While the Saragossans were warding off imaginary attacks, Chlopiski made a forced march and fell upon Palafox at Epila on the night of June 23-24. The Aragonese army was completely surprised and routed in a confused engagement fought in the dark. Several hundred were cut up, and the town of Epila was sacked: Palafox fell back in disorder towards Calatayud and the mountains, while Chlopiski returned to the siege.

The Captain-General, much disconcerted by this disaster, resolved that he would fight no more battles in the open, but merely reinforce the city with the best of his soldiers and resist behind its walls. So sending back Versage and his levies to the hills, he made an enormous detour with his handful of veteran troops and a few hundred irregulars, and re-entered Saragossa by the northern side, which still remained open. He had great difficulty in holding his followers together, for many (and especially his untrustworthy cavalry) wished to retire on Valencia and to abandon the struggle in Aragon. But by appealing to their patriotism—‘he would give every man who insisted on it a passport for Valencia, but those who loved him would follow him’—he finally carried off the whole force, and took somewhat over 1,000 men back to the besieged city [July 1].

During his absence the condition of affairs in Saragossa had been considerably altered. On the one hand the defences had been much improved: the gates had been strongly stockaded, and the[p. 152] walls had been thickened with earth and sandbags, and furnished with a continuous banquette, which had hitherto been wanting. On the other hand the French were beginning to receive reinforcements: on the twenty-sixth General Verdier arrived with three battalions of his division (the second of Bessières’ corps)[118] and two bataillons de marche, in all some 3,000 or 3,500 men. From this time forward small bodies of troops began to reach the besiegers at short intervals, including two more Polish battalions[119], one battalion of French regulars, two Portuguese battalions (the last of the unfortunate division which was on its way across Spain towards the Baltic), 1,000 National Guards of the Hautes Pyrénées and Basses Pyrénées, hastily sent across the frontier from Bayonne, and three squadrons of cavalry[120]. What was more important than the mere numbers was that they brought with them siege-guns, in which Lefebvre had hitherto been entirely deficient. These pieces came from the citadel of Pampeluna, and were part of those resources of which the French had so treacherously taken possession in the preceding February.

Verdier on his arrival superseded Lefebvre-Desnouettes, who was considerably his junior, and took charge of the siege. His first act was to develop an attack on the Monte Torrero, the hill in the suburbs, beyond the Huerba, which dominates, at a distance of 1,800 yards, the southern front of the city. The Spaniards had neither encircled it with continuous lines, nor crowned it with any closed work. It was protected only by two small batteries and some trenches covering the most obvious points of attack. The garrison was composed of no more than 500 men, half peasants, half regulars of the Regiment of Estremadura, of which three weak battalions had arrived from Tarrega on the previous day (June 27)[121]. Verdier sent three columns, each of one battalion, against the more accessible parts of the position, and drove out the small defending force with ease. His task was made lighter by a piece of casual luck: on the night before the assault the main powder-magazine of the Saragossans, situated in the Seminary,[p. 153] was ignited by the carelessness of a workman, and blew up, killing many persons and wrecking the Seminary itself and many houses in its vicinity. A few hours after this disaster had taken place, and while the whole city was busy in extinguishing the conflagration, the French attack was delivered; hence the original garrison got no help from within the walls. But its own conduct was deplorably weak: the colonel in command[122] headed the rush to the rear, a piece of cowardice for which he was imprisoned and (after the siege had been raised) was sent before a court-martial and shot.

On the evening of the twenty-eighth Verdier began to construct heavy breaching batteries on the slopes of the Monte Torrero, commanding all the southern side of the city. Others were thrown up on the south-western front, opposite the points which had been unsuccessfully assaulted twelve days before. On the thirtieth of June the works were armed with thirty siege-guns, four mortars, and twelve howitzers, which opened simultaneously on Saragossa at midnight, and continued to play upon the place for twenty-four hours, setting many houses on fire, and breaching the flimsy ramparts in half a dozen places. The old castle of the Aljafferia was badly injured, and the gates of Portillo and the Carmen knocked out of shape: there were also large gaps in the convent of the Augustinians, and in the Misericordia, whose back wall formed part of the enceinte. All the unarmed population was forced to take refuge in the cellars, or the more solidly built parts of the churches, while the fighting-men were trying to construct barricades behind the worst breaches, and to block up with sandbags, beams, and barrels all the lanes that opened upon them.

Palafox entered Saragossa on the morning of July 2, just in time to see Verdier launch his whole available infantry force upon the shattered western and southern fronts of the city. The assault was made under much more favourable conditions than that of June 16, since the strength of the storming columns was more than doubled, and the defences had been terribly mishandled by the bombardment. On the other hand the garrison was in no degree shaken in spirit: the fire of the last twenty-four hours had been much more dangerous to buildings than to men, and the results of the first assault had given the defenders a confidence which they had not felt on the previous occasion. Hence it came[p. 154] to pass that of the six columns of assault not one succeeded in making a permanent lodgement within the walls. Even the isolated castle of Aljafferia and the convent of San José, just outside the Porta Quemada, were finally left in the hands of the besieged, though the latter was for some hours held by the French. The hardest fighting was at the Portillo gate, where the assaulting battalions more than once reached the dilapidated earthwork that covered the ingress to the north-western part of the city. It was here that there occurred the well-known incident of the ‘Maid of Saragossa.’ The gunners at the small battery in the gate had been shot down one after another by the musketry of the assailants, the final survivors falling even before they could discharge the last gun that they had loaded. The infantry supports were flinching and the French were closing in, when a young woman named Agostina Zaragoza, whose lover (an artillery sergeant) had just fallen, rushed forward, snatched the lighted match from his dying hand, and fired the undischarged twenty-four-pounder into the head of the storming column[123]. The enemy was shaken by a charge of grape delivered at ten paces, the citizens, shamed by Agostina’s example, rushed back to reoccupy the battery, and the assault was beaten off. Palafox states that the incident occurred before his own eyes: he gave the girl a commission as sub-lieutenant of artillery, and a warrant for a life-pension: she was seen a year later by several English witnesses, serving with her battery in Andalusia[124].

[p. 155]

The fruitless attack of July 2 cost the French 200 killed and 300 wounded. The Saragossan garrison lost somewhat less, in spite of the bombardment, since they had been fighting under cover against enemies who had to expose themselves whenever they got near the wall. Verdier resolved for the future to shun attempts at escalade, and to begin a regular siege. He commenced on the third of July to construct parallels, for a main attack on the southern side of the place, and a secondary attack on the north-western. He also threw a detachment across the Ebro [July 11], to close the hitherto undisturbed access to the city through the suburb of San Lazaro and the stone bridge. The force which could be spared for this object from an army of no more than 12,000 or 13,000 men was not really sufficient to hold the left bank of the Ebro, and merely made ingress and egress difficult without entirely preventing it. On two or three occasions when considerable bodies of Spaniards presented themselves, the French could do no more than skirmish with them and try to cut off the convoys which they were bringing to the city. They could not exclude them, and for the whole remainder of the siege the communications of the Saragossans with the open country were never entirely closed[125].

By July 15, Verdier’s trenches were commencing to work up close to the walls, and the next ten days of the month were occupied in desperate struggles for the convents of San José, of the Capuchins and Trinitarians, which lie outside the city near the Carmen and Porta Quemada gates. By the twenty-fourth the French had occupied them, connected them with their approaches, and begun to establish in them breaching batteries. Another, but less powerful, attack was directed against the Portillo gate. The mortars and howitzers bombarded the city continuously from the first to the third. But it was not till the dawn of August 4 that the heavy guns were ready to begin their task of battering down the gates and walls of Saragossa. After five hours of steady firing the Spanish batteries were silenced, and several breaches had been made, mostly in or about the Convent of Santa Engracia, at the southernmost point of the city. The streets behind it had been terribly shattered by the previous bombardment, and many buildings[p. 156] destroyed, notably the central hospital, from which the Spaniards had to remove, under a terrible hail of shells, more than 500 sick and wounded, as well as a number of lunatics and idiots: the institution had been used as an asylum before the outbreak of the war. Many of these unfortunate creatures were destroyed by the besiegers’ fire[126], as were also no small number of the wounded and of their doctors and nurses.

Palafox and his brother the marquis remained near Santa Engracia, trying to encourage their followers to repair the barricades behind the breaches, and to loophole and strengthen those of the houses which still stood firm. But amid the dreadful and unceasing storm of projectiles it was hard to keep the men together, and most of the projected retrenchments were battered down before they could be finished. At two o’clock in the afternoon of the fourth, Verdier let loose his storming columns, composed of four Polish and nine French battalions[127]. They were directed in three bodies against three separate breaches, the easternmost in the[p. 157] Convent of Santa Engracia, the second at the gate of the same name, the third more to the left, in the wall near the gate of the Carmen. All three were successful in forcing their way into the city: the defences had been completely shattered, and at one point 300 continuous yards of the outer wall had fallen. The Spaniards clung for some time to the cloisters and church of Santa Engracia, but were at last expelled or exterminated, and 1,000 yards of the enceinte with the adjoining buildings were in the hands of the French.

It was at this moment, apparently, that Verdier sent in a parlementaire with the laconic note—‘Head Quarters, Santa Engracia. Capitulation?’ To which Palafox returned the well-known reply—‘Head Quarters, Saragossa. War to the knife[128].’

All through the afternoon of the fourth of August, the French slowly pushed their way up the streets which lead northward towards the Coso, the main thoroughfare of Saragossa. They could only get forward by storming each house, and turning each barricade that offered resistance, so that their progress was very slow. While inflicting terrible losses on the Spaniards, they were also suffering very heavily themselves. But they drove a broad[p. 158] wedge into the city, till finally they reached and crossed the Coso, halfway between the southern wall and the river. In the streets beyond the Coso their impetus seemed to have exhausted itself: many of the men were too tired to press forward any longer; others turned aside to plunder the churches and the better sort of houses[129]. Verdier tried to cut his way to the great bridge, so as to divide the defenders into two separate bodies, and was so far successful that many of the Spaniards began to troop off across the river into the suburb of San Lazaro. But he himself was wounded, his main column lost its way in the narrow side-streets, and the attack died down.

In the late afternoon there was almost a suspension of hostilities, and the firing slackened for a space. But at last the Aragonese, encouraged by the exhaustion of their enemies, began to resume the offensive. The fugitives who had crossed to the northern side of the Ebro were hustled together and driven back by their leaders, while a loaded gun was placed on the bridge to prevent their return. The garrison of the eastern front, which had not been seriously attacked, sent all the reinforcements that it could spare into the centre of the town. At dusk masses of Spaniards debouched from the neighbourhood of the two cathedrals, and began to assail the positions held by the French beyond the line of the Coso. The first charge into the open street is recorded to have been led by a monk[130] and sixteen peasants, every one of whom were killed or wounded; but endless reinforcements poured out of every lane, and the exhausted French began to lose ground. The fighting was of that deadly sort in which the question has to be settled, whether the defenders of the houses in a street can shoot down their assailants, exposed in the roadway, before the latter can burst into each separate dwelling and exterminate its garrison in detail. Often the French held the upper stories long after the Spaniards had seized the ground floor, and the staircases had to be stormed one after the other. It was natural that in such struggles the defenders should receive no quarter. Though the fight raged with many variations of fortune in all the central[p. 159] parts of the city, there was after a time no doubt that the Aragonese were gaining ground. The French detachments which had penetrated furthest into the place were gradually cut off and exterminated; the main bodies of the columns drew back and strengthened themselves in two large stone buildings, the convents of San Francisco and San Diego. At nightfall they retained only a wedge-like section of the city, whose apex near San Francisco just touched the southern side of the Coso, while its base was formed by the line of wall between the gates of Santa Engracia and the Carmen.

The French had lost nearly 2,000 men in the struggle: the engineer Belmas gives the total as 462 killed and 1,505 wounded[131], more than a fifth of the troops which had actually been engaged in the assault. Among the Saragossans, who before the street-fighting began had been subjected to a severe bombardment for many hours, the casualties must have been nearly as great. But they could spare combatants more easily than their enemies: indeed they had more men than muskets, and as each defender fell there was a rush of the unarmed to get possession of his weapon.

During the night of August 4-5 both sides, fatigued though they were, set to work to cover themselves with barricades and works constructed with the débris of ruined houses. In the morning both French and Spaniards had rough but continuous lines of defence, those of the latter circling round those of the former, with nothing but the width of a narrow street between them. Wherever there was anything approaching an open space cannon had been brought up to sweep it. Where the houses still stood firm, communications had been made between them by breaking holes through the party walls. In the streets the corpses of both sides lay thick, for under the deadly cross-fire no one dared venture out to remove them: in a day or two the sanitary conditions would be horrible.

Meanwhile both besiegers and besieged were too exhausted to undertake any more serious operations, and the fighting sank to little more than a desultory fusillade between enemies equally[p. 160] well protected by their defences. Such interest as there was in the operations of August 5-6 lay outside the walls of Saragossa. On the afternoon of the day of the great assault a column of Spanish troops from Catalonia—two line battalions and 2,000 or 3,000 new levies and armed peasants—arrived at Villamayor on the north of the Ebro, only seven miles from the city. It escorted a much-desired convoy of ammunition, for the supplies in the city were running very low. While the fighting was still raging in the streets Palafox rode out of the suburb of San Lazaro with 100 dragoons and joined this force. On the next morning (August 5) he skirmished with the French troops which lay beyond the Ebro, and passed into the city one veteran battalion and a few wagons of munitions. He then proposed to attack the detached French brigade (that of Piré) with his whole remaining force on the next day, in order to clear the northern front, and to send the rest of his convoy—no less than 200 wagons—into Saragossa. But on the same night he received news of the battle of Baylen and the surrender of Dupont’s army. Moreover, he was informed that a division of the army of Valencia, under Saint-March, was on the way to reinforce him. This induced him to halt for two days, to see whether the French would not raise the siege without further fighting.

Verdier had got the same intelligence at the same hour, with orders to be ready to retreat at a moment’s notice, and to avoid entangling himself in further engagements. He was preparing to withdraw, when on the seventh he received supplementary dispatches from Madrid, with directions to hold on for the present, and to keep the Saragossans occupied, without, however, compromising himself too much. Accordingly he resumed the bombardment, and began to throw into the city an immense number of shells: for he saw that when his retreat was definitely ordered, he would not be able to carry off with him the vast stores of munitions that he had accumulated in his camp.
Map of Saragossa

Enlarge  Saragossa.

Seeing that the French did not move, Palafox attacked the covering force on the left bank of the Ebro on August 8. His enemies were very inferior in numbers and had been told not to risk anything, considering the delicate state of affairs. Accordingly the relieving force crossed the river Gallego, pushed back Piré’s 2,000 men in a long skirmishing fight, and ultimately established themselves on ground just outside the suburb of San[p. 161] Lazaro: the convoy, under cover of the fighting, successfully entered the city over the great bridge. That night Verdier withdrew Piré’s brigade across the river, thus leaving the whole northern front of the place free from blockade. Clearly this could only mean that he was about to raise the siege, but for five days more he continued to ravage the central parts of the city with his bombs, and to bicker at the barricades with the Saragossans. But on the thirteenth the Spaniards noted that his camps seemed to be growing empty, and on the fourteenth a series of explosions told them that he was abandoning his siege works. Santa Engracia and the other points held inside the city were all destroyed on that day, and the ammunition which could not be carried off was blown up. The guns which had been pressed forward into the ruined streets were spiked and left behind, as it would have been impossible to extricate them under the Spanish fire. Of those in the outer batteries some were thrown into the canal, others disabled by having their trunnions knocked off, others merely spiked. Altogether no less than fifty-four pieces, all more or less injured, but many susceptible of repair, were left behind to serve as trophies for the Saragossans.

Finally Verdier withdrew by slow marches up the Ebro to Tudela, where he took post on August 17. He had lost in all over 3,500 men in his long-continued struggle with the heroic city. The Aragonese must have suffered at least as much, but the figures are of course impossible to verify. They said that their casualties amounted to no more than 2,000, but this must surely be an understatement, for Palafox says that by August 1 there were of his original 7,000 levies only 3,500 left under arms. Even allowing for heavy diminution by desertion and dispersion, this implies very serious losses in action, and these seven Aragonese battalions formed only a part of the garrison, which counted 13,000 men on August 13. Probably the unembodied citizens and peasants suffered in a still heavier proportion than troops which had received even a small measure of organization. If the whole losses came to 4,500 it would not be surprising—but nothing can be stated with certainty. Yet whatever were their sufferings, the Saragossans had turned over a new page in the history of the art of war. They had defended for two months an unfortified place, by means of extemporized barricades, retrenchments, and earthworks, and had proved their ability to resist even a formidable train of siege[p. 162] artillery. If the news of Dupont’s disaster had not arrived in time to save them, they would no doubt have succumbed in the end, as must any besieged place which is not sooner or later relieved from the outside. But meanwhile they had accomplished a rare feat: almost unaided by regular troops, almost destitute of trained artillerymen and engineers, they had held at bay a force which Napoleon at the commencement of the siege would have supposed to be equal to the task of conquering not only Aragon, but the whole eastern side of the Iberian Peninsula.