History of the war in the Peninsula and in the south of France from the year 1807 to the year 1814, vol. 4

by William Francis Patrick Napier

CHAPTER V.

In Taragona, although a siege had been so long1811. May. expected, there was a great scarcity of money and ammunition, and so many men had, as Suchet foresaw, been drawn off to succour Figueras, that the garrison, commanded by colonel Gonzalez, was not more than six thousand, including twelve hundred armed inhabitants and the seamen of the port. The town was encumbered with defensive works of all kinds, but most of them were ill-constructed, irregular, and without convenient places for making sallies.

Taragona itself was built upon rocks, steep on the north-east and south, but sinking gently on the south-west and west into low ground. A mole formed a harbour capable of receiving ships of the line, and beyond the mole there was a roadstead. The upper town was surrounded by ancient walls, crowning the rocks, and these walls were inclosed by a second rampart with irregular bastions which ran round the whole city. On the east, across the road to Barcelona, there was a chain of redoubts connected by curtains, with a ditch and covered way; and behind this line there was a rocky space called the Milagro, opening between the body of the place and the sea. The lower town, or suburb, was separated from the upper, by the inner ramparts of the latter, and was protected by three regular and some irregular bastions with a ditch; a square work, called Fort Royal, formed a species of citadel within, and the double town presented the figure of an irregular oblong, whose length lying parallel to the sea, was about twelve hundred yards.

On the east beyond the walls, a newly constructed line of defence was carried along the coast to the mouth of the Francoli, where it ended in a large redoubt, built to secure access to that river when the ancient aqueducts which furnished the city with water should be cut by the French. This line was strengthened by a second redoubt, called the Prince, half-way between that near the Francoli and the town; and it was supported by the mole which being armed with batteries, and nearly in a parallel direction, formed as it were a second sea-line.

The approach on the side of the Francoli river was of a level character, and exposed to the fire of the Olivo, a large outwork on the north, crowning a rocky table-land of an equal height with the upper town, but divided from it by a ravine nearly half-a-mile wide, across which the aqueducts of the place were carried. This Olivo was an irregular horn-work, four hundred yards long, with a ditch twenty-four feet deep and forty wide, but the covered way was not completed, and the gorge was only closed by a loop-holed wall; neither was this defence quite finished, as the steepness of the rock, and the fire of the city appeared to render it secure. The bastion on the left of the Olivo, was cut off by a ditch and a rampart from the body of the work, and on the right also within the rampart there was a small redoubt of refuge, with a high cavalier or bank, on which three guns were placed that overlooked all the country round. The ordinary garrison of the Olivo was from twelve to fifteen hundred men, and it contained fifty out of three hundred pieces of artillery which served the defence of Taragona.

The nature of the soil combined with the peculiarities of the works, determined Suchet’s line of attack. On the north and east side the ground was rocky, the fronts of defence wide, the approaches unfavourable for breaching batteries; and as all the guns and stores would have to be dragged over the hills on a great circuit, unless the Olivo was first taken, no difficulty could be avoided in an attack. Wherefore, on the side of the lower town the French resolved to approach, although the artificial defences were there accumulated, and the ground between the town and the Francoli river taken in reverse by the Olivo, which rendered it necessary first to reduce that outwork. But this part was chosen by the French, because the soil was deep and easily moved, their depôts and parks close at hand, the ground-plot of the works so salient that they could be easily embraced with fire, and because the attack would, it was supposed, cut off the garrison from fresh water, yet this last advantage was not realized.

On the 4th of May the French, passing the Francoli, drove in the outposts, took possession of two small detached redoubts, situated on the northern side, called the forts of Loretto, and invested the place. However the Spanish troops supported by the fire of the Olivo killed and wounded two hundred men, and the next day a fruitless attempt was made to retake the lost ground; at the same time the fleet under captain Codrington, consisting of three English ships of the line and three frigates, besides sloops and Spanish vessels of war, cannonaded the French right, and harassed their convoys, then coming by the coast-road from the Col de Balaguer. The investing troops whose posts were very close to the Olivo, were also greatly incommoded by the heavy fire from that outwork, yet the line was maintained and perfected.

Habert’s division, forming the right wing, extended from the sea to the bridge of the Francoli; general Frere’s division connected Habert with Harispe’s, whose troops occupied the ground before the Olivo; the Italian division prolonged Harispe’s left to the road of Barcelona which runs close to the sea on the east side of Taragona; three regiments were placed in reserve higher up on the Francoli, where a trestle bridge was cast, and the park, which was established on the right of that river, at the village of Canonja, contained sixty-six battering guns and mortars, each furnished with seven hundred rounds. There were also thirty-six field-pieces, two thousand artillery-men to serve the guns, seven hundred sappers and miners, fourteen hundred cavalry, and nearly fifteen thousand infantry. The head-quarters were fixed at the village of Constanti, a strong covering position, the depôt at Reus was secured by fortified convents, and the works at Mora were defended by several battalions. Other troops, placed at Falcet, guarded the communications, which were farther secured by the escorts belonging to the convoys; and the French had cut off the water of the aqueducts from the Olivo, but this water, whose source was ten or twelve miles off, was also necessary to the besiegers on that sterile land, and was again cut off by the Somatenes, which obliged the French to guard its whole course during the siege.

Meanwhile Campo Verde after his defeat at Figueras had sent Sarsfield and Eroles to their former posts near Valls, Momblanch, and Igualada, and embarking at Mattaro himself, with four thousand men, came on the 10th to Taragona, where the sudden appearance of the French had produced great consternation. Yet when Campo Verde arrived with[Appendix, No. II.] Section 1. this reinforcement, and when colonel Green, the English military agent, arrived on the 15th from Cadiz, in the Merope, bringing with him fifty thousand dollars and two transports laden with arms and stores, Spanish apathy again prevailed, and the necessary measures of defence were neglected. Beyond the walls, however, the French post at Momblanch was attacked by two thousand Miguelettes, and the Somatenes assembled in the vicinity of Reus.

Suchet detached general Frere with four battalions to relieve the former place, where the attack had failed; the commandant of Reus also dispersed the Somatenes, and meanwhile Harispe pushed his patroles over the Gaya as far as Torre de Barra, where he found some wounded Spaniards. These men were within the protection of a convention, made by St. Cyr with Reding, by which the wounded men of both armies were to be left in the civil hospitals of the different towns, and mutually taken care of, without being made prisoners; and it is remarkable that this compact was scrupulously executed on both sides, while beyond those hospitals the utmost ferocity and a total disregard of civilized usages prevailed.

Vol. 4 Plate 2.

Explanatory Sketch
OF THE
SIEGE of TARAGONA.
London. Published by T. & W. BOONE.

Sarsfield’s arrival near Momblanch threatened the communications between Reus and Mora, and at the same time a Valencian column, acting in concert with captain Adam of the Invincible, attacked the posts of Rapita and Amposta: the former was abandoned by the garrison, and the latter was surrounded by the Valencians, but a regiment sent from Tortoza, after disengaging Amposta, defeated the Valencians near Rapita; nevertheless Suchet, unwilling to lessen his already too small force, did not restore the latter post.

SIEGE OF TARAGONA.

The French general having resolved to attack the lower town, commenced his operations by constructing a fort and batteries, on the right of the Francoli, near the sea-shore, with a view to keep the English ships of war and the gun-boats at a distance from his projected trenches. These works commenced in the night of the 7th, were successfully continued towards the mouth of the river under the fire of the vessels; a trench, lined with musqueteers, was also carried from the left along the bank of the river to the bridge, but the Spaniards continually harassed the investing troops both from within and from without, and made some attempts against the camp; wherefore the brigade of general Salme, which was close to the Olivo, was obliged to entrench, and yet lost fifty or sixty men daily by the enemy’s skirmishers.

On the night of the 13th, during a tempest, the French stormed two external entrenchments near the Olivo, and then turned them against the besieged; the next morning a vigorous attempt to retake them was repulsed with a loss of one hundred men, and on the Francoli side, a sally supported by the shipping failed in consequence of the cowardice of some Spanish officers. On the[Appendix, No. II.] Sect. 1. same day, besides this attack on the side of the Francoli, the garrison came out from the Barcelona gate, and six hundred Somatenes from the Upper Gaya fell on the patroles of the Italian division, whereupon Palombini scoured the country on the 15th as far as Arbos.

The 18th a powerful sortie from the lower town was made by Gonzalez, who passed the bridge, and, aided by a fire from the place, from the Olivo, and from the fleet, pressed Habert’s division hard; Suchet however came down with his reserve, pushed between the river and the Olivo, and menaced the Spanish line of retreat, which obliged Gonzalez to retire with loss. On the 20th three other sallies were made from the Olivo, and from the upper town, on the Barcelona side, but they were all in like manner repulsed; and that day Sarsfield took post with twelve hundred men on a high and rugged place near Alcover, thus menacing the depôt at Reus. The French general therefore detached two battalions of infantry and some cavalry, under general Broussard, to dislodge him, which was effected with the loss of a hundred French; but three days later he appeared before Momblanch, and was only driven away by the united brigades of Frere and Palombini, who marched against him. Divers attempts were also made upon the line of Falcet, especially at Grattallopes, where the Spanish colonel, Villamil, having attacked Morozinski, a Pole, the latter defended himself successfully, and with a bravery that has always distinguished the people of that heroic nation; a nation whose glory springs like an ignis fatuus from the corruption of European honour!

These repeated attacks having warned Suchet how difficult it would be to maintain, with his weak army, so great an extent of communication, he abandoned his post at Momblanch, and contented himself with preserving the lines of Falcet and of Felippe de Balaguer; a measure the more necessary, that the garrison of Taragona was now greatly augmented; for on the 16th, the Blake had sailed for Valencia to seek reinforcements, and Carlos O’Donnel, who had succeeded Bassecour, gave him above two thousand infantry and two hundred cannoneers, who were safely landed at Taragona on the 22d, two thousand stand of arms being, in return, delivered by captain Codrington to O’Donnel, to equip fresh levies. Above twelve thousand men were thus collected in the fortress, but all the richest citizens had removed with their families and effects to Villa Nueva de Sitjes, and the people were dispirited.

Suchet broke ground before the Olivo in the night of the 21st, and carried on his approaches from both ends of the Spanish entrenchments which he had seized on the night of the 13th. His engineers wished to reach a round hill, close to the works, on which they proposed to plant their first breaching battery, and they crowned it on the 22d, but with much loss, being obliged to carry the earth for the work, up the hill in baskets, and they were continually interrupted by sallies. Three counter-batteries were, however, completed and armed on the 27th with thirteen pieces, of which six threw shells; but to effect this, the soldiers dragged the artillery over the rocks, under a heavy fire of grape, and the garrison making a vigorous sally, killed general Salme, when he opposed them with the reserves. The moment was dangerous toSuchet. the French, but they were finally victorious, and the fire of the batteries having opened the same morning, was sustained until the evening of the 29th, when a breach being formed, the assault was ordered.

STORMING OF THE OLIVO.

Upon the success of this attack, Suchet thought, and with reason, that his chance of taking the town would depend, seeing that his army was too feeble to bear any serious check. Wherefore, having formed his columns of assault, he personally encouraged them, and at the same time directed the troops along the whole line of investment to advance simultaneously, and menace every part of the town. The night was dark, and the Spaniards were unexpectant of an attack, because none of their guns had yet been silenced; but the French, full of hope and resolution, were watching for the signal. When that was given, the troops on the Francoli, and those on the Barcelona side, made a sudden discharge of musketry, beat all their drums, and with loud shouts approached the town at those opposite quarters; the rampart of the place was instantly covered with fire from within and from without; the ships in the offing threw up rockets, and amidst the noise of four hundred guns the storming columns rushed upon the Olivo.

The principal force made for the breach; but a second column, turning the fort, got between it and the town, at the moment when fifteen hundred men, sent to relieve the old garrison, were entering the gates. Some of the French instantly fell on theirSuchet. rear, which hurrying forward, gave an opportunity to the assailants to penetrate with them beforeVacani. the gates could be closed, and thirty sappers with hatchets having followed closely, endeavoured to break the door, while Papignay, their officer, attempted to climb over the wall; the Spaniards killed him and most of the sappers, but the other troops, planted their ladders to the right and left, and cutting through the pointed stakes above, entered the place and opened the gate.

At the main attack the French boldly assailed the narrow breach, but the ditch was fifteen feet deep, the Spaniards firm, and the fire heavy, and they were giving way, when the historian, Vacani, followed by some of his countrymen, (it is a strange error to think the Italians have not a brave spirit!) cut down the paling which blocked the subterranean passage of the aqueduct, and thus got into the ditch and afterwards into the fort. Then the Spaniards were driven from the ramparts on all sides, back to the little works of refuge, before noticed, as being at each end of the Olivo, from whence they fired both musketry and guns; but the French and Italian reserves, followed by Harispe with a third column now entered the place, and with a terrible slaughter ended the contest. Twelve hundred men perished, some escaped, a thousand were taken, and amongst them their commander who had received ten wounds.

In the morning three thousand Spaniards came out of Taragona, yet retired without attacking, and Suchet demanded a suspension of arms to dispose of the dead; this was however treated with scorn and the heaps were burned, for the sterile rocks afforded no earth to bury them. Campo Verde now gave general Senens de Contreras the command of Taragona, and went himself to the field-army, which was about ten thousand strong, including some new levies made by the junta of Catalonia.

Suchet’s investment having been precipitated by1811. June. the fall of Figueras his stores were not all collected until the 1st of June, when trenches were opened to embrace the whole of the lower town including the fort of Francoli and its chain of connecting works running along the sea-shore, that is to say, 1º. The Nun’s bastion and a half-moon called the King’s, which formed, on the Spanish right, a sort of horn-work to the royal fort or citadel. 2º. The bastion of San Carlos and a half-moon called the Prince’s, which stood on the left, in the retiring angle where the sea-line joined the body of the place, and served as a counter-guard to the bastion of San Carlos. 3º. The sea-line itself and the Francoli fort.

The 2d of June the besieged made a fruitless sally, and in the night of the 3d some advanced Spanish entrenchments were destroyed by the French. Sarsfield then entered Taragona with a detachment, and took the command of what was called the Port, which included the Mole, the works leading to the Francoli, and the suburb or lower town, Contreras still remaining governor of all, although reluctantly, for he expected no success.

In the night of the 4th the approaches were carried forward by the sap, the second parallel was commenced, and on the 6th the besiegers were within twenty yards of the Francoli fort, which had a wet ditch and was of regular construction. The breaching batteries which had been armed as the trenches proceeded, opened their fire against it on the 7th. The fresh masonry crumbled away rapidly, and at ten o’clock that night, the fort being entirely destroyed, three hundred chosen men in three columns, one of which forded the Francoli river, attacked the ruins, and the defenders retired fighting, towards the half-moon of the Prince. The assailants then made a disorderly attempt to enter with them, but were quickly repulsed with a loss of fifty men, yet the lodgement was under a heavy fire secured; and the next night a battery of six pieces was constructed there, with a view to silence the guns of the Mole, which together with that of the place, endeavoured to overwhelm the small space thus occupied, with shot.

In the nights of the 8th and 9th under terrible discharges from both the upper and lower town, the second parallel was prolonged to fort Francoli on the right, and on the left, carried to within seventy yards of the Nun’s bastion.

The 11th Sarsfield making a sally, killed some men, and retarded the works; but before the 15th, three approaches by the sap were conducted against the Nun’s bastion, where the besiegers crowned the glacis, and against the half-moon of the King and Prince. Fresh batteries were also constructed, whose fire embraced the whole front from the Prince to the Nun’s bastion.

On the morning of the 16th fifty-four guns opened from the French batteries, and the Spaniards placing sand-bags along the parapets endeavoured by musketry to kill the gunners, who were much exposed, while all the cannon of the place which could be directed upon the trenches were employed to crush the batteries. Towards evening this fire had in a great degree mastered that of the besiegers, destroyed the centre of their second parallel, and silenced a battery on their right; but the loss and damage was great on both sides, for two consumption magazines exploded in the town and the Nun’s bastion was breached. The engineers also observed that the ditch of the Prince was not carried round to the sea, and hence Suchet who feared a continuation of this murderous artillery battle, resolved to storm that point at once, hoping to enter by the defect in the ditch.

At nine o’clock two columns, supported by a reserve, issued from the trenches, and after a short resistance entered the work both by the gap of the ditch, and by escalade; the garrison fought well, and were put to the sword, a few only escaping along the quay, these were pursued by a party of the French, who passing a ditch, and draw-bridge which cut off the road from the bastion of San Carlos, endeavoured to maintain themselves there, but being unsupported were mostly destroyed. The lodgement thus made was immediately secured and included in the trenches.

During the night of the 17th the old batteries were repaired and the construction of a new one, to breach the bastion of San Carlos, was begun upon the half-moon of the Prince; the saps and other approaches were also pushed forward, a lodgement was effected in the covered way of the Nun’s bastion, and the third parallel was commenced; but on the right of the trenches, in advance of the Prince, the workmen came upon water which obliged them to desist at that point.

The 18th the third parallel was completed and the descent of the ditch at the Nun’s bastion was commenced by an under-ground gallery; yet the fire from the upper town plunged into the trenches, and thirty-seven shells thrown very exactly into the lodgement on the counterscarp, obliged the besiegers to relinquish their operations there during the day. At this time also the gun-boats which hitherto had been of little service in the defence, were put under the direction of the British navy, and worked with more effect; yet it does not appear that the enemy ever suffered much injury from the vessels of war, beyond the interruption sometimes given to their convoys on the Col de Balaguer road.

During the nights of the 19th and 20th all the French works were advanced, and the morning of the 21st the new battery, in the Prince, being ready, opened its fire against San Carlos, and was followed by all the other batteries. The explosion of an expense magazine silenced the Prince’s battery after a few rounds, the damage was however repaired, and at four o’clock in the evening nearly all the Spanish guns being overcome and the breaches enlarged, Suchet resolved to storm the lower town. But previous to describing this terrible event, it is necessary to notice the proceedings within and without the place, that a just idea of the actual state of affairs on both sides may be formed.

Macdonald had continued the blockade of Figueras with unceasing vigilance; and as the best of the Miguelettes were shut up there, and as the defeat of Campo Verde, on the 3d of May, had spread consternation throughout the province, the operations to relieve it were confined to such exertions as Rovira, Manso, and other chiefs could call forth. In like manner Francisco Milans was left in the Hostalrich district, and by his local popularity amongst the people of the coast between Palamos and Barcelona, was enabled to keep up an irregular force; but his object was to be made captain-general of the province, and his desire of popularity, or some other motive, led him to favour the towns of his district at the expense of the general cause. Mattaro and Villa Nueva de Sitjes trafficked in corn with Barcelona, and one of their secret convoys was detected at a later period passing the outposts with Milans’ written authority. He put[Appendix, No. II.] Section 4. the men to death who permitted the convoy to pass, but he did not succeed in removing the suspicion of corruption from himself. This traffic was very advantageous for the French, and Maurice Mathieu being either unwilling to disturb it, or that having recently suffered in a skirmish at Mattaro, he feared to risk his troops, made no movement to aid the siege of Taragona, which it would appear, he might have done by taking possession of Villa Nueva de Sitjes.

Such was the state of Eastern Catalonia, and in the western parts, the infantry of Sarsfield, and of Eroles, who had come down to the vicinity of Valls, and the cavalry under Caro, which was a thousand strong, formed, with the new levies ordered by the junta, an army of seven or eight thousand men. This force might have done much, if Campo Verde, a man of weak character, and led by others, had not continually changed his plans. At the opening of the siege, Sarsfield had acted, as we have seen, with some success on the side of Momblanch and Reus; but when he was sent into the lower town, the active army being reduced to Eroles’ division, the cavalry could do no more than supply small detachments, to watch the different French convoys and posts. Campo Verde, however, fixed his quarters at Igualada, sent detachments to the Gaya and Villa Franca, and holding Villa Nueva de Sitjes as his post of communication with the fleet, demanded assistance from Murcia and Valencia, and formed a general plan for the succour of the place. But in Taragona his proceedings were viewed with dislike, and discord and negligence were rendering the courage of the garrison of no avail.

We have seen that captain Codrington landed two thousand five hundred Valencians on the 22d of May; besides that reinforcement, vessels loaded with powder and other stores, and additional mortars for the batteries, came from Carthagena and from Cadiz in the beginning of June. From Murcia also came reinforcements; but such was the perversity of some authorities and the want of arrangement in all, that the arms of these men were taken away from them before they sailed; and yet in Taragona there were already two thousand men without arms, a folly attributed by some to[Appendix, No. II.] Section 1. the Spanish authorities of Murcia, by others to colonel Roche, the English military agent. Nor did the confusion end here; for captain Codrington, when he sailed from Taragona to Peniscola in the latter end of May, supplied O’Donnel with arms for two thousand recruits, who were to replace the Valencians then embarked; and a few days afterwards he delivered so many more at the city of Valencia, that Villa Campa and the Empecinado, whose troops, after their dispersion in April by Abbé and Paris, had remained inactive, were enabled[Appendix, No. II.] Section 1. again to take the field. Thus it appears that, while men were sent without arms from Valencia to Taragona, arms were being conveyed from the latter place to Valencia.

The troops in Taragona had, by these different reinforcements, been augmented to near seventeen thousand men; however that number was never available at one time, for the Murcians were sent to Montserrat to be armed, and the losses during the operations, including those caused by sickness, had reduced the garrison at this period to less than twelve thousand. Several colonels of regiments, and manyReport of Contreras. other officers, feigning sickness, or with open cowardice running away, had quitted the town, leaving their battalions to be commanded by captains; the general of artillery was incapable, and Contreras himself, unknown to the inhabitants, unacquainted with the place or its resources, was vacillating and deceitful to those serving under him. He was very unwilling to undertake the defence, and he was at variance with Campo Verde outside, and jealous of Sarsfield inside. In the fleet also some disagreement occurred between captain Codrington and captain Bullen, and the commanders of the Diana and Prueba, Spanish ships of war, were accused of gross misconduct.

Carlos O’Donnel and his brother the Conde de Abispal, at the desire of captain Codrington, had permitted Miranda to embark with four thousand of the best Valencian troops for Taragona, there to join in a grand sally; but they exacted from Codrington a pledge to bring those who survived back, for they would not suffer this their second aid in men to be shut up in the place when the object was effected. These troops landed the 12th at Taragona, yet the next day, at Campo Verde’s order, Miranda, instead of making a sally as had been projected, carried them off by sea to Villa Nueva de Sitjes, and from thence marched to meet a detachment of horse coming from Villa Franca; and on the 15th two squadrons of cavalry issuing from Taragona by the Barcelona gate, passed the French line of investment, without difficulty, and also joined Miranda who then marched to unite with Campo Verde at Igualada.

This movement was in pursuance of a grand plan to succour the place; for the junta of Catalonia, having quitted Taragona after the fall of the Olivo, repaired with the archives to Montserrat, and as usual made their clamours for succour ring throughout the peninsula: they had received promises of co-operation from O’Donnel, from Villa Campa, and from the partizans, and Campo Verde proposed, that the English ships of war should keep between the Col de Balaguer and Taragona, to cannonade the French convoys on that route; that a detachment should take post at Ordal to watch the garrison of Barcelona, and that he with the remainder of his forces, which including Miranda’s division amounted to ten thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry, should take some commanding position near Reus. In this situation he designed to send a detachment towards San Filippe de Balaguer to communicate with the fleet, and, avoiding any serious action, to operate by small corps against the French line of supply, and thus oblige them to raise the siege, or if they came out of their lines to fight them in strong positions.

Contreras treated this plan with contempt. He said it would cause the loss both of the place and the army; that the French would not raise the siege except for a general battle, and that within their lines the best mode of fighting them would be in concert with the garrison; wherefore he desired the general-in-chief to attack them in conjunction with himself, and the junta, who were at variance with Campo Verde, backed this proposal.

Neither of these plans, however, appear sound; for though it is certain, if the generals could have depended upon their troops, such was the reduced state of Suchet’s force, and so extensive was his line of investment, that it would have been easy to break through; yet, unless the French were put entirely to the route, which was unlikely, no great advantage would have followed, because the communication was already open by sea. On the other hand Campo Verde’s plan was only proposed on the 13th, and would have been too slow for the critical nature of the case. It would have been more in accord with that great maxim of war, which prescribes the attack of an enemy’s weakest point with the greatest possible numbers, to have marched with his whole force upon Mora, or upon Reus, to beat the troops there, and destroy the depôts; and then seizing some strong posts on the hills close to the besieger’s lines to have entrenched it and operated daily and hourly against their rear. If Campo Verde had destroyed either of these depôts the siege must have been raised; and if he was unable to beat two or three thousand infantry at those places, he could not hope, even with the assistance of the garrison, to destroy sixteen thousand of all arms in the entrenchments before Taragona. Suchet did not fear a battle on the Francoli river; but so tender was he of the depôts, that when Campo Verde sent an officer to raise the Somatenes about Mora, he called Abbé with three thousand infantry from Teruel, and that general who was active and experienced in the guerilla warfare, soon dispersed the Spanish levies, and took their chief with many others prisoners, after which he joined the besieging army.

Suchet required this reinforcement. He had lost a general, two hundred inferior officers, and above two thousand five hundred men during the siege, and had not more than twelve thousand infantry fit for duty; but colonel Villamil, a partizan of Campo Verde’s, taking advantage of Abbé’s absence, marched with a thousand men to attack Mora, and being beaten on the 16th was succeeded by Eroles, who came with his whole division to Falcet on the 20th, and captured a convoy of loaded mules, driving back the escort with some loss to Mora. The design was to tempt Suchet to send a strong detachment in pursuit of Eroles, in which case the latter was by a rapid march to rejoin Campo Verde near Alcover, when the whole army was to attack Suchet thus weakened. However the French general would not turn from his principal object, and his magazines at Reus were still so full that the loss of the convoy did not seriously affect him.

Such was the situation of affairs on the 21st of June, when the order to assault the lower town was given to an army, small in number, but full of vigour, and confident of success; while, in the place there was confusion, folly, and cowardice. Contreras indeed acted a shameful part; for during captain Codrington’s absence, Sarsfield had concerted with the navy, that in the case of the lower town being stormed, the ships should come to the mole and the garrison would retire there, rather than to the upper town; meanwhile Campo Verde recalled him to the active army, intending that general Velasco should replace him; but at three o’clock on the 21st, the breaches being then open, and the assault momentarily expected, Contreras commanded Sarsfield instantly to embark, falsely averring that such was the peremptory order of Campo Verde. Sarsfield remonstrated in vain, and a boat from the[Appendix, No. II.] Section 1. Cambrian frigate carried him and his personal staff and his effects on board that vessel; thus the command of the troops was left to an inefficient subordinate officer, the assault took place at that moment, and when Velasco arrived, he found only the dead bodies of those he was to have commanded. Contreras then assured captain Codrington and the junta, that Sarsfield had acted without his consent, and had in fact betrayed his post!

STORMING OF THE LOWER TOWN.

This calamitous event happened in the eveningRogniat. of the 21st. Two breaches had been made in theVacani. bastions, and one in the fort Royal; they were notSuchet. wide, and a few Spanish guns still answered the French fire; nevertheless the assault was ordered,Captain Codrington’s Papers, MSS. and as some suppose, because Suchet had secret intelligence of Sarsfield’s removal, and the consequent confusion in the garrison.

Fifteen hundred grenadiers, destined for the attack, were assembled under Palombini in the trenches; a second column was formed to support the storming troops, and to repel any sally from the upper town; and while the arrangements were in progress, the French guns thundered incessantly, and the shouts of the infantry, impatient for the signal, were heard between the salvos, redoubling as the shattered walls gave way. At last Harispe’s division began to menace the ramparts on the side of Barcelona, to distract the attention of the Spaniards, and then Suchet exhorting the soldiers to act vigorously, gave the signal and let them loose while it was still day. In an instant the breaches were crowned, and the assailants swarmed on the bastions, the ramparts, and the fort Royal; the Spaniards, without a leader, were thrown into confusion, and falling in heaps broke and fled towards the port, towards the mole, and towards the upper town, and a reserve stationed under the walls of the latter was overthrown with the same shock. Then some of the fugitives, running towards the mole, were saved by the English launches, others escaped into the upper town, a few were made prisoners, and the rest were slaughtered.

At eight o’clock the lower town was in the possession of the enemy. Fifteen hundred bodies, many of whom were inhabitants, lay stretched upon the place, and the mercantile magazines of the port being set on fire, the flames finished what the sword had begun. When the carnage ceased, the troops were rallied, working parties were set to labour; and ere the confusion in the upper town had subsided, the besiegers were again hidden in their trenches and burrowing forward to the walls of the upper town.

The front before them consisted of four bastions with curtains, but without a ditch. The bastion of St. Paul was opposite their left, that of St. John opposite their centre, that of Jesus opposite their right; but the bastion of Cervantes, which covered the principal landing place of the Milagro, although on the same front of defence, was somewhat retired and not included within the attack. A hollow piece of ground, serving as a trench, had enabled the French to establish their left in a side bastion of the wall, connecting the upper with the lower town; and their right was strongly protected by some houses lining the road, for between the two parts of the city there were four hundred yards of open garden-ground interspersed with single houses. A battery was constructed to play upon the landing places of the Milagro, two mortars which were on the hill of the fort Loretto, concurred in this object, and the light troops were pushed close up to the wall; but at daylight the ships of war passed the port delivering their broadsides in succession, Contreras then showed the heads of columns as if for a sally, and the French skirmishers retired; whereupon the Spanish general, contented with having thus cleared his front, re-entered the place.

The men saved from the mole, by the ships, were now relanded in the upper town, and the second reinforcement from Murcia arrived, but being like the first detachment without arms only added to the confusion and difficulties of the governor. Nevertheless as the loss of the French in the storming was about six hundred, and that of the Spaniards not more than two thousand, the besieged had still nine thousand fighting men; a number nearly equal to the whole infantry of Suchet’s army; and hence Contreras, far from quailing beneath the blow, would not even receive a flag of truce by which the French general offered honourable conditions.

Suchet’s position was becoming more embarrassing every moment; he had now delivered four assaults, his force was diminished nearly one-fifth of its original number, and the men’s strength was spent with labouring on his prodigious works: his line of communication with Lerida was quite intercepted and that with Mora interrupted, and he had lost a large convoy of provisions together with the mules that carried it. The resolution of the besieged seemed in no manner abated, and their communication with the sea, although partially under the French fire, was still free; the sea itself was covered with ships of war, overwhelming reinforcements might arrive at any moment, and Campo Verde with ten thousand men was daily menacing his rear. The Valencian army, Villa Campa, the Empecinado, Duran who had defeated a French detachment near Mirando del Ebro, Mina who had just then taken the convoy with Massena’s baggage at the Puerto de Arlaban, in fine all the Partidas of the mountains of Albaracin, Moncayo, and Navarre, were in motion, and menacing his position in Aragon. This rendered it dangerous for him to call to his aid any more troops from the right of the Ebro, and yet a single check might introduce despondency amongst the soldiers of the siege, composed as they were of different nations, and some but lately come under his command; indeed their labours and dangers were so incessant and wearing, that it is no small proof of the French general’s talent, and the men’s spirit, that the confidence of both was still unshaken.

On the 24th the crisis seemed at hand, intelligence arrived in the French camp, that the Spanish army was coming down the Gaya river to fight, at the same time the garrison got under arms, and an active interchange of signals took place between the town and the fleet. Suchet immediately placed a reserve to sustain the guards of his trenches, and marched with a part of his army to meet Campo Verde. That general, pressed by the remonstrances of Contreras and the junta, had at last relinquished his own plan, recalled Eroles, and united his army at Momblanch on the 22nd, and then moving by Villardoña, had descended the hills between the Gaya and the Francoli; he was now marching in two columns to deliver battle, having directed Contreras to make a sally at the same moment. But Miranda, who commanded his right wing, found, or pretended to find, some obstacles and halted, whereupon Campo Verde instantly relinquished the attack, and marched to Vendril before the French general could reach him.

The 25th he again promised Contreras to make a decisive attack, and for that purpose desired that three thousand men of the garrison should be sent to Vendril, and the remainder be held ready to cut their way through the enemy’s lines during the action. He likewise assured him that four thousand English were coming by sea to aid in this project, and it is probable some great effort was really intended, for the breaching batteries had not yet opened their fire, and the wall of the place was consequently untouched; ten thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry under Campo Verde were within a few miles of the French camp on the Barcelona side; eight thousand men accustomed to fire were still under arms within the walls; and on the 26th colonel Skerrett appeared in the roadstead, not with four thousand, but with twelve hundred British soldiers, sent from Cadiz and from Gibraltar to succour Taragona.

The arrival of this force, the increase of shipping in the roadstead, and the promises of Campo Verde, raised the spirits of the garrison from the depression occasioned by the disappointment of the 27th; and they were still more elated when in the evening colonel Skerrett and his staff, accompanied by general Doyle, captain Codrington, and other officers of the navy, disembarked, and proceeded to examine the means of defence. But they were struck withContreras’ Report consternation when they heard that the British commander, because his engineers affirmed that the[Appendix, No. II.] Section 1. wall would give way after a few salvos from the breaching batteries, had resolved to keep his troops on board the transports, idle spectators of the garrison’s efforts, to defend the important place which he had been sent to succour.

Contreras, thus disappointed on all sides, and without dependence on Campo Verde, resolved, if the French delayed the storm until the 29th, to make way by a sally on the Barcelona road, and so join the army in the field; meanwhile to stand the assault if fortune so willed it. And he had good reason for his resolution, for the ground in front of the walls was high and narrow; and although there was neither ditch nor covered way, a thick hedge of aloe trees, no small obstacle to troops, grew at the foot of the rampart, which was also cut off from the town, and from the side works, by an internal ditch and retrenchment. Behind the rampart the houses of the great street called the Rambla, were prepared for defence, furnishing a second line of resistance; and although the cuts on the flanks hindered the making of sallies in force, which at such a period was a good mode of defence, the reduced state of the French army gave reason to believe that eight thousand brave men could resist it effectually.

The 28th a general plan for breaking out on the Barcelona side, the co-operation of the fleet, and a combined attack of the Spanish army, was arranged; and Eroles embarked for the purpose of re-landing at Taragona, to take the leading of the troops destined to sally forth on the 29th. The French general had however completed his batteries on the night of the 27th, and in the morning of the 28th they opened with a crashing effect. One magazine blew up in the bastion of Cervantes; all the guns in that of San Paulo were dismounted; the wall fell away in huge fragments before the stroke of the batteries, and from the Olivo, and from all the old French trenches, the guns and mortars showered bullets and shells into the place. This fire was returned from many Spanish pieces, still in good condition, and the shoulders of the French batteries were beaten down; yet their gunners, eager for the last act of the siege, stood to their work uncovered, the musketry rattled round the ramparts, the men on both sides crowded to the front, and while opprobrious words and mutual defiance passed between them, the generals, almost within hearing of each other, exhorted the soldiers to fight with the vigour that the crisis demanded.

STORMING OF THE UPPER TOWN.

At five o’clock in the evening the French fireSuchet. suddenly ceased, and fifteen hundred men led byRogniat. general Habert passing out from the parallel, went at full speed up against the breach; twelve hundredVacani. under general Ficatier followed in support, general Montmarie led a brigade round the left,Codrington’s papers. MSS. to the bastion of Rosario, with a view to break the gates there during the assault, and thus penetrating, to turn the interior defence of the Rambla. Harispe took post on the Barcelona road, to cut off the retreat of the garrison.

The columns of attack had to pass over an open space of more than a hundred yards before they could reach the foot of the breach; and when within twenty yards of it, the hedge of aloes obliged them to turn to the right, and left, under a terrible fire of musketry and of grape, which the Spaniards, who were crowding on the breach with apparent desperation, poured unceasingly upon them. The destruction was great, the head of the French column got into confusion, gave back, and was beginning to fly, when the reserves rushed up, and a great many officers coming forward in a body, renewed the attack. At that moment one Bianchini, an Italian soldier, who had obtained leave to join the column as a volunteer, and whose white clothes, amidst the blue uniforms of the French, gave him a supernatural appearance, went forth alone from the ranks, and gliding silently and sternly up the breach, notwithstanding many wounds reached the top, and there fell dead. Then the multitude bounded forward with a shout, the first line of the Spaniards fled, and the ramparts were darkened by the following masses of the French.

Meanwhile Montmarie’s sappers cut away the palisades at Rosario, and his light troops finding a rope hanging from the wall, mounted by it, at the moment when the assailants at the breach broke the Spanish reserves with one shock, and poured into the town like a devastating torrent. At the Rambla a momentary stand was indeed made, but the impulse of victory was too strong to be longer resisted, and a dreadful scene of slaughter and violence ensued. Citizens and soldiers, maddened with fear, rushed out in crowds by the Barcelona gate, while others, throwing themselves over the ramparts, made for the landing-places within the Milagro; but that way also had been intercepted by general Rogniat with his sappers, and then numbers throwing themselves down the steep rocks were dashed to pieces, while they who gained the shore were still exposed to the sword of the enemy. Those that went out by the Barcelona gate were met by Harispe’s men, and some being killed, the rest, three thousand in number, were made prisoners. But within the town all was horror; fire had been set to many houses, Gonzales, fighting manfully, was killed, Contreras, wounded with the stroke of a bayonet, was only saved by a French officer; and though the hospitals were respected by the soldiers, in every other part their fury was unbounded. When the assault first commenced, the ship-launches had come close into the Milagro, and now saved some of the fugitives, but their guns swept the open space beyond, killing friends and enemies, as, mixed together, they rushed to the shore; and the French dragoons, passing through the flaming streets at a trot, rode upon the fugitives, sabring those who had outstripped the infantry. In every quarter there was great rage and cruelty, and although most of the women and children had, during the siege, been removed from Taragona by the English shipping, and that the richest citizens had all gone to Sitjes, this assault was memorable as a day of blood. Only seven or eight hundred miserable creatures, principally soldiers, escaped on board the vessels; nine thousand, including the sick and wounded, were made prisoners; more than five thousand persons were slain, and a great part of the city was reduced to ashes.