The other narrative is that of a fisherman, a child at the time of this event, who is said to have survived it nearly ninety years.
“The 10th of May, early in the morning, at the time the master of our school was reading prayers, a report flew through the streets that the town was taken, which was confirmed by the ringing of the alarm bells. Our master dismissed us all in a moment, saying, ‘My dear children, hasten to your homes, and recommend yourselves to the protection of God; for it is highly probable we shall meet no more except in heaven.’ In an instant we all disappeared, some one way, and some another. For my own part, I took my course with speed along the high street; and found where the public steelyards are (and where the grand guard of the city was kept), a considerable body of troops with their swords drawn; and saw near them, and at a distance round them, a great number of soldiers stretched dead upon the pavement. Terrified with so melancholy a sight, I shaped my course down the street called Pelican, with a view to conceal myself in my father’s house; but had hardly advanced a few steps, before I fell in with a band of soldiers who had that moment murdered a man whom I saw weltering in his blood. This sight shocked me to such a degree, that I had not power to move forwards; but sheltering myself in a house opposite to the Pelican inn, found a kind–speaking middle–aged man, who said to me, ‘Child, why comest thou hither? save thyself before the soldiers seize thee.’ I was strongly tempted to put his advice in practice; but in that moment a party of Croatians rushed in, and holding a sabre to his throat, demanded his wealth. The old man immediately opened a coffer to them, full of gold and silver, and precious stones. They crammed their pockets with his riches; yet as the coffer was not emptied, they filled a small basket with the part that remained, and then shot the poor old man through the head. I stole away behind them, and found a place of safety among some empty casks, and there found a young lady, perfectly handsome, who conjured me to remove and make no mention of her. Anxiously reflecting where to dispose of myself, the same Croatians surprised me again, and one of them said, ‘Bastardly dog, carry this basket for us.’ I took it up immediately, and followed them wherever they went. They entered several cellars, and rifled women, maidens, and all persons that fell into their hands, without remorse. As we ascended from one of these cellars, we saw with astonishment that the flames had seized upon the whole fore part of the house. We rushed through the fire, and saved ourselves. In all probability, every soul was destroyed that remained within doors. As for my father, mother, and relations, I never heard a syllable concerning them from that time to the present.”[30]
This last sentence expresses briefly and emphatically the fate of the population. The whole town was burnt, except the cathedral, the convent of Notre Dame, with a few houses about it, and about a hundred and thirty fishermen’s cottages on the banks of the Elbe. The number of the slain cannot be distinctly ascertained, for we have no certain knowledge of the population of the city; but the slaughter seems to have been almost universal. It is said, however, that according to the computation of those who were appointed to clear the streets, 6440 bodies were thrown into the Elbe; and this does not include those, probably much the greater number, who were massacred in their houses, and buried under the ruins, or consumed in the general conflagration. One author says that 30,000 persons perished; Harte, that of 40,000 inhabitants, scarce 800 it was thought escaped: but contemporary authors vary in their numbers, which indeed in these cases can hardly ever be ascertained with certainty. The only lives expressly said to have been preserved, are those of 400 persons who took refuge in the cathedral; and in the Florus Germanicus, published only ten years later (a book written in the Imperial interest), it is asserted that none other were spared, and these only from respect to the sanctity of the place. The author, however, reduces their number to a hundred. Others must have been saved, like those whose narratives are given above, by chance, or individual compassion; but it is plain that indiscriminate destruction was the order of the day. This massacre will be an everlasting blot upon Tilly’s reputation. He remained without the town; and when solicited by those who had witnessed the horrors acted within, to stop the indiscriminate slaughter, he replied, “The town must bleed; it has not yet made sufficient expiation. Let the soldiers persist another hour, and then we will reconsider the matter.” According to another story, he said that the soldiers must have some recompense for so much time and trouble. Yet, say the historians of his own party, when on the third day he rode over the crackling ashes, and through piles of corpses, he wept as he quoted some lines of Virgil, relative to the destruction of Troy.[31]
There was no want of prodigies to foretell the fate of Magdeburg, by monstrous births, the fall of towers, and other circumstances of equal moment; several of which the curious reader will find mentioned by Harte, and many more minutely described by Lotichius, as above quoted. Such follies must have been deeply implanted in men’s minds when a Christian writer, in the seventeenth century, has thought it worthwhile to corroborate one of these omens by quoting a similar one from Valerius Maximus.
Plan of Zaragoza.—(Copied by permission from Napier’s History of the Peninsular War.)
1. St. Engracia. 2. Mad–house. 3. Convent of St. Francisca. 4. St. Monica. 5. St. Augustin. 6. University. 7. Convent of Jesus. 8. Mines. 9. St. Lazar. The dotted portion shows how much of the city was gained by the French during the second siege.
The engineer’s art has materially diminished the interest of modern sieges, by reducing them, independent of external relief, almost to certainty, and substituting the combinations of science for the personal exertions of the soldier. The warfare of trenches and batteries, by which outwork after outwork is rendered untenable, often without a bayonet being crossed in their defence, fails to rivet the attention, and indeed is scarce intelligible without some share of professional knowledge. It is not until the cannon have done their work, and opened a way to individual strength and courage, not until the assaulting columns are ready to ascend the breach, that the deep interest is roused which even against our better judgment attends on military daring. Still, after giving so many various specimens of this branch of warfare, it may naturally be supposed that we shall not pass in silence over all the brilliant actions of our own time: and the attention is at once directed to the Peninsular war, not only as the field in which the military energy of our empire was most successfully developed, but because it produced a great number of sieges of remarkable interest; while not one such occurs in the campaigns which Napoleon conducted in person. A volume of sieges might be compiled from this war, illustrative both of military resolution and of popular energy and desperation: no wonder then if we have hesitated between the contending claims of Zaragoza and Gerona. The latter city is the favourite of Colonel Napier, who cites its resistance to prove how far the regulated warfare of a disciplined force is superior to the enthusiasm of a population untrained to arms. The grounds of his preference are briefly these. Zaragoza was manned by above 30,000 soldiers and 25,000 armed citizens and peasants; but she wanted heavy artillery, regular fortifications, and a controlling spirit: for both the reputation and authority of Palafox appear to have been nominal, and it is to the influence of plebeian leaders that the ferocious energy of the defence is to be ascribed. Gerona contained about 3000 regular troops, and less than 6000 armed citizens; but she was well fortified, and commanded by an experienced and resolute officer. With this inferior force she held out twice as long as Zaragoza against a superior attacking army, conducted the defence in regular military order, and kept the enemy without her defences, instead of admitting him to wage a desperate struggle on her hearthstones and in her churches. On these grounds the defenders of Gerona may merit the preference assigned to them by Colonel Napier for having displayed equal bravery and devotion, with better fortune or greater skill. Still the irregular and desperate struggle in the streets of Zaragoza, where every house was a fortress, the end of every street a battery, where miner counterplotted miner, and every foot of ground was purchased by blood and ruin, will win the attention of more readers than would the systematic warfare carried on under the walls of Gerona.
Zaragoza is situated on the right bank of the Ebro. Before its first siege, in 1808, it contained 50,000 inhabitants. It possessed no regular defences, and few guns fit for service, but was surrounded by a low brick wall. These deficiencies were in some degree remedied by the nature of its buildings, which were well calculated for the internal warfare subsequently carried on: the houses being mostly built of brick and stone, and vaulted, so as to be almost incombustible. The city was also full of churches and convents, strongly built, and surrounded by high thick walls. A broad street, called the Cosso, bent almost into a semicircle, concentric with the wall, and terminated at each end by the Ebro, divided the city into an outer and an inner part. It occupied the ground on which the Moorish walls had formerly stood, before the city attained its present size. This street was the scene of that heroic resistance in 1808, which kept the French at bay after the walls and one–half of the place had fallen into their hands. On the 3rd of August, rather more than a month after the commencement of the siege, the convent of St. Engracia, which formed part of the wall, was breached; and on the 4th it was stormed, and the victorious troops carried all before them as far as the Cosso, and before night were in possession of one–half of the city. The French general now considered the city as his own, and summoned it to surrender in a note containing only these words: “Head–quarters, St. Engracia: Capitulation.” The emphatic reply is well–known, and will become proverbial: “Head–quarters, Zaragoza: War to the knife.”