Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor

by Benito Pérez Galdós

My battalion abandoned the wall near Santa Engracia, and began to march towards the Coso. We did not know where we were being conducted, but it is probable that they were taking us to the suburb. The streets were full of people. Old men and women came out, impelled by curiosity, wishing to see at close quarters and near at hand the points of danger, since it was impossible for them to be placed in the same peril. The streets of San Gil, San Pedro, and La Cuchilleria, which lead to the bridge, were almost impassable. A great multitude of women were passing through them, all walking in the direction of the Pilar and La Seo.

The booming of the cannon excited rather than saddened the fervent people, and all were jostling one another to get nearest the front. In the Plaza de la Seo, I saw the cavalry which, with all these people, obstructed the bridge and obliged my battalion to look for an easier way to the other side. While we were passing before the porch of this sanctuary, we heard the sound of the prayers wherewith all the women of the city were imploring their holy patroness. The few men who wished to come into the temple were expelled by them.

We went to the bank of the river near San Juan de los Panetas, and took up our place on a mound, awaiting orders. In front and on the other side of the river, the field of battle was divided. We saw at the end nearest us the grove of Macanaz, over there and close to the bridge the little monastery of Altabas, yonder that of San Lazarus, and further on the Monastery of Jesus. Behind this scene, reflected in the waters of the great river, could be seen a horrible fire. There was an interminable turmoil, a hoarse clamor of the voices of cannon and of human yells. Dense clouds of smoke, renewed unceasingly, mounted confusedly to the heavens. All the breastworks of this position, which were constructed with bricks from neighboring brickyards, formed with the earth of the kilns a reddish mass. One might have believed that the ground had been mixed together with blood.

The French held their front towards the Barcelona road and the Juslibol, where more kilns and gardens lie at the left of the second of those two ways. Thence the Twelfth had furiously attacked our intrenchments, making their way by the Barcelona road, and challenging with impetuous intrepidity the cross-fires of San Lazarus and that of the place called El Marcelo. Their courage lay in striking audacious blows upon the batteries, and their tenacity produced a veritable hecatomb. They fell in great numbers; the ranks were broken, and, being instantly filled by others, they repeated the attack. At times they almost reached the parapets, and a thousand individual contests increased the horror of the scene. They went in advance of their leaders, brandishing their cutlasses, like desperate men who had made it a question of honor to die before a heap of bricks, and in that frightful destruction which wrenched the life from hundreds of men every minute, they disappeared, flung down upon mother earth, soldiers and sergeants, ensigns, captains, and colonels. It was a veritable struggle between two peoples; and while the fires of the first siege were burning in our hearts, the French came on thirsting for vengeance with all the passion of offended manhood, worse even than the passion of the warrior.

It was this untimely bloodthirstiness that lost them the day. They should have begun by demolishing our works with their artillery, observing the serenity which a siege demands, and not have engaged in those hand to hand combats before positions defended by a people like the one that they had met on the fifteenth of July, and the fourth of August. They ought to have repressed their feeling of contempt or scorn of the forces of the enemy,—a feeling that has always been the bad star of the French. It was the same in the war with Spain, as in the recent conflict with Prussia. They ought to have put into execution a calmly considered plan which would have produced in the besieged less of disgust than exaltation.

It is certain that if they carried with them the thought of their immortal general who always conquered as much by his admirable logic as by his cannons, they would have employed in the siege of Saragossa a little of the knowledge of the human heart, without which the pursuit of war, brutal war—it seems a lie!—is no more than cruel carnage.

Napoleon, with his extraordinary penetration, would have comprehended the Saragossan character, and would have abstained from attacking the unprotected columns, whose boast was of individual personal valor. This is a quality at all times difficult and dangerous to encounter, but above all in the presence of nations who fight for an ideal and not for an idol.

I will not go into further details of the dreadful battle of the twenty-first of December, the most glorious of the second siege of Aragon. As I did not see it at close quarters, and can only give the story of what was told me, I am moved not to be prolix, because there are so many and such interesting adventures which I must narrate. This makes a certain restraint necessary in the description of these sanguinary encounters. It is enough now to know that the French believed when night came that it was time to desist from their purpose, and they retired, leaving the plain covered with bodies of the dead. It was a good moment to follow them with cavalry; but after a short discussion the generals, I am told, decided not to put themselves in peril in a sally which could only be dangerous.