THE SIEGE OF SARAGOSSA.
On the banks of the Ebro, in northwestern Spain, stands the ancient city of Saragossa, formerly the capital of Aragon, and a place of fame since early Roman days. A noble bridge of seven arches, built nearly five centuries ago, crosses the stream, and a wealth of towers and spires gives the city an imposing appearance. This city is famous for its sieges, of which a celebrated one took place in the twelfth century, when the Christians held it in siege for five years, ending in 1118. In the end the Moors were forced to surrender, or such of them as survived, for a great part of them had died of hunger. In modern times it gained new and high honor from its celebrated resistance to the French in 1808. It is this siege with which we are concerned, one almost without parallel in history.
We have told in the preceding tale how Charles IV. of Spain was forced to yield the throne to his son Ferdinand, who was proclaimed king March 20, 1808. This act by no means agreed with the views of Napoleon, who had plans of his own for Spain, and who sought to end the difficulty by deposing the Bourbon royal family and placing his own brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the throne.
The imperious emperor of the French had, however, the people as well as the rulers of Spain to[pg 303] deal with. The news of his arbitrary action was received throughout the Peninsula with intense indignation, and suddenly the land blazed into insurrection, and the French garrisons, which had been treacherously introduced into Spain, found themselves besieged. Everywhere the peasants seized arms and took to the field, and a fierce guerilla warfare began which the French found it no easy matter to overcome. At Baylen, a town of Andalusia, which was besieged by the insurgents, the French suffered a serious defeat, an army of eighteen thousand men being forced to surrender as prisoners of war. This was the only important success of the Spanish, but they courageously resisted their foes, and at Saragossa gained an honor unsurpassed in the history of Spain. Never had there been known such a siege and such a defence.
Saragossa was attacked by General Lefebre on June 15, 1808. Thinking that a city protected only by a low brick wall, with peasants and townsmen for its defenders, and few guns in condition for service, could be carried at first assault, the French general made a vigorous attack, but found himself driven back. He had but four or five thousand men, while the town had fifty thousand inhabitants, the commander of the garrison being Joseph Palafox, a man of indomitable spirit.
Lefebre, perceiving that he had been over-confident, now encamped and awaited reinforcements, which arrived on the 29th, increasing his force to twelve thousand men. He was recalled for service elsewhere, General Verdier being left in command,[pg 304] and during the succeeding two months the siege was vigorously prosecuted, the French being supplied with a large siege train, with which they hotly bombarded the city.
Weak as were the walls of Saragossa, interiorly it was remarkably well adapted for defence. The houses were strongly built, of incombustible material, they being usually of two stories, each story vaulted and practically fireproof. Every house had its garrison, and the massive convents which rose like castles within the circuit of the wall were filled with armed men. Usually when the walls of a city are taken the city falls; but this was by no means the case with Saragossa. The loss of its walls was but the beginning, not the end, of its defence. Each convent, each house, formed a separate fortress. The walls were loop-holed for musketry, ramparts were constructed of sand-bags, and beams were raised endwise against the houses to afford shelter from shells.
It was not until August that the French, now fifteen thousand strong, were able to force their way into the city. But to enter the city was not to capture it. They had to fight their way from street to street and from house to house. At length the assailants penetrated to the Cosso, a public walk formed on the line of the old Moorish ramparts, but here their advance was checked, the citizens defending themselves with the most desperate and unyielding energy.
The singular feature of this defence was that the women of Saragossa took as active a part in it as[pg 305] the men. The Countess Burita, a beautiful young woman of intrepid spirit, took the lead in forming her fellow-women into companies, at whose head were ladies of the highest rank. These, undeterred by the hottest fire and freely braving wounds and death, carried provisions to the combatants, removed the wounded to the hospitals, and were everywhere active in deeds of mercy and daring. One of them, a young woman of low rank but intrepid soul, gained world-wide celebrity by an act of unusual courage and presence of mind.
While engaged one day in her regular duty, that of carrying meat and wine to the defenders of a battery, she found it deserted and the guns abandoned. The French fire had proved so murderous that the men had shrunk back in mortal dread. Snatching a match from the hand of a dead artillery-man, the brave girl fired his gun, and vowed that she would never leave it while a Frenchman remained in Saragossa. Her daring shamed the men, who returned to their guns, but, as the story goes, the brave girl kept her vow, working the gun she had chosen until she had the joy to see the French in full retreat. This took place on the 14th of August, when the populace, expecting nothing but to die amid the ruins of their houses, beheld with delight the enemy in full retreat. The obstinate resistance of the people and reverses to the arms of France elsewhere had forced them to raise the siege.