A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 1, 1807-1809

by Charles Oman

DUHESME’S OPERATIONS: FIRST SIEGE OF GERONA (JUNE-JULY, 1808)

There is still one corner of the Iberian Peninsula whose history, during the eventful summer months of 1808, we have not yet chronicled. The rugged and warlike province of Catalonia had already begun that heroic struggle against its French garrison which was to endure throughout the whole of the war. Far more than any other section of the Spanish nation do the Catalans deserve credit for their unswerving patriotism. Nowhere else was the war maintained with such resolution. When the struggle commenced the French were already masters by treachery of the chief fortresses of the land: the force of Spanish regular troops which lay within its borders was insignificant: there was no recognized leader, no general of repute, to head the rising of the province. Yet the attack on the invaders was delivered with a fierceness and a persistent energy that was paralleled in no other quarter of the Peninsula. For six years marshal after marshal ravaged the Catalan valleys, sacked the towns, scattered the provincial levies. But not for one moment did the resistance slacken; the invaders could never control a foot of ground beyond the narrow space that was swept by the cannon of their strongholds. The spirit of the race was as unbroken in 1813 as in 1808, and their untiring bands still held out in the hills, ready to strike at the enemy when the least chance was offered. Other provinces had equal or greater advantages than Catalonia for protracted resistance: Biscay, the Asturias, and Galicia were as rugged, Andalusia far more populous, Valencia more fertile and wealthy. But in none of these was the struggle carried on with such a combination of energy and persistence as in the Catalan hills. Perhaps the greatest testimony that can be quoted in behalf of the people of that devoted province is that Napier, bitter critic as he was of all things Spanish, is forced to say a good word for it. ‘The Catalans,’ he writes, ‘were vain and superstitious; but their courage was higher, their patriotism purer, and their efforts more sustained than those of the rest. The somatenes were bold and active in battle, the population of the towns firm, and the juntas apparently disinterested[290].’ No one but a careful student of Napier will realize what a handsome testimonial is contained in the somewhat grudging language of this paragraph. What the real credit due to the Catalans was, it will now be our duty to display.

It will be remembered that in the month of February the French general Duhesme had obtained possession of the citadel and forts of Barcelona by a particularly impudent and shameless stratagem[291]. Since that time he had been lying in the city that he had seized, with his whole force concentrated under his hand. Of the 7,000 French and 5,000 Italian troops which composed his corps, all were with him save a single battalion of detachments which had been left behind to garrison Figueras, the fortress close to the French frontier, which commands the most important of the three roads by which the principality of Catalonia can be entered.

Duhesme believed himself to be entirely secure, for of Spanish regular troops there were barely 6,000 in all scattered through the province[292], and a third of these were Swiss mercenaries, who, according to the orders of Bonaparte, were to be taken at once into the French service. That there was any serious danger to be feared from the miqueletes of the mountains never entered into the heads of the Emperor or his lieutenant. Nor does it seem to have occurred to them that any insurrection which broke out in Catalonia might be immediately supported from the Balearic Isles, where a heavy garrison was always kept, in order to guard against any descent of the British to recover their old stronghold of Port Mahon[293]. If Napoleon had realized in May that the Spanish rising was about to sweep over the whole Peninsula, he would not have dared to leave Duhesme with such a small force. But persisting in his original blunder of believing that the troubles which had broken out were merely local and sporadic, he was about to order Duhesme to make large detachments from a corps that was already dangerously weak.

The geography of Catalonia, as we have had occasion to relate in an earlier chapter, is rather complicated. Not only is the principality cut off by its mountains from the rest of Spain—it faces towards the sea, while its neighbour Aragon faces towards the Ebro—but it is divided by its numerous cross-ranges into a number of isolated valleys, between which communication is very difficult. Its coast-plain along the Mediterranean is generally narrow, and often cut across by spurs which run down from the mountains of the inland till they strike the sea. Except on the eastern side of the principality, where it touches Aragon in the direction of Lerida, there is no broad expanse of level ground within its borders: much the greater part of its surface is upland and mountain.

Catalonia may be divided into four regions: the first is the district at the foot of the Eastern Pyrenees, drained by the Fluvia and the Ter. This narrow corner is called the Ampurdam; it contains all the frontier-fortresses which protect the province on the side of France. Rosas commands the pass along the sea-shore, Figueras the main road from Perpignan, which runs some twenty miles further inland. A little further south both these roads meet, and are blocked by the strong city of Gerona, the capital of all this region and its most important strategical point. South of Gerona a cross-range divides the Ampurdam from the coast-plain of Central Catalonia; the defile through this range is covered by the small fortified town of Hostalrich, but there is an alternative route from Gerona to Barcelona along the coast by Blanes and Arens de Mar.

The river-basin of Central Catalonia is that of the Llobregat, near whose estuary Barcelona stands. Its lower course lies through the level ground along the coast, but its upper waters and those of its tributaries drain a series of highland valleys, difficult of access and divided from each other by considerable chains of hills. All these valleys unite at the foot of the crag of Montserrat, which, crowned by its monastery, overlooks the plain, and stands sentinel over the approach to the upland. In the mountains behind Montserrat was the main stronghold of the Catalan insurrection, whose rallying-places were the high-lying towns of Manresa, Cardona, Berga, and Solsona. Only three practicable roads enter the valleys of the Upper Llobregat, one communicates by the line of Manresa and Vich with the Ampurdam; a second goes from Manresa via Cervera to Lerida, and ultimately to the plains of Aragon; the third is the high-road from Barcelona to Manresa, the main line of approach from the shore to the upland. But there is another route of high importance in this section of Catalonia, that which, starting from Barcelona, avoids the upper valleys, strikes inland by Igualada, crosses the main watershed between the coast and the Ebro valley below Cervera, and at that place joins the other road from Manresa and the Upper Llobregat, and continues on its way to Lerida and the plains of Aragon. This, passing the mountains at the point of least resistance, forms the great trunk-road from Barcelona to Madrid.

The third region of the principality is the coastland of Tarragona, a district cut off from the coastland of Barcelona by a well-marked cross-ridge, which runs down from the mountains to the sea, and reaches the latter near the mouth of the Llobregat. The communication between the two maritime districts is by two roads, one passing the cross-ridge by the defile of Ordal, the other hugging the beach and finding its way between the hills and the water’s edge by Villanueva de Sitjas. The coastland of Tarragona is not drained by a single river of considerable volume, like the Llobregat, but by a number of small streams such as the Francoli and the Gaya, running parallel to each other and at right angles to the coast. Each is separated from the next by a line of hills of moderate height. The southern limit of this region is the Ebro, whose lower course is protected by the strong fortress of Tortosa. Its main line of internal communication is the great coast-route from Barcelona to Tarragona, and from Tarragona to the mouth of the Ebro. Its touch with Aragon and Central Spain is maintained by a good road from Tarragona by Montblanch to Lerida.