A history of the Peninsular War, Vol. 2, Jan.-Sep. 1809

by Charles Oman

For while the attack on the suburb was being pressed, the slow advance of the besiegers within the walls was never slackened. On some days they won a whole block of houses by their mining operations: on others they lost many men and gained no advantage. The right attack was extending itself towards the river, and working from the convent of San Augustin into the quarter of the Tanneries. At the same time it was also moving on toward the Coso, but with extreme slowness, for the Spaniards made a specially desperate defence in the houses about the University and the Church of the Trinity. One three-storied building, which covered the traverse across the Coso to the south of the University, stood ten separate assaults and four explosions, and held out from the ninth to the eighteenth, effectually keeping back the advance of the besiegers in this direction[142]. Nor could the French ever succeed in connecting their field of operations on this front with that which centred around Santa Engracia. Down to the very end of the siege the Saragossans clung desperately to the south-eastern corner of the city, and kept control of it right down to the external walls and the bank of the Huerba, where they still possessed a narrow strip of 300 yards of the enceinte.

The left attack of the French, that from the Santa Engracia side, made much more progress, though even here it was slow and dearly bought. On February 10, however, in spite of several checks, the besiegers for the first time forced their way as far as the Coso, working through the ruined hospital which had been destroyed in the first siege. On the same day, at the north-western angle of their advance, they made a valuable conquest in the church and convent of San Francisco. A mine was driven under this great building from the ruins of the hospital, and filled with no less than 3,000 pounds of powder. It had not been discovered by the Spaniards, and the convent was full of fighting-men at the moment of the explosion. The whole grenadier company of the 1st regiment of Valencia and 300 irregulars were blown up, and perished to a man[143]. Nor was this all: in the northern part of the building was established the main factory for military equipment of the Army of Aragon: it was crammed with workpeople, largely women, for Palafox had forgotten or refused to withdraw the dépôt to a less convenient and spacious but more safe position. All these unfortunate non-combatants, to the number of at least 400, perished, and the roof-tops for hundreds of yards around were strewn with their dismembered limbs.

It might have been expected that, as the immediate consequence of this awful catastrophe, the French would have made a long step forward in this direction. But such was not the case: before the smoke had cleared away Spaniards rushed forward from the inner defences, and occupied part of the ruins of San Francisco. A body of peasants, headed by the émigré colonel de Fleury, got into the bell-tower of the convent, which had not fallen with the rest, and kept up from its leads a vigorous plunging fire upon the besiegers, when they stole forward to burrow into the mass of débris. But with the loss of some thirty men the French succeeded in mastering two-thirds of the ruins: next day they cleared the rest, and stormed the belfry, where de Fleury and his men were all bayonetted after a desperate fight on the winding stairs. It was first from the commanding height of this steeple that the French officers obtained a full view of the city. The sight was encouraging to them: they could realize how much the inner parts of the place had suffered from the bombardment, and noted with their telescopes the small number of defenders visible behind the further barricades, the heaps of corpses in the streets, and the slow and dejected pace of the few passengers visible. Two great gallows with corpses hanging from them especially attracted the eyes of the onlookers[144]. Other circumstances united on this and the following day (February 11-12) to show that the defence was at last beginning to slacken. A great mob of peasants, mainly women, came out of the Portillo gate towards Morlot’s trenches, and prayed hard for permission to go through the lines to their villages. They were not fired on, but given a loaf apiece, and then driven back into the city. It was still more significant that at night, on the eleventh, four or five bodies of deserters stole out to the French; they were all foreigners, belonging to the ‘Swiss’ battalion[145] which was shut up in Saragossa: several officers were among them. To excuse themselves they said that Palafox and the friars were mad, and that they judged that all further defence had become impossible. Yet the siege was to endure for nine days longer[146]!

Though the two main attacks continued to press slowly forward, and that on the left had now reached the Coso and covered a front of 100 yards on the southern side of that great street, it was not on this front that the decisive blow was destined to be given. On the eighteenth Lannes determined to deliver the great assault on the suburb, where the batteries in the third parallel and about the Jesus convent had now completely shattered the San Lazaro defences. All Gazan’s men being now back in their trenches, since Mortier’s expedition had driven off the Marquis of Lazan, Lannes considered that he might safely risk the storm. Fifty-two siege-guns played on San Lazaro throughout the morning of the eighteenth, and no less than eight practicable breaches were opened in it and the works to its right and left. At noon three storming columns leaped out of the trenches and raced for the nearest of these entries. All three burst through: there was a sharp struggle in the street of the suburb, and then the French reached and seized a block of houses at the head of the bridge, which cut the defence in two and rendered a retreat into Saragossa almost impossible. The Spaniards, seeing that all was lost, split into two bodies: one tried to force its way across the bridge; but only 300 passed; the rest were slain or captured. The main part, consisting of the defenders of the western front of the suburb, formed in a solid mass and, abandoning their defences, tried to escape westward up the bank of the Ebro, into the open country. They got across the inundation in their front, but when they had gone thus far were surrounded by two regiments of French cavalry, and forced to surrender. They numbered 1,500 men, under General Manso, commanding the 3rd division of Palafox’s army, the one which furnished the garrison of the suburb. The officer commanding the whole transpontine defence, Baron de Versage, had been killed by a cannon-ball on the bridge.

This was not the only disaster suffered by the Saragossans on the eighteenth: at three in the afternoon, when the news of the loss of the suburb had had time to spread round the town, and the attention of the besieged was distracted to this side, Grandjean’s division attacked the houses and barricades in the north-eastern part of the city, which had so long held them at bay. A great mine opened a breach in the University, which was stormed, and with it fell the houses on each side, as far as the Coso. At the same time another attack won some ground in the direction of the Trinity convent, and the Ebro. Next day the Spaniards in this remote corner of the town, almost cut off from the main body of the defenders, and now battered from the rear by new works thrown up in the suburb, in and about San Lazaro, drew back and abandoned the quarter of the Tanneries, the quays, and the outer enceinte looking over the mouth of the Huerba.

On the nineteenth it was evident that the end had come: a third of the ever-dwindling force of effective men of which Palafox could dispose had been killed or captured at the storm of San Lazaro. The city was now being fired on from the north, the only side which had hitherto been safe. The epidemic was worse than ever—600 a day are said to have died during the final week of the siege. The last mills which the garrison possessed had lately been destroyed, and no more flour was issued, but unground corn, which had to be smashed up between paving-stones, or boiled and eaten as a sort of porridge. The supply of powder was beginning to run low; not from want of material to compound it, but from the laboratories having been mostly destroyed and from the greater part of the arsenal workmen having died. Only about 700 pounds a day [six quintals] could now be turned out, and the daily expenditure in the mines and barricades came to much more.

On this morning the French noted that at many points the defence seemed to be slackening, and that parts of the line were very feebly manned. They made more progress this day than in any earlier twenty-four hours of the siege. Their main work, however, was to run six large mines under the Coso, till they got below the houses on its further side, somewhat to the right of San Francisco. Rogniat placed 3,000 pounds of powder in each, a quantity that was calculated to blow up the whole quarter.

It was not necessary to use them. The spirits of the defenders had at last been broken, and surrender was openly spoken of—though its mention ten days earlier would have cost the life of the proposer. Palafox on his sick bed understood that all was over; he sent for General St. March and resigned the military command to him. But in order that he might not seem to be shirking his responsibility, and trying to put the ignominy of asking for terms on his successor, he sent his aide-de-camp Casseillas to Lannes, offering surrender, but demanding that the troops should march out with the honours of war and join the nearest Spanish army in the field. Then he turned his face to the wall, and prepared to die, for the fever lay heavy upon him, and broken with despair and fatigue he thought that he had not many hours to live. St. March’s appointment not being well taken—the loss of the Monte Torrero was still remembered against him—Palafox’s last act was to give over charge of the city to a Junta of thirty-three persons[147], mainly local notables and clergy, to whom the finishing of the negotiations would fall.