Of course Lannes sent back the Captain-General’s aide-de-camp with the message that he must ask for unconditional surrender, and that the proposal that the garrison should be allowed to depart was absurd. The fighting was resumed on the morning of the twentieth, and the French were making appreciable progress, when the Junta once more sent to ask terms from the besiegers. It was not without some bitter debate among themselves that they took this step, for there was still a minority, including St. March and the priest Padre Consolation, who wished to continue the resistance. They were backed by a section of the citizens, who began to collect and to raise angry cries of Treason. But the whole of the soldiery and the major part of the civilian defenders were prepared to yield. At four o’clock in the afternoon they sent out to ask for a twenty-four hours’ truce to settle terms of surrender. Lannes granted them two hours to send him out a deputation charged with full powers to capitulate, and ordered the bombardment and the mining to cease. His aide-de-camp, who bore the message, was nearly murdered by fanatics in the street[148], and was rescued with difficulty by some officers of the regular army. But the Junta sent him back with the message that the deputation should be forthcoming, and within the stipulated time eleven of its members came out from the Portillo gate[149], to the Marshal’s head quarters on the Calatayud road. There was not much discussion: Lannes contented himself with pointing out to the Spaniards that the place was at his mercy: he had the plan of his siege-works unrolled before them, and pointed out the position of the six great mines under the Coso[150], as well as those of the advanced posts which he had gained during the last two days. The deputies made some feeble attempts to secure that the name of Ferdinand VII should appear in the articles of capitulation, and that the clergy should be guaranteed immunity and undisturbed possession of their benefices. Lannes waved all such proposals aside, and dictated a form of surrender which was on the whole reasonable and even generous. The garrison should march out on the following day, and lay down its arms 100 yards outside the Portillo gate. Those who would swear homage to King Joseph should have their liberty, and might take service with him if they wished. Those who refused the oath should march as prisoners to France. The city should be granted a general pardon: the churches should be respected: private property should not be meddled with. The citizens must surrender all their weapons of whatever sort. Any civil magistrates or employés who wished to keep their places must take the oath of allegiance to King Joseph.
On the following morning the garrison marched out: of peasants and soldiers there were altogether about 8,000 men, 1,500 of whom were convalescents from the Hospitals. ‘Never had any of us gazed on a more sad or touching sight,’ writes Lejeune; ‘these sickly looking men, bearing in their bodies the seeds of the fever, all frightfully emaciated, with long black matted beards, and scarcely able to hold their weapons, dragged themselves slowly along to the sound of the drum. Their clothes were torn and dirty: everything about them bore witness to terrible misery. But in spite of their livid faces, blackened with powder, and scarred with rage and grief, they bore themselves with dignity and pride. The bright coloured sashes, the large round hats surmounted by a few cock’s-feathers which shaded their foreheads, the brown cloaks or ponchos flung over their varied costumes, lent a certain picturesqueness to their tattered garb. When the moment came for them to pile their arms and deliver up their flags, many of them gave violent expression to their despair. Their eyes gleamed with rage, and their savage looks seemed to say that they had counted our ranks, and deeply regretted having surrendered to such a small army of enemies[151].’
Another and more matter-of-fact eye-witness adds, ‘They were a most motley crowd of men of all ages and conditions, some in uniform, more without it. The officers were mostly mounted on mules or donkeys, and were only distinguished from the men by their three-cornered hats and their large cloaks. Many were smoking their cigarillos and talking to each other with an aspect of complete indifference. But all were not so resigned. The whole garrison, 8,000 to 10,000 strong, defiled in front of us: the majority looked so utterly unlike soldiers, that our men said openly to each other that they ought not to have taken so long or spent so much trouble in getting rid of such a rabble[152].’ The column was promptly put in motion for France, under the escort of two of Morlot’s regiments. Many died on the way from the fever whose seeds they carried with them. Few or none, as might have been supposed, took advantage of the offer to save themselves from captivity by taking the oath to King Joseph.
It is sad to have to confess that the French did not keep to the terms of the capitulation. That Lannes could not restrain his men from plunder, as he had promised, was hardly surprising. There were so many empty houses and churches containing valuables, that it was not to be wondered at that the victors should help themselves to all they could find. But they also plundered occupied houses, and even stole the purses of the captive officers. What was worse was that many assassinations took place, especially of clergy, for the French looked upon the priests and friars as being mainly responsible for the desperate defence. Two in especial, Padre Basilio Bogiero, the chaplain of Palafox, and Santiago Sass, a parish priest, were shot in cold blood two days after the surrender[153]. Public opinion in the French ranks was convinced that they, more than any one else, had kept the Captain-General up to the mark. Palafox himself was treated with great brutality. As he lay apparently moribund, the French officer who had been made interim governor of Saragossa came to his bedside, and bade him to sign orders for the surrender of Jaca and Monzon. When he refused, this colonel threatened to have him shot, but left him alone when threats had no effect. Ere he was convalescent he was sent off to France, where the Emperor ordered that he should be treated, not as a prisoner of war, but as guilty of treason, and shut him up for many years as a close captive in the donjon of Vincennes.
The state in which Saragossa was found by the French hardly bears description. It was a focus of corruption, one mass of putrefying corpses. According to a report which Lannes elicited from the municipal officers, nearly 54,000 persons had died in the place since the siege began[154]. Of these about 20,000 were fighting-men, regular or irregular, the rest were non-combatants. Only 6,000 had fallen by fire and sword: the remainder were victims of the far more deadly pestilence. A few days after the siege was ended Lannes stated that the total population of the town was now only 15,000 souls, instead of the 55,000 which it had contained when the siege began. But his estimate does not include some thousands of citizens who had fled into the open country, the moment that they were released from investment, in order to escape from the contagion in the city. ‘Il est impossible que Saragosse se relève,’ wrote the marshal; ‘cette ville fait horreur à voir.’ It was weeks indeed before the dead were all buried: months before the contagion of the siege-fever died out from the miserable city. Even after five years of the capable and benevolent government of Suchet it was still half desolate, and no attempt had been made to rebuild the third of its houses and churches which had been reduced to ashes by the mines and the bombardment.
The French losses in front of Saragossa are not easy to calculate. Belmas says that the total of casualties was about 3,000 in the infantry, but he takes no notice of the losses by siege-fever, except to say that many died from it. He does not give the losses of the artillery, except of that small part of it which was not attached either to the 3rd or to the 5th Corps. Considering that the 3rd Corps alone had 13,123 sick on January 15, and that typhus is a notoriously deadly disease, it is probable that the total losses of the French during the siege amounted to 10,000 men. It is hard otherwise to explain the difference between the 37,000 men that the 3rd Corps counted in October, and the 14,000 men which it mustered when Suchet took over its command in April. The sufferings of the 5th Corps were small in comparison, for till February began it took no very serious part in the siege, and its health was notoriously far better than that of Junot’s divisions[155]. But we cannot be far wrong in concluding with Schepeler and Arteche that the total French loss must have been 10,000 men, rather than the 4,000 given by Napier, who is apparently relying on Rogniat. That officer gives only the casualties in battle, and not the losses in hospital.
So ended the siege of Saragossa—a magnificent display of civic courage, little helped by strategy or tactics. For Palafox, though a splendid leader of insurgents, was, as his conduct in October and November had shown, a very poor general. He made a gross initial mistake in shutting up 40,000 fighting-men in a place which could have been easily defended by 25,000. If he had sent one or two divisions to form the nucleus of an army of relief in Lower Aragon, with orders to harass, but not to fight pitched battles, it is hard to see how the siege could have been kept up. His second fault was the refusal to make sorties on a large scale during the first half of the siege, while he was still in possession of great masses of superfluous fighting-men. He sent out scores of petty sallies of a few hundred men, but never moved so many as 5,000 on a single day. Such a policy worried but could not seriously harm the French, while it destroyed the willing men of the garrison; if the Captain-General had saved up all the volunteers whom he lost by tens and twenties in small and fruitless attacks on the trenches, he could have built up with them a column-head that would have pierced through the French line at any point that he chose. Anything might have been done during the three weeks while Mortier was at Calatayud, and especially during the days when Gazan with his 8,000 men was cut off by the floods, and isolated on the further bank of the Ebro.
The Captain-General’s conduct, in short, was not that of a capable officer. But it is absurd to endeavour to represent him as a coward, or as a puppet whose strings were pulled by fanatical friars. He knew perfectly well what he was doing, and how to manage the disorderly but enthusiastic masses of the population[156]. There can be no doubt that his personal influence was all-important, and the effect of his constant harangues and proclamations immense. It would be quite as true to say that the friars and the mob-orators were his tools, as that he was theirs. He had to humour them, but by humouring them he got out of them the utmost possible service. Against the stories that his proclamations were written for him, and that he had to be goaded into issuing every order that came from his head quarters, we have the evidence of Vaughan and others who knew him well. It is unanimous in ascribing to him incessant activity and an exuberant fluency in composition. Arteche has preserved some minutes on the siege which he wrote long after the Peninsular War was over: they are interesting and well-stated, but more creditable to him as a patriot than as a military man[157]. There can be no doubt that the garrison might have been much more wisely handled: but it is doubtful whether under any other direction it would have shown so much energy and staying power. There is certainly no other Spanish siege, save that of Gerona, where half so much resolution was shown. If the defence had been conducted by regular officers and troops alone, the place would probably have fallen three weeks earlier. If the monks and local demagogues had been in command, and patriotic anarchy alone had been opposed to the French, Saragossa would possibly have fallen at an even earlier date, from mere want of intelligent direction. Palafox, with all his faults, supplied the connecting link between the two sections of the defenders, and kept the soldiery to work by means of the example of the citizens, while he restrained the citizens by dint of his immense personal influence over them, won in the first siege. In short, he may have been vain, bombastic, and a bad tactician, but he was a good Spaniard. If there had been a few dozen men more of his stamp in Spain, the task of the French in 1808-9 would have been infinitely more difficult. The example of Saragossa was invaluable to the nation and to Europe. The knowledge of it did much to sicken the French soldiery of the whole war, and to make every officer and man who entered Spain march, not with the light heart that he felt in Germany or Italy, but with gloom and disgust and want of confidence. They never failed to do their duty, but they fought without the enthusiasm which helped them so much in all the earlier wars of the Empire.