Italian Division. 1st Line (4 batts.); 7th Line (4 batts.). About 4,000 men.
[290] Correspondance, no. 16,910, of September 10, 1810.
[291] See vol. iii. p. 494.
[292] See vol. iii. p. 503.
[293] Napier’s ‘Tenaxas’ and Belmas’s ‘Tenailles’ = ‘the Pinchers.’
[294] The strength of the garrison raises a conflict of authorities. The Spanish official figures are those given above, which are followed by Schepeler and Arteche. But Suchet says that he captured 9,461 prisoners, including the wounded in the hospitals, and that several hundred men more had perished before the surrender. He gives a muster roll of the garrison purporting to bear out his figures (Mémoires, i. p. 359), which Belmas copies. Since Suchet’s Spanish totals are often more than doubtful (cf. vol. iii. p. 304) I accept the figures given by his adversaries. The December figures of the Spanish Army of Catalonia show 13,040 men in all distributed in garrisons, including those of Tarragona, Tortosa, Seu de Urgel, Cardona, and smaller places. I think that 7,000 for Tortosa is probable.
[295] See vol. ii. p. 6.
[296] This narrative of the fall of Tortosa is mainly derived from the sources given by Arteche, especially Yriarte’s narrative, and from Schepeler and Vacani. These in some details differ from Suchet’s story repeated by Belmas, though there is no fundamental discrepancy. But it is clear that Alacha was even more to blame than the French versions would give us to understand.
[297] Vacani, iv. 420-1.
[298] The figures of 400 killed and wounded given by Belmas seem very low, but are borne out by the invaluable lists in Martinien, who shows that only some thirty officers were killed or wounded at Tortosa, of whom twelve belonged to the engineers, artillery, and sappers. Thirty officers hit imply (at the usual rate of one to twenty men) 600 casualties, but it is very possible that there were no more than 400 and odd, for the engineer officers, of whom six were killed or hurt, ran special risks.