[642] The regiments that landed with Campoverde seem to have been the 2nd of Savoia (2 battalions), Voluntarios de Gerona, and two of the Andalusian regiments which had formed the core of Reding’s old Granadan division, which marched to Catalonia in 1808, viz. Iliberia and Santa Fé, the first three battalions strong, the other with two.
[643] This discovery was the work of the Italian engineer officer Vacani, whose work on the campaign of the Italian troops of Napoleon in Spain is one of the most valuable of our original sources. See his vol. v. pp. 175-6. He was with the assaulting column.
[644] Three battalions of Iliberia were holding the fort on the 29th; they had been much tried, and two battalions of the sister-regiment of Almeria were coming up to relieve them.
[645] Vacani is very positive that the stormers at the aqueduct got into the fort before those at the gorge.
[646] Suchet says that except 70 officers and 1,000 men taken prisoners ‘the whole of the rest of the garrison had perished’ (ii. 60). Belmas (iii. 502) speaks of 970 prisoners and says that 1,200 were killed, but acknowledges that ‘some of the Spaniards’ got away. Vacani (v. 187) says that ‘many’ Spaniards escaped, but that the bulk of six battalions were destroyed, 1,000 being captured and 1,200 slain. The governor, Contreras, says that there were 4,000 men in the fort, and that somewhere about 2,000 were killed or wounded (p. 248). But the figures must have been lower: Iliberia was about 1,500 strong, Almeria about 1,200: there were also 200 gunners in the fort: the total garrison therefore was about 3,000. But at the end of the siege, a month later, Iliberia surrendered 368 unwounded men, and Almeria 464. They must have lost many hundreds during the last six weeks of the leaguer, yet were still 832 strong. It is hard to see that they can have lost more than 1,200 or 1,300 between them on May 29, and very probably Toreno and Arteche are right in putting the total loss at only 1,100 and odd. If so, the killed, including the gunners, must have been only between 300 and 400. The ever-accurate Schepeler gives 1,200 for the total loss (p. 433), and I suspect is nearest of all to the truth. Napier, as usual, merely reproduces Suchet’s figures.
[647] See his pamphlet on the defence of Tarragona and his own responsibilities, printed in the 3rd volume of Mémoires sur la Guerre d’Espagne.
[648] Apparently 3rd battalion of Cazadores de Valencia, and 1st battalion of the First regiment of Savoia. This last must be carefully distinguished from the 1st battalion of the Second regiment of Savoia, which belonged to the Catalan army, and had already been brought into Tarragona on May 10th by Campoverde. See the history of the two in the Conde de Clonard’s colossal work on the regimental histories of the Spanish line.
[649] Suchet in his memoirs conceals the fact that the fort was already abandoned when his troops entered (ii. p. 72). But the evidence of Contreras, Schepeler, and other Spanish authorities is clear and unanimous.
[650] The first was a big affair, 3,000 men under Sarsfield taking part in it, but oddly enough it is not mentioned by Suchet or Belmas.
[651] It seems to have arrived about June 20, in time for the storm on the 21st.