While this ineffective attempt at a sally was in progress, the street-fighting in the city above was still going on. Isolated bodies of the Spaniards made a most desperate resistance: Colonel Gonzales, the brother of Campoverde, attempted to hold out in the cathedral with 300 men, but was killed with all followers after a brave resistance. The fact that many small parties defended themselves for a time in barricaded private houses gave the French an excuse for something that almost amounted to the systematic massacre of non-combatants. All the larger dwellings were broken open, whether shots had been fired from their windows or no, and a great proportion of their inhabitants murdered. Of the 4,000 corpses which littered the streets of Tarragona more than half were those of civilians, and according to the Spanish official report 450 women and children were among the slain[660]. As one Spanish authority bitterly remarks, the victorious stormers generally gave quarter to any man wearing a uniform, and let off their fury on priests and unarmed citizens. Plunder was even more general than murder, and there was the inevitable accompaniment of drunkenness and rape. Knowing what happened at Badajoz in April 1812, it is not for the British historian to dilate with too great moral indignation on the doings of Suchet’s soldiery. Suffice it to say that all the atrocities afterwards seen at Badajoz were suffered by the unhappy people of Tarragona, and that the actual slaughter of non-combatants was much greater—about 100 inhabitants are believed to have been murdered at Badajoz, more than 2,000 in the Catalonian city. Spanish authorities state that the Poles and Italians behaved decidedly worse than the native French. The officers made some attempt to check the orgie, but (like the British at Badajoz) they failed: riot and slaughter went on all night, and it was not till the next day that order was restored. One of the most dreadful incidents of the storm was that many individuals, both soldiers and civilians, tried to escape to the Milagro roadstead by climbing down the precipitous south front of the city, and, losing their footing, were dashed to pieces or mortally maimed on the beach below.
The garrison, owing to the last-received reinforcements, was over 10,000 strong at the moment of the storm; as Suchet accounts for more than 8,000 prisoners[661], the actual loss at the storm cannot have been much over 2,000 men. But to the 10,000 Spaniards killed or captured on June 28th we must add the losses of the garrison during the earlier operations. It seems that the Army of Catalonia lost in all 14,000 or 15,000 men in this disastrous siege. A certain amount of the wounded, however, had been sent off from time to time on English ships to Majorca and other safe destinations, and survived to fight another day. The French casualties during the siege amounted to 924 killed and 3,372 wounded—a total of 4,296. This was a very heavy proportion out of the 22,000 men[662] who were from first to last engaged in the operations; and if the sick, who are not included in Suchet’s report along with the wounded, are deducted from the survivors, it is clear that the army must have been reduced to a dangerously low figure by June 28th, and that the Spanish authorities[663] who estimate the total loss of their enemies at 6,000 cannot be far out.
But the effect produced was worth the effort which had been made: nearly two-thirds of the regular troops of the Army of Catalonia had been destroyed. The great fortress, which for three years had been the base of the Spanish resistance, had been taken; there was now no considerable place left in the hands of the patriots—Solsona, Berga, Cardona, Seo de Urgel, and the other towns which they still retained were of small importance. They had lost their one fortified harbour, and for the future their communication by sea with Valencia, the Balearic Isles, and the British fleet, could only be conducted hastily and, as it were, surreptitiously; for any port, to which their forces in the inland might descend for a moment, was always liable to be attacked and seized by a French flying column. How nearly the spirit of resistance was crushed in the principality by the stunning blow which Suchet had inflicted will be shown in our next chapter.
Meanwhile, having reorganized his troops, and determined that the upper town of Tarragona should be fortified and garrisoned, but the harbour town dismantled and abandoned, the French commander was at liberty to proceed further with his scheme for the conquest of eastern Spain. But there was bound to be some preliminary delay before he could deliver his great blow against Valencia. One brigade had to be told off to escort the 8,000 Spanish prisoners to Saragossa; another had to return to the south to deal with the insurgents of Aragon, who had been left comparatively unmolested while Abbé was drawn off to the siege. Suchet himself—soon to be a marshal, for the Emperor carried out his promise that ‘he should find his baton within the walls of Tarragona’—marched with some 7,000 or 8,000 men, all that was left disposable, to open up communications with Barcelona. Before his departure he had a curious interview with Contreras: the wounded general, brought before him on a stretcher, was reproached with having violated the laws of war by persisting in the defence of an untenable town when capitulation had been his bounden duty! The Spaniard made the proper answer, that any commander who surrenders before he is obliged is a traitor and a coward. Thereupon Suchet changed his tone, and offered him tempting conditions if he would take service under King Joseph. This proposal being answered as it deserved, Contreras was sent as a prisoner to the castle of Bouillon, from which he escaped after a captivity of fifteen months in October 1812[664].
SECTION XXVIII: CHAPTER III
THE FALL OF FIGUERAS AND THE AUTUMN CAMPAIGN IN CATALONIA. JULY-OCTOBER 1811
The news of the fall of Tarragona, brought by the fugitive General Velasco, came as a thunderclap to Campoverde and his ‘army of succour.’ While the Captain-General had been hesitating, marching and countermarching, and sending about for further reinforcements, the great city entrusted to him had fallen. It was impossible for the simplest soldier in his ranks to fail to see that the whole responsibility for its loss lay with Campoverde, and from that moment his authority ceased, and officers and men alike began to clamour for his resignation. His former popularity in Catalonia had, most deservedly, vanished. The newly raised recruits began to melt away from their colours; the somatenes refused to serve one whom they regarded as a coward, if not as a traitor. On the news that a French column had started from Tarragona to attack him, Campoverde abandoned his head quarters at Vendrils, and fled inland to Cervera, where he at last thought himself safe for the moment. His departure exposed the dépôt at Villanueva de Sitjes, where his sea-borne stores were lying, and the French seized it on the 30th, making prize of many ships not ready for sailing, and capturing 800 Tarragona wounded in the hospital. Skerret’s 1,200 British were lying off the place in their transports, just preparing to land and to join Campoverde, as he had desired. Finding that disembarkation was impossible, and that the Catalan army had disappeared, Skerret took his expedition back to Cadiz, after a most humiliating experience.
Meanwhile there was high debate at Cervera. The Valencian general, Miranda, demanded that Campoverde should at once dismiss him and his division, and permit them to return home by sea. They had been lent by Charles O’Donnell for the one purpose of the relief of Tarragona; and that operation being now impossible, for the best of reasons, Miranda claimed leave to depart. He was naturally anxious to serve no longer under such a miserable chief as Campoverde—though his own behaviour on June 24th gave him no right to complain. It was hard to see how his request could be refused, yet many of the chiefs of the Catalan army thought that the departure of the Valencian division implied the end of all formal war in the principality. The proposal to remove not only the Valencians but all the regular troops was raised: Campoverde, feeling his authority gone, and willing to throw all responsibility on his lieutenants, called a council of war on July 1st. By a majority of four to three general officers, the meeting decided in favour of abandoning Catalonia altogether. Sarsfield, the fighting-man of the army, gave a furious negative, and Campoverde himself made a more timid objection to the move[665]. But the retreat to Valencia being once voted, the Captain-General was only too glad to fall in with the project, and to be quit of the duties which he had so ill discharged. All the regulars were to sail when a convenient exit to the sea could be found—at the moment of the council of war Suchet was on the move in the neighbourhood of Barcelona, and the small ports usually available were blocked. It was a miserable resolve, when Figueras was still holding out, when the inland was still intact, and when Suchet had been obliged to disperse his troops, and could obviously make no general move for some weeks. Fortunately difficulties cropped up to prevent the evacuation. The British commodore, Codrington, when asked to prepare transports and convoy, replied ‘that although he would strain any point to restore to General O’Donnell and to Valencia the troops so liberally furnished by that kingdom, he would not embark the Marquis of Campoverde, or any of the troops belonging to Catalonia, which it was his duty to assist in defending, instead of depriving it of that protection which it had[666].’ Eroles, Manso, and other local Catalan officers sent in equally strong protests; they would be glad to be rid of the Captain-General, but it would be treason to withdraw the whole regular army, and to leave the principality to be defended by the miqueletes alone. The spirit of the people would be brought low, and resistance would die down when they knew that they were abandoned for ever by the army.