After Charles O’Donnell and Obispo had been driven away from the threatening position upon Suchet’s flank, Blake found himself during the early days of October in a very unpleasant dilemma. It was clear that his own feeble efforts to molest the French army were a complete failure. Presently the message reached him that Mahy’s unlucky expedition to Cuenca had been absolutely useless. But the most disheartening news was that the attempt to overrun Aragon by means of the guerrilleros had failed; its initial success, the capture of Calatayud on October 3, had only led to the inundation of the whole countryside in that direction by the numerous battalions of Reille and Severoli.
As the days wore on, Blake found himself obliged to confess that the idea of dislodging Suchet by operations in his rear was hopeless. The only remaining alternative for him was to endeavour to call together every available man, and to try to beat the French army in a great pitched battle. Considering the well-known disrepute of both the Murcian and the Valencian troops, the prospect was not one that the Spanish general could view with much confidence. But political reasons forced him to fight—his policy of passive resistance had made him so unpopular with the Valencians of all ranks, from the members of the exiled Junta down to the private soldiers, that if he had held back any longer it is probable that he might have been deposed or murdered by a conspiracy. Saguntum was holding out most gallantly, and the ignominy of leaving it to fall, without making any effort for its succour, was sufficiently evident. He made up his mind about the middle of October that he must advance and fight. But, being very properly determined to fight with all available resources, he had to await the descent of Mahy and the Murcians from Cuenca, and by his own fault that important column could not be drawn in to the main army before the 23rd. It was only on that day that an advance in force became possible: for a week and more Blake anxiously awaited the junction, and until it took place he would not move.
Meanwhile Suchet, entirely unmolested, was pressing the siege of Saguntum with all possible expedition. The first siege-guns from Tortosa reached his camp, as has been already mentioned, on October 12th. But it was not till four days later that the actual battering of the place began. Though paths had been traced out, and the emplacements of batteries settled, long ere the siege-train came up, the actual getting of the guns into position proved a very tiresome business, on account of the steep and rocky slopes over which they had to be dragged. And the construction of approaches and parallels upon the hillside progressed very slowly, because of the absence of earth—at last it was found that soil to bind the loose stones of the ground together would have, for the most part, to be carried up in sandbags from the valley below, for hardly any could be scraped together on the spot. The engineer officer who wrote the diary of the siege confesses that if the Spanish garrison had only been provided with heavy artillery, the approach-building would have proved almost impossible[20]. But, as has been already noted, there were but seventeen guns mounted in the whole fortress, and of these only three were 12-pounders—the rest being small field-pieces, too weak to batter down parapets of even modest thickness. Moreover the very steepness of the slope over which the siege-works were being advanced made much of it ‘dead ground,’ which guns above could not properly sweep or search out.
On the 11th of October the two generals, Vallée and Rogniat, who had regularly commanded Suchet’s artillery and engineers during his previous sieges, arrived from the rear—both had been in France on leave, and they had come forward with the train from Tortosa to Oropesa. Their arrival added confidence to the subordinates who had hitherto worked without them, for the reputation of each for success was very great. Rogniat immediately on his arrival made several important modifications in the projected batteries, and showed how the approaches might be pushed forward to within seventy yards of the fortress, by taking advantage of favourable dips and rocky outcrops in the hillside.
On the 16th, five batteries were armed with the guns which had come up, and fire was opened upon the projecting western angle of the fortress, the tower of San Pedro. It proved to be made of ancient Moorish stone and mortar, almost as hard as iron, and crumbled very slowly. But the modern works below it, which were only a few months old, owned no such resisting power, and within two days showed signs of serious damage. The Spanish counter-fire was insignificant—there were very few guns available, and it was only when the approaches got within easy musket shot of the walls that the besiegers began to suffer appreciable casualties. For the Spanish infantry, disregarding the cannonade, kept up a furious fire against the heads of the saps all day and night.
On the afternoon of the 18th the engineer and artillery officers reported to Suchet that they had made a sufficient breach in the curtain of the work called the Dos Mayo battery, just where it joined on the tower of San Pedro, and that they regarded it as practicable for assault. The Marshal ordered that the storm should be fixed for the same evening, lest the Spaniards should succeed in repairing the breach during the hours of darkness. The column of assault consisted of 400 men, picked from Habert’s division, supported by a reserve of Palombini’s Italians. The fire of the siege artillery was kept up to the last moment, and did much harm to the garrison, who were very clearly seen piling gabions, sandbags, and stones on the ruinous lip of the breach, in disregard of the steady fire that kept pounding it down[21].
The assault was duly delivered at five o’clock, and proved a complete failure. The stormers found the breach most difficult to climb, as its face was entirely formed of big blocks of stone without earth or débris. The column won its way half up the ascent, and isolated officers and men got further, and were bayoneted or shot at close quarters by the defenders, who clustered very thickly at the top. But no general rush of men could reach the summit, where (it is said) the actual gap in the parapet was not more than six or seven feet broad. After several ineffective attempts to mount, the assailants came to a stand on the lower part of the slope, and opened a scattering fire on the Spaniards above them. Whereupon, seeing the opportunity lost, General Habert, who had been given charge of the operations, ordered the men to fall back to the trenches, and to abandon the assault.
This was a most creditable feat of arms for the garrison, who had hardly a cannon to help them, and held their own almost entirely by musketry fire, though they rolled some live shells, beams, and large stones down the breach at intervals. Their casualties were heavy, but those of the assailants, as was natural, much greater. Suchet lost at least 300 men, though in his dispatch to the Emperor[22] he gave an elaborate table of casualties showing a total of only 173. But his ‘returns,’ even the most specious looking of them, should never be trusted—as will be seen when we are dealing with the second battle of Castalla in a later volume. This excellent officer was as untrustworthy as Soult or Masséna in the figures which he sent to his master[23].
After this Suchet resolved to make no more attempts to storm Saguntum. ‘When even the best of soldiers,’ remarks Belmas, ‘have made every effort to carry a place and have failed, they imagine that the place is impregnable. And if an attempt is made to lead them once more to an assault, they will not again act with the confidence which is needed to secure victory.’ Wellington was to find this out at Burgos, a year later. Indeed in their early stages the sieges of Saguntum and Burgos show a rather notable parallelism, though their ends were dissimilar. General Rogniat easily persuaded the Marshal to drop the heroic method which had gained so little success, and to fall back on the systematic work which is slow but certain[24].’ Suchet gave permission to the engineers to establish more batteries, and to defer all further attempts to storm till the approaches should have been carried up to the very foot of the walls, and the whole curtain of the Dos Mayo redoubt should have been battered down.
The garrison, much encouraged by their successful effort of the 18th, continued to make an obstinate resistance: as the enemy sapped uphill towards them, they kept up such a careful and deadly fire that the casualties in the trenches amounted every day to 15 or 20 men. For the next six days nothing decisive happened, though the works continued to creep slowly forward: they had to be built with parapets consisting entirely of earth brought from below, and made very high, since the nearer they got to the works, the more did the plunging fire from above search them out.