Early in August, the besiegers had pushed their parallels to the very edge of the fosse; but here their efforts were delayed, because the nature of the soil obliged them to bring earth from some distance to finish their works. About this time, Castellar de la Silva, at the head of fifteen hundred men, attempted to throw supplies into the city; but no precautions could escape the watchful eye of the besiegers. The convoy was seized, and only five hundred men, of the fifteen hundred who defended it, lived to tell the tale.
The main attacks of the besiegers were now directed against the ravelin, which had become the chief defence of Monjuie. Attempts were made, night after night, to storm it; but in vain. It was mined, but, as the breastwork was wholly of earth, the explosion did no injury. A battery was planted against it, and a sally was made by the besieged, hoping to destroy it. This attack was headed by a priest. He was fired upon, and fell. One of the French officers, at the risk of his own life, protected him from further injury. But his humanity cost him his life. One of the Spaniards, mistaking his object, cut him down. The guns of the battery were spiked; but this brave attack was of little use, for the French were well supplied with artillery, and fresh guns were soon mounted, and played upon the gate and ravelin.
For thirty-seven days had this fierce conflict been sustained. The numbers of the besieged were greatly reduced; the hospitals were filled to overflowing, and pestilence, with all its horrors, spread unchecked, on every side. Yet this was not all. Grim, gaunt famine was among them, and began to be severely felt. Of all their stores, only some wheat and a little flour remained. Still, there was no thought of capitulation, although every day diminished their little stock. On the 19th of September, another general assault was made, and as bravely met. “Frequently,” says Southey, “such was the press of conflict, and such the passion that inspired them, that, impatient of the time required for reloading their muskets, the defendants caught up stones from the breach, and hurled upon their enemies these readier weapons.” Four times the assault was repeated in the course of two hours, and at every point the enemy was beaten off. The noble Alvarez, during the whole assault, hastened from post to post, wherever he was most needed, providing everything, directing all, and encouraging all. Eight hundred of the besiegers fell, on this memorable day. A glorious success had been gained, yet it brought with it no rest,—no respite,—scarcely a prolongation of hope. There was no wine to cheer the wearied soldiery, when they returned from the assault—not even bread. A scanty mess of pulse, or corn, with a little oil, or morsel of bacon, in its stead, was all that could be served out; and even this was the gift of families, who shared with the soldiers their little stores. “What matters it?” was the answer of these heroes to the lament of the inhabitants that they had nothing better to give; “if the food fail, the joy of having saved Gerona will give us strength to go on.” Every day, every hour, added to the distress of the besieged. Their flour was exhausted, and, for want of other animal food, mules and horses were slaughtered, and sent to the shambles. A list was made of all within the city, and they were taken by lot. Fuel became exceedingly scarce; yet such was the patriotism of the people, that the heaps placed at the corners of the streets, to illuminate them in case of danger, remained untouched. A glimmering of hope still remained that the city might be supplied with provisions by the army of Blake; but even this faint hope was cut off when Marshal Augereau superseded St. Cyr in the control of the siege,—for his first act was to take possession of Haslatrich, at which place Blake had stored the greater part of his magazines. Augereau sent letters to the city threatening an increase of horrors in case the siege was prolonged, and offering them an armistice of a month, with provisions for that time, if Alvarez would then capitulate; but these terms were rejected with scorn. Hitherto, the few animals which had remained had been led out to feed near the burying-ground; but this was no longer possible, and the wretched animals gnawed the hair from each other’s bodies. The stores of the citizens were now exhausted, and the food for the hospitals was sometimes seized on the way, by the famishing populace. Provisions were prepared in the French camp, and held out to the garrison as a temptation to desert; and yet, during the whole siege, only ten so deserted.
At length, human nature could endure no more. The chief surgeon presented to Alvarez a report on the state of the city. It was, indeed, a fearful one. It stated that “not a single house remained in a habitable state” in Gerona. The people slept in cellars, and vaults, and holes, amid the ruins; and the wounded were often killed in the hospital by the enemy’s fire. The streets were broken up, so that the rain-water and sewers had stagnated, and their pestilential breath was rendered more noxious by the dead bodies which lay perishing in the ruins. The incessant thunder of artillery had affected the atmosphere, and vegetation had stopped. The fruit withered on the trees, and nothing would grow. Within the last three days, says the report, five hundred of the garrison alone have died in the hospitals, and the pestilence is still raging unchecked. “If, by these sacrifices,” say its authors, in conclusion, “deserving forever to be the admiration of history,—and if, by consummating them with the lives of us, who, by the will of Providence, have survived our comrades,—the liberty of our country can be secured, happy shall we be, in the bosom of eternity, and in the memory of all good men, and happy will be our children among their fellow-countrymen.”
Alvarez himself could do no more. Yet would he not yield to the enemy; but, being seized with a delirious fever, his successor in command yielded the city on honorable terms, on the 10th of December, the siege having lasted seven months. Alvarez died soon after, and the central junta awarded honors and titles to his family, and exempted the whole city from taxation.
THE ENGLISH AT TORRES VEDRAS.
The surrender of this devoted city closed the campaign for 1809. The principal events of the campaign of 1810 were the battle of Busaco, in which the English gained the victory, and the retreat of the French Marshal Massena. For four months and a half, Massena had continually followed the retreating forces of Wellington, until now he had retired beyond the lines of Torres Vedras. The English had been engaged on these lines a year, until they had at last rendered them almost impregnable. They consisted of three lines of intrenchments, one within another, extending for nearly thirty miles. On these lines were a hundred and fifty redoubts, and six hundred mounted cannon. Here Massena saw his enemy retire within these lines, and he then knew that his utmost efforts to dislodge him must prove abortive. Besides, Wellington here received reinforcements to his army, which increased it to one hundred and thirty thousand men.
Besides these defences, there were twenty British ships of the line, and a hundred transports, ready to receive the army, if forced to retire. Unwilling to retreat, Massena sat down with his army here, hoping to draw Wellington to an open battle. But he preferred waiting for an attack upon his intrenchments, or to starve the enemy into a retreat. This he knew must soon be done. Wellington himself declares that Massena provisioned his sixty thousand men and twenty thousand horses, for two months, where he could not have maintained a single division of English soldiers. But his army was now reduced to starvation; and he, driven to the last extremity, saw that he must either commence his retreat at once, or his famine-stricken army would be too weak to march. Arranging his troops into a compact mass, he placed the rear guard under the command of Ney, and retired from the Torres Vedras. Wellington immediately commenced the pursuit; but, owing to the skilful arrangements of the French marshal, he found it impossible to attack him with success. Taking advantage of every favorable position, he would make a stand, and wait until the main body of the army had passed on, and then would himself fall back. Thus, for more than four months, did this retreat continue, until he arrived at the confines of Portugal, having lost more than one-third of his army. Many were the cruelties practised on this retreat. They have often been described, and form a dark spot on the English historian’s page. All war is necessarily cruel; and the desolation and barrenness that followed in the track of the French army, wasting the inhabitants by famine, were a powerful check on Wellington in his pursuit. The track of a retreating and starving army must always be covered with woe; and one might as well complain of the cruelty of a besieging force, because innocent women and children die by hunger.
ESCAPE OF FRENCH PRISONERS.
The siege of Cadiz occupied the spring and summer of this year. During this siege, a tremendous tempest ravaged the Spanish coast, lasting four days. By it more than forty sail of merchantmen, besides three line-of-battle ships, were driven on shore. It was during this tempest that the French and Swiss on board the prison-ships in the harbor made their escape. “The storm was so great,” writes one of the unhappy captives, “that we could not receive our supply of provision from the shore. Our signals of distress were wholly disregarded by the Spanish authorities; and, had it not been for the humanity of the British admiral, who sent his boats to their relief, many more of our miserable men must have perished.” The pontoons in which these prisoners were confined were not properly secured; and the prisoners on board the Castilla, seeing that the wind and tide were in their favor, cut the cable, and, hoisting a sail which they had made from their hammocks, steered for the opposite coast. They were seven hundred in number, and most of them officers. English boats were sent against them, but they found the French were prepared. The ballast of the vessel in which they were confined was cannon-balls of twenty-four and thirty-six pounds’ weight. These the French hurled by hand into the boats of their pursuers, and soon disabled them, so that the fugitives finally succeeded in escaping with but little loss.