But plainly as it would have been the policy of the Spaniards to confine themselves to the slow and sure method of weeding out their invaders, till they could bring their regular troops into a fit state for taking the field, the pressing danger of Zaragoza called for immediate efforts. Francisco Palafox, looking every where for that aid which was nowhere to be found, had gone to Cuenca, and proposing that Infantado should march the central army to his brother’s relief, had been present at a council where the proposal was discussed, and had seen with his own eyes how utterly incapable that army was of engaging in such an attempt, or even of attempting ♦Infantado, Manifiesto, 87.♦ such a march. Orders to undertake something for its relief had been dispatched from the Central Junta to the provinces of Valencia and Catalonia. The Valencians were offended with Palafox for having detained General St. Marc with a division of their army; no man contributed more by his military talents to the defence of the city than that general, but he and his men were now cooped up to die of pestilence, when they might have effectually served the Zaragozans in the field. Want of will therefore made the Valencians take only half measures, and these so tardily as to be of no avail. Neither did Reding manifest the feeling which he ought to have partaken upon this subject, partly because the sense of his own difficulties possessed him, and partly perhaps from a personal dislike to the Palafox family. One natural consequence of thus delaying succour in quarters where there was most ability was to produce premature and rash attempts on the part of those who felt more generously. Palafox ♦Tardiness in obeying them.♦ had written to say, that as long as provisions lasted, and there were ruins to shelter them, Zaragoza would not surrender. The place chosen for a depot was Mequinenza, and there, chiefly by the exertions of General Doyle, stores in considerable quantity were collected; but impatient of waiting, when time was so precious, till a well-concerted attempt to introduce supplies could be made, a Colonel who had ♦Defeat of the peasantry.♦ several thousand peasants under his command moved to Belchite, within five leagues of Zaragoza, with a convoy under protection of this force, which was as unmanageable in a body, as it might have been efficient in its proper mode of warfare. The enemy, at the beginning of the siege, had stationed General Vathier at Fuentes with 600 cavalry and 1200 foot to command the country and collect provisions. This movement of the peasants was too near him to be concealed; he fell upon them, routed them with some slaughter, and got possession of all their stores. ♦Alcañiz occupied by the French.♦ The pursuit led him as far as Ixar, and from thence he proceeded against Alcañiz. The peasantry whom Francisco Palafox had collected there drew up on the heights before the town, and withstood the attack with more firmness ♦Rogniat, 17.♦ than might have been expected from such a force; but they were not equal to contend with disciplined troops; and Vathier occupied the towns of Alcañiz and Cuspe as long as the siege endured.
♦Movement in Navarre and Aragon.♦
These misfortunes did not discourage the Spaniards, and the movements of the inhabitants both in Navarre and Aragon were formidable enough to excite some uneasiness in the besiegers. While the Navarrese bands interrupted their communication with Pamplona, the mountaineers of Soria threatened Tudela, and those of the Sierra de Muela endangered their hospitals and establishments at Alagon Lazan, meantime, with his brother Francisco, occupied the country from Villa Franca de Ebro to Licineña and Zuera, and sending detachments as far as Capavrosa to intercept the enemy’s convoys, straitened Gazan’s division in their camp. More than once the French were without meat, and upon half rations of bread; and they might have been foiled a second time before Zaragoza, more shamefully than the first, if the heroism of the inhabitants had been in any degree seconded from without, and if the want of capacity in the Spanish leaders had not been as glaring as the want of order in the field and of reason in their councils. The besiegers had felt some ill effects from the latter cause; but an end was put to jarring pretensions and contrarient views when ♦M. Lasnes takes the command.♦ Marshal Lasnes arrived on the 22d of January to take the command. He had previously ordered Mortier to leave Calatayud, and act with Suchet’s division on the left of the Ebro; having dispersed the force which Francisco Palafox had collected there, they took possession of Zuera, and scouring the country as far as Pina, Sarineña, ♦Rogniat, 18, 20.♦ and Huesca, secured the besiegers from interruption on that side. The French Marshal hoped that this might abate the spirit of the Zaragozans as much as it had cheered them ♦He summons Palafox to surrender. Jan. 25.♦ when they saw the force of their countrymen upon the surrounding heights; and he addressed a letter to Palafox, telling him that the force upon which he had relied for relief had been destroyed, that the English had fled to Coruña and embarked there, leaving 7000 prisoners, and that Romana had escaped with them, his army with their officers having yielded to the Emperor: that Infantado had been defeated at Ucles with the loss of 18,000 men; and that if after this true statement he persisted in withstanding a force more than sufficient for effecting its purpose, the destruction of the city and of its inhabitants must rest upon his head. Palafox ♦Cavallero, 107.♦
♦Seb. Hermandez, 14, 15.♦ replied, that M. Lasnes would cover himself with glory if he were to win the city by force of manly courage with the sword, and not by bombarding it; but that the Zaragozans knew their duty, and would not surrender.
♦The French enter the city, but with great loss. Jan. 26.♦
All the outworks had now been taken except the Castle of the Inquisition, which had never been seriously attacked, because its possession was of no importance to the enemy. The batteries against the city itself were completed, and on the day after the summons fifty pieces opened their fire upon the wall, and on the morrow three practicable breaches were made. One was by an oil-mill, a building standing alone, without the walls, and close to them; the enemy had established themselves in it during the night. The second was to the left of this, immediately opposite S. Joseph’s; the third in the monastery of S. Engracia. All these were attacked. A column issuing from the oil-mill presently reached the first, and the explosion of two fougades at the foot of the breach scarcely appeared to impede their progress. But they found an inner intrenchment, well constructed and mounted with two guns; and when they attempted to carry this the bell of the Torre Nueva rang, the inhabitants manned the adjacent houses, and a fire was opened from roofs and windows which it was neither possible to return nor to withstand. Profiting, however, by the cover which the exploded fougades afforded them, they succeeded in lodging themselves upon the breach. On the left they were more successful; after gaining the ramparts, they made their way into the opposite house, which the artillery had breached, and into the two adjoining ones; their progress was then stopped, but they established themselves within the walls, and repaired and lengthened for their own use a double caponier, by which the besieged used to communicate with S. Joseph’s. The attack upon the third breach was more formidable. After a severe struggle the enemy entered the convent of S. Engracia, obtained possession of its ruins and of the nunnery of S. Joseph, which stood near, and of which little more than the mere shell was remaining. Piercing the walls of this, they enfiladed the curtain from S. Engracia to the bridge of the Huerba, and taking the tête-de-pont in reverse, became masters of the bridge, over which fresh troops joined them to follow up their success. They pushed on to the Capuchin convent of La Trinidad, which made part of the line; forty artillerymen, who were stationed there without support, as a place not in danger of attack, were cut to pieces at their guns, and the convent was taken. It was recovered by the Spaniards; but two battalions came to support the assailants, who took it a second time, and maintained their conquest, though at a dear price. The greater part of the French who occupied the curtain fell under the fire from the houses. They suffered also considerably in a vain attempt to possess themselves of a single house which defended an imperfect breach to the right of all their other attacks. Their whole loss was stated by themselves at 600, that of the besiegers at eight. The Spaniards, with better reason, believed that a much greater proportion of the enemy had fallen; and the French had in fact received so severe a lesson, that they determined not to ♦Rogniat, 22, 26.
Cavallero, 102–105.♦ risk any more direct attacks, but proceed always as much as possible under cover: there was danger otherwise that the troops would become impatient of so fatal a service, and even that all their efforts might be unavailing.
♦The enemy establish themselves in the Trinidad convent.♦
As it was now no longer necessary to carry on the false attack upon the Aljafaria, the engineers were called from thence to fortify the Trinidad convent, and establish a communication with it and with a house by the bridge; commanding in this manner the whole intermediate space. During the night the Spaniards endeavoured to recover the ruins of S. Engracia and the adjoining houses, but without success. They attempted twice also to regain the Trinidad, and once succeeded so far as to force open the church door: the enemy had formed an epaulement within of bags of earth, and fought to advantage behind that protection. A friar was at the head of the assailants, with a sword in one hand and the crucifix in the other; one of his brethren was killed in the act of administering extreme unction to a Spaniard who was mortally wounded; another took the holy oil from the slain, and continued to perform the same office to his dying countrymen. Women also mingled with the combatants, distributing cartridges to them, and bearing refreshments to their sons, ♦Rogniat, 25, 28.
Cavallero, 105.♦ their husbands, and fathers, and sometimes rushing upon the enemy when these dear relatives fell, to revenge their deaths, and to die with them.
♦Convents of S. Augustin and S. Monica won.♦
The French had in vain attempted to get possession of the convents of S. Augustin and ♦Feb. 1.♦ S. Monica. Having been repelled in assaulting ♦1809.
February.♦ the breaches, they sprung a mine under the partition wall, and by that means effected an entrance, turning all the works which the Spaniards had constructed for their defence. They forced their way into the church. Every column, every chapel, every altar, became a point of defence, which was repeatedly attacked, taken, and retaken, and attacked again; the pavement was covered with blood, and the aisles and nave of the church strewed with the dead, who were trampled under foot by the combatants. In the midst of this conflict the roof, which had been shattered by bombs, fell in; the few who were not crushed, after a short pause which this tremendous shock and the sense of their own escape occasioned, renewed the fight with increased desperation: fresh parties of the enemy poured in: monks, and citizens, and soldiers came to the defence, and the contest was continued upon the ruins and the bodies of the dead and the dying. It ended in favour of the invaders, who succeeded in keeping the disputed position. Taking advantage of the opportunity afforded while the attention of the Spaniards was directed to this point, they entered the Rua Quemada, where no attack was at that time apprehended, and got possession of one side of the street to the angle which it makes with the Cozo: their sappers were beginning to pierce the walls of the houses, barricade the doors and windows, and establish traverses in the street, when the Zaragozans charged them with redoubled spirit, drove them out with considerable loss, and recovered four houses which had been taken on a preceding day. At the same time an attack was made on the side of S. Engracia, when, after exploding two mines, the Poles got possession of some ruined houses; but in obtaining this success, General Lacoste, the ♦Rogniat, 27, 30.
Cavallero, 106.♦ French commandant of engineers, was killed. His opponent, Colonel San Genis, had fallen the preceding day: he was succeeded by Colonel Zappino, Lacoste by Colonel Rogniat.
♦The enemy proceed by mining.♦