♦O’Donnell enters the city.♦
The hope of relief was the only thing talked of in Gerona, and day and night the people, as well as the watchmen, looked eagerly on all sides for the succours of which they were so greatly in need, and which they knew Blake was preparing. That general, on the 21st of September, had assembled a convoy at Hostalrich; on the morning of the 26th a firing was heard towards Los Angeles, and a strong body of the garrison sallied out to assist the convoy. Wimpfen had the command of the advancing army. When they reached the heights of S. Pelayo, before La Bisbal, O’Donnell was sent forward, with 1000 men, to open a way through the enemy: this officer, who was generally not less successful than enterprising in his attempts, broke through the enemy, set fire to one of their encampments, and made way for 160 laden beasts, which entered safely through the Puerta del Areny. The joy of the besieged was but of short endurance; they looked to see more troops and more supplies hastening on: 10,000 men they knew had been sent upon this service, 1000 had effected their part, why could not the nine follow? After gazing for hours in vain, they could no longer deceive themselves with hope; it was but too certain that the rest of the convoy had been intercepted. They then began to censure the general who had attempted to introduce it on that side, where the way was craggy, and led through such defiles, that a handful of men would be sufficient to defeat his purpose: their disappointment vented itself in exclamations against Blake, and they blamed him for remaining at the head of an army after so many repeated misfortunes as he had sustained. ♦Failure of the attempt to relieve it.♦ That general was not more censured by the Catalans than by the enemy for his conduct during the siege. The French condemned his want of promptitude and enterprise, being conscious themselves that for want of resources they must have been seriously endangered, if they had been repeatedly and vigorously attacked, or even threatened. But Blake, after the panic at Belchite, could have no confidence in his men: nor was this his only misfortune; though in other respects a good officer, he wanted that presence of mind which is the most essential requisite for a commander, and he was therefore better qualified to plan a campaign than to execute his own arrangements. When he succeeded in the former attempt for relieving Gerona, if the fair occasion had been seized the enemy might have then been compelled to raise the siege; but it was let pass for want of alacrity and hope. This second effort was miserably unsuccessful; nine parts of the convoy fell into the enemy’s hand, and there was a loss of more than 3000 men, for the ♦St. Cyr, 262.♦ Italians gave no quarter. St. Cyr thought that the men who had got into the city could not possibly retreat from it, and must therefore accelerate its surrender; and believing that the ♦St. Cyr gives up the command to Augereau.♦ business of the siege was done, he went to Perpignan for the purpose of making arrangements for the better supply of the army, and getting rid of an irksome command which his successor seemed in no haste to assume. His situation had long been painful. The service itself was one to which no casuistry could reconcile an honourable mind; the system of preying upon the country gave a barbarous character to it, which, if the cause itself had been less odious, must have been intolerable to one bred up in those feelings and observances by which the evils of war were mitigated: and if Marshal St. Cyr had been insensible to these reflections, he had much personal mortification to endure. There was reason to suspect that the army was neglected, because he was an object of displeasure to the government which employed him; and he was made to feel that the officers under him were, for his sake, debarred from the honours and advancement which they were entitled to expect. Finding therefore that Augereau was not incapacitated by ill health ♦St. Cyr, 264, 268.♦ from assuming the command, he communicated to him his determination of holding it no longer, and was rewarded for his services by two years of disgrace and exile.
♦O’Donnell effects his retreat.♦
Marshal Augereau had not been many hours before Gerona when O’Donnell with his thousand men broke through the besieging army, and accomplished his retreat more daringly and not less successfully than he had effected his entrance. It was O’Donnell who first formed the Geronans into companies, and disciplined them: he had not remained in the city during the siege, because it was rightly thought he would be better able to assist it from without; and he had displayed such skill and intrepidity in intercepting a convoy at Mascara, in concert with Rovira, that the Central Junta promoted him to the rank of brigadier. When, in the unhappy attempt at relieving the city, he and his division only had entered, he took up his station between the fort of the Capuchins and of La Reynana; but Gerona stood in need of provisions, not men; a thousand troops added nothing to her useful strength, the Geronans were strong enough without them to resist an assault if another were made; with them they were not numerous enough to sally and raise the siege; the continuance of O’Donnell then could only serve to hasten the fall of the city, by increasing the consumption of its scanty stores, and to weaken his own men by the privations in which they shared. It was agreed, therefore, with Alvarez that he should cut his way through the enemy; and a few families thought it better to follow him in this perilous attempt, than remain in a city where it now became apparent that they who escaped death could not long escape captivity. The place was completely surrounded, so that to elude the enemy was impossible; the only hope was to surprise them, ♦Oct. 13.♦ and then force a way. One night, after the moon was down, they left their position in silence: the Geronan centinels at St. Francisco de Paula mistook them for an enemy, and fired: but it is not unlikely that this accident, which might so easily have frustrated the enterprise, facilitated it, by deceiving the French, who, when they heard the alarm given from the city, could never imagine that an attempt was about to be made upon their camp. To make way by the mountains, O’Donnell knew would be impossible, in the darkness, without confusion; ♦1809.
October.♦ therefore, though the enemy’s posts were more numerous on the plain, he judged it safer to take that course. The plan was ably carried into effect; his men surprised the first post, fell upon them with sword and bayonet, not firing a gun, cut them off without giving the alarm, and sparing two prisoners, made them their guides through the encampment. They passed five-and-twenty posts of the enemy, through many of which they forced their way: Souham was surprised in his quarter, and fled in his shirt, leaving behind him as much booty as the Spaniards had time to lay hands on. The alarm spread throughout the whole of the lines, but it was too late; by daybreak the Spaniards reached S. Colona, where Milans was posted with part of Blake’s army, and it was not till they were thus placed in safety that a body of 2000 foot and 200 horse, who had been sent in pursuit of them, came up. O’Donnell was promoted to the rank of camp-marshal for this exploit.
♦Magazines at Hostalrich taken by the French.♦
But an immediate change took place in the condition of the besieging army under the new commander. Their wants were immediately supplied from France, they were largely reinforced, and encouragement of every kind was given them, as if to show that the disfavour which they had experienced had been wholly intended toward Marshal St. Cyr. Augereau being thus in strength, sent General Pino against the town of Hostalrich, where magazines were collected for Blake’s army, and for the relief of Gerona. The town was occupied by 2000 troops; Blake was too distant to act in support of this important post; the Spaniards, after a gallant resistance, were driven into the citadel by superior numbers; the magazines were lost, and the greater part of the town burnt.
♦Augereau offers favourable terms.♦
The French purchased their success dearly; but it cut off the last possibility of relief from Gerona. The besieged now died in such numbers, chiefly of dysentery, that the daily deaths were never less than thirty-five, and sometimes amounted to seventy. The way to the burial place was never vacant. Augereau straitened the blockade; and, that the garrison might neither follow the example of O’Donnell, nor receive any supplies, however small, he drew his lines closer, stretched cords with bells along the interspaces, and kept watch-dogs at all the posts. The bombardment was continued, and always with greater violence during the night than the day, as if to exhaust the Geronans by depriving them of sleep. He found means also of sending letters into the city, sparing no attempts to work upon the hopes and fears of the people; he told them of his victory at Hostalrich, ... of the hopeless state of Blake’s army, ... of the peace which Austria had made; ... he threatened the most signal vengeance if they persisted in holding out, and he offered to grant an armistice for a month, and suffer supplies immediately to enter, provided Alvarez would capitulate at the end of that time, if the city were not relieved. There was a humanity in this offer such as no other French general had displayed during the course of the Spanish war; but Alvarez and the Geronans knew their duty too well to accept even such terms as these after the glorious resistance which they had made. With such an enemy, and in such a cause, they knew that no compromise ought to be made: they had devoted themselves for Spain, and it did not become them, for the sake of shortening their own sufferings, to let loose so large a part of the besieging army as this armistice would have left at liberty for other operations.
♦Destruction of a French convoy by the British ships.♦
While the people of Gerona opposed this heroic spirit of endurance to the enemy, an affair took place at sea, which, if it brought no immediate relief to the Catalans, convinced them at least that they were not wholly neglected by Great Britain. Lord Collingwood having obtained intelligence that an attempt would be made from Toulon for throwing supplies into Barcelona, sailed from Minorca about the middle of October, and took his station a few leagues off Cape St. Sebastian, on the coast of Catalonia. On the 23d the enemy’s fleet came in sight, consisting of three ships of the line, two frigates, two armed store ships, and a convoy of sixteen sail. Rear Admiral Martin was ordered to give chase; he fell in with the ships of war off ♦Oct. 25.♦ the entrance of the Rhone, but they escaped him that night, because the wind blew directly on shore. The next morning he renewed the chase, and drove two of them, one of eighty guns, the other of seventy-four, on shore, off Frontignan, where they were set fire to by their own crews; the other ship of the line and one frigate ran on shore at the entrance of the port of Cette, where there was little probability that the former could be saved, but they were under protection of the batteries. The second frigate had hauled her wind during the night, and got into Marseilles road.