In this situation of affairs Lefebre commenced his march from Pampelona the 7th of June, at the head of three or four thousand infantry, some field batteries, and a regiment of Polish cavalry. On the 9th he Moniteur.
Victoire et Conquêtes des Français.
Cavallero. forced the passage of the Ebro, put the leaders of the insurrection to death after the action, and then continued his movement by the right bank to Mallen. Palafox, with ten thousand infantry, two hundred dragoons, and eight pieces of artillery, awaited him there in a position behind the Huecha. The 13th, Palafox was overthrown; the 14th, the French reached the Xalon; another combat and another victory carried Lefebre across that river; and the 15th, he was on the Huerba, in front of the heroic city.
FIRST SIEGE OF ZARAGOZA.
Zaragoza contained at that period fifty thousand inhabitants; situated on the right bank of the Ebro, it was connected with a suburb on the opposite side by a handsome stone bridge. The immediate vicinity is flat, and on the side of the suburb low and marshy. The small river Huerba, running through a deep cleft, cuts the plain on the right bank, and taking its course close to the walls, falls into the Ebro nearly opposite to the mouth of the Gallego, which, descending from the mountains on the opposite side, cuts the plain on the left bank. The convent of St. Joseph, built on the right of the Huerba, covered a bridge over that torrent; and, at the distance of cannon-shot, a step of land commenced, which, gradually rising, terminated at eighteen hundred yards from the convent, in a hill called the Monte Torrero. On Cavallero.
Siege of Zaragoza. this hill, which commanded all the plain and overlooked the town, several storehouses and workshops, built for the use of the canal, were entrenched, and occupied by twelve hundred men. The canal itself, a noble work, formed a water carriage without a single lock from Tudela to Zaragoza. The city, surrounded by a low brick wall, presented no regular defences, and possessed very few guns in a state fit for service, but the houses were strongly constructed, some of stone, others of brick; they were mostly of two stories high, each story being vaulted so as to be nearly proof against fire; and the massive walls of the convents, rising like castles all round the circuit as well as inside the place, were to be seen crowded with armed men.
Such was Zaragoza when Lefebre Desnouettes first appeared before it: his previous movements had cut the direct communication with Calatayud, and obliged the baron Versage to retire to Belchite with the volunteers and several thousand fresh levies. Palafox S.
Journal of Lefebre’s Operations. MSS. occupied the olive groves and houses on the step of land between the convent of St. Joseph and Monte Torrero; but his men, cowed by their previous defeats, were easily driven from thence on the 16th, and the town was closely invested on the right bank of the Ebro. Indeed so great was the terror and confusion Cavallero. of the Spaniards, that some of the French penetrated without difficulty into the street of St. Engracia, and the city was on the point of being taken that day, for Palafox, accompanied by his brother Francisco, an aide-de-camp, and one hundred dragoons, under pretence of seeking succour, endeavoured to go forth on the side of the suburb at the moment when the French were entering on the side of Engracia; but the plebeian leaders being suspicious of his intentions, would not suffer him to depart without a guard of infantry, and Tio Jorge[7] accompanied him to watch his conduct and to ensure his return. It was a strange proceeding, and ill-timed, that the chief should thus fly out at one gate while the enemy was pressing in at another, when the streets were filled with clamour, the dismayed garrison making little or no resistance, and all things in confusion. Zaragoza was that day on the very verge of destruction, when the French, either fearful of an ambuscade, or ignorant of their advantages, retired, and the people, as if inspired, changing from the extreme of terror to that of courage, suddenly fell to casting up defences, piercing loop-holes in the walls of the houses, constructing ramparts with sand-bags, and working with such vigour, that, under the direction of their engineers, in twenty-four hours they put the place in a condition to withstand an assault. Whereupon Lefebre confining his operations to the right bank of the Ebro, established posts close to the gates, and waited for reinforcements.
Meanwhile Palafox crossing the Ebro at Pina, joined Versage at Belchite, and having collected seven or eight thousand men, and four pieces of artillery, gained the Xalon in rear of the French; from thence he proposed to advance through Epila and endeavour to relieve Zaragoza by a battle. His officers, struck Cavallero. with the imprudence of this measure, resisted his authority, and prepared to retire to Valencia. Palafox, ignorant of war, and probably awed by Tio Jorge, expressed his determination to fight, saying, with an imposing air, “that those who feared danger might retire.” Touched with shame, all agreed to follow him to Epila; and he advanced: but two French regiments, detached by Lefebre, met him on the march, and a combat commencing at nine in the evening, the Spaniards were unable to form any order of battle, and, notwithstanding their superior numbers, were defeated with the loss of three thousand men. Palafox, who did not display that firmness in danger which his speech promised, must have fled early, as he reached Calatayud in the night, although many of his troops arrived there unbroken the next morning. After this disaster, Palafox, leaving Versage at Calatayud to make fresh levies, returned himself, with all the beaten troops that he could collect, to Belchite, and from thence regained Zaragoza on the 2d of July. Meanwhile Lefebre had taken the Monte Torrero by assault on the 27th of June.
The 29th or 30th, general Verdier arrived on the Huerba with a division of infantry, and a large train of battering artillery; and the besiegers being now nearly twelve thousand strong, attacked the convents of St. Joseph and the Capuchins on the same day that Palafox returned; the first assault on St. Joseph’s failed, the second succeeded; but the Capuchins, after some fighting, was set fire to by the Spaniards and abandoned. All this time the suburb was left S.
Journal of Lefebre’s Operations. MSS. open and free for the besieged. But Napoleon blamed this mode of attack, and sent orders to throw a bridge across the Ebro,—to press the siege on the left bank,—and to profit of the previous success by raising a breaching battery in the convent of St. Joseph. A bridge was accordingly constructed at St. Lambert, two hundred yards above the town, and two attacks were carried on at the same time.
Hitherto the French troops employed in Aragon formed a part of marshal Bessieres’ corps, but the emperor now directed Lefebre to repair with his brigade to reinforce that marshal, and constituting the Napoleon’s Notes, [Appendix, No. 2.] ten thousand men who remained with Verdier a separate corps, gave this last general the command of it, and promised him reinforcements. Verdier continued to press the siege as closely as his numbers would permit, but, all around him, the insurgents were rapidly organising small armies, and threatened to enclose him in his camp. This obliged him to send detachments against them: and it is singular, that with so few men, while daily fighting with the besieged, he should have been able to scour the country, and put down the insurrection, as far as Lerida, Barbastro, Tudela, Jacca, and Calatayud; the garrison of Pampelona only assisting him from the side of Navarre. In one of these expeditions the powder-mills of Villa Felice, thirty miles distant, were destroyed, and the baron Versage being defeated, was forced to retire with his division towards Valencia.
Cavallero.
During the course of July, Verdier made several assaults on the gate of El Carmen, and others on the Portillo, but he was repulsed in all. The besieged having been reinforced by the regiment of Estremadura, composed of eight hundred old soldiers, in return made a sally with two thousand men to retake the Monte Torrero, but they were beaten, with the loss of their commander; regular approaches were then commenced by the French against the quarter of St. Engracia and the castle of Aljaferia. The 2d of August, the besieged were again reinforced by two hundred men of the Spanish guard and volunteers of Aragon, who brought some artillery with them; the French likewise were strengthened by two old regiments of the line, which increased their numbers to fifteen thousand men.
On the 3d of August, the breaching batteries opened against St. Engracia and Aljaferia; the mortar batteries threw shells at the same time, and a Spanish magazine of powder blowing up in the Cosso (a public walk formed on the line of the ancient Moorish ramparts), destroyed several houses, and killed many of the defenders. The place was then summoned to surrender on terms, but Palafox having rejected all offers, on the 4th of August the town was stormed through a breach in the convent of St. Engracia; the Ibid. French penetrated to the Cosso, and a confused and terrible scene ensued. Some defended the houses, some drew up in the streets, some fled by the suburb to the country, where the French cavalry fell upon them; cries of treason were every where heard, and became the signal for assassinations; all seemed lost, when a column of the assailants seeking the way to the bridge over the Ebro, got entangled in the Arco de Cineja, a long crooked street, and being attacked in that situation, were driven back to the Cosso; others began to plunder, and the Zaragozans recovering courage, fought with desperation, and set fire to the convent of Francisco. At the close of day the French were in possession of one side of the Cosso, and the Spaniards of the other. A hideous and revolting spectacle was exhibited during the action; the Cavallero. public hospital being taken and fired, the madmen confined there issued forth among the combatants, muttering, shouting, singing, and moping, according to the character of their disorder, while drivelling idiots mixed their unmeaning cries with the shouts of contending soldiers.