On the left bank of the Ebro the suburb, built in a low marshy plain, was protected by a chain of redoubts and fortified houses. Finally, some gun-boats, manned by seamen from the naval arsenal of Carthagena, completed the circuit of defence. The artillery of the place was, however, of too small a Cavalhero. calibre. There were only sixty guns carrying more than twelve-pound balls; and there were but eight large mortars. There was, however, no want of small arms, many of which were English that had been supplied by colonel Doyle.
These were the regular external defences of Zaragoza, most of which were constructed at the time, according to the skill and means of the engineers; but the experience of the former siege had taught the people not to trust to the ordinary resources of art, and, with equal genius and resolution, they had prepared an internal system of defence infinitely more efficacious.
It has been already observed that the houses of Zaragoza were fire-proof, and, generally, of only two stories, and that, in all the quarters of the city, the numerous massive convents and churches rose like castles above the low buildings, and that the greater streets, running into the broad-way called the Cosso, divided the town into a variety of districts, unequal in size, but each containing one or more large structures. Now, the citizens, sacrificing all personal convenience, and resigning all idea of private property, gave up their goods, their bodies, and their houses to the war, and, being promiscuously mingled with the peasantry and the regular soldiers, the whole formed one mighty garrison, well suited to the vast fortress into which Zaragoza was transformed: for, the doors and windows of the houses were built up, and their fronts loop-holed; internal communications were broken through the party-walls, and the streets were trenched and crossed by earthen ramparts, mounted with cannon, and every strong building was turned into a separate fortification. There was no weak point, because there could be none in a town which was all fortress, and where the space covered by the city was the measurement for the thickness of the ramparts: nor in this emergency were the leaders unmindful of moral force.
The people were cheered by a constant reference to the former successful resistance; their confidence was raised by the contemplation of the vast works that had been executed; and it was recalled to their recollection that the wet, usual at that season of the year, would spread disease among the enemy’s ranks, and would impair, if not entirely frustrate, his efforts. Neither was the aid of superstition neglected: processions imposed upon the sight, false miracles bewildered the imagination, and terrible denunciations of the divine wrath shook the minds of men, whose former habits and present situation rendered them peculiarly susceptible of such impressions. Finally, the leaders were themselves so prompt and terrible in their punishments that the greatest cowards were likely to show the boldest bearing in their wish to escape suspicion.
To avoid the danger of any great explosion, the powder was made as occasion required; and this was the more easily effected because Zaragoza contained a royal depôt and refinery for salt-petre, and there were powder-mills in the neighbourhood, which furnished workmen familiar with the process of manufacturing that article. The houses and trees beyond the walls were all demolished and cut down, and the materials carried into the town. The public magazines contained six months’ provisions; the convents were well stocked, and the inhabitants had, likewise, laid up their own stores for several months. General Doyle also sent a convoy into the town from the side of Catalonia, and there was abundance of money, because, in addition to the resources of the town, the military chest of Castaños’s army, which had been supplied only the night before the battle of Tudela, was, in the flight, carried to Zaragoza.
Companies of women, enrolled to attend the hospitals and to carry provisions and ammunition to the combatants, were commanded by the countess Doyle’s Correspondence, M.S.
Cavalhero, Siege of Zaragoza. of Burita, a lady of an heroic disposition, who is said to have displayed the greatest intelligence and the noblest character during both sieges. There were thirteen engineer officers, and eight hundred sappers and miners, composed of excavators formerly employed on the canal, and there were from fifteen hundred to two thousand cannoneers.
The regular troops that fled from Tudela, being joined by two small divisions, which retreated, at the same time, from Sanguessa and Caparosa, formed a garrison of thirty thousand men, and, together with the inhabitants and peasantry, presented a mass of fifty thousand combatants, who, with passions excited almost to phrensy, awaited an assault amidst those mighty entrenchments, where each man’s home was a fortress and his family a garrison. To besiege, with only thirty-five thousand men, a city so prepared was truly a gigantic undertaking!
SECOND SIEGE OF ZARAGOZA.
The 20th of December, the two marshals, Moncey and Mortier, having established their hospitals and Rogniat. magazines at Alagon on the Xalon, advanced in three columns against Zaragoza.
The first, composed of the infantry of the third corps, marched by the right bank of the canal.