CHAPTER III.
While Augereau lost, in Barcelona, the fruits of his success at Gerona, Suchet, sensible how injurious the expedition to Valencia had proved, was diligently repairing that error. Reinforcements from France, had raised his fighting men to about twenty-three thousand, and of these, he drew out thirteen thousand to form the siege of Lerida; the remainder, were required to maintain the forts in Aragon, and to hold in check the Partisans, principally in the higher valleys of the Pyrenees. Villa Campa however, with from three to four thousand men, still kept about the lordship of Molina, and the mountains of Albaracin.
Two lines of operation were open to Suchet, the one, short and direct, by the high road leading from Zaragoza through Fraga to Lerida; the other circuitous, over the Sierra de Alcubierre, to Monzon, and from thence to Lerida. The first was inconvenient, because the Spaniards, when they took Fraga, destroyed the bridge over the Cinca. Moreover, the fortress of Mequinenza, the Octogesa of Cæsar, situated at the confluence of the Segre and the Ebro, was close on the right flank, and might seriously incommode the communications with Zaragoza, whereas the second route, although longer, was safer, and less exhausted of forage and provisions.
Monzon was already a considerable military establishment, the battering train consisting of forty pieces, with seven hundred rounds of ammunition attached to each, was directed there, and placed under the guard of Habert’s division, which occupied the line of the Cinca. Leval leaving general Chlopiski with a brigade at Daroca, to observe Villa Campa, drew nearer to Zaragoza with the rest of his division. Musnier marched with one brigade to Alcanitz, and was there joined by his second brigade, which had been conducted to that point, from Terruel, across the Sierra de Gudar. And while these movements were executing, the castles of Barbastro, Huesca, Ayerbe, Zuera, Pina, Bujarola, and other points on the left of the Ebro, were occupied by detachments.
The right bank of that river, being guarded by Leval’s division, and the country on the left bank, secured by a number of fortified posts, there remained two divisions of infantry, and about nine hundred cavalry, disposable for the operations against Lerida. On the Spanish side, Campo Verde was with O’Donnel at Manreza, and Garcia Novaro at Taragona, having small detachments on the right bank of the Ebro to cover Tortoza; Perenna with five battalions occupied Balaguer on the Upper Segre.
Such were the relative situations of both parties, when general Musnier quitting Alcanitz towards the end of March, crossed the Guadalupe, drove Novarro’s detachments within the walls of Tortoza, and then remounting the Ebro, seized some boats, and passing that river at Mora and at Flix, communicated as I have before related, with colonel Villatte of the seventh corps. And while this was passing on the Ebro, general Habert crossed the Cinca in two columns, one of which moved straight upon Balaguer, while the other passed the Segre at Camarasa. Perenna, fearing to be attacked on both sides of that river, and not wishing to defend Balaguer, retired down the left bank, and using the Lerida bridge, remounted the right bank to Corbins, where he took post behind the Noguerra, at its confluence with the Segre.
Suchet himself repaired to Monzon the 10th of April, and placed a detachment at Candasnos to cover his establishments from the garrison of Mequinenza, and the 13th he advanced with a brigade of infantry, and all his cavalry, by Almacellas, against Lerida; meanwhile Habert, descending the right bank of the Segre, forced the passage of the Noguerra, and obliged Perenna to retire within the place. The same day Musnier came up from Flix, and the town being thus encompassed, the operations of the seventh and third corps were connected. Suchet’s line of operations from Aragon, was short, direct, and easy to supply, because the produce of that province was greater than the consumption; but Augereau’s line, was long and unsafe, and the produce of Catalonia was at no time equal to the consumption.
Lerida, celebrated in ancient and modern times, contained about eighteen thousand inhabitants. Situated upon the high road from Zaragoza to Barcelona, and about sixty-five miles from each; it possessed a stone bridge over the Segre, and was only a short distance from the Ebro, and the Cinca rivers; its strategic importance was therefore great, and the more so, that it in a manner commanded the plains of Urgel, called the granary of Catalonia. The regular governor was named Gonsalez, but Garcia Conde had been appointed chief commandant, to appease his discontent at O’Donnel’s elevation; and the troops he brought with him had encreased the garrison to nine thousand regulars, besides the armed inhabitants.
The river Segre covered the town on the south-east, and the head of the bridge was protected on the left bank, by a rampart and ditch enclosing a square stone building. The body of the place on the north side, was defended by a wall, without either ditch or covered way, but strengthened and flanked by bastions, and by towers. This wall on the east, was joined to a rocky hill more than two hundred and fifty feet high, the top of which sustained the citadel, an assemblage of huge solid edifices, clustered about a castle of great height, and surrounded by an irregular work flanked by good bastions with ramparts from forty to fifty feet high.