At twelve o’clock, the horrible scene terminated, and the capitulation that followed was honourable in terms to the besieged; but Fort Garden being included, Suchet became master of Lerida, with its immense stores and near eight thousand prisoners, for the whole loss of the garrison had been only twelve hundred men.
Thus suddenly was this powerful fortress reduced, by a proceeding, politic indeed, but scarcely to be admitted within the pale of civilized warfare. For, though a town, taken by assault, be considered the lawful prey of a licentious soldiery, this remnant of barbarism, disgracing the military profession, does not warrant the driving of unarmed helpless people, into a situation, where they must perish from the fire of the enemy, unless a governor fail in his duty. Suchet justifies it, on the ground, that he thus spared a great effusion of blood which must necessarily have attended a protracted siege, and the fact is true. But this is to spare soldiers’ blood at the expense of women’s and children’s, and, had Garcia Conde’s nature been stern, he, too, might have pleaded expediency, and the victory would have fallen to him who could longest have sustained the sight of mangled infants and despairing mothers.
CHAP. IV.
When Lerida fell, Conde was accused of treachery, but there seems no foundation for the charge; the cause stated by Suchet is sufficient for the effect; yet the defence was very unskilful. The walls, on the side of the attack, could not be expected, and scarcely did, offer an impediment to the French general; hence the citadel should have been the better prepared, and, as the besiegers’ force, the corps of observation being deducted, did not exceed the garrison in number, it might have baffled Suchet’s utmost efforts. Engineers require that the relative strength of besiegers and besieged, should not be less than four to one; yet here the French invested a force equal to themselves, and in a short time reduced a great fortress in the midst of succouring armies, for Lerida had communications, 1º. With the armed population of the high valleys; 2º. With O’Donnel’s corps of fourteen thousand; 3º. With Cervera, where Campo Verde was posted with four thousand men; 4º. With Tortoza, where the marquis of Lazan, now released from his imprisonment, commanded from five to six thousand; 5º. With Valencia, in which province there was a disposable army of fifteen thousand regular and more than thirty thousand irregular soldiers.
It is evident that, if all these forces had been directed with skill and concert upon Lerida, not only the siege would have been raised, but the very safety of the third corps endangered; and it was to obviate this danger that Napoleon directed the seventh corps to take such a position on the Lower Ebro as would keep both O’Donnel and the Valencians in check; but Augereau, as we have seen, failed to do this; and St. Cyr asserts that the seventh corps could never safely venture to pass the mountains, and enter the valley of the Ebro. On the other hand, Suchet affirms that Napoleon’s instructions could have been obeyed without difficulty. St. Cyr himself, under somewhat similar circumstances, blockaded Taragona for a month; Augereau, who had more troops and fewer enemies, might have done the same, and yet spared six thousand men to pass the mountains; Suchet would then have been tranquil with respect to O’Donnel, and would have had a covering army to protect the siege, and these troops, fed from the resources of Aragon, would have relieved Catalonia.
Augereau has been justified, on the ground, that the blockade of Hostalrich would have been raised while he was on the Ebro. The danger of this could not have escaped the emperor, yet his military judgement, unerring in principle, was often false in application, because men measure difficulties by the standard of their own capacity, and Napoleon’s standard only suited the heroic proportions. One thing is, however, certain, that Catalonia presented the most extraordinary difficulties to the invaders. The powerful military organization of the Miguelettes and Somatenes,—the well-arranged system of fortresses,—the ruggedness and sterility of the country,—the ingenuity and readiness of a manufacturing population thrown out of work,—and, finally, the aid of an English fleet, combined to render the conquest of this province a gigantic task. Nevertheless, the French made progress, each step planted slowly indeed and with pain, but firmly, and insuring the power of making another.
Hostalrich and Lerida fell on the same day. The acquisition of the first consolidated the French line of communication with Barcelona; and, by the capture of the second, Suchet obtained large magazines, stores of powder, ten thousand muskets, the command of several dangerous rivers, easy access to the higher valleys, and a firm footing in the midst of the Catalonian strong holds; and he had taken or killed fifteen thousand Spanish soldiers. Yet this was but the prelude to greater struggles. The Miguelettes supplied O’Donnel with abundance of men, and neither his courage nor his abilities were at fault. Urgel, Cardona, Berga, Cervera, Mequinenza, Taragona, San Felippe Balaguer, and Tortoza the link of connexion between Valencia and Catalonia, were still to be subdued, and, during every great operation, the Partisans, being unmolested, recovered strength.
Thus while the siege of Lerida was going on, the marquis of Lazan entered the town of Alcanitz with five thousand men, and would have carried the castle, but that general Laval despatched two thousand men, from Zaragoza, to its succour, when the Spaniards, after a skirmish in the streets, retired; and, while this was passing at Alcanitz, Villa Campa, intercepted four hundred men conducting a convoy of provisions from Calatayud to Zaragoza. Colonel Petit, the commander, being attacked in the defile of Frasno, was forced to abandon his convoy, and, under a continued fire, to fight his way for ten miles, until his detachment, reduced to one hundred and eighty wounded men, passed the Xalon river, and, at the village of Arandiza, finally repulsed the assailants. The remainder of this desperate band were taken or killed, and Petit himself, wounded, a prisoner, and sitting in the midst of several Spanish officers, was basely murdered the evening after the action. Villa Campa put the assassin to death, but, at the same time, suffered the troops to burn alive the Alcalde of Frasno, an old man taken among the French.
This action happened the day Lerida fell; and, the next day, Chlopiski, following Villa Campa’s march from Daroca, reached Frasno. The Spaniards were no longer there, and Chlopiski, dividing his forces, pursued them, by the routes of Calatayud and Xarava, to Molina, where he destroyed a manufactory for arms, and so pressed the Spanish general, that his troops disbanded, and several hundred retired to their homes. At the same time, an attack, made from the side of Navarre, on the garrison of Ayerbe, was repulsed.