The 1808 siege of Zaragoza (also called Saragossa) was a bloody struggle in the Peninsular War. A French army under General Lefebvre-Desnouettes and subsequently commanded by General Jean-Antoine Verdier besieged, repeatedly stormed, and was repulsed from the Spanish city of Zaragoza in the summer of 1808.[4]
The Spanish conventional warfare had started with the Battles of El Bruch. Napoleon at first thought that they were a series of isolated uprisings and despatched a number of small columns to quell them. In North Eastern Spain Marshall Bessières assigned General Lefebvre-Desnouettes to quell the revolt in Aragon. Eventually his column included 5,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry and two artillery batteries. Lefebvre quickly discovered, however, that the revolt was much more widespread than had been believed.[4]
The Spanish side was led by General José de Palafox who was the second son in an aristocratic Spanish family. He was appointed Captain-General of Aragon in late May. He successfully raised a force of 7,500 troops but was handicapped by the lack of experience of these troops with only about 300 experienced cavalry and a few gunners.[5]
Palafox made a few attempts to stop the French from even reaching Zaragoza. His elder brother the Marquis of Lazan attempted to stop them at Tudela on 8 June 1808 and again at Mallen on 13 June 1808. Palafox then sent out a force of 6,000 but was defeated again at Alagon on 14 June 1808 and Palafox himself was wounded. Finally the remaining Spanish forces retreated into Zaragoza.[6]
Zaragoza itself was protected by two medieval walls and two rivers – the Ebro river to the north-east and the Huerva to the south – but the west was exposed to attack. The strength of the city, though, was in its maze of strongly built defensible buildings with narrow lanes easy to block with barricades.
Lefebvre reached Zaragoza on 15 June 1808. At this time he was badly outnumbered by the Spanish, who had around 11,000 troops although only half had experience of battle from the Alagon defeat.
The next day Lefebvre assaulted the western wall of the city expecting that the Spanish would collapse quickly.
In the first assault the French broke into the western part of the city and their allies Polish troops of Legia Nadwiślańska broke through the Gate of Carmen and took the monastery of the same name, while Polish cavalry broke through the Santa Engracia Gate and fought their way into the center of the city. However, due to complete lack of support from the French they were ordered to leave downtown and retreat (for which Polish cavalry commander colonel Jan Konopka literally called French troops "cowards").[7] In this first assault the French suffered around 700 casualties and Poles lost about 50 troops (killed or wounded - mainly infantry and few cavalry).
Palafox himself was not present on that day. He had left to raise additional troops in Upper Aragon to attack Lefebvre's lines of communication. Palafox raised an additional force of 5,000 troops but these were defeated at Épila on the 23–24 June 1808 and Palafox returned to Zaragoza with only an additional 1,000 troops.
The French, however, received more substantial reinforcements with a force of 3,000 led by General Jean-Antoine Verdier arriving on 26 June 1808. As General Verdier was senior to Lefebvre he took over command of all the troops. Further reinforcements continued to arrive including some siege artillery.
On 28 June 1808 Verdier attacked Monte Torrero on the southern bank of the Huerva river. Monte Torrero was a hill that dominated the south of Zaragoza and should have been strongly fortified but was not. As a result, the hill was captured with ease and the Spanish commander, Colonel Vincento Falco, was subsequently court-martialled and shot.
Now that Monte Torrero was in his hands, Verdier was able to use it as a base for his siege artillery. Starting from midnight on 30 June 1808 thirty siege guns, four mortars, and twelve howitzers opened fire on Zaragoza and kept firing continuously.
A second assault was made by the French on 2 July 1808 with twice the strength of the first assault. Although the fixed defences in Zaragoza had suffered heavily from the bombardment, the barricades were still intact and Palafox had returned to take command.
The French penetrated the city in several places but were unable to make any further progress and once again were forced to retreat. This assault became famous for the story of the Maid of Aragon: Agustina Saragossa. Her lover was an artillery sergeant at the Portillo Gate. The entire crew of his gun were killed before they could fire off their last round. Agustina ran forward taking the lighted match from her dead lover's hands and fired the cannon. The French were hit by a round of grapeshot at close range and their attack was broken. Palafox said he personally witnessed this event and Agustina was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant.
During this assault on 2 July 1808 the French suffered 200 dead and 300 wounded. Verdier therefore decided not to make any further assaults and settled down for a siege. Unfortunately for him he had insufficient men to fully blockade the city and the Spanish were able to be supplied from the north bank of the Ebro river most of the time.
In the second half of July the French concentrated on capturing the Capuchin and Trinitarian convents of San Jose, which were to the west of Zaragoza. By 24 July 1808 these were all captured by the French.
On 4 August the French began a heavy artillery bombardment and silenced the Spanish guns and made several breaches in the walls. At 2pm Verdier launched a massive assault with thirteen battalions in three columns and penetrated deep into Zaragoza. Verdier demanded Palafox's surrender to which he replied "War to the knife".[8]
By evening the French had taken half of the city but the Spanish counter-attacked and pushed the French out except for a small wedge surrounded by the Spanish.
By this time the French had suffered around 462 killed and 1,505 wounded. The Spanish had suffered similar or even higher losses but still outnumbered the French.
The fighting continued for several days but the assault had effectively failed ensuring the failure of the siege. On 19 July 1808 a French army under General Dupont were forced to surrender at Bailén and this made both sides realise the French would have to retreat. Palafox halted his offensive operations, but Verdier responded with an artillery bombardment to use up all the ammunition he could not carry away.
Finally on 14 August 1808 Verdier blew up all the strongpoints he held and withdrew. Among the strongpoints was the abbey of Santa Engracia, which was blown up. This was the end of the first siege of Zaragoza.
In total the French had 3,500 casualties during the siege. Spanish losses of 2,000 were admitted at the time; however, a figure of 5,000 is more probable.[9][4]
Palafox's resistance made him a national hero, a glory he shared with Agustina Saragossa and many other ordinary civilians. Zaragoza would endure a second, longer, more famous siege, starting in late December. When it finally fell to the French in 1809, Zaragoza had become a city of corpses and smoking rubble: 12,000 people would remain of a prewar population of over 70,000.
Also, in Polish history, the sieges of Zaragoza, as well as the earlier Haitian Revolution and later Battle of Somosierra, became cultural icons and are often brought up as examples of terrible political misuse of Polish soldiers by Napoleonic France. The Poles had allied with France and supported Napoleon to fight Prussia, Russia and Austria - the countries that partitioned Poland a few years earlier. Having lost their own country to invading powers, they objected to fight the nations or countries that were fighting for their own freedom too. Polish general Chłopicki commended col. Konopka for the decision to not fight Spanish civilians and giving up Zaragoza's downtown when the French couldn't break through and secure it (which basically ended the first siege). Chłopicki, who later lead the charge of Polish troops during the second siege of Zaragoza, also forbade his troops to fight Spanish civilians,[10] unless directly attacked (thus enormously upsetting French commanders, like gen. Foy). Basically, the Poles fought on the French side because Napoleonic France was the only warrant to the existence of the Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleon promised to eventually help resurrect Poland, but their hearts were on the Spaniard's side. This excruciating dilemma and fate of the Legiony Polskie has been the subject of poetry as well as fierce discussions in many Polish books and publications since the beginning of 19th century.
The Peninsular War (1807–1814) was the military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula by Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain, it is considered to overlap with the Spanish War of Independence.
The Battle of Uclés saw an Imperial French corps led by Marshal Claude Perrin Victor attack a Spanish force under Francisco Javier Venegas. The French easily crushed their outnumbered foes, capturing over half of the Spanish infantry. Uclés is located in the province of Cuenca 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) east of Tarancón and 100 kilometres (62 mi) southeast of Madrid. The action occurred during what is called the Peninsular War in English-speaking countries and the Spanish War of Independence in Spain. The war was part of a larger struggle known as the Napoleonic Wars.
The Battle of Tudela saw an Imperial French army led by Marshal Jean Lannes attack a Spanish army under General Castaños. The battle resulted in the complete victory of the Imperial forces over their adversaries. The combat occurred near Tudela in Navarre, Spain during the Peninsular War, part of a wider conflict known as the Napoleonic Wars.
The Battle of Bailén was fought in 1808 between the Spanish Army of Andalusia, led by General Francisco Javier Castaños and the Imperial French Army's II corps d'observation de la Gironde under General Pierre Dupont de l'Étang. This battle was the first open-field defeat of a Napoleonic army. The heaviest fighting took place near Bailén, a village by the Guadalquivir river in the Jaén province of southern Spain.
The Battle of Somosierra took place on 30 November 1808, during the Peninsular War, when a combined Franco-Napoleonic Spanish-Polish force under the direct command of Napoleon I forced a passage through a Spanish Division stationed at the Sierra de Guadarrama, which shielded Madrid from direct French attack. At the Somosierra mountain pass, 60 miles (97 km) north of Madrid, a heavily outnumbered Spanish detachment of regulars, volunteers and artillery under Benito de San Juan attempted to block Napoleon's advance onto Madrid. Napoleon overwhelmed the Spanish positions in a combined arms attack, sending the Polish Chevau-légers of the Imperial Guard at the Spanish guns while French infantry advanced up the slopes. The victory removed the last obstacle barring the road to Madrid, which fell a few days later.
José Rebolledo de Palafox y Melzi, 1st Duke of Zaragoza was a Spanish Army officer and nobleman who served in the Peninsular War.
Joaquín Blake y Joyes was a Spanish military officer who served with distinction in the French Revolutionary and Peninsular wars.
The Battle of Valmaseda took place on 5 November 1808, during Lieutenant-General Blake's retreat from superior French armies in northern Spain. Reinforced by veteran regular infantry from General La Romana's Division of the North, Blake's force suddenly turned on its pursuers and ambushed Marshal Victor's errant vanguard under Général de division Villatte.
The Battle of Medina de Rioseco, also known as the Battle of Moclín, was fought during the Peninsular War on 14 July 1808 when a combined body of Spanish militia and regulars moved to rupture the French line of communications to Madrid. General Joaquín Blake's Army of Galicia, under joint command with General Gregorio de la Cuesta, was routed by Marshal Bessières after a badly coordinated but stubborn fight against the French corps north of Valladolid.
The siege of Zaragoza was the French capture of the Spanish city of Zaragoza in 1809 during the Peninsular War. It was particularly noted for its brutality. The city was heavily outnumbered against the French. However, the desperate resistance put up by the Army of Reserve and its civilian allies had been heroic: a great part of the city lay in ruins, the garrison had suffered 24,000 deaths being augmented by 30,000 civilians dead.
Agustina Raimunda María Saragossa i Domènech, better known as Agustina of Aragón, was a Spanish woman who defended Spain during the Peninsular War, first as a civilian and later as a professional officer in the Spanish Army. Known as "the Spanish Joan of Arc," she has been the subject of much folklore, mythology, and artwork, including sketches by Francisco Goya and the poetry of Lord Byron.
Juana Galán, nicknamed La Galana, was a Spanish guerrilla fighter of the Peninsular War (1808–1814) who took to the street to fight against the French cavalry that tried to pass through the town of Valdepeñas. At twenty years old, she was considered the best informed woman of the village, because she worked in a strategic location, the first tavern in the village.
The Battle of Benavente was a cavalry clash in which the British cavalry of Lord Paget defeated the elite Chasseurs à cheval of the French Imperial Guard during the Corunna Campaign of the Peninsular War. The French chasseurs were broken and forced into the River Esla; their commanding officer, General Lefebvre-Desnouettes, was captured. The action was the first major incident in the British army's harrowing retreat to the coast and ultimate evacuation by sea.
Anne Gilbert de Laval or Anne-Gilbert Laval or Anne Guilbert de La Val became a general officer during the French Revolutionary Wars and led a division in the Napoleonic Wars. Like many other officers, he saw rapid promotion during the French Revolution. He commanded a demi brigade beginning in 1794. He fought in numerous actions during the 1796 campaign in Germany, including the battles of Ettlingen and Neresheim.
The Battle of Molins de Rei or Battle of Molins de Rey or Battle of Molins del Rey saw an Imperial French corps led by Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr attack a Spanish army temporarily led by Theodor von Reding and the Conde de Caldagues because its commander Juan Miguel de Vives y Feliu was absent. Saint-Cyr outmaneuvered his opponents, distracting them with a false attack in front while sending the bulk of his force across Llobregat River in a turning movement around the Spanish right flank. The Spanish defensive lines crumbled and the French captured 1,200 soldiers, all the Spanish artillery and Caldagues himself. The Peninsular War engagement was fought near Molins de Rei, located 15 kilometres (9 mi) west of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
The Battle of Alcolea Bridge was a minor battle that took place on 7 June 1808, during the Peninsular War, at Alcolea, a small village 10 km from Córdoba, the city that would be invaded by French troops later that same afternoon.
Agustina of Aragon is a 1950 Spanish historical film directed by Juan de Orduña and starring Aurora Bautista. It is also known by the alternative title of The Siege. It portrays the Spanish patriot Agustina of Aragon, known for her role at the 1808 Siege of Zaragoza against Napoleon's French forces.
Casta Álvarez Barceló was an Aragonese insurgent, who fought in the First siege of Zaragoza. This took place during the 1808 to 1814 Spanish War of Independence, or Guerra de la Independencia Española, part of the Peninsular War. She is known for inspiring the defenders of the city by single-handedly defeating an advancing French cavalry troop. Her story was popularised in a series of engravings entitled Ruinas de Zaragoza published in 1812 and 1813. For her actions, she received a pension from Ferdinand VII of Spain and, at the centenary of the siege, her body was reinterred with honour.
Eugenio Eulalio Palafox y Portocarrero (1773–1834), 7th Count of Montijo and 17th Count of Teba, was a Spanish military officer during the Peninsular War.
The Captaincy General of Aragon was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire created to replace the Kingdom of Aragon after the Nueva Planta decrees in 1711.
Dobiecki, Charles J. (1859). "Colonel's letter to gen. Tanski in memoirs of Legion's Cavalry 1808-1812" [Pismo pułkownika do ś.p. generała Kazimierza Tańskiego jako pamiętnik o pułku jazdy Legionów 1808-1812] (in Polish). 15. The Times Monthly/Czas. Dodatek miesięczny.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
Esdaile, Charles J. (2006). Gregory Fremont-Barnes (ed.). The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
Foy, Maximilien-Sébastien (1827). History of the Peninsular War under Napoleon[Histoire de la guerre de la Péninsule sous Napoléon, précédée d'un tableau politique et militaire des puissances belligérantes, par le général Foy] (in French).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Spain 
