General Louis-Gabriel Suchet was the son of a silk manufacturer; in 1791 he supported the Revolution and joined the cavalry of the National Guard of Lyon, being commissioned as a sous-lieutenant. He took part in the siege of Toulon before joining the Army of Italy and assumed command of the left wing of that army in 1800. However, he missed the major battle at Marengo in June 1800 and was disappointed not to have been made a marshal of the empire in 1804. He commanded the 1st Division within V Corps at Jena and deployed with it to Iberia in the autumn of 1808 before being given command of III Corps, succeeding General Junot in April 1809. Just prior to deploying to Spain, Suchet married Honorine Anthoine de Saint-Joseph, whose father was the mayor of Marseille and mother was of the Clary family and a sister-inlaw to Joseph Bonaparte. By the end of 1809 III Corps amounted to nearly 20,000 men but nearly a quarter of this number was required to garrison the forts at Saragossa, Alcañiz and Monzon, while the balance was employed in counter-guerrilla operations in Aragón. In the neighbouring province of Navarre a young student named Francisco Javier Mina was leading an armed struggle; his tenacity and zeal was quickly recognised by Spanish and French alike. He was even treated as a regular commander by the government of Navarre. Suchet was ordered to intervene and General of Brigade Jean Harispe was despatched with the 114th Line to pursue Mina and disperse his force of about 1,000 infantry and 200 cavalry. Harispe was an excellent soldier who had been wounded at Jena and Friedland yet Mina was easily able to slip Harispe’s grasp and attack Tafalla driving out the small French garrison. Such audacity so close to France was not to be tolerated and another French force under Louis Loison was despatched from north of the Pyrenees to deal with the troublesome Mina. Loison was a man with a reputation and he wasted no time in making that clear to any Spaniard who demonstrated a modicum of support to the guerrilla chief and his troops. In early April Mina was captured and the torch of insurrection in Navarre was dimmed, albeit temporarily, until his uncle Francisco Mina y Espoz succeeded him.1
With Loison in place, Harispe was withdrawn and at much the same time Suchet received orders from King Joseph to attempt to capture the city of Valencia in a surprise attack in concert with the planned invasion of Andalusia in January 1810. Despite reaching the walls of the city, Suchet’s attempt failed and, on return to Saragossa in April, he received pointed Napoleonic rebuke for having undertaken the operation:
Write to General Suchet that I am extremely displeased at his having marched upon Valencia, instead of marching, as I desired him, upon Lérida. You will also express to him my displeasure that he was not before Lérida in the beginning of March. Although his artillery was not to arrive before the 20th of April, he ought to have taken up his position in front of Lérida, and to have sent forward strong detachments to open communication with the army of Catalonia... General Suchet went in spite of my orders to Valencia; he returned without sufficient cause, and risked his troops. Instead of performing his appointed task, he left inactive the fine army with which I intrusted [sic] him. His conduct has in no way answered my expectations ... It is essential that General Suchet should repair his blunders.2
Suchet must have been devastated. He had merely followed orders from Madrid. In fact, unequivocal guidelines had pre-dated the censure and been despatched in early February after Suchet had already departed for Valencia. Under those guidelines the ‘Army of Aragón’, as Suchet’s new command was titled, was subordinated to Paris alone; furthermore, all future operations were to be conducted in concert with the French army in Catalonia. Napoleon had written to Marshal Louis-Alexander Berthier (his chief of staff in Paris) on 3 February:
Write to the general commanding in Aragon that he is to employ the revenue of the province, and, if necessary even levy extraordinary contributions, for the pay and support of his army; that France can no longer supply all these demands. You will see in my decree that I entrust General Dufour with the government of Navarre. Give similar instructions to him. There are enough troops in Biscay. Write to Generals Thiébault, Bonnet, and Kellermann, and to the Duke of Elchingen [Marshal Ney], that the provinces which they occupy afford resources sufficient for the maintenance of their troops. 3
This interesting communication highlights the financial cost of the war in Spain and its impact on the French treasury as early as 1810. It also refers to the ‘Decree of 8 February’ which established six independent commands in Catalonia, Aragón, Navarre, Biscay, Burgos and Valladolid/Plasencia which were to exercise absolute control, civil as well as military, and to report direct to Paris and, thus, operate independently of Joseph in Madrid. Additional direction had been sent from Paris to Suchet on 12 February in another letter from Napoleon:
3rd Corps: Tell General Suchet that, since the 1st of January, his corps has been increased by more than one half, and his cavalry has been more than doubled; that I expect him to send movable columns all over Aragon, to endeavour to put himself in communication with the 7th corps [in Catalonia], and before the 1st of March to invest Mequinenza and Lérida, and push on both sieges vigorously. Let him know that I intend to send gendarmes, both horse and foot, to bring into order all the portion of Aragon which is between the [River] Ebro and the Pyrenees, and that I wish him to send me a proposal for the details.4
Suchet had arrived back from the abortive Valencia expedition on 13 April and after digesting the unwelcome and rather unforeseen Napoleonic thunderbolt he galvanised his command into immediate action. Marshal Charles Augerau, the commander of VII Corps in Catalonia, had been instructed to assist Suchet in prosecuting the sieges. Indeed Napoleon had rather disparagingly remarked in Suchet’s reprimand that ‘The Duke of Castiglione must have been much surprised, when he marched upon Villa Franca on the 20th March, to find no troops to support his right flank’. In fact Augerau was up to his neck in trouble in Catalonia. Napoleon’s expectation that following the long and costly siege of Gerona he would have already captured Tarragona was challenging enough, but a lack of siege stores and a growing threat from both Catalan regulars under Henry O’Donnell (see Appendix I) and the guerrillas under Francisco Rovira (a Catholic priest) was more than he could handle. Suchet was, therefore, on his own and even before he had started the siege at Lérida, Napoleon had received news of Augerau’s tentativeness and sacked him. Catalonia had taken another French commander’s scalp and it was abundantly clear to Suchet that he needed some good news to send to the emperor otherwise his independent command was destined to be brief.
Suchet ordered the bridge at Fraga to be destroyed. This effectively blocked the route from Mequinenza, where the Spanish had a garrison of 1,500 men that could easily be supported by more troops from Valencia. While these preparations were ongoing, the balance of Suchet’s force established a cordon around Lérida amidst rumours of an approaching Spanish force from the south. In fact the rumours were untrue (at this time) but the vacuum created by the movement of a French force to cover the southern approaches prompted the garrison commander of the town, General Garcia Conde, to send word to Henry O’Donnell (commander of the Spanish army in Catalonia) specifying the weakness of the French force south of the river. O’Donnell decided to strike and commenced his move with a force of about 9,000 men. By 23 April he was a mere 20 kilometres south of the city. Following a brief engagement between O’Donnell’s leading division (commanded by Miguel Ibarrola) and a small French guard force, the Spaniards withdrew in considerable haste when General Louis Musnier and a substantial body of infantry, supported by cavalry, appeared. The French pursued the Spanish a few kilometres to Margalef, where Ibarrola felt compelled to make a stand despite the position lacking defensive qualities and providing no real protection from the French cavalry. The result was inevitable. O’Donnell closed with speed at the head of the Spanish second division but he arrived in time to see Ibarrola in the terminal stages of a rout. O’Donnell covered the Spanish withdrawal and Suchet turned his attentions back to Lérida.
Suchet chose to parade large numbers of the Spanish prisoners (from Ibarrola’s force) in front of the city walls and summoned Garcia Conde to surrender. He declined, but the evident failure of O’Donnell’s force in the field had certainly shaken the morale of the defenders. On 29 April work recommenced on the parallels but was hindered by the heavy seasonal April rains; nevertheless by 7 May the first batteries were in place. The engineers declared two practicable breaches a week later and they were both stormed and carried that evening. House to house fighting ensued but the outcome was predictable and it was just a question of how much time and how many casualties. The civilian inhabitants and the military garrison fell back to the confines of the castle at which point Suchet ordered every gun and mortar in range to bombard the place. At noon on 14 May, Garcia Conde could stand the slaughter no longer and surrendered.
The capture of Lérida opened up communications between Aragón and Catalonia but in order to secure his rearward lines of communication with his base and headquarters at Saragossa Suchet decided to capture the fort at Mequinenza before linking up with the French Army of Catalonia. A brigade had been sent to invest the structure on 15 May, but the French engineers were required to build a road to enable the siege guns to get sufficiently close. By 1 June, the road was complete and the fort was taken four days later. Suchet now controlled all the key points within Aragón, but the concentration of his forces to achieve this advantageous position had enabled the guerrillas to regroup and recommence operations. Suchet was, for the time being, forced to turn his attention back to dealing with this resurgent threat.
Nevertheless, Napoleon was delighted at Suchet’s success, which contrasted starkly with the other rather dismal reports from across the Iberian theatre. Capitalising on Suchet’s achievements he penned instructions for the capture of the fortresses at Tortosa and Tarragona, thereby securing coastal communications with France and connectivity between the French armies of Catalonia and Aragón. Both Suchet and the new commander in Catalonia, Marshal Etienne Macdonald, had hoped to receive some support from the new IX Corps, which had assembled at Bayonne at the start of the year. They were, however, to be disappointed as this formation, created by Napoleon’s directive that all regiments in Spain were to establish a fourth battalion, headed south-west in the middle of the year to support Marshal André Masséna’s new (French) Army of Portugal. This army, comprising the II, VI and VIII corps under the respective commands of General Jean Reynier, Marshal Michel Ney and General Jean-Andoche Junot, was to conduct, as its name signified, the third invasion of Portugal. In fact, in mid-July, when Napoleon penned his directive to Suchet, the role of the Army of Aragón after the capture of the two fortresses was to remain on stand-by to support Masséna:
The Emperor ... desires me to tell you that he wishes you, as soon as you have taken Tortosa, to put it in the hands of the Duke of Taranto [Macdonald], and to assemble your army in Aragon to enable you to second the invasion of Portugal, which his majesty proposes after the capture of Tortosa and Tarragona.5
Napoleon, mindful of Suchet’s earlier ‘unauthorized’ gallivant, added the following addendum to Berthier’s message in his own handwriting: ‘In short you must take Tortosa, and afterwards assemble your army and hold yourself ready to execute the Emperor’s orders. You must, however, be somewhat governed by events; and after the capture of Tortosa you must not leave that part of the country without the Emperor’s orders.’
Despite not lying directly on the coastal line of communication, Napoleon considered the capture of Tortosa vital as it possessed the only bridge across the River Ebro in the immediate area (there was only a ferry at Amposta) and it was the only city that stored sufficient resources for an army on the march. Tortosa was defended by a very strong garrison of over 7,000 men and 182 guns but, as it transpired, the Spanish governor, General Lilli, Conde de Alacha, was to be the defenders’ Achilles heel. The old medieval walls enclosed the inhabited part of the city and a number of outer works had been constructed following the Spanish Wars of Succession in 1708. Macdonald had been tasked to provide Suchet’s northern flank protection, while Musnier’s division was sent south to counter any approach made by the Valencian Army. It was not an easy operation; the movement of the heavy siege train and equipment was to take an inordinate amount of time. The roads were appalling and Suchet was forced to move the 52 guns on specially constructed boats down the Ebro. The unseasonably low levels of water in the river delayed the scheme in August and September; then in October, when matters appeared to be improving for the French, Macdonald was compelled to lift his flanking force and return north to restore order against a growing insurgent movement that was threatening the French garrisons at both Barcelona and Gerona.
Macdonald had stabilised the situation by early December and was soon back on the lower Ebro. With his northern flank now afforded sufficient protection against the Spanish regular and irregular threat from Catalonia, Suchet wasted no time in establishing the cordon around Tortosa. It was in-place three days later. Four flying bridges were established above and below the town to transport the trains and engineer stores from the west to the east bank. Following consultation with his chief engineer, General François Haxo, and his chief of artillery, General Sylvain Valée, Suchet elected to attack from the south against the San Pedro bastion and undertake an operation to neutralise the guns in Fort Orleans, as the latter covered the approaches to the former. The soil in the valley yielded easily to the pioneers’ shovels and the attackers were able to make considerable progress much to the consternation of the garrison. The first parallel was complete by Christmas Day and work commenced immediately on the saps. The digging at Fort Orleans, however, was less straightforward and Suchet was forced to deploy miners to hack out the bedrock. Lilli, alarmed at French progress, ordered a major sortie on 28 December, with 3,000 men attacking the French opposite Fort Orleans while another large group attacked the main breaching batteries. The former attack failed as the Spanish did not press home their numerical advantage, thereby allowing General Pierre Habert to counter-attack with the 5th Light and 11th Line and to drive the Spaniards back within the walls. However, the other group managed to gain access to the lower parallel and caused considerable destruction to the siege works before being beaten back by the 44th Line. The French spent much of the following day repairing the damage and on 29 December they were able to open with 45 heavy guns. The guns in Fort Orleans and on the San Juan bastion were quickly neutralised. Some of the fire was also directed at the bridge of boats which was all but destroyed forcing the Spanish to abandon the tête-de-pont that night. The French pressed forward and work began on a third parallel, with the aim of mining the scarp of the San Pedro Bastion. By 31 December the attackers had placed four 24-pounder guns within 25 metres of the walls and the next day the governor raised the white flag. Lilli’s initial terms were entirely unacceptable to Suchet and when he reopened fire on 2 January blasting a practicable breach, a second white flag appeared within minutes. Initial parley seemed inconclusive but then Suchet, much to the concern of his personal staff, marched to the gate and bullied the aged governor into submission. After only 18 days Tortosa was in French hands.
It was a significant prize, and in Suchet’s words ‘it was natural to foresee that Tortosa would now become the pivot of our operations either against Tarragona or Valencia. The besieging artillery brought from Mequinenza having been added to the artillery captured at Tortosa, this place was intended to be our depot, and the point at which the horses for the train were to be assembled.’6 General Musnier was to assume command of the fortress and the province. While these arrangements were ongoing Suchet despatched General Habert to undertake an attack on the key fort of San-Felipe at the Col-de-Balaguer, which dominated the coastal road between Amposta and Tarragona. Habert quickly invested the structure and, when a chance howitzer shell ignited a powder magazine, he seized the opportunity and rushed the walls and gained a lodgement. Many of the defenders fled towards Tarragona while others sought refuge in the outlying bastions. They were soon captured. Habert in his report listed 13 Spanish officers and over 100 soldiers taken along with 11 guns and considerable amounts of powder. A pair of British gunboats from Admiral Edward Codrington’s Anglo-Spanish fleet came to investigate matters but when they were fired upon by the recently captured guns in the fort they beat a hasty retreat. Codrington was central to the Royal Navy’s struggle on Spain’s eastern seaboard. The youngest of three brothers born to an aristocratic, landowning family, Codrington entered the Royal Navy in July 1783. At the age of 24 he distinguished himself at the battle of the Glorious First of June and was rewarded with promotion and command of the 22-gun HMS Babet. At Trafalgar in 1805, commanding HMS Orion, he was instrumental in forcing the surrender of the French ship Swiftsure and assisted in the surrender of Intrepide. From 1808 until the end of the war, Codrington operated with his squadron on the east coast of Spain; he became synonymous with the struggle and was highly regarded by the Spanish civil, military and naval commanders.
The Spanish were now well aware that Suchet could strike at either Tarragona or Valencia and withdrew in to their respective provinces to make defensive preparations. The Marqués de Campoverde (who had assumed command in Catalonia from Henry O’Donnell) was completely preoccupied with strengthening Tarragona while Major General Luis de Bassecourt, the commander in Valencia, was preoccupied strengthening the fortress at Sagunto. However, before Suchet advanced on Tarragona he would receive an unexpected announcement. ‘After two years, VII Corps found itself deeply embroiled in a difficult war in Catalonia; the belligerent character of the inhabitants, the nature of the country, mountainous, cut with ravines and defiles, allowed the Spanish to dominate the French lines of communication, and harass the French on the march, forcing them to supply large troop escorts to all their convoys’.7 So wrote the French historian Jacques Belmas in 1837 in his journal on the French sieges of the war. Macdonald would undoubtedly have agreed with this statement and likely have added that he also had to garrison a number of forts and fortified towns as well as fend off an increasingly proficient regular Spanish army in the region. His reaction, therefore, to Napoleon’s letter of 10 March 1811 would have been one of anger and amazement.
Paris, March 10, 1811
General Count Suchet, commanding the 3rd corps d’Armée and governor of Aragon, The emperor had just determined that the government of Aragon which is committed to you shall be augmented by the provinces of Tortosa, Lérida, Tarragona, and the country westward of the line running from the tower of Garraf on the sea-coast to the col d’Ordal, following the course of the Noya to Iborra, that of the river Llobregat to the Segre, and thence the boundary of the province of Lérida to the Noguera, which shall divide as heretofore the two governments of Aragon and Catalonia as far as the Pyrenees.
In giving this increase of territory to the government of Aragon, the emperor has ordered that all the troops forming part of the active army of Catalonia, shall pass immediately to your command, viz: four regiments of French infantry the 7th, 16th and 42nd Line and the 1st Light. The division of Italian troops, that of the Neapolitan troops, the 24th regiment of French dragoons, the Napoleon regiment of dragoons, and that of the royal Italian chasseurs.
The minster at war will give the requisite orders to marshal the duke of Taranto, that these troops may be placed immediately under your command.8
The emperor, keen to reinforce Suchet’s early success, had stripped Macdonald of the provinces Lérida, Tarragona and Tortosa and handed these, along with 18,000 men from the Army of Catalonia to Suchet’s Army of Aragón. Suchet now had 43,000 men but his new area of responsibility was vast. The same communiqué went on to outline Suchet’s and Macdonald’s next tasks: the latter was to attack the local militia (somatenes) bases at Cardona, Berga and Urgel and render them inoperable as a force. Napoleon’s plans for Suchet and the subjugation of the east coast were far more elaborate. He was to capture the vital city and port at Tarragona with all haste and, not unreasonably, was expected to provide both the besieging and the covering force for the operation. Musnier and General of Brigade Marie Paris were left to defend Aragón from Mina’s guerrillas while General of Division Louis Abbé and Habert were deployed to Teruel and Tortosa respectively in order to guard against any northerly movement by the Valencianos. The balance of 20,000 men were to march by two routes; the majority from Lérida while Habert moved north with the siege train from Tortosa. It was a calculated risk, for Campoverde was well established in and around Tarragona with more than 10,000 men and had he decided to attack Habert’s division, which had only six battalions, he may well have succeeded in destroying the siege train en route, thereby delaying the siege and potentially the invasion of Valencia.
As it happened, even before Suchet had commenced the advance towards Tarragona, he received the astonishing news that the Spanish irregulars had captured the considerable and significant fortress at Figueras. Macdonald wrote to Suchet, imploring him to return the former VII Corps troops: ‘My dear general, in the name of public welfare, the service of the emperor requires imperatively and without delay, the most speedy succour, otherwise upper Catalonia is lost.’9 Suchet was not so sure, while it might have been in the service of the emperor it was not directed by the emperor himself and Suchet was keen not make another mistake by defying Napoleon’s personal direction. Furthermore, the information regarding Figueras had taken 12 days to reach him and it would take the same amount of time to gather the dispersed VII Corps units. Already the numbers of defenders within the fort had increased to 3,000 and on 16 April some Spanish regulars arrived from Baron d’Eroles’ division, which was operating to the west. Suchet elected to continue with his preparations for the siege at Tarragona, confident that his decision would meet with Napoleonic approval.
On 3 May Suchet’s force approached Tarragona and the advance guard drove in the Spanish outposts west of the Francoli River. The next day, operations continued on the east bank aimed to rid the area of Spanish troops and cut and hold the road north to Valls. However, Admiral Codrington’s combined fleet of Anglo-Spanish gunboats prevented the French encroaching too close to the town and the shorelines to the east and west. Furthermore, a squadron of Codrington’s frigates also harried and delayed Habert’s unwieldy siege-train column as it made its way north along the exposed coast road from Tortosa. In the interim the French strengthened the cordon and the engineer and artillery commanders (generals Rogniat and Valée) conducted their reconnaissance, concluding that an attack from the west was the most practical. In the interim, Campoverde (having moved to relieve Figueras) had returned to the city by sea on 10 May and, with the garrison strength increased to 10,000, they immediately commenced sorties against the French besiegers.
The French siege train consisted of 66 pieces of ordnance, including 24 of the heavy 24-pounder guns and 18 heavy mortars. Before construction of trenches and parallels could commence, Suchet needed to drive-off the allied ships to prevent their fire hindering the building of siege works. A large redoubt was erected at the mouth of the Francoli River on the west bank (opposite Fort Francoli) and, on 13 May, it was armed with guns and mortars. Codrington’s guns were unable to respond with any effect and the fleet was forced to move out to sea, allowing work on the first parallel to begin in earnest on 16 May. At about this time Rogniat and Valée informed Suchet that the siege works were going to take at least 10 days to complete prompting Suchet to attempt to capture Fort Olivo in the interim. The capture of this structure was necessary as its guns enfiladed the French batteries and dominated the north-western parts of the lower suburbs and main city. Between 22 and 28 May, work commenced on three battery positions, but the engineers were dubious about their ability to blast practicable breaches in the walls of the detached fort as they were carved out of solid rock. They also noted that the rear (i.e. south) of the structure offered more promising opportunities and, following a reconnaissance, Suchet decided to try and capture the structure by escalade.
The attack was delivered during the night of 29 May and, quite by chance, as it went in the assaulting troops found themselves embroiled with a Spanish battalion who were transiting from the town to relieve the guard in the outlying fort. The two groups of infantry were locked in chaotic hand-to-hand fighting and, in the darkness, some of the French infantry gained entry to the fort. This group, albeit small, was able to destroy a gate enabling the bulk of the French soldiers to enter. By morning, despite a determined counter-attack by the Spanish, the fort was in French hands. Campoverde immediately ordered all the guns on the north side of the Tarragona to bombard the place, but the French burrowed down and held on as they only needed to deny the feature to the defenders. The next day Campoverde convened a council of war and informed the garrison that the only way to defeat Suchet was to attack his lines of communication and to fall upon his rear. He then promptly departed by sea in an attempt to galvanise the somatenes of central Catalonia and gather the remnants of Baron d’Eroles’ and Pedro Sarsfield’s divisions to act as the nucleus for this force. With General José Caro, the original governor of Tarragona, already deployed south on a similar mission (to rouse support from the army of Valencia) command now fell to the unfortunate General Juan Contreras.
On 1 June the French batteries opened on the Fort Francoli and the San Carlos and Orleans bastions and, during the night of 7 June, Contreras ordered the Spanish defenders in the fort to withdraw and abandon the structure. However, it was a grave mistake to give up this fort without a fight; with this structure in their hands, the French could work unhindered on the second parallel. By 16 June the new batteries in this forward ground were ready to open. Despite two sorties on the nights of 11 and 14 June the attackers were making steady progress and on the night of 16 June the Prince Lunette was taken by assault. The defenders’ position was now increasingly ominous and Contreras sent pleas for help to Campoverde who had, by now, been absent for three weeks. There was a glimmer of hope later the same day with news that General José Miranda’s division had departed north from Valencia with 11,000 men. However, in the end Miranda did not venture too far north and satisfied himself with cutting the French lines of communication to the Ebro valley at Amposta. Suchet, unperturbed, did not react; his goal was in sight. At 7 pm on 21 June the lower town was stormed by five columns of massed grenadier and voltigeur companies, through the breaches in the San Carlos and Orleans bastions. Both these attacks were successful and by the morning the French had control of the lower town and the harbour.
Work began immediately on a third parallel within this newly acquired zone. Campoverde meanwhile, had resolved to attack, but the outlying French cavalry piquets provided early warning of their advance and the assault was beaten off with ease. News of a British expeditionary force despatched from Gibraltar, consisting of 1,200 men (2/24th, a detachment of 95th and two detachments from the Royal Artillery) under Colonel John Skerrett, provided some badly needed encouragement to the beleaguered garrison.10 Skerrett and Codrington were landed and brought directly into the fortress during the night of 27 June in order to assess the situation at first hand. Skerrett had clear orders from General Thomas Graham (the commander of the British forces at Cádiz) not to land his troops if he considered the town a lost cause. Both Skerrett and Codrington had severe reservations about the mission and the defenders’ resolve; these were confirmed when Contreras allocated Skerrett’s force the task of keeping open the lines of retreat north of the city. Not surprisingly, they chose not to land the British force, causing deep resentment and a corresponding worsening of morale among the defenders. As Fortescue noted: ‘The position was extremely unfortunate, and it is to be regretted that the British detachment should have come on the scene at all; for it was too weak to give any help to Contreras, and yet strong enough to make its departure most depressing to the garrison.’ It was of little consequence; on 28 June 22 breaching guns opened at dawn and at 5 pm the assault was made. Following a night of street fighting and associated atrocities the town was in French hands. Contreras was to later write:
At nine this night Suchet made his entrance. The “terrible example” and “the total destruction” that the irate marshal had already promised on 26 [June] began to manifest itself. In the narrow street bodies were trampled to death under the hooves of the cavalry, a priest thrown to the bonfire, a baker roasted in his own furnace, women violated, peasants thrown from the bell tower of the cathedral, suffering, robbery, destruction ... undoing all the glory of Marengo and Austerlitz which came to repudiate itself in Tarragona.11
Suchet never denied that his treatment to the people of Tarragona was harsh. Indeed, Contreras continued in his memoires that Suchet had demanded he be brought before Suchet the day after and he made it abundantly clear, in a loud an angry voice, that the loss of life and the horrors committed were entirely the Spaniard’s responsibility. Indeed, as to the conventions of siege warfare he should now be executed for failing to surrender once the breaches had been opened.12 Suchet’s motives were clear and unequivocal; he had a point to prove to the people of the city of Valencia, his next port of call. He needed to send them a clear message and, as we shall see, it was a message that got through, loud and clear. By comparison, six months later, Wellington besieged and captured Ciudad Rodrigo and spared the garrison paying the price at Badajoz three months later. He wrote to Lord Canning some years after the war and admitted that:
I believe that it has always been understood that the defenders of a fortress stormed have no claim to quarter, and the practice which prevailed during the last century of surrendering fortresses when a breach was opened, and the counterscarp was blown in, was founded on this understanding. Of late years the French availed themselves of the humanity of modern warfare, and made a new regulation that a breach should stand one assault at least. The consequence of this regulation of Bonaparte’s was the loss to me of the flower of my army, in the assaults on Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz. I should have thought myself justified in putting both garrisons to the sword, and if I had done so at the first, it is probable that I should have saved 5,000 men at the second.13
The walls of Tarragona crumbled along with Campoverde’s reputation. He held a council of war on 1 July and elected to abandon Catalonia altogether. Sarsfield was furious and Codrington refused to sanction the findings of the council or to transport the Catalan forces, he consented only to repatriate Miranda’s troops to Valencia. Suchet meanwhile was repairing the walls and defences of his latest conquest. He noted with pride in his memoires that: ‘We took nearly ten thousand men and twenty pair of colours; including the guns in the Olivo and the lower town, we were in possession of three hundred and thirty-seven pieces of ordnance, fifteen thousand muskets, one hundred and fifty thousand weight of powder, forty thousand cannon-balls and bombs and four millions of cartridges.’14 The capture of Tarragona earned him his marshal’s baton; indeed, he was the only one of Napoleon’s generals to earn this ultimate promotion in the peninsula. He made contact with General Maurice Mathieu (the governor) at Barcelona and established a plan to reopen communications with Macdonald, who had remained frustratingly motionless on the outskirts of Figueras.
Suchet realized he would now have to help his colleague and headed north, at the head of Harispe’s and Bernard Frère’s divisions, which arrived at Vich on 15 July. He immediately despatched flying columns to determine the whereabouts of the French and Spanish forces in the area. Macdonald, once located, was clearly in control of the situation and both commanders anticipated that he would be able to re-establish control in northern Catalonia once Figueras capitulated, which was just a matter of days (in fact the Spanish garrison capitulated a month later on 17 August). In consequence, Suchet headed back south to open lines of communication between Barcelona and Lérida and, in so doing, was required to capture the precipitous Montserrat hillock which housed ‘Our Lady of Montserrat’, a Renaissance church and large monastery. There were no fortifications on top of the steep rocky feature, but two batteries covered the main approach road and the buildings and walls of the monastery had been loopholed. On 25 July Abbé’s brigade made the assault with five battalions and met stiff resistance from the Spanish gunners who stood by their colours to the last. However, with the guns finally silenced, Abbé was preparing his men for the final assault when the defenders started streaming from the complex. The skirmishers sent to the rear of the hill had found access, collected 300 men, and delivered a surprise attack from that direction. Our Lady of Montserrat had fallen and with it the invincibility of this holy edifice. Suchet was now able to spend the next few months securing his gains in Catalonia, and strengthen those areas under his responsibility, before embarking on the next phase of the subjugation of the east coast – the prized city and port of Valencia.