Siege of Gerona (1809)
Siege of Gerona, according to Ramon Martí i Alsina
| date | May 6th to December 11th 1809 |
|---|---|
| place | Girona , Spain |
| output | French victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| initially about 16,000 men and 40 cannons, later increased by about the same number | initially 7,800 men, later reinforced |
| losses | |
|
14,000 men dead and wounded |
around 3,000 dead and wounded, 4,200 prisoners, 200 cannons |
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Bailén - Roliça - Vimeiro - Saragossa (1808) - Burgos (Gamonal) - Medina de Rioseco - Espinosa - Tudela - Somosierra - Saragossa (1809) - La Coruña - Torres Vedras - Valls - Braga - Oporto - Talavera - Ocaña - Gerona - Ciudad Rodrigo (1810) - Buçaco - Gévora - Barrosa - Badajoz (1811) - Fuentes de Oñoro - La Albuera - Tarragona (1811) - Sagunto (Murviedro) - Ciudad Rodrigo (1812) - Badajoz (1812) - Majadahonda - Salamanca - García Hernández - Venta del Pozo - Vitoria - Sorauren - San Sebastián - Bidassoa
The siege of Gerona from May 6 to December 11, 1809 was one of the most legendary episodes and fighting during the Spanish War of Independence against the French occupation in Catalonia. As early as the beginning of May a 16,000-strong corps, mostly Rheinbund troops , under Marshal St. Cyr appeared in front of the city and began the formal siege on June 8th. After seven months of unsuccessful attacks, St. Cyr's successor Augereau succeeded in forcing the rock fortress to surrender.
prehistory
The first French attack on Gerona on June 20 and 21, 1808, and the second from July 24 to August 16, 1808, failed. On August 17, 1808, Marshal St. Cyr was appointed commander in chief of the troops in Catalonia and placed at the head of the VII Corps. His troops conquered the fortress of the city of Roses , fought the severed Duhesme division near Barcelona and defeated the Spanish under General Caldagnes on December 20, 1808 in the battle of Molino del Rey . In the following year 1809 there were victories over the troops under General Reding at Igualada and on February 25 at the Battle of Valls . It was possible to drive back the Spanish troops across the Ebro and secure Barcelona. At the same time the siege of Tarragona and Tortosa began. In May 1809, the time was right to begin the third attack on Gerona.
Fixing and preparations
The control of the fortress of Gerona was of enormous importance in the advance on Barcelona . In Spanish hands, Gerona represented a constant threat to the French troops advancing south in Catalonia , as an attack could be made against the rear French lines from there at any time. The city was well protected on the right bank of the Ter and was divided into two unequal parts by the small river Onyar.
The city was surrounded by a 10 meter high medieval wall and additionally secured by a series of heavily fortified hills. However, the walls were not wide enough to hold heavy artillery. Modern bastions were only available on the northern section in front of the Santa Maria district and on the southern section in front of La Merced. In the south-east, the Kapuziner-Höhe was easy to hold and the forts Queen Anne and Constable were also able to fight. The hills were broken by the deep San Daniels gorge. The most important defensive section was the 219 meter high Montjuich hill in the northern apron of the city; this could only be attacked from the northeast and was crowned by the Castello de Monjuic . At the northern tip of this plant was the Gironella ski jump, while two bastions (San Pedro and San Cristobal) secured the gorge. The redoubts of San Juan, Fort St. Luis in the north, the forts St. Daniel and St. Narciso in the east were additionally reinforced by four external works.
From the beginning of May 1809, the French troops stood in front of the city again and began the blockade. On May 6th the 1st Westphalian Brigade under Brigadier General Börner and on May 7th the 2nd Brigade under Colonel Ochs arrived to reinforce the French. The siege corps now consisted of about 14,000 infantry and 2,200 engineers and artillerymen. The approximately 7,000 strong Second Army Division of the Kingdom of Westphalia was under the command of General Morio de Marienborn and attacked on May 8th together with the French Brigade Amey on both sides of the Ter , to get the Spaniards from the villages of Saria and Puentemajore behind the inner fortress line to push out. The direct siege troops were initially under General Reille , who, recalled to the theater of war on the Danube, assigned his successor Jean-Antoine Verdier to carry out the attacks. Verdier placed the Neapolitan division under General Lechi in the west, but the bulk of the French troops in the east and northeast of the city.
Napoleon had decided to replace the headstrong Marshal St. Cyr with Marshal Augereau. This news reached Saint-Cyr before the actual siege began, but Augereau was prevented by an attack of gout in Perpignan . Saint-Cyr therefore kept command for a few months, his headquarters remained at Vich in order to shield the siege army against Spanish relief attacks from the south. Saint-Cyr formed a mobile contingent from the rest of his corps - the French division under Souham and the Italians under General Pino - to subjugate the rest of Catalonia. The Pignatelli division remained as a garrison in Roses and Figueres , the troops under Duhesme served as a garrison in occupied Barcelona.
The seven month siege
The French opened the trenches on June 8th. Gerona was defended by 5,723 regular soldiers and about 2,000 militiamen under General Álvarez de Castro . The rocky nature of the ground forced the bastions to be literally blown up, but soon the French were able to open fire on the entrenchments at St. Luis, St. Daniel and St. Narciso. General Alvarez responded at dawn on June 17th with a first heavy sortie between the suburb of Pedret and the River Ter, as well as from the fort of Montjuich. This brave attack cost the Spaniards 155 men and the French only 128 wounded, but the French work of three days was destroyed.
The only Spanish army that could have brought relief was the army of General Joaquín Blake y Joyes , whose troops were severely defeated on June 18 in the Battle of Belchite . By June 19, the French had laid the redoubts of St. Luis and St. Narciso in ruins and captured them. An attack on the St. Daniel Redoubt had failed, the entrance to this hill was now in the area of the French artillery, so that the Spanish garrison had to be withdrawn on the night of June 20th.
Attack against Montjuich
General Verdier decided to concentrate his efforts on the Montjuich Fortress, the strongest part of the defensive fortifications, believing that the fall of Montjuich would inevitably result in the surrender of Gerona. On the night of July 2, the French installed a huge artillery position (Batterie de Impériale) from sandbags just 400 meters from the fortress and opened fire with twenty 16 and 24 pounders on the morning of July 3. The artillery commander, Lieutenant Colonel Fluery, was planning an attack on Montjuich for the night of July 4th to 5th. Verdier's first attempt to storm Montjuich, defended by 787 Spaniards with 2,500 men, failed on the night of July 7th to 8th. Verdier carried out a second and third attack and suffered losses of 1,079 men, including 77 officers, while the Spanish defenders had only 123 wounded.
The French concentrated their subsequent attacks in early July on three sections: against the curtain wall around Gironella, around the tower of St. Luis (Montjuich) and against the redoubt of San Cristobal. The trenches built for the attack southwest of the Monjuich came under heavy fire from the defenders, especially from a redoubt on the north-eastern ridge of the hill. The repulsed attacks demoralized Verdier's troops and so it was decided to initiate a more effective bombardment of the fortress from July 9th. By early August this bombardment had turned the interior of the fort into ruins. The Montjuich garrison was forced to swap the destroyed casemates for caves and improvised shelters. On August 4th a 300-man Miqueletes commando managed to slip through the French lines from outside; They approached the city from the east, but realized too late that the St. Daniel monastery they had reached had just fallen into French hands, and so they fell into captivity.
The French siege army was already severely decimated, Verdier had lost around 5,000 men to wounds and to the outbreak of a febrile illness. Over the next two weeks, another 1,200 soldiers followed to the hospitals. St. Cyr intervened in the operations himself and decided not to launch any further attacks on the city and instead starve the crew out. He united his army corps with the 4,000 soldiers left under Verdier and was able to deploy around 16,000 men again.
On the night of August 8th to 9th, the French blew up 23 mines under the Glacis des Montjuich. Alvarez responded immediately with a counter-attack and took two of the French batteries drawn up; his people succeeded in laying their own mines and restoring their own fortifications. On the evening of August 11, the Spaniards blew up the fort, which had been evacuated in time, and left a heap of rubble to the French. Six days after the fall of Montjuich, 800 Spaniards (battalions of Cervera and Vich) reached Gerona from the west.
The reinforcement convoy
General Blake, appointed as the new commander of the Spanish Catalonia Army, had devised the plan to bind the French by attacking and during this time to bring a considerable supply of food, including supplies and reinforcements to the city. Under the leadership of General Garcia Condé , 1500 mules were loaded in Olot . The convoy was to cross the Ter under cover of 4,000 men and march along the right bank of the river to Gerona. To divert attention from this movement, Blake attacked the French corps under General Souham on August 30 at Brunola with his whole army. St. Cyr had Souham reinforced immediately and left only the most necessary troops in front of Gerona to occupy the siege works. The convoy under Garcia Condé threw the Neapolitan cover ( Pino division ) left behind and happily brought its supplies to the fortress. General Condé did not leave the city until two days later, after the trenches and works built by the French were destroyed and the crew was replenished to its original strength. After another two days, Blake went back to Hostalrich , where the lack of food forced him to disband his army. The siege was reopened on September 11th and the bombardment resumed. In the 10 days in between, the defenders had repaired most of the damage.
The next general attack followed on September 19. The French attacked three times within two hours and were thrown back with great losses. The French and German troops were able to get close to La Gironella in both violations, but then heavy musket fire from the defenders forced them to retreat. At the end of the attack, the French had lost 624 and the Spanish 251 men that day.
Blake made a second attempt to get a supply convoy into town. On September 26, the convoy managed to break through into the city, but most of the supplies fell into the hands of the French. The French felt compelled to turn the siege into a blockade. St. Cyr went to Perpignan to bring back Verdier and 4,000 convalescents ; but afterwards he returned to France without Napoleon's consent. His successor, Marshal Augereau, reached Gerona on October 12 at the head of the convalescents.
Hostalrich was attacked on November 8th by the Italians under General Pino in order to destroy the Spanish supplies there. The citadel under Colonel Quadredo held out, supported by the residents. After this setback, Blake withdrew to the Vich Plain, where he began to gather the relief army again. Augereau attacked him on October 29 after his arrival at Brunola with overwhelming strength and forced the Spaniards to retreat. Hostalrich was besieged again with doubled troops; at last the suburbs came under the control of the French. The capture of Hostalrich and the Blake accident had destroyed the last hopes of the defenders in Gerona.
Surrender and Consequences
The situation of those trapped had already become hopeless in mid-November, so that on November 19, eight Spanish officers deserted to the French camp. Augereau then renewed his efforts. On December 2, the French stormed the southern suburb of La Marina and on December 6, the Pino-Redoute and the Capuchin Heights. Alvarez responded with a final attempt at escape on December 7th, but it ended in disaster. Alvarez had prepared a sortie from all forts during the night, but the French brigade under General François Pierre Amey , which stood below Monjuich, fell on the flank of the Spaniards and forced them to retreat. Alvarez had fallen ill, so he had General Juliano de Bolivar relieved him on the morning of December 9th . This convened a council of war, which decided the handover. On the morning of December 10th, Brigadier General Fournas agreed the terms of surrender with Augereau. The next morning the 3,000 fighting Spanish soldiers marched into captivity, and another 1,200 invalids were lying in the city's hospitals. In the general turmoil of December 10th, the French took the Calvary and Capitol Redoubt and thus Gerona was completely surrendered to the French. Another defense behind sheer rubble and rubble would only have cost more useless sacrifices.
On December 11th, Augereau and his troops entered the city. Both sides had suffered heavy losses during the siege. Of the approximately 9,000 defenders, 4,248 fell into French captivity, 180 cannons and 8 flags were captured. The French lost around 14,000 soldiers in the seven-month siege. The prisoners of war were taken to France. General Alvarez was to be brought to Narbonne as a prisoner to be charged with traitor against King Joseph . But before that he died in a basement hole in Figueres . The city's inhabitants were spared, the Catholic religion was recognized and the magazines were handed over to a French commissioner . There was no pardon against the inciting monks: two were hanged and the others led away. Looting by the victors was not allowed.
literature
- Hermann von Staff : The Catalonians' War of Liberation in the years 1808 to 1814 . Josef Max Verlag, Breslau 1821, p. 165 f.
- William Francis Patrick Napier : History of the War in the Peninsula, Vol. 5: From the year 1807 to the year 1814 . David Christy, Oxford 1836.
- Charles Oman : A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. 1: 1807-1809 . Greenhill Books, London 1995, ISBN 1-85367-214-9 .
- John T. Jones: Account of the war in Spain and Portugal and in the south of France from 1808-1814 inclusive . Egerton Books, London 1818.
- English: History of the war in Spain and Portugal . Verlag A. Strauss, Vienna 1819 (translated by Ferdinand Anton von Hauer)
- Heinrich Zschokke : Napoleon's war against the revolt of the Spanish and Portuguese peoples . Verlag Heinrich Remigius Sauerländer, Aarau 1819.
- Hermann Baumgarten : History of Spain. From the outbreak of the revolution to our day . S. Hirzel Verlag, Leipzig 1871.
- Adolf W. Bucher: Diary of the siege of Gerona, in 1809. As an explanation of the plan of this fortress . Unpublished, (complete digital copy from HAAB Weimar)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung, Volume 1, Leipzig 1822, pp. 318-320
- ^ Biography of General von Ochs, p. 178
- ^ Biography of Obersten von Ochs, Hampe Verlag, Kassel 1827, p. 182
Web links
- Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung 1822 , page 320
- Friedrich Rühs: Journal for the latest history Volume 2, p. 75 f.
- The War of Liberation of the Catalonians , after Hermann von Staff, Josef Max Verlag, Breslau 1821, p. 237 f.
- historyofwar