Siege of Zaragoza (1808)

Siege of Zaragoza

Part of: Napoleonic Wars on the Iberian Peninsula

Raid on the walls of Zaragoza , January Suchodolski . Oil on canvas, National Museum in Warsaw

date	June 15, 1808 to August 14, 1808
place	Zaragoza , Spain
output	Spanish victory

Parties to the conflict
France	Spain
Commander
Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes Bon-Adrien-Jeannot de Moncey Jean-Antoine Verdier	José de Palafox y Melci
Troop strength
13,500 infantry, 1,500 cavalry, 500 artillery, 60 cannons	6,000 regulars, 7,000 armed citizens
losses
3,500 dead and wounded, 54 cannons were left behind	3,000 dead and wounded

The siege of Zaragoza took place on the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars . A French army besieged the city, attempted to storm it several times and ultimately had to lift the siege on August 13, 1808.

the initial situation

General Bon-Adrien-Jeannot de Moncey commanded a French army that Napoleon had moved to Spain to put down the revolts against his rule. In June, Captain General José de Palafox y Melci declared war on the French and led the people of Aragon to revolt. Moncey advanced on Saragossa with 15,500 men. The city was of great strategic importance because of its relative proximity to France, its function as the capital of Aragon and its position between Madrid and Barcelona .

procedure

Spanish detachments tried to keep the access routes to the city, but they were easily repulsed by the French troops. Palafox's brother met the French with his vanguard at Alagón , but was also quickly put to flight with his men. He went back to Zaragoza to defend the city.

Saragossa's fortress was only weakly fortified. Moncey took the city under artillery fire and tried unsuccessfully to storm it. After a long night battle at the city gates (Portillo, Puerta del Carmen and Santa Engracia) the French were repulsed.

At the end of June the French received 3,500 men and several fresh batteries . A month of bloody fighting ensued, in which the French laid large parts of the city in ruins and took others by storm, only to be forced out again in fierce street fighting. On June 25, General Jean-Antoine Verdier took command of the French forces. On July 11th, the French began to build a bridge over the Ebro in order to be able to enclose the city from the other side of the river. After being wounded on August 4th, Verdier had to hand over command to General Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes .

On August 8th, General Palafox succeeded in breaking the siege ring with a sortie, thereupon the French lifted the siege after 61 days and moved on the night of August 13th to 14th. When they withdrew, they blew up the bridge they had built and the Santa Engracia monastery.

The successful resistance made Palafox and the civilian Agustina de Aragón national heroes . Saragossa was to be the target of another successful French siege from December 20, 1808 to February 20, 1809 .

reception

Heinrich von Kleist celebrated General Palafox in his poem "To Palafox"

• 

  Map of the first siege of Zaragoza

• 

  José de Palafox y Melzi

• 

  Bon-Adrien-Jeannot de Moncey

• 

  Charles de Lefebvre

• 

  Jean-Antoine Verdier

Individual evidence

1. ^ Troop strengths and losses according to David G. Chandler: Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars. London 1993, p. 265.

literature

• David G. Chandler : Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars . London 1993.
• Charles Esdaile: The Peninsular War. A New History . London 2002, ISBN 0-14-027370-0 .
• Wieslaw Fijalkowski: La intervención de tropas polacas en los Sitios de Zaragoza de 1808 y 1809 . Institución Fernando el Católico, Zaragoza 1994.
• Ramón Guirao Larrañaga: Tres regimientos emblemáticos de Los Sitios de Zaragoza: Extremadura, Guardias Wallonas y Guardias Españolas . Editorial Comuniter SL, Zaragoza 2005.
• Frank Bauer: Saragossa 1808/09. (= Small series history of the wars of liberation 1813–1815. H. 32). Potsdam 2010.

Web links

Commons : Los Sitios de Zaragoza  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Episodios Nacionales: Zaragoza by Benito Pérez Galdós (Spanish)  - sources and full texts

• Cultural Association "Los Sitios de Zaragoza" (Spanish)
• History of the Sieges of Saragossa 1808-1809 (Spanish)
• Chronicle of the First Siege of Zaragoza (Spanish)
• Los sitios de Zaragoza. ( Memento of January 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) The Sieges of Saragossa (Spanish)
• To Palafox Kleist's poem