Third Siege of Girona

The Third Siege of Girona was the French army's seven-month siege of Girona in northern Catalonia, Spain, from 6 May to 12 December 1809, a significant event in the Peninsular War. During the lengthy siege, all other French operations in Catalonia were halted.

General Mariano Alvarez de Castro
"Siege of Gerona" redirects here. For other uses, see Siege of Gerona (disambiguation).
Siege of Girona
Part of the Peninsular War

The Great Day of Girona by Ramón Martí Alsina (1864). The painting depicts the defeat of the French, seen retreating down the hill to the right, at the end of the day on 19 September 1809.
Date6 May – 12 December 1809
Location
Girona, Spain
Result

French victory

  • The city capitulates
  • Its defense inspires resistance elsewhere in the Peninsula[1]
Belligerents
French Empire
Kingdom of Westphalia		  Spain
Commanders and leaders
Laurent de Gouvion St-Cyr
Pierre Augereau		 Mariano Alvarez de Castro
Strength
17,000 siege regulars
15,000 covering army[2]		 5,700 regulars and militia
3,600 reinforcements
1100 citizens and clerics[2]
Casualties and losses
14,000 dead, wounded, or ill[1] 5,000 dead
1,200 wounded
3,000 captured[1]

Some 32,000 French and Westphalian troops besieged the town. General Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr was in command of the French during much of the siege. Marshal Pierre Augereau took command after 12 October. The Girona defense was under General Mariano Alvarez de Castro, with about 9,000 regular troops and militiamen. Girona held out until disease and famine compelled it to capitulate.

Background

In 1808 Joseph Bonaparte acceded to the throne of Spain, effectively making Spain a client state to Napoleonic France. Spain's resistance to France precipitated the Peninsular War 1808-1814. In 1809 General Alvarez, commander of Montjuïc Castle in Barcelona, was ordered by his superiors to surrender the castle to the French, although he had been preparing to resist. Alvarez left Barcelona and joined the Spanish rebels against French rule.

The Spanish Government in Cadiz named him commander of the Army of Catalonia and Governor of Girona. The city of Girona was on the main road between France and Spain, hence it was strategically important. The French had twice besieged the town the year before, first in the Battle of Girona 20-21 June, and then in the three-week Second Siege of Girona from 24 July to 16 August, both times having to retreat.[3]

Taking command of the city on 1 February 1809, Alvarez immediately started preparing its defense, requesting provisions for 7,000 men. The city of Girona at that time had a population of between 13,000 and 14,000, and it was defended by a garrison of about 5,700.[2][4] The defenders of Girona included Irish mercenaries belonging to the Ultonia Regiment. The women of the town organized into a Company of Santa Barbara to care for the sick and wounded, transport ammunition, and other tasks.[4] On 1 April, Alvarez proclaimed his famous edict, to the effect that if the city were attacked, he would immediately execute anybody that mentioned surrender or capitulation. On 3 May, arms were distributed to 1717 volunteers.[5]

The fortifications of Girona were antiquated, since nothing had been done to modernize the them since the War of the Spanish Succession a hundred years earlier.[2] The medieval walls were thin, so they often could not support artillery. The area of the Mercadal, to the west of the River Onyar, was particularly weakly fortified. The French did not attack there, however, fearing the dangers of artillery fire from the heights of Girona and the difficulty of street fighting after their recent experience in the second siege of Zaragoza earlier in the year.[2] The wall fortifications were augmented by surrounding bastions such as La Merced and Santa Maria by the Onyar to the south and north of Girona, respectively, and the several forts and redoubts (Capuchins, Chapter, Calvary, etc.) along the crest of the mountain behind Girona. Although Montjuïc Castle, just to the north of Girona, was well-supplied with cannon, there were less than 300 men who were experienced with artillery.[2] Nevertheless, Alvarez made the most of the defenses.[2]

Siege
Map of the Third Siege of Gerona in 1809 indicating city defenses and French deployments around the city. The direction of north is to the right.

At the beginning of May 1809, General Saint-Cyr began setting up artillery batteries and fortifications, mounting 40 gun batteries. The French forces consisted of over 17,000 men led by general Honoré Charles Reille, soon superceded by general Jean-Antoine Verdier, engaged in the siege, and an additional 15,000 men in a covering army led by Saint-Cyr, used to protect and reinforce the siege.[2] On 12 June, Alvarez rejected the terms of a truce offered, and Saint-Cyr ordered bombardment to commence after midnight 13–14 June. Over the next seven months some 20,000 explosive shells and 60,000 cannonballs were fired into the city and the adjacent Montjuïc Castle.[2]

After three weeks of heavy bombardment, on 7 July the French attempted to take the castle by frontal assault. Verdier employed 2500 men in the attempt, and although the cannons of the fort had been silenced, he still lost over a thousand men to unrelenting musket fire.[2] The French were forced to retreat. They resumed bombardment of the fort, reducing three sides of the castle to ruins. With little water left, on 11 August the remaining defenders of the castle took what supplies they could, evacuated to Girona, and blew up the castle.[2] There was little left of the castle when the French took possession. Alvarez then barricaded and entrenched the city, and the siege continued for another four months. Attempts to relieve the city by General Joaquín Blake were weak and only minimally successful.[4][2] Reinforcements of only 3,600 troops were able to enter Girona during the siege.[2]

After the fall of Montjuïc, the French expected Girona to soon surrender, but in September another entreaty from the French for the Catalans to surrender was rejected. The French began their first direct assault on the city on 19 September. The incessant bombardment had breached several holes in the city's northern defensive walls. After bloody hand-to-hand combat and repeated assaults were repulsed, the French finally abandoned the attempt and retreated. The French lost 624 soldiers in the attack, while the Catalans lost 251.[2] The event demoralized the French,[1] and rallied the Catalans.[2]

Towards the end of September, General Saint-Cyr left his command, angered by the fact he was to be replaced as the head of the French and Allied force. He left the troops without an overall commander for several days, in clear disobedience of orders received in June. He was replaced by Marshal Augereau, who assumed command of the siege on 12 October.[1] After the bloody engagements of August and September, the French adopted a more patient strategy, attempting to force surrender by starvation and disease.[2]

In December Alvarez, seriously ill and delirious, handed over command to Brigadier Juan Bolivar. The French had taken several important fortifications of the city, and the Catalans were in retreat within the city itself. Two days later, on 12 December, the town finally capitulated.[4] On the Spanish side, it is estimated that some 10,000 soldiers and civilians died during the siege, mostly from disease or famine.[2] Only about 8000 of the original 14,000 inhabitants of the city survived, while about 3000 emaciated soldiers remained to surrender.[2] French losses were approximately 14,000, over half of those to disease.[1][2]

Aftermath

After the extensive bombardment by artillery and 7 months of siege, the town of Girona was virtually uninhabitable. There was little of value left in the city for the French. As described by Charles Oman in his 1908 A History of the Peninsular War, Girona[2]

... presented a melancholy vista of houses roofless, or with one or two of the side-walls knocked in, of streets blocked by the fallen masonry of churches or towers, under which half-decayed corpses were partially buried. The open spaces were strewn with broken muskets, bloody rags, wheels of disabled guns and carts, fragments of shells, and the bones of horses and mules whose flesh had been eaten. The stench was so dreadful that Augereau had to keep his troops out of the place, lest infection should be bred among them.

Owing to the long delays and heavy losses suffered by the French, the town's resistance served Spanish purposes, however. The siege had pinned down the French army for an entire campaigning season.[2] The battle became legendary over the course of Spain's war of independence, and Alvarez became a national hero.[1] In spite of Alvarez's poor health, the French imprisoned him and the other officers from Girona at Perpignan. After a month, he was taken to stand trial for treason at the castle of San Fernando in Figueres, where he was found dead in his cell the day after his arrival.[6][7]

The success of the Catalans in the 19 September attack was commemorated in 1864 by a painting by Ramón Martí Alsina entitled "The Great Day of Girona". Roughly 5m by 11m in size, this large painting is the property of the Catalan National Art Museum. On 14 September 2010 it was put on permanent display in an auditorium of the government of Catalonia in Girona.[8]

Independence Square

In Girona today, the Plaça de la Independència, is a town square that honors the defenders of Girona during this war. A monument at the center of the square is dedicated to these defenders. Located in the Mercadal district, it is one of the best known and busiest places in Girona.

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References
  1. Gates, David. The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War, p. 172. Da Capo Press 2001. ISBN 0-306-81083-2
  2. Oman, Charles (1908). A History of the Peninsular War, Volume III. London: Oxford at the Clarendon Press. pp. 9–66. ISBN 978-1853676956.
  3. Summary of the French War Pedres de Girona (in Catalan)
  4. The Edinburgh Annual Register for 1809, p. 769. At Google Books. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
  5. (in Spanish) Grahit y Papell, Emilio (1896) Historia de los sitios de Gerona en 1808 y 1809, pp. 69–71. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
  6. "Álvarez de Castro y su tiempo" (PDF). congreso.es (in Spanish). 2010. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
  7. "Mariano Álvarez de Castro". Pedres de Girona (in Catalan). Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  8. Google Art ofereix en detall més de 30.000 obres, entre les quals ´El gran dia de Girona' (in Catalan)

Further reading

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