While this ineffective attempt at a sally was in progress, the street-fighting in the city above was still going on. Isolated bodies of the Spaniards made a most desperate resistance: Colonel Gonzales, the brother of Campoverde, attempted to hold out in the cathedral with 300 men, but was killed with all followers after a brave resistance. The fact that many small parties defended themselves for a time in barricaded private houses gave the French an excuse for something that almost amounted to the systematic massacre of non-combatants. All the larger dwellings were broken open, whether shots had been fired from their windows or no, and a great proportion of their inhabitants murdered. Of the 4,000 corpses which littered the streets of Tarragona more than half were those of civilians, and according to the Spanish official report 450 women and children were among the slain[660]. As one Spanish authority bitterly remarks, the victorious stormers generally gave quarter to any man wearing a uniform, and let off their fury on priests and unarmed citizens. Plunder was even more general than murder, and there was the inevitable accompaniment of drunkenness and rape. Knowing what happened at Badajoz in April 1812, it is not for the British historian to dilate with too great moral indignation on the doings of Suchet’s soldiery. Suffice it to say that all the atrocities afterwards seen at Badajoz were suffered by the unhappy people of Tarragona, and that the actual slaughter of non-combatants was much greater—about 100 inhabitants are believed to have been murdered at Badajoz, more than 2,000 in the Catalonian city. Spanish authorities state that the Poles and Italians behaved decidedly worse than the native French. The officers made some attempt to check the orgie, but (like the British at Badajoz) they failed: riot and slaughter went on all night, and it was not till the next day that order was restored. One of the most dreadful incidents of the storm was that many individuals, both soldiers and civilians, tried to escape to the Milagro roadstead by climbing down the precipitous south front of the city, and, losing their footing, were dashed to pieces or mortally maimed on the beach below.

The garrison, owing to the last-received reinforcements, was over 10,000 strong at the moment of the storm; as Suchet accounts for more than 8,000 prisoners[661], the actual loss at the storm cannot have been much over 2,000 men. But to the 10,000 Spaniards killed or captured on June 28th we must add the losses of the garrison during the earlier operations. It seems that the Army of Catalonia lost in all 14,000 or 15,000 men in this disastrous siege. A certain amount of the wounded, however, had been sent off from time to time on English ships to Majorca and other safe destinations, and survived to fight another day. The French casualties during the siege amounted to 924 killed and 3,372 wounded—a total of 4,296. This was a very heavy proportion out of the 22,000 men[662] who were from first to last engaged in the operations; and if the sick, who are not included in Suchet’s report along with the wounded, are deducted from the survivors, it is clear that the army must have been reduced to a dangerously low figure by June 28th, and that the Spanish authorities[663] who estimate the total loss of their enemies at 6,000 cannot be far out.

But the effect produced was worth the effort which had been made: nearly two-thirds of the regular troops of the Army of Catalonia had been destroyed. The great fortress, which for three years had been the base of the Spanish resistance, had been taken; there was now no considerable place left in the hands of the patriots—Solsona, Berga, Cardona, Seo de Urgel, and the other towns which they still retained were of small importance. They had lost their one fortified harbour, and for the future their communication by sea with Valencia, the Balearic Isles, and the British fleet, could only be conducted hastily and, as it were, surreptitiously; for any port, to which their forces in the inland might descend for a moment, was always liable to be attacked and seized by a French flying column. How nearly the spirit of resistance was crushed in the principality by the stunning blow which Suchet had inflicted will be shown in our next chapter.

Meanwhile, having reorganized his troops, and determined that the upper town of Tarragona should be fortified and garrisoned, but the harbour town dismantled and abandoned, the French commander was at liberty to proceed further with his scheme for the conquest of eastern Spain. But there was bound to be some preliminary delay before he could deliver his great blow against Valencia. One brigade had to be told off to escort the 8,000 Spanish prisoners to Saragossa; another had to return to the south to deal with the insurgents of Aragon, who had been left comparatively unmolested while Abbé was drawn off to the siege. Suchet himself—soon to be a marshal, for the Emperor carried out his promise that ‘he should find his baton within the walls of Tarragona’—marched with some 7,000 or 8,000 men, all that was left disposable, to open up communications with Barcelona. Before his departure he had a curious interview with Contreras: the wounded general, brought before him on a stretcher, was reproached with having violated the laws of war by persisting in the defence of an untenable town when capitulation had been his bounden duty! The Spaniard made the proper answer, that any commander who surrenders before he is obliged is a traitor and a coward. Thereupon Suchet changed his tone, and offered him tempting conditions if he would take service under King Joseph. This proposal being answered as it deserved, Contreras was sent as a prisoner to the castle of Bouillon, from which he escaped after a captivity of fifteen months in October 1812[664].