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The Siege of Figueras, which lasted from 10 April to 19 August 1811, saw the Spanish garrison of Sant Ferran Castle (San Fernando Fortress) led by Brigadier General Juan Antonio Martínez defend against an Imperial French force commanded by Marshal Jacques MacDonald and his deputy Louis Baraguey d'Hilliers. Martínez and his men held out much longer than expected but were eventually starved into surrendering the fortress, which was near Figueres. The action occurred during the Peninsular War, part of the Napoleonic Wars. On the night of 9 and 10 April 1811, a Spanish guerrilla force led by the priest Francesc Rovira i Sala seized the Sant Ferran Castle from its Italian garrison in a well-executed ''coup de main''. Within a few days, the fortress was manned by 3,000 Catalan miquelets and 1,500 Spanish regulars and placed under the command of Martínez. A furious Emperor Napoleon demanded that the strategic fort be retaken and 15,000 Imperial troops were amassed for the purpose. MacDonald pleaded with Louis Gabriel Suchet for reinforcements, but that general refused to send a single soldier and went ahead with his intended Siege of Tarragona. When Suchet invested Tarragona, Luis González Torres de Navarra, Marquess of Campoverde leading the Army of Catalonia immediately withdrew the divisions of Pedro Sarsfield and Joaquín Ibáñez Cuevas y de Valonga, Baron de Eroles from the vicinity of Figueres and moved to defend Tarragona. MacDonald made no attempt to breach Sant Ferran's walls by cannon fire; rather he waited for hunger to compel a surrender. With his food nearly gone, Martínez launched a breakout attempt but it failed to pierce the siege lines. By the time the garrison capitulated, 4,000 of the besiegers had died, mostly from malaria, dysentery, and other diseases. Of the defenders, 1,500 died from enemy action and hunger, 2,000 marched into captivity, and 1,000 were too badly wounded or sick in the fortress hospital to leave. Though the Spanish lost Sant Ferran in the end and failed to stop Suchet from capturing Tarragona, they tied up the entire VII Corps for the summer of 1811. ==Background== On 2 January 1811, General of Division Louis Gabriel Suchet successfully wrapped up the Siege of Tortosa when its 3,974-man Spanish garrison capitulated.〔Smith (1998), 353〕 Afterward, Suchet left General of Brigade Pierre-Joseph Habert and a French garrison in Tortosa and marched his prisoners back to Zaragosa under escort. Freed from his responsibility to cover the siege, Marshal Jacques MacDonald moved his force toward Valls where he bumped into the enemy.〔Gates (2002), 295〕 In the Battle of Pla on 15 January, MacDonald's vanguard received a drubbing from General Pedro Sarsfield's division and General of Brigade Francesco Orsatelli Eugenio was mortally wounded. Rather than avenge this setback, MacDonald elected to force-march his 12,000-man corps to Montblanc on the night of the 16th. From there he moved to Lleida (Lérida).〔Oman (1996), IV, 242-244〕 Annoyed with MacDonald's lackluster performance, Emperor Napoleon confined his sphere of operations to northern Catalonia and assigned the territories southwest of Barcelona to Suchet. In addition, Napoleon insisted that MacDonald hand over 17,000 troops to his colleague. The emperor ordered Suchet to capture Tarragona and promised him a promotion to marshal if successful. Accordingly, Suchet completed the reorganization of his army and moved toward Tarragona in April 1811. But on 21 April, Suchet received the shocking news that the fortress of Figueres had been seized by the Catalan partisans.〔Gates (2002), 296〕 Both MacDonald and the governor of Barcelona, General of Division Maurice Mathieu begged Suchet to send help but were turned down. Suchet calculated that by the time he sent one or two divisions to help, a month would have passed. He predicted that Napoleon could more quickly send reinforcements from France to Figueres, only from the border. Later, when the emperor heard of Suchet's action, he heartily approved of it.〔Oman (1996), IV, 488〕 In 1811, the Sant Ferran fortress was about 60 years old. The powerful citadel was designed and constructed in the reign of King Ferdinand VI of Spain and named San Fernando (Sant Ferran). In the form of a circular bastioned enceinte, the fortress stood on a hill overlooking Figueres and the highway from Barcelona to Perpignan, France. To reach the front gate, an attacker had to march up a steep slope on a road with several switchbacks.〔Oman (1996), IV, 490〕 Sant Ferran fortress capitulated to the French Republican army of General of Division Dominique Catherine de Pérignon on 28 November 1794. This event occurred eight days after the Spanish defeat in the Battle of the Black Mountain during the War of the Pyrenees.〔Smith (1998), 96〕 On 18 March 1808, 200 Imperial French soldiers asked to be admitted within the precincts of the fortress and were allowed in, since the French were believed to be allies. Once inside, they seized the main gate and opened it to an entire regiment. The stunned Spanish garrison was quickly expelled.〔Oman (2010), I, 37〕 Since its capture, the French had used Sant Ferran as a major supply base for the sieges of Roses in 1808 and Gerona in 1809. But after three years, the French generals grew complacent and in April 1811 the key fort was only held by an Italian provisional battalion.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Siege of Figueras (1811)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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