On the night of 9 and 10 April 1811, a Spanish guerilla 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 an
| Attributes | Values |
|---|
| rdf:type
| |
| rdfs:label
| |
| rdfs:comment
| - On the night of 9 and 10 April 1811, a Spanish guerilla 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 an
|
| sameAs
| |
| Strength
| - Relief: over 10,800
- Relief: over 7,000
- Rovira's coup: 2,000
- Rovira's coup: 900
- Siege: 15,000
- Siege: 4,500
|
| dcterms:subject
| |
| dbkwik:military/pr...iPageUsesTemplate
| |
| Partof
| |
| Date
| |
| Commander
| - Jacques MacDonald
- Francesc Rovira
- François Guillot
- Juan Martínez
- L. Baraguey d'Hilliers
- Marquis Campoverde
|
| Caption
| - Sant Ferran Fortress is located on a hill near Figueres.
|
| Casualties
| - Relief: 1,000
- Relief: 400
- Rovira's coup: 25
- Rovira's coup: 900
- Siege: 4,000
- Siege: 4,500
|
| Result
| |
| combatant
| - First French Empire
- Kingdom of Spain
|
| Place
| |
| Conflict
| |
| Units
| - Army of Catalonia
- VII Corps
|
| abstract
| - On the night of 9 and 10 April 1811, a Spanish guerilla 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.
|
| is Battles
of | |
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)