Seventh company: cobblers.
Eighth company: silk weavers and dyers.
Ninth company: students of theology, medicine, and philosophy. (A fine graduation awaits them.)
And with this, we had to face dragoons and grenadiers trained through experience in a thousand battles: with companies of coopers, innkeepers, and velvet-makers; booksellers, glovers, rope-makers, grooms, tailors, stevedores, legal clerks. As I recall, the Sixth Battalion had an entire company made up of people who resold things. Yes, you read that right, they weren’t people who sold things; they resold them. What could they have been thinking when they signed them up? Reselling to the quartermaster the bullets that had been used by the enemy?
The total came to fewer than six thousand armed men. Fewer than six thousand against forty thousand. Some of those forty thousand were tied up trying to hold back our Miquelets from the interior, but even if there were only thirty thousand, the math didn’t lie: As far as troops were concerned, for each defender of Barcelona, there were five Bourbons. To complicate matters still further, our problems began before the siege had even been formalized.
The only scenario in which the running of a military dictatorship is permissible, indeed necessary, is in a city under siege. It isn’t a matter of politics but common sense. Because the worst position for a military stronghold is trying to face an attack while under a split command. And that was precisely what happened to us.
Villarroel was supposed to be the commander in chief of all the pro-Austrian troops remaining in Spain. But as I have already explained, the problem was that the vast majority of the soldiers belonged to the Barcelonan militia, under the control of the council. Furthermore, Don Antonio always bore the burden of having been named commander in chief by the Catalan government, who considered him a general there to do their bidding. Villarroel insisted that his position be ratified by Vienna, which finally happened in November 1713. But this only made matters worse, because according to the terms of the Treatise of Evacuation between the Two Crowns and the Allies, imperial troops were not allowed to remain in Spain. The Red Pelts considered him a foreign subordinate; to the enemy, he was a rebellious Castilian.
The Red Pelts always guarded their prerogatives very jealously, and Don Antonio had to ask their permission if he even wanted to transfer the company of the Impedits, made up of former soldiers who had lost limbs. Going to war with people missing an arm or half a leg might seem a little absurd, but I can assure you, they were tremendously useful fellows. They had experience and extremely high morale. I remember one of them, with one leg that went down only as far as the calf of the other, raising his crutch as Don Antonio walked past, exclaiming: “General! I shall not retreat, I give you my word!”
During a siege, garrison work is a terrible drain on troops. Even if a system of rotation is used on the bastions, tiredness, bombardments, and sickness lead to a trickle of losses that we couldn’t allow to happen. The Impedits would be useful covering bastions and stretches of walls that were not under the most severe threat, allowing those being relieved a bit of rest.
There were disgraceful scenes. Don Antonio in a council of war with the Red Pelts, screaming his head off — flushed with rage — demanding, protesting, that they allow him a hundred men? Even fifty? Pitiful. A commander in chief being denied the right to move a handful of cripples. All we needed at that point was for Villarroel’s aide-de-camp to be one Martí Zuviría, a fellow universally known for his diplomacy. More than once — and more than twice — I nearly smashed in some councilor’s spectacles. It was infuriating. More than infuriating, because in certain situations, stupidity can come to resemble pure treason.
Let us recall that when it all began, in that ominous summer of 1713, the enemy was approaching Barcelona at a forced march. The Allies’ garrisons were handing the keys to our cities to the killer. Deceived, disconcerted, with no authority giving them orders and all taken completely by surprise, it had never occurred to the Miquelets scattered around the countryside that such a stab in the back was possible. They came down from the mountains and, from one day to the next, found friendly sites occupied by Bourbon troops. There was nothing they could do but remain on the horizon watching the fires, the looting, the executions. The final uproar.
In those circumstances, some drastic decisions were essentiaclass="underline" extending the Crida right across the country, proclaiming the legitimacy of Barcelona’s government, and bringing together disparate fighters under a single banner. They had to prevent more towns and cities from falling into Bourbon hands. And for this, it was inescapable, desperately urgent, to show some symbol that would unite those who were longing for a voice to lead them. Villarroel ordered a military delegate to leave the city immediately with the silver mace and the banner of Saint Eulalia and travel across the country proclaiming that the struggle was not over.
“Take the sacred banner of Saint Eulalia beyond the Barcelona walls?” The Red Pelts were not sure. “That is most unusual. This will require a debate first.”
They weren’t joking! Solemnly, they gathered in council. Was it fair and fitting within the law and tradition that the sacred banner should be taken outside Barcelona’s walls? What honorable escort would accompany it? As for the few noblemen who were still in the city, were their titles sufficiently worthy for them to carry the pole and its braids? The debate stretched on; it was resumed the following day and then the next, and the next, without arriving at a definitive legal conclusion. Villarroel was absolutely incensed. By the time they had decided, the enemy would have taken control of all of Catalonia, with the exception of Barcelona and a few isolated sites like Cardona, those places where the most determined native commanders had refused to comply with the imperial orders.
Let us now examine the fortifications of Barcelona, which so often used to make me turn away, unwilling to judge them so as not to relive my past as a student in Bazoches.
The first order Villarroel gave me, his first commission, was to produce a report on the general condition of the defenses. I obeyed. I walked around the whole site. I cried. And when I say that, I am not, to my shame, speaking rhetorically.
As well as being an engineer, I happened also to be a Barcelonan. And when you examine the walls of your own city, knowing with certainty that they are going to be attacked by armed men ready to burn down your house, kill your children, and rape your wife, you see things somewhat differently. According to le Mystère, I ought not to feel emotion. A Maganon without a cool head is not a Maganon or anything at all. To justify my dismay, however, I should tell you that what I found was a complete and utter disaster.
Comparisons can be useful. Look at the next illustration. Put it in the place where it’s supposed to go, or you can forget that you and I ever met, you fat old magpie.
If by any chance, destiny had seen good old Zuvi commissioned to fortify Barcelona, this would have been the optimal result.
As you can see, the city walls and the inner bastions are protected by a series of staggered half-moons or ravelins, perfectly arranged and three meters deep. Each one would have to be taken in separate attacks, without this ever affecting the main line of defense. By the time Jimmy managed to reach our final redoubt, the number of his dead would form such a tall mountain that the top ones could be buried on the moon. In fact, and following Vauban to the letter, the very existence of such fortifications would discourage any assault. Jimmy was a sly fox and would have graciously declined the honor of leading a siege of such complexity. And if not Jimmy, who else could vanquish us?