Napoleon: The Spirit of the Age: 1805-1810 by Broers Michael

Author:Broers, Michael [Broers, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2018-04-03T00:00:00+00:00

6

HARD TRUTHS: FROM THE DOS MAYO TO THE AUSTRIAN WAR

Spring 1808 to February 1809

SPAIN: THE WARNING SIGNS UNHEEDED

Napoleon dreaded urban unrest, from the day he first saw the Parisian sans culottes depose Louis XVI on 10 August 1792. Even so, he persisted in his faith that a ‘whiff of grapeshot’ would scatter city mobs. On the second day of May 1808, in the Spanish capital, this fear and faith were brutally tested.

Not since the horrors of Cairo, a decade before, had French troops faced the fury of urban crowds as they did in Madrid. There had been growing tension between Murat’s troops and the population of the capital since he had occupied it. When Napoleon ordered the Spanish royal family to Bayonne on 30 April, crowds filled the streets, demanding arms from the local authorities, but were refused them. The demonstrations swelled, and on 2 May, at nine in the morning, Ferdinand’s supporters spread the word to gather at the royal palace, to prevent the departure of the royals to France. On the narrow square before the palace, they soon turned on the French troops, killing several of them. Murat replied with fire and sword, using grapeshot and cavalry charges to clear the narrow streets and the main squares of all but the dead. The crowds fought back with whatever came to hand – wielding scissors, butchers’ cleavers and paving stones with fury – but by midday it was over; only some Spanish regulars in the artillery park offered a serious challenge. The total population of the city was only 176,000 (although many among the middle classes stood aghast at the mobs, and took no part in it), whereas Murat had 36,000 men. Even the boiling water poured on the cavalry as they rode down the crowds did little real harm, and only fourteen French troops were probably killed, and about 140 wounded, most lightly. It went differently for the people: the French put the Spanish dead at between 400 and 500, eighty of whom were executed that night or the next morning, providing Goya with the inspiration for his most iconic painting of the war. This violent, often heroic manifestation of the popular will did not stop the flood of Spanish worthies to Bayonne to swear allegiance to Joseph; indeed, the growing fear of unbridled unrest speeded some on their way, to seek Napoleon’s concrete protection as well as Joseph’s promise of reform. Napoleon was in no doubt that Murat had handled the affair properly, nor did he think it of any significance, telling Talleyrand immediately afterwards that ‘the good lesson which has just been given Madrid … must necessarily settle things’. 1 Although easily suppressed, the news of the heroism of the common people of Madrid in the face of Murat’s brute force echoed around every corner of Spain. The date of the rising gave the incident the name by which it is now known: Dos Mayo.

However enraged Napoleon was by being taken unawares by the Dos Mayo, he saw it as an opportunity, rather than a threat.

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