page_title: Peninsular War
section_title: Fall of Zaragoza
hierarchical_section_title: Peninsular War / 1809 / Spanish campaign, early 1809 / Fall of Zaragoza
context_page_description: The Peninsular War is the military conflict fought by Spain and Portugal, assisted by Great Britain, against the invading and occupying forces of the First French Empire for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. In Spain, it is considered to overlap with the Spanish War of Independence. The war began when the French and Spanish armies invaded and occupied Portugal in 1807, transiting through Spain, and escalated in 1808 after Napoleonic France occupied Spain, previously its ally. Napoleon Bonaparte had forced the abdications of Ferdinand VII and his father Charles IV and then installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne, also promulgating the Bayonne Constitution. Most Iberians rejected French rule and fought a bloody war to oust them. The war on the peninsula lasted until the Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon in 1814, and is regarded as one of the first wars of national liberation, significant for the emergence of large-scale guerrilla warfare.
  The war began in Spain with the Dos de Mayo Uprising on 2 May 1808 and ended on 17 April 1814 with the restoration of Ferdinand VII to the monarchy.
context_section_description: Zaragoza, already scarred from Lefebvre's bombardments that summer, was under a second siege that had commenced on 20 December. Lannes and Moncey committed two army corps of 45,000 men and considerable artillery firepower. Palafox's second defence brought the city enduring national and international fame. The Spaniards fought with determination, endured disease and starvation, entrenching themselves in convents and burning their own homes. The garrison of 44,000 left 8,000 survivors—1,500 of them ill— but the Grande Armée did not advance beyond the Ebro's shore. On 20 February 1809, the garrison capitulated, leaving behind burnt-out ruins filled with 64,000 corpses, of which 10,000 were French.
caption: Saragossa: The assault on the Santa Engracia monastery. Oil on canvas, 1827
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