Born: 4 March 1786, Spain
Died: 29 May 1857
Country most active: Spain
Also known as: Agustina Raimunda Maria Saragossa i Domènech
Agustina de Aragón defended Spain against French invaders during the Peninsular War, first as a civilian and later as an officer in the Spanish Army.
In 1808, most of northern Spain had fallen to Napoleon, with Zaragoza one of the last holdouts. The refugee-filled city was besieged that June, with only a small provincial force to defend it. When the French army stormed he city’s ancient gateway, the Portillo, on 15 June 1808, the town was defended by only a few old cannons and vastly outnumbered volunteers. As her countrymen fell to French bayonets, the locals broke rank and abandoned their posts. Agustina ran forward, loaded a cannon and lit the fuse, blasting a group of attackers at pint-blank range.
Seeing this lone woman’s bravery reinvigorated the Spanish side, who returned to the fight and, after much bloodshed, fended off the French. Although they later returned and overwhelmed the city, leading to a surrender, Agustina’s actions became legendary. Although sexism might otherwise have frowned upon a woman doing a “man’s” duty, the Catholic Church had declared it every Spaniard’s holy duty to fight the French. Original records indicate she was not especially patriotic or pious, but rather a regular (if independent-minded) young woman driven to heroism by the horror of war.
She married an artillery gunner, Joan Roca Vila-Seca, at age 16, and had a son, believed to be named Eugenio. With her husband in the army, she returned home to her sister in Zargoza.
After the sieges, she was captured and saw her son killed by her French guards. Staging a daring escape, she joined guerrilla fighters, helping to organise raids and attacks against French troops. Popular legend describes how Agustina fought for the Spanish/British allied forces as Wellington’s only female officer, rising to the rank of captain and acting as a frontline batter commander at the Battle of Vitoria on 21 June 1813.
After the war, she remarried, to a doctor, and, late in life, was well-known in Zaragoza as a respectable older woman, wearing medals. She died at the age of 71 in Ceuta.
Agustina is the only clearly identifiable figure in The Disasters of War by Goya, who was also from Aragón. Lord Byron wrote several detailed verses in Childe Harold about her. Agustina’s life was depicted in the 1929 silent film Agustina of Aragon and the 1950 CIFESA film Agustina of Aragon.
The following is excerpted from “Female Warriors: Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era,” by Ellen C. Clayton (Mrs. Needham), published in 1879 and shared online by Project Gutenberg.
Next to Joan of Arc, the Maid of Saragossa is the most famous female warrior that ever lived. Pictures and statues without number have been exhibited commemorative of this Spanish girl’s heroism; and what renders her resemblance even greater to Jeanne is the fact that the Maid of Saragossa was young, handsome, and interesting.
The siege of Saragossa (or Zaragoza), was one of the most extraordinary recorded in modern history. The town was not even properly fortified, but merely enclosed by a badly-constructed wall twelve feet high and three feet in breadth. This was, moreover, intersected by houses, which, with the neighbouring churches and monasteries, were in a most dilapidated condition. The inhabitants numbered only sixty thousand, and amongst these there was barely two hundred and twenty soldiers. The artillery consisted of ten dilapidated old guns.
When the rest of Spain was at the feet of Napoleon, Marshal Lefebvre was despatched in June 1808, with a strong division of the French army to besiege Saragossa. Never, in our days at least, have[83] the inhabitants of a beleaguered town displayed such courage. Women of all ranks assisted in the defence; they formed themselves into companies of two or three hundred each, and materially aided the men. They were always the most forward in danger, and the great difficulty was to teach them prudence and a proper sense of their own danger.
The French Marshal, astounded at this unexpected resistance, bribed the keeper of a large powder-magazine to blow it up on the night of June 28th. The French immediately pressed forward to the gates, and commenced a vigorous cannonade. The confusion within the walls was fearful. The people, terrified by the explosion, stupefied by the noise of the cannon thundering in their ears, were paralysed with terror. It was at this critical moment, when the French were pouring into the town, already considered it as their own, that Agostina (or Angostina) the Maid of Saragossa performed that heroic action which has made her name famous throughout the world.
According to the popular version of the story current at the time, the deed was unpremeditated, and simply the result of a sudden impulse. She was carrying round wine and water to the parched and fainting soldiers; entering the Battery of El Portillo, she found that all its defenders had been slain. She tore a match from the hand of a dying[84] artilleryman (whom Southey incorrectly supposes to have been her lover) and fired off a twenty-six pounder gun which was loaded. But in Mrs. Hale’s “Woman’s Record,” and some other biographical dictionaries, Agostina is represented as having gone to the battery with the previous determination of performing great deeds.
At this dreadful moment, says Mrs. Hale, “an unknown maiden issued from the church of Nostra Donna del Pillas, habited in white raiment, a cross suspended from her neck, her dark hair dishevelled and her eyes sparkling with supernatural lustre! She traversed the city with a bold and firm step; she passed to the ramparts, to the very spot where the enemy was pouring in to the assault; she mounted to the breach, seized a lighted match from the hand of a dying engineer, and fired the piece of artillery he had failed to manage; then kissing her cross, she cried with the accent of inspiration—’Death or victory!’ and re-loaded her cannon. Such a cry, such a vision, could not fail to call up enthusiasm; it seemed that heaven had brought aid to the just cause; her cry was answered—’Long live Agostina.'”
The people, inspired with new courage, rushed into the battery, and blazed away at the French. Agostina swore not to quit her post while the assault continued. The enthusiasm soon spread through[85] the town. Shouts of “Forward! Forward! We will conquer!” resounded from all sides, and the besiegers were driven back at every point.
Marshal Lefebvre saw it would cost too many soldiers to take the town by storm; so he endeavoured to reduce it by famine, aided by a heavy bombardment. The horrors of war—people dying of hunger, shells bursting in the streets, the destruction of houses—reigned paramount in Saragossa. Agostina risked her life daily to assist the wounded. But she was seen daily working a heavy gun in the battery at the north-western gate.
The French, from their superior numbers and their determined perseverance, soon became masters of nearly half the town. Lefebvre sent to General Palafox, the Spanish Commandant, requesting him, once more, to surrender. Palafox read this message in the public street. Turning to Agostina, who, completely armed, stood near him, he asked:—”What answer shall I send?”
War to the knife! said she.
And this answer, echoed by all, was sent back to the Duke of Dantzic.
The latter gave immediate orders for his troops to press the siege by every possible means. For eleven days and eleven nights the town was like the crater of a volcano. The Spaniards disputed the possession of every street, every house, sometimes every room[86] in a house. Agostina was seen at all points, wherever there was most danger to be encountered. Running from post to post, she fought almost incessantly. At last the French, thoroughly exhausted, retired from before Saragossa early on the morning of the 17th August, and the brave townspeople had their reward when they saw the legions of France retiring towards Pampeluna.
When General Palafox was rewarding the surviving warriors, he told Agostina to select whatever reward she pleased; for, said he, anything she asked for would be granted. The only favour she asked was permission to retain the rank of an artillery-soldier, and to have the privilege of taking the surname, and wearing the arms of Saragossa. This was at once granted, with the double-pay of an artilleryman and a pension; while she was decorated with medals and crosses by the Spanish Junta, and given the additional surname of La Artillera.
During the second siege of Saragossa, Agostina distinguished herself again as a warrior. When the French sat down before the gates, she took up her former station at the Portillo battery, beside the same gun which she had served so well.
See, said she to Palafox, pointing to the gun, “I am again with my old friend.”
Her husband was severely wounded, but Agostina took his duties, while he lay bleeding at her side.[87] Besides loading and firing this famous gun, Agostina frequently headed sallying parties; when, knife or sword in hand, her cloak wrapped round her, she cheered and encouraged the soldiers by her example and her words. Although constantly under fire, she escaped without a wound. Once, however, she was flung into a ditch, and nearly suffocated by the bodies of dead and dying which fell upon her.
When the town capitulated in February, 1809, Agostina became a prisoner. She was too much feared for Marshal Lannes to let her escape. Fortunately for herself, she was seized with a contagious fever then raging in the town, and was removed to the hospital; where, as it was supposed she lay dying, so little care was taken in watching her that she contrived to escape in a few days.
When Lord Byron visited Spain in 1809, the maid of Saragossa used to walk every day on the Prado at Seville, attired in the Spanish military uniform—retaining, however, the petticoat and skirt, of her sex. Byron devoted half-a-dozen verses of “Childe Harold” to her praises. Sir John Carr, who was introduced to her about the same time, describes the heroine as “about twenty-three,” with a light olive complexion. “Her countenance soft and pleasing, and her manners, which were perfectly feminine, were easy and engaging.” When he saw Agostina she wore the national black mantilla; but[88] on the sleeve of one arm she had three embroidered badges of honour, commemorative of three different acts of bravery.
The day before I was introduced to this extraordinary female, says Sir John, “she had been entertained at dinner by Admiral Purvis on board his flag-ship…. As she received a pension from Government, and also the pay of an artilleryman, the admiral considered her as a military character, and, much to his credit, received her with the honours of that profession. Upon her reaching the deck, the marines were drawn up and manœuvred before her. She appeared quite at home, regarding them with a steady eye, and speaking in terms of admiration of their neatness, and soldier-like appearance. Upon examining the guns, she observed of one of them, as other women would speak of a cap, ‘My gun,’ alluding to one with which she had effected a considerable havoc among the French at Saragossa, ‘was not so nice and clean as this.'”
Agostina lived to the age of sixty-nine, and died at Cuesta in July, 1857; when her remains were interred with all the honours due to her public position as a Spanish patriot.