National Geographic
After more than ten years of war, all European powers had accepted peace. A city, however, was determined to continue fighting for its freedoms.
The site of Barcelona. The end of the War of Succession
In September 1714, Barcelona had been under siege for more than a year by Felipe V’s troops. In the last four months it had suffered a relentless bombing, which destroyed hundreds of houses and forced the inhabitants to take refuge in churches and protect their property. But until then nothing had been able to persuade the people of Barcelona to surrender, convinced as they were that they were defending the cause of freedom – of Catalonia and of all Spain – against what they considered the despotism of the new king.
On September 11 of that year the Bourbon troops launched the final assault. After several hours of hand-to-hand fighting, in which the two main Catalan leaders, Rafael Casanova and Antonio Villarroel, fell wounded, the city agreed to surrender. Thus, the war of the Spanish Succession ended on the peninsula. This was a great European conflict, originated by the testament of Charles II, the last Habsburg king of Spain. Lacking offspring, Charles II designated as his heir a grandson of Louis XIV: Philip, Duke of Anjou. This provoked the misgivings of all those countries that feared an excessive aggrandizement of the power of France, which practically inherited Spanish possessions in Europe and America.
The reasons for the war
In 1702, a coalition formed by Austria, England and Holland declared war on France and Spain. His goal was to place on the throne of Spain Archduke Charles of Austria, second son of Emperor Leopold I, representative of the German branch of the Habsburgs. The ensuing war took place on the battlefields of Flanders, Germany and Italy, but the allies sought from the start to open a front in the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, different landing operations were attempted, first in Andalusia (1702) and then in Barcelona (1704), which turned out to be a strategic failure. Then the allies planned a new incursion on Barcelona, trusting that they would find there support for their cause. In fact, the Catalans had shown many reservations before recognizing Felipe V as king, to whom they swore allegiance during the Cortes of Barcelona (1701-1702).
The Cortes of Barcelona abandoned the obedience of Felipe V and proclaimed the archduke as the legitimate king of the Spanish monarchy
Then, the repression carried out by the viceroy of Catalonia as a result of the Austrian landing of 1704 greatly upset the mood. In addition, the English had reached an agreement with several Catalan dissidents to facilitate the landing of troops in Catalonia and ensure local support, in exchange for the commitment to guarantee the Catalan freedoms in the event that the project failed. Thus, in the summer of 1705 Archduke Charles landed in front of Barcelona and took over the city after several weeks of uncertainty. The Cortes of Barcelona (1705-1706), again reunited, abandoned the obedience of Felipe V and proclaimed the archduke as the legitimate king of the Spanish monarchy, with the name of Carlos III.
The arrival of Carlos in Spain provoked a polarization of loyalties and a fratricidal struggle between Spaniards of all classes and territories. The Crown of Aragon bowed to the archduke, trying to regain weight in an increasingly Castilian monarchy with centralizing tendencies. Castile, on the other hand, gathered around Felipe V, whom he held even in his lowest hours. This does not mean that there were no Castilians who followed the Archduke’s party, nor Catalans who remained faithful to the Duke of Anjou. The support to both contenders responded to complex attitudes that depended to a large extent on local factors and on the warlike circumstances. In any case, the dynastic contest was taking for the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon a look of struggle for the preservation of their privileges, especially since the victory of Felipe V in the battle of Almansa (1707) and the promulgation of the first decrees of New Plant, that ended the freedoms of Valencia and Aragon.
MORE INFORMATION
LIFE IN BARCELONA IN 1700
6
Photographs
In spite of the fact that the military balance, in the whole of the European conflict, was very positive for Austria and its allies, and that on several occasions Louis XIV was about to give in, the war was not decided on the battlefields. The decisive moment came in 1711, with the unexpected death of the Emperor Joseph I, successor of Leopold I, who made his brother Carlos the heir of the German Empire. The archduke’s access to imperial dignity, under the name of Charles VI, implied a change in the conception of the conflict by the allies, who now feared the excessive power of the emperor.
In the name of balance European was necessary to proceed to a division of the territories of the Spanish monarchy that was accepted by both sides. This was definitively what was agreed in the treaty of Utrecht, signed in April 1713, with which the international conflict was practically settled; under this agreement Felipe V received the dominion of Spain and America, while he lost all the Spanish possessions in Flanders and Italy, most of which passed to the emperor Carlos.Barcelona decides to resistCatalonia had been the first territory of Spain to recognize the Archduke Charles, and his future was linked to the fate of the suitor. However, in Catalonia the events took a different course to what was discussed at the peace conferences. Archduke Charles went to Vienna to be crowned emperor in September 1711, leaving his wife, Isabel Cristina de Brunswick, in charge of the government in Catalonia. Initially everything seemed to indicate that the emperor was not going to abandon his Catalan subjects and that England would not fail to fulfill its promise to defend Catalan freedoms. However, England was the first to decide to withdraw his troops from Catalonia (1712), a measure followed by the rest of the allied powers after the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht.The march of the Empress, in March 1713, caused great discontent in Catalan institutions. Catalonia had been the first territory of Spain to recognize Archduke Charles, and his future was linked to the fate of the suitor. In addition, little could be expected from the clemency of Philip V. The English embassies to intercede for the Catalan courts were met with a resounding refusal of the Bourbon monarch, and the allies were not predisposed to blind themselves to such a thorny issue. This was verified firsthand by the Catalan emissaries sent to Utrecht, when they saw that the issue of the preservation of their privileges was cornered before the avalanche of political and economic interests that were treated there. Finally, the emperor had to order his viceroy in Catalonia, General Starhemberg, the evacuation of his troops, and advised the Catalans to beg the pardon of Philip V. Being abandoned, in July 1713 the Diputación del General or Generalitat – fiscal and judicial body emanated from the Cortes – convened a a great state assembly to determine if the fight should continue or, on the contrary, negotiate submission to Philip V. The resolution adopted was to continue the resistance alone. The gentleman Manuel Ferrer i Sitges, one of the main supporters of this decision, said in his speech that the defense of Catalan privileges implicit in the liberation of despotism that minist Ros castellanos had imposed throughout Spain. This decision, provoked by the inflexible attitude that Felipe V showed in the negotiation, caused many members of the nobility, the bourgeoisie and the clergy to leave Barcelona, while the most intransigent antiphilipist elements entered the city, which would radicalize even more the resistance. The fence is narrowed. By then, almost all of Catalonia was already in the hands of the Bourbon troops. The military command of the Austrians fell to General Antonio Villarroel, an experienced military officer, who had to conduct the operations with the constant interference of the Diputación and the Barcelonan council (Consejo de Ciento). Precisely at the initiative of the County Council, and not the commander in chief, an expedition was carried out in order to regroup the Austrian forces and bring some relief to the city of Barcelona. The struggle in the Catalan territory was very hard between the armed parties of one and another sign, causing great havoc among the civilian population. As one witness noted, «old age, defenseless sex and early childhood were not privileged.» But all the attempts to mobilize the people against Felipe V and somehow lighten the siege on Barcelona had little fortune. Only at the beginning of 1714, the imposition of a subsidy for the maintenance of the Bourbon troops produced a general uprising in various Catalan regions, a movement that had no connection with Barcelona and was quickly put down. During the first months of 1714, the Bourbon forces commanded by the Duke of Pópuli were not so numerous as to ensure the blockade of the city, which allowed food and reinforcements sent from Mallorca and Ibiza, which remained loyal to the city, to be introduced into it. archiduque.The besieging troops were then raised to 40,000 men, while within the city there were little more than 10,000 fightersThe little forcefulness of the attacks on the city and the relief received gave new courage to the people of Barcelona and strengthened the attitude of the intransigent. Meanwhile, the Diputación was forced to delegate the tasks of government and the organization of the defense in the Council of One hundred, since the Austrian Catalonia was reduced to Barcelona. After the peace of Rastadt of March 1714 -complement of the treaty of Utrecht-, the Bourbons tried to reach an agreement for the surrender of the city. But Felipe V offered minimal concessions, which did not include respect for the fueros of Catalonia, and were rejected by the locals. In addition, the ambiguous language of the English and the emperor created in the Catalans expectations of relief that did not materialize in anything. In July 1714, with the arrival in Barcelona of the Duke of Berwick, the siege entered its final phase. The besieging troops were then raised to 40,000 men, while within the city there were little more than 10,000 fighters, most of them members of the guild militia or Coronela. All men over 14 were called to the defense, in which even priests and women participated.Berwick in BarcelonaThe operations then took a dizzying pace. After trying several assaults that produced serious losses, Berwick decided to bomb the city thoroughly. At the beginning of September, when the breaches in the wall already allowed the assault of the besiegers, the Bourbon general offered a new capitulation to the defenders. The Governing Board, formed by representatives of the Council of One hundred, the Provincial and members of the nobility, decided to resist, despite the opinion of Rafael Casanova, conseller in the city, and General Villarroel, who resigned to consider useless defending. This resignation led to the appointment of the Virgin of Mercy as generalissimo of the resistant forces, in a clear sign of the desperation to which the Catalans had come. As Voltaire later wrote in The Century of Louis XIV, «the ghost of freedom made them deaf to the propositions of their sovereign ». The city was walking towards its ruin and all the defenders had made up their minds to perish within its walls. Berwick commented later in his memoirs that «the stubbornness of these people was something more surprising when there were seven gaps in the body of the square, there was no possibility of relief and they did not even have food». In the early hours of September 11, the final assault took place. Villarroel resumed command of the troops and asked Casanova to lead the Coronela to the bastion of Sant Pere, in order to repel the enemy. It was there, flying the banner of Santa Eulalia, the patron saint of the city, where Casanova was shot in the thigh and had to be evacuated. Villarroel, for his part, led the defense around the Plaza del Born, where he was wounded. The battle still continued inside the city, before Villarroel asked for a ceasefire at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.MORE INFORMATIONTEST NG: HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT BARCELONA? The besieged had defended themselves with unusual ferocity, recovering the bastions several times from the enemy and even fighting stubbornly house by house. The Council of One hundred still published a side to ask a last effort to the defenders, «in order to gloriously shed their blood and life for their King, for their honor, for the Homeland and for the freedom of all Spain». But any resistance was already useless because the Bourbon troops were inside the city and there was no choice but to capitulate. Berwick promised the defenders that their lives would be respected and there would be no plunder. The next day, FelipeV’s troops entered a half-destroyed city, ending with a nightmare that had lasted more than a year. Although the Bourbons still had to occupy Mallorca in 1715, Voltaire was right in saying that Barcelona was «the last flame of the fire that devastated for so long the most beautiful part of Europe, by the testament of Charles II, king of Spain.»