Note 646 — SECTION XXVIII: CHAPTER II

Suchet says that except 70 officers and 1,000 men taken prisoners ‘the whole of the rest of the garrison had perished’ (ii. 60). Belmas (iii. 502) speaks of 970 prisoners and says that 1,200 were killed, but acknowledges that ‘some of the Spaniards’ got away. Vacani (v. 187) says that ‘many’ Spaniards escaped, but that the bulk of six battalions were destroyed, 1,000 being captured and 1,200 slain. The governor, Contreras, says that there were 4,000 men in the fort, and that somewhere about 2,000 were killed or wounded (p. 248). But the figures must have been lower: Iliberia was about 1,500 strong, Almeria about 1,200: there were also 200 gunners in the fort: the total garrison therefore was about 3,000. But at the end of the siege, a month later, Iliberia surrendered 368 unwounded men, and Almeria 464. They must have lost many hundreds during the last six weeks of the leaguer, yet were still 832 strong. It is hard to see that they can have lost more than 1,200 or 1,300 between them on May 29, and very probably Toreno and Arteche are right in putting the total loss at only 1,100 and odd. If so, the killed, including the gunners, must have been only between 300 and 400. The ever-accurate Schepeler gives 1,200 for the total loss (p. 433), and I suspect is nearest of all to the truth. Napier, as usual, merely reproduces Suchet’s figures.