Note 23 — SECTION XXX: CHAPTER II

This indictment of Suchet must be supported by details. In his elaborate table of casualties by corps at the end of his dispatch of Oct. 20, he only allows for 3 officers killed and 8 wounded, 40 men killed and 122 wounded—total 173. But the lists of officers’ casualties in Martinien show, on the other hand, five officers killed (Coutanceau, Saint Hilaire, Turno, Giardini, Cuny), and at least ten wounded (Mathis, Durand, Gauchet, D’Autane, Adhémar, Gattinara, Lamezan, D’Esclaibes, Maillard, Laplane), and probably three more.

Oddly enough, in his Mémoires (ii. p. 173) Suchet gives by name four officers killed at the breach (out of the five), while in his official report he had stated that there were only three killed altogether. We must trust rather Vacani, an eye-witness and a man much interested in statistics and casualties, when he gives the total of 300 for the losses, than Suchet’s table.