Albert Sanchez Pinol - Victus - The Fall of Barcelona

There was another significant reason for this utter defenselessness. In 1705 there was every indication that the war would be over in a matter of months. After their troops had landed at Barcelona, the Allies would advance on Madrid, they’d depose Little Philip, and Charles would become the king of all Spain. Castile would learn, at last, that it was not the cock of the walk, and the Catalans would make Spain a confederate kingdom, modern and prosperous, with an English parliament, a Dutch fleet, and a bourgeoisie competent to hold the reins of the finances. But it didn’t happen like that. The war dragged on. Charles, from his base in Barcelona, asked for more and more loans from the Catalan authorities to defray the costs of his multinational army. Wars are won in attack, not in defense, and the government gave in. The ultimate result of this was the drama of 1713 and 1714.

I did my calculations that very night. An unusual calm reigned at home. Nan and Anfán were playing together, strangely pacific, next to the fireplace, in which we were roasting peppers and green tomatoes. Next to them, in a rocking chair, Peret was reading by the light of the fire. He had never learned to read in his head, and he was muttering aloud like a monk. They were lines of verse by Romaguera, and they were shockingly bad, and they seemed worse given our situation. Perhaps that is why I remember them.

She envies you, the butterfly,

For being happy so,

For her love’s destined soon to die

While yours can live and grow. .

Amelis was more affectionate than usual. She wanted to set aside the calculation tables, the paper and inkwell, and take me to bed. I brushed her away with a burning feeling under my skin. They hadn’t realized what was awaiting us; they didn’t want to, as though ignoring the future might make it disappear.

According to my most optimistic calculations, the city would be able to resist exactly eight days of actual siege conditions. Not a day longer. And after that, blackness.

The weeks immediately preceding the arrival of the Bourbon army were very useful ones. The Coronela companies paraded up and down the Ramblas — more than anything, to raise the people’s morale — and did shooting practice. The conscripts took it all as a terrifically fun exercise, revelry that was hardly military at all. They got hold of two large dolls of semi-human shape, filled with straw, behind which they erected a three-meter-high wooden barricade. They called one of them Lluís and the other Filipet, Bourbon scum. Every day a hundred rifles would shoot at them ten times. Without that much success, if I’m honest. To the question of how accurate they were, all I need to tell you is that the surrounding windows were boarded up.

It is impossible in such a short space of time to transform companies of tinsmiths and tanners into professional units. That was not the aim. The bonds that hold men together are much more important than the quality of their marksmanship. And that camaraderie, in turn, has to be knitted together with confidence in the officers. In this regard, Don Antonio was unique. Nowadays an insurgent France is scattering an endless supply of revolutionary generals right across the world; from one day to the next, they have gone from wearing a tavern apron to a marshal’s sash. But in my day, the senior officers were quite different. In my ninety-eight years, I have encountered dozens of colonels and generals who knew nothing of their regiments but the color of their coats.

Don Antonio was a real soldier, a man of battle and trench. His love for the army came from his family. In fact, Don Antonio having been born in Barcelona was an accident, as I’ve told you, since around that time, his father was posted in the city. I’m telling you: a man with a destiny. Because to the Red Pelts, he never stopped being Castilian and, as such, an intruder, while the Bourbons did not even recognize his status as Catalan. Years later, Jimmy showed me a copy of the list of the main players to be arrested once the city had fallen. (He did it to persuade me that he’d had nothing to do with the repression, as they had been detained after he left Barcelona. He was lying. If he didn’t give the order, neither did he prevent it, well aware of what would happen.) By Don Antonio’s name, they had not written “Castilian” but, very significantly, “not Catalan.”

The thing was, Villarroel quickly realized that this army was not like other armies. The Coronela was a collection of armed civilians, and the usual conventions could not be applied to them. He would get much further with encouragement than with strict discipline.

I’ve never seen a commander in chief who spent so much time among his troops. He would show up all of a sudden and unannounced at some post or other on the walls, then another, then another. He was in the habit of calling the soldiers “my boys,” which they loved. On one occasion when most of the armed citizens surrounding him were his own age or older, he corrected himself in the middle of his sentence: “My boys — I mean, sorry, I meant to say, my brothers. . ”

The soldiers burst out laughing. And the old codgers among them were allowed to pat him affectionately on the back! In any other army, that would have cost you fifty lashes.

This would have been all well and good were it not for the fact that, since I was so young, in public he would call me fillet . That is, “son.” It must have been the only Catalan word he ever learned, the stubborn old thing. What’s more, he pronounced it wrong, which I think he did on purpose, because instead of fillet , he would pronounce it fiyé , emphasizing his Castilian accent, which the soldiers found hilarious.

Decades later, I served under that Prussian, Frederick. And — my God — the difference between Barcelona’s conscripts and the regiments of Prussia! To Frederick, a soldier was less than a dog. Much less! I can assure you — and this is no exaggeration — that any German soldier would have jumped for joy to be treated like a dog. Just one detail: When the Prussian regiments were on the move, in order to prevent desertions, the soldiers were forbidden from getting more than six meters away from the formation; this was surrounded by horsemen armed with carbines, with orders to shoot to kill. Can you imagine the Prussian tyrant addressing a soldier as “my brother”? Please! That was the difference, the big difference, between our army and any other. Don Antonio was a real military man, but he was able to see the nub of the truth: that the Coronela was made up of free men defending their freedom, and you cannot lead men like that by watering down the principles that drive them.

Right, enough of this sentimental rot.

More often than I would have liked, Don Antonio called me to attend meetings of his staff officers. My main concern was the engineering works, so my presence at these meetings felt like a waste of time. The Bourbons were approaching, and I have described to you already the state in which our defenses found themselves. Normally, I didn’t say much. But one day the discussion turned to the troops and how few of them there were. Somebody — I do not recall who — suggested incorporating groups of Miquelets into the official soldiery. The government of Red Pelts was prepared, reluctantly, to grant permission. Ballester’s name was the first to crop up in this argument. My notional superior as head of the engineers was one Santa Cruz, a man well connected among the Red Pelts whom Don Antonio had no choice except to tolerate, but whom he ignored. Santa Cruz was radically opposed to raising Ballester up to the honorable state of a soldier. Don Antonio asked my opinion.

“No, I don’t believe Ballester is a mere bandit,” I said with certainty. “A fanatic, yes, and bloodthirsty. But deep down, he is a man of great nobility. It may be that he has kidnapped the odd Red Pelt — excuse me, the odd wealthy gentleman from the government — however, he is ruled not by a desire for profit but by hatred of the Bourbons, be they French or Spanish.”