Esto es lo que nuestros libertadores hicieron en Badajoz al arrebatársela a los franceses:
British infantry attempt to scale the walls of Badajoz, the site of one of several horrific sieges conducted during the Peninsular War.
Siege of Badajoz
When dawn finally came on 7 April, it revealed the horror of the slaughter all around the curtain wall. Bodies were piled high and blood flowed like rivers in the ditches and trenches. Surveying the destruction and slaughter Wellington wept openly at the sight of British dead piled upon each other in the breaches
[14] and bitterly cursed the
British Parliament for granting him so few resources and soldiers. The assault and the earlier skirmishes had left the allies with some 4,800 casualties. Numbers differ between 4,924
[4] and 4,760.
[3] The elite Light Division had suffered badly, losing some 40 percent of their fighting strength.
With success came mass looting and disorder as the redcoats turned to drink and reprisals. The wanton sacking of Badajoz has been noted by many historians as a particularly atrocious conduct committed by the British Army: many homes were broken into, property vandalized or stolen, Spanish civilians of all ages and backgrounds raped, and many officers shot by the men they were trying to bring to order.
[4] Captain Robert Blakeney wrote:
Despite this, some historians have defended the British soldiers' mass rape and murder by arguing that the aftermath could not have been avoided considering the ferociousness of the battle. Ian Fletcher argues:
On the other hand, Myatt writes:
After fifteen to eighteen hours Wellington finally issued an order that the sack of Badajoz should cease and ordered detachments to restore order beginning at 5 a.m. the next day.
[18] It was some 72 hours before order was completely restored, however.
[19] Many British soldiers were flogged as punishment and a gallows was erected, though no one was hanged.
[20]
The most detailed study of the effects of the British riot and looting of Badajoz is undoubtedly the one published in 1983 by Eladio Méndez Venegas from data collected in the Diocesan Archives of Badajoz. Research into the local archives have established that only about 300 families (between 1,200 and 1,500 people) had remained in the city. A document drawn up at the time by the priest of the Parish of Conception, which is signed ‘Bances’, presents in two folios the detailed list, per street/per parish, of the civilian dead and injured. The conclusion is that the total could be as high as 250, possibly even 280. This number may seem small but it means that there could have been between 20% and 30% of the Spanish civilians who were within the walls of Badajoz were killed or injured.
[21]
In a letter to
Lord Liverpool, written the amowing day, Wellington confided:
Siendo auténticas bestias, no conozco brutalidad similar perpetrada por el invasor francés. No digo que no la haya: me gustaría que si es así, alguien me lo haga saber. Una vez un amigo portugués, hablando de las respectivas historias de nuestros respectivos países, me dijo que "Era mucho peor tener a los ingleses como amigos que a los franceses como enemigos".
En cuanto a la circunnavegación del mundo, no hay mucho que decir.
En serio: tras un año entre ellos y después de haber vivido en varios países, los considero la gente de la tierra; sin perjuicio de que algunos individuos puedan salirse de la regla.
Y vista la diferencia entre las idealizadas representaciones de la realidad que nos venden y la realidad misma, no dejo de preguntarme si la Segunda Guerra Mundial la ganó un poder igual de dañino que el alemán.
Lo de las representaciones idealizadas se v perfectamente en la discordancia entre las maravillosas fotos de pisos que ponen en las webs inmobliarias y los tugurios infectos que son cuando los visitas. Cuando llevas tres o cuatro, ya sabes lo que hay.