The strength of the city, though, was in its maze of strongly built defensible buildings with narrow lanes easy to block with barricades.

[7] In this first assault the French suffered around 700 casualties and Poles lost about 50 troops (killed or wounded - mainly infantry and few cavalry).

The French, however, received more substantial reinforcements with a force of 3,000 led by General Jean-Antoine Verdier arriving on 26 June 1808.

As a result, the hill was captured with ease and the Spanish commander, Colonel Vincento Falco, was subsequently court-martialled and shot.

Although the fixed defences in Zaragoza had suffered heavily from the bombardment, the barricades were still intact and Palafox had returned to take command.

Agustina ran forward taking the lighted match from her dead lover's hands and fired the cannon.

Unfortunately for him he had insufficient men to fully blockade the city and the Spanish were able to be supplied from the north bank of the Ebro river most of the time.

In the second half of July the French concentrated on capturing the Capuchin and Trinitarian convents of San Jose, which were to the west of Zaragoza.

On 4 August the French began a heavy artillery bombardment and silenced the Spanish guns and made several breaches in the walls.

Palafox's resistance made him a national hero, a glory he shared with Agustina Saragossa and many other ordinary civilians.

When it finally fell to the French in 1809, Zaragoza had become a city of corpses and smoking rubble: 12,000 people would remain of a prewar population of over 70,000.

The Poles had allied with France and supported Napoleon to fight Prussia, Russia and Austria - the countries that partitioned Poland a few years earlier.

Polish general Chłopicki commended col. Konopka for the decision to not fight Spanish civilians and giving up Zaragoza's downtown when the French couldn't break through and secure it (which basically ended the first siege).

This excruciating dilemma and fate of the Legiony Polskie has been the subject of poetry as well as fierce discussions in many Polish books and publications since the beginning of 19th century.