[298] The figures of 400 killed and wounded given by Belmas seem very low, but are borne out by the invaluable lists in Martinien, who shows that only some thirty officers were killed or wounded at Tortosa, of whom twelve belonged to the engineers, artillery, and sappers. Thirty officers hit imply (at the usual rate of one to twenty men) 600 casualties, but it is very possible that there were no more than 400 and odd, for the engineer officers, of whom six were killed or hurt, ran special risks. That nothing was done from outside to save Tortosa was mainly due to the rapidity of Suchet’s operations. The Junta of Catalonia was busily engaged in concerting measures for concentrating a relieving army, had sent to Cadiz for arms and (if possible) reinforcements, and had opened negotiations with the Valencians and with the irregular forces of Carbajal and Villa Campa in the Aragonese mountains. But who could calculate that the defence would last only eighteen days? Before any general scheme had been worked out the place had fallen[299]. The only organized force in the neighbourhood was the section of the Catalan army which lay in and about Tarragona. The responsibility here lay no longer with the active Henry O’Donnell, who had thrown up the command in December, and sailed to the Balearic Islands to give his gangrened wounds time to heal. General Yranzo, as the senior officer in the principality, ought to have taken over the charge of operations; but he called a council of war at Tarragona, and declared himself unwilling to assume the position that had fallen to him. He was unpopular, and the Catalans were holding violent meetings in favour of the Marquis of Campoverde, who enjoyed much local popularity at the moment. This ambitious officer finally obtained the interim command, owing to the abnegation of his seniors; but Tortosa had fallen before he was seated in the saddle, for he was finally recognized as chief only upon January 6th, four days after the capitulation. [299] For all this see Wimpffen’s reports printed in the Appendix to Suchet’s _Mémoires_, i. 359.