San Sebastian was a small but strongly fortified port on Spain’s north‑east coast, guarding the approaches to the French border. By 1813 it had been in French hands for several years and formed part of the defensive line that Napoleon’s armies hoped would shield them after their defeat at Vitoria. The town stood on a narrow isthmus beneath the rocky height of Monte Orgullo, crowned by the old castle of La Mota, and was surrounded by substantial walls and outworks. Any attempt to force a way into France from the south had to reckon with this position, and so it became one of Wellington’s principal objectives in the later stages of the Peninsular War.
The first siege of San Sebastian began in July 1813 under General Sir Thomas Graham, commanding British and Portuguese troops detached from Wellington’s main army. Batteries were established on the high ground near the convent of St Bartholomew to batter the southern walls and the advanced earthwork known as the Hornwork which barred the neck of the isthmus. Engineers and infantry worked forward under heavy fire to dig parallels and approach trenches, but the initial assault on 25 July failed. The breach was too narrow and too well defended, and the attackers were driven back with heavy casualties. Operations were then suspended while Wellington dealt with Marshal Soult’s counter‑offensive in the Pyrenees.
When the wider situation had stabilised, Graham resumed the siege. Fresh guns were brought up and a more systematic bombardment was opened against the south‑eastern corner of the walls, where the earlier attack had been made. Over several days in late August the artillery fire widened the old breach and created a second, smaller one further along the curtain. The French garrison under General Rey, about 3,000 strong, had used the respite to strengthen the interior defences, building a high retrenchment wall behind the damaged section and preparing mines and obstacles to meet any renewed assault. The town itself was already badly damaged by shell‑fire and many of its inhabitants had been killed or driven from their homes.
The decisive attack took place on 31 August 1813. The main storming party, drawn from the 5th Division and reinforced by volunteers from other formations, advanced along the isthmus towards the principal breach, while Portuguese troops crossed the tidal flats of the River Urumea at low water to attack the smaller gap in the eastern wall. The assault was immediately met by intense musketry and artillery fire. Men who reached the top of the rubble found themselves confronted by the sheer inner retrenchment, six metres high, and were swept away by flanking fire. For a time the attack faltered and the survivors clung to the broken stones at the foot of the breach, unable to move forward or back.
It was in this kind of fighting that officers of the Royal Engineers, like Captain Charles Sleech Rhodes commemorated at Heavitree, were expected to lead from the front. Engineers had already directed the siting of batteries, the digging of saps and the mining of the walls, and now they went in with the stormers to mark routes, clear obstacles and encourage the men. The inscription to Rhodes records that “Whilst leading the Storming Party to the Attack his left arm was shattered to pieces by a musket ball, notwithstanding which, he mounted the breach, and fell covered with wounds.” It is entirely in keeping with the role of an engineer officer at San Sebastian, where the assault columns had to pick their way over shattered masonry under close‑range fire and where the first men up the breach were exposed to almost certain injury or death.
The crisis of the assault came when Graham ordered his own guns to reopen fire over the heads of the storming parties. For about twenty minutes the batteries pounded the inner wall and the French positions immediately behind the main breach, while the infantry lay as flat as they could among the stones. This highly risky expedient had the desired effect. The retrenchment was shaken, many of its defenders were killed or driven off, and when the guns ceased firing the attackers surged forward again. This time they were able to gain a foothold beyond the breach and spread along the ramparts, linking up with the Portuguese who had forced their way in from the smaller gap. Street fighting followed, and by early September the garrison was compelled to surrender.
The capture of San Sebastian was a tactical success but came at a heavy price. Allied casualties in the siege and assaults ran into several thousands, and the town itself suffered terribly. Once the defences had fallen, discipline broke down and many of the British and Portuguese soldiers looted and burned the city, with a large proportion of its buildings destroyed and many civilians killed. The episode cast a shadow over what was otherwise a notable achievement of Wellington’s campaign, opening the way for his advance across the Bidassoa and into France.
For families like that of Charles Sleech Rhodes, the storming of San Sebastian was remembered less for its strategic consequences than for the personal loss it entailed. The Heavitree memorial preserves the image of a young engineer officer leading a storming party up a murderous breach, his arm shattered but still pressing on until he fell “covered with wounds”. Set against the wider narrative of the siege, it is a reminder that the elaborate plans of generals and the technical ingenuity of siege warfare ultimately depended on individuals willing to climb broken walls under fire and to pay with their lives for the capture of a single fortified town.
