At the beginning of this Napoleón century it invades or it conquers Spain retaining to its leaders outside the nation and forcing to them to abdicate on Jose Bonaparte whom later it would be known him as Pepe "Bottle" by a supposed liking to the Spanish wine.

The war of Independence is, without a doubt, the period of the history of Aragón that has motivated most of the publications that have become on this region.

The independence war.

Perhaps for the last time in century XIX and to the margin of a minimum sector of colaboracionistas, the Spaniards will leave their differences and they will be united in an only front against the common enemy, idealizando the image of a monarch, Fernando VII, whom to all he would defraud throughout its reigned victim.

In Aragón, the volunteers to end the French regime were numerous, practically recruiting to all the useful inhabitants for the battle. From the revolt of Zaragoza, the 24 of May of 1808, are going to fall on this city the warlike effort during the first year military since it supports two sieges. First one becomes serious the 15 of June, after the successive Aragón people defeats in Tudela, Mallén and Alagón, and lasts until the 5 of August in that the French break the camp before the news of the defeat of Bailén. The second site, that becomes serious the 20 of December, comes preceded, like first, by the defeat of the Army of Aragón in Tudela the 25 of November.

The French army, although have occupied of temporary form cities like Tarazona, Daroca or Calatayud, has still not formalized their territorial dominion and the Aragoneses, outside Zaragoza can be said that they dominate great part of Aragón, with his support positions to the city in Zuera, Leciñena and Alcubierre and the call "cord of Samper", by the south.

1809 begin with strong French pressure, not only on the capital (that capitulates the 21 of February), but on other strategically important points: the 4 of January, Calatayud; the 24 of January, battle of Leciñena that forces the Aragoneses to fall back on the Bunk; the 19 of January, Wattier arrives at Samper and Elola falls back to Alcañiz; the 4 of Mortier February enter Huesca; the 22 of March fall Jaca. Between May and June the attempts of Blake take place to recover Zaragoza and its failure is settled with the successive defeats of Maria (15 of June), Belchite (18 of June) and Alcañiz (19 of June). The south is expeditious (Teruel falls the 23 of December and Albarracín, the 26). A new phase of the war is opened that is characterized by: a) once occupied Zaragoza, the French dominion of the territory settles down on the main cities and the strategic axes of troop movements and supplyings: Zaragoza-Jaca (towards France), Mequinenza (towards Catalonia), Zaragoza-Teruel (towards Valencia) and b) the Aragoneses reorganize the army on the basis of the mobility of the guerrillas that allows them continuously to harass the French and to conserve ample zones of the territory in its power most of the time (mainly in the Eastern zone of Huesca and the south of Teruel).

In 1810 it emphasizes the activity of Don Pedro Villacampa with his division, that harasses the enemy not only in Teruel where it habitually operates (Villel, 10 of February, Teruel, 3 of March; Albentosa, 11 of March), but that happens to the zone of Calatayud (the Frasno, 13 of May), returning in September again to Teruel. Meanwhile, Don Felipe Perena stays in the strategic line of the Cinca until the 14 of May are made prisoner in Lérida. Mequinenza falls into the hands of the French the 8 of June.

More or less independent guerrillas operate around Beceite and the zone between July and October (Bernardine Borrás, Pedro Abián, Jose Boulevard).

In 1811, the divisions of Durán and the Empecinado attack Calatayud the 25 of September. In the north, the emptiness of Perena has filled Mine to it that in October arrives from Five Villas at the Gállego, occupying Ayerbe and breaking the line of communications between Huesca and Zaragoza.

In 1812, Villacampa continues its actions in the Party of Calatayud (Campillo, 15 of March; Ateca, 25 of March), continuing in Teruel (Pozondón, 28 of March; shortly after Monterde) and returning to Almunia (25 of December). The 2 of October Calatayud recovers.

1813 and 1814 they are years of offensive for the Aragoneses who are recovering the most important cities, beginning by the capital, Zaragoza in 1813 July. They will follow Daroca (August 1813), Mequinenza (February 1814), Jaca (February 1814), Monzón (February 1814), Benasque (April 1814), etc. The war has arrived at its aim.

The sites of Zaragoza.

Without a doubt this it is the period more known the city and which their inhabitants become to feel a deep pride of their history.

Then Zaragoza had 55000 inhabitants, who, together with the 1000 volunteers of Huesca formed a force that resisted both to the French troops in the first one of sites that Zaragoza suffered during this war.

Zaragoza was not a fortress after first of the sites, their defenses were plus the rivers Ebro and Huerva that the own walls, in which after the first site considerable reforms became.

The Aljafería and the convents of the capuchinos and San Jose, defended the city by the zones the northwest, the south and Southeastern, respectively; the eight doors of the city had little consistency and the artillery force that was arranged was far below to the French, being common the incursions within the city, all of them repelled by the inhabitants of the same one.

The revolt of Zaragoza against Napoleón, the 24 of May of 1808, implied for the city and Aragón a great warlike effort during the first year military. Zaragoza supported two long sieges. The first Site began the 5 of June, after the Aragonese defeats in Tudela, Mallén and Alagón. The site would last 62 days. The hunger in the city would be still worse than the bullets or the artillery. 48,000 people were victims of the hunger, the typhus and other diseases. 6.000 perished in the own fight. The 5 of August, the French leave sistio because of their defeat in Bailén(Andalucía).

The second Site, terrible and bloody, lasted from the 20 of December to the 21 of February. General Palafox, patient and without resources, rendered the city, knocked down and exhausted, when in his streets were six thousand corpses without burying. During the siege, there were fights that lasted days to conquer a single building, room by room. During the heroic resistance legend personages dreamed up, like the famous Agustina de Aragón, portrayed by Goya in their Desastres of the War.

Goya illustrates painter saw in person the devastating effects of the bombings artillerymen. The resistance of Zaragoza became famous in Europe and was remembered by insignes writers. A French official, after entering Zaragoza, left writing: What war! The victory gives fear.

There Zaragoza would be taken the 21 from February of 1809, the battle I do not finish, single change of form, going to war of guerrillas until the total expulsion of the French troops.

During the rest of the century numerous events occurred that had to be referenciar more better to the history of Spain than the own Aragonese, so we advised to read some text that makes reference to that historical period in Spain and if it wished it on the region of Aragón.

The Carlistas wars.

To the death of Fernando VII a movement of popular revolt is originated in Aragón region that has direct bows with the formation of realistic games in the liberal Triennium and, next, in the Catalan revolt of malcontents (1827) whose activity had arrived at the Ports of Beceite and alerted to the authorities of Aragón seriously.

1. The first manifestation of this movement was the appearance of a considerable number of small games that demonstrated to their effectiveness remaining as it bases of the reaction after failing, one after another one, the initiatives forged in the cities. Its primary target was centered in the subsistence, which was translated in agile excursions to the south of the Ebro from the Field of Cariñena to the Low Aragón, supported in the assent of many towns and doing violence to the little resistance that some opposed their supplyings. During this first stage the revolt component farmer exceeded the limits of the political exposition that the organizers compatible to Don Carlos made, which repelled in the initial indefinición of the movement. Of its attitude the confrontation with the effective power is only given off with clarity after the death of Fernando VII, and are less frequent clear behaviors like the one of Baron de Hervés who, put to the control of a carlista rise in Morella, initiated a march on the Low Aragón that would finish in Calanda with a total defeat. The personal leadership is key in the formation of games and thus, although the figure of Carnicer is recognized like authority in Aragón, its prestige does not prevent that Conesa or Quílez independently unfolds their activity, or that started off of local incidence their actions perpetuate separately.

2. In March of 1835 Carnicer it leaves towards Navarre to receive instructions of Don Carlos, but it is discovered in Miranda de Ebro and shot days later. Goatherd, who had stayed as accidental Head of the carlistas of the Low Aragón, will see consolidated her position at the end of year with the appointment of Commander-in-chief of the Low Aragón. Since then until the end of the war she will be, unquestionably, the Maxima carlista authority in Aragón and Valencia. Years 1835 and 1836 served so that Goatherd equipped with cohesion the isolated games and she integrated them in a structure that every time came near more to the one of an army. Simultaneously the actions went away making systematic and, although the extension of these was reduced, began to define an area of authentic high control carlista‹zonas of the Low Aragón and Maestrazgo, where they circulated with freedom, obtained rations easily and received constants the news of the position of the liberal columns. Evident sign that the carlista potential is in increase is the attack to fortified nuclei of certain organization like Alcañiz, Caspe or Montalbán.

3. The carlista activity of year 1837 turns around the passage of the "Real Expedition" by Aragonese earth. The Expedition, that would have to finish in Madrid proclaiming king to Don Carlos, happened to the province of Huesca, coming from Navarre, the 20 of May with about 14,000 men in its rows and when it reached the Catalan border already had defeated twice, in Huesca and Barbastro, to the liberal troops. After crossing the Ebro in Catalonia and entering themselves in Valencia, they crossed the province of Teruel from the south to Herrera of the Navarrese, where they again overcame the liberal army, and from they descended there by the Jiloca until the Mountain range of Albarracín by where they went into in Castile. Almost all the actions of this year were tie to the supplying of the Expedition and the main incursions took place in level zones, of fast access and without hardly defense. Cantavieja and the Ports of Beceite are already pieces key for the infrastructure of the carlismo in Aragón.

4. As of 1838 the carlista activity enters in its phase of greater extension, not only by the action of the forces been in Aragón, but also by the incidence that has the incursions that take place in the border strip of Huesca with Navarre and following the course of the Jalón river. The main cities to the south of the Ebro, Calatayud, Zaragoza, Caspe, Alcañiz and Teruel, have the carlistas in their doors, and the territory that mediates among them is outside the control of the liberal troops.

At the end of 1839 the troops to the control of Goatherd have seven nuclei fortified in Aragón endorsed by a stable control of the territory and a defensive strategy. As opposed to this, Espartero, with the troops vacated in the north by the company/signature of the Agreement of Vergara, opposes a line of fortifications from Alcañiz to Castel de Cabra after which only it is left the strong carlista of Safe. This strategy persecuted to contain the carlista activity to the south of the fortified line while to its backs the incomunication ended all resistance. At the end of the winter the offensive of the liberal armies that from the N., to the control of Espartero, take Safe and Castellote shortly after, and from the south, sent by ÓDonnell begins, occupy the strengths of Aliaga, Alcala of the Forest and Cantavieja. With ill Goatherd and these fortified nuclei rendered it can occur by finished the carlista resistance in Aragón, although still it will be the liberal army base in his operations against Morella, whose surrender obtains the 30 of May of 1840.

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