The Siege of Almeida – From the First Trench to the Explosion of the Castle
“On 15 August 1810, Ney’s troops, having finally received the siege train and a good supply of ammunition from Ciudad Rodrigo and Salamanca, began digging in front of Almeida. Wellington was greatly relieved by the news, as it was now clear that Masséna intended to besiege the town rather than bypass it and march into Portugal.
The front chosen for the attack by the engineers of the 6th Corps faced the São Pedro Bastion, on the southeastern side of the town. The first parallel was laid out at a distance of only 457 metres from the walls; it proved very difficult to complete because of the shallow depth of the soil. The ground was stony, and the trenches had to be constructed using gabions and sandbags rather than dug into the rocky subsoil. In many places, rock outcrops reached the surface and had to be blasted by the sappers to make it possible to form a trench, however shallow. It became clear that constructing the approaches to the town would present the greatest difficulties, as there was very little earth to excavate.
Between the 17th and the 24th, no fewer than eleven batteries were built along the first parallel. They were armed with more than fifty heavy guns, as artillery was available in abundance. In addition to the old siege train, many of the Spanish guns captured at Ciudad Rodrigo were brought here. The Portuguese maintained a vigorous, though not particularly destructive, fire throughout this period. However, on the 24th, they managed to prevent work on the second parallel from beginning, driving off the workers before they could take shelter in the stony ground.
At six o’clock in the morning on 26 August, all the batteries were completed and opened fire. Several parts of the town were ablaze before noon, and the guns on the three bastions under attack could not withstand the converging fire directed against them. However, no serious damage had been inflicted on the defences, and the governor was not alarmed.
At seven o’clock that evening, however, a terrible disaster occurred — a disaster that, in its own way, was unparalleled in scale throughout the entire Peninsular War. The door of the castle’s main powder magazine had been opened to allow a consignment of gunpowder to be sent to the southern walls, where the artillery had been working hard all day. A leaking barrel had been delivered, leaving a trail of gunpowder on the ground. It was being secured to the saddle of a pack donkey when a French bomb fell into the castle courtyard. Upon exploding, the bomb set the consignment ablaze; the spark travelled along it and ignited another barrel at the entrance to the powder magazine, whose door was still open.
This accident caused part of the town to be completely destroyed in an explosion, and in two seconds the castle, the adjoining church and the entire central part of the town were reduced to ashes.
‘The earth trembled,’ wrote a French eyewitness, ‘and we saw an immense whirlwind of fire and smoke rise from the middle of the place. It was like the eruption of a volcano — one of those things I shall never be able to forget, even after twenty-six years. Huge blocks of stone were hurled into the trenches, where they killed and wounded some of our men. Heavy-calibre guns were torn from the walls and thrown far beyond them. When the smoke cleared, much of Almeida had disappeared, and what remained was a heap of rubble.’”
Bibliographical reference:
OMAN, Charles (1908). A History of the Peninsular War [Online]. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, pp. 272–273. [Accessed 12 June 2026]. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55231/55231-h/55231-h.htm#FNanchor_318.
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