Map of The Dos de Mayo Uprising

What It Means. If 1492 is Spain's 1066, the year when the course of history irrevocably took a different course, its Fourth of July, the day marking the birth of Spanish national identity, is May the second, Dos de Mayo. On that day in 1808, the people of Madrid spontaneously rose up against the occupying French troops, unsuccessfully but heroically, and the spark from that day set off the Spanish War of Independence, elsewhere called the Peninsula War. And Madrid acquired two of its heroes, Pedro Velarde and Luis Daoiz, and two, better known heroines, Clara del Rey and Manuela Malasaña.

Why It Happened. At war with Great Britain, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte had imposed a blockade to cut off trade with it from continental Europe. Only Sweden in the north and Portugal in the south of Europe resisted. With the aim of defeating Portugal, Napoleon infiltrated large numbers of troops into Spain and manipulated the Spanish monarch, Carlos or Charles IV, into silent tolerance. Meanwhile, anti-French feeling built up amongst the Spanish people, particularly directed against the much hated Godoy, Charles IV's prime minister (this was exploited by Charles IV's son, the future Fernando VII). An uprising in Aranjuez in March, 1808, had forced the resignation of Godoy and the abdication of Charles IV, but did not halt the French occupation of Spain, which was increasingly ungoverned.

What Happened. May the second, 2008, was a Monday, and the word was out on the street - the French were going to take away Charles IV's grown-up daughter, Maria Louisa (Queen of Etruria), and youngest son, the fourteen-year-old Francisco de Paula. The previous day, the French contingent escorting Marshal Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law and the French commander in Spain, to the Royal Palace had been heartily heckled as it crossed Madrid's popular Puerta del Sol. Now, the crowd gathering in increasing numbers in the Plaza de Oriente next to the Palacio Real was riled and puffed up with righteous indignation, and spilling into the parade ground of the palace. While the French were able to take away Maria Louisa without significant opposition, the imminent removal of the young Francisco de Paula enraged the crowd, now more like a mob, which shouted "Que nos lo llevan!" ("They're taking him away). It is said that the infante Francisco was seen to be crying (in one version, having stepped out on to a balcony), which the mob took as a sign of his reluctance to go, and the gathered Spaniards began to struggle with the French troops, particularly a couple of officers who attempted to calm things down. They were nearly pulled to pieces by the mob, but were rescued with violence by a passing French patrol. From his lodgings nearby, Murat sent a battallion including artillery to take the area around the palace, and the French troops fired on the mob without mercy or warning. The dispersed Spaniards were furious and joined by more and more Madrileños "of all classes," armed with knives, swords, shotguns and blunderbusses. Spaniards of all ages took to the streets, and women seem to have been as numerous as men. They attacked the French soldiers on sight, particularly the despised Marmelukes, the mercenary Egyptian cavalry which made up Murat's personal guard, and the Polish Lancers, also hated for their brutality. The blood-thirsty crowd spread out into the neighbouring Puerta del Sol and the entire centre of the city.

A Short-Lived Victory. The mob had taken the city, but was only a mob, and the 3,000 Spanish troops in Madrid would receive no order to combat the 30,000 French troops in and around the city. The army held dissidents, however, particularly in the artillery (the branch of the army with the highest technology and the most restless minds), conspirators whose goal was rebellion against the French invaders. Two such were the officers Pedro Velarde and Luis Daoiz, who must have been well aware that the civilian rioters would be no match for the inevitable military reaction which was coming. They were posted to the artillery depot in the Palace of Monteleón, a huge building not designed for military use in what is now the Plaza del Dos de Mayo. When the mob arrived demanding arms and ammunition, Velarde and Daoiz must have seen their now-or-never moment arrive. Single-handedly, more by force of will than anything else, Velarde obtained the surrender of the 70 French troops guarding the depot. Daioz tore up his orders (which were not to join the uprising), and they organized the defence of the depot with the few (twenty-odd) Spanish officers and men they could persuade to join them and something like a hundred civilians. Another thirty or so Spanish troops remained in the depot guarding the French prisoners, but refused to go against their orders by joining the uprising.

The French Reaction. Murat, meanwhile, as the great French general he was, was calmly organizing the retaking of Madrid. French troops approached the city from all sides, being met with varying degrees of resistance, none of it approaching the effectiveness of the veteran French army. It is said that the French found the Puerta de Toledo, in the south of the city, particularly hard to take, but a quick look at the geography of the area shows that the approach to this city gate is up a particularly long, steep hill, enough to take the wind out of the most battle-toughened column. The Puerta de Alcalá was an easier affair for the French, though as soon as they got past this, they found themselves again having to climb, and what is more, now they were in Madrid's narrow streets, exposed to fire from the surrounding buildings. The resistance to the advance of the Marmelukes here up from the Paseo del Prado, for example, was such that they had to charge, and as soon as they broke through the resisting "line" of defenders, they found themselves being shot at from the upper storey windows of the narrow Carrera de San Jerónimo. Once reached, the Puerta del Sol was an inferno, but undisciplined civilians, however furious and murderous their intent, were no match for the war-hardened Marmelukes and French troops.

The Fiercest Fighting. In the north, the French commanded by General Lefranc had entered through the Puerta de Fuencarral and were converging on the Puerta del Sol down the Calle de Fuencarral. There, they came across the Palace of Monteleón, where they did not expect to find opposition. As the attackers gathered at the gate, the defenders kept silence until Daoiz gave the order, "Fire!" The cannons in the courtyard of the palace destroyed the gate and the head of the column, while at the same time, the civilians heaped gunfire on the French from the upper windows of the surrounding buildings. The French fled in disorder. A second attack was also beaten back, but the third was more massive, more thoughtful and led by Lefranc himself - by the end of it, Velarde was dead and Daoiz was mortally wounded - the French had taken the Monteleón Artillery Depot. Surprisingly, many of the Spanish officers and men were able to escape, and more amazingly still, Daoiz was helped to his nearby home, where he died, while the body of Velarde was even smuggled to a local church.

The Result. Although the opposition had been harder than the French had anticipated, the uprising took not much more than three hours to put down. It is estimated that the Spanish dead came to something of the order of 200 (and nearly as many wounded), while the French had lost 60 officers and 900 men, dead or wounded, most of them in the fight for the Monteleón Artillery Depot. The reprisals began the same day.

The Reprisals. Executions of Spanish prisoners began in the Puerta del Sol, outside the Iglesia del Buen Suceso, the Church of the Great Event, which then stood at its eastern end (underneath where the Tio Pepe sign is now). Anyone who had been taken prisoner while in possession of a weapon was marked for execution, and it is said that people were rounded up almost without pretext. The executions continued throughout the night and next day, May the third, Tres de Mayo. Some took place in the area of the Iglesia de San Ginés (in the Calle Arenal), or on the Monte de Principe Pio (where the railway station now stands), but most of these executions took place in the Paseo del Prado, as marked by the Monument to the Victims of May the Second. As always, the exact number of dead is uncertain: around 200 could be realistic, doubling the number of Spanish fallen.

The Consequences. Murat's intention was probably to frighten the rebelliousness out of the Spaniards, but the Madrileños who fled the city spread the story of the Events, embroidering and exaggerating the heroism of the Spaniards and the atrocity and perfidy of the French, and uprisings would occur in other towns within a few weeks. Before May the second was even over, in Mostoles, to the south of Madrid, politicians issued a call for "all Spaniards to take up arms against the invader," considered the document initiating the Spanish War of Independence.

From the British point of view, the Peninsula War (until then a mainly naval affair) would escalate a notch when Portuguese as well as Spanish popular uprisings began in June, encouraging the landing of a tentative British force under Wellesley in Portugal. It was not particularly successful, but would eventually lead to the Battle of Vitoria of June 21st, 1813, which effectively threw the French out of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Battle of Toulouse, April 10th, 1814, which brought about the abdication of Napoleon.

Back in Spain, it soon became clear that the events in Madrid of May the Second, Dos de Mayo, were the result of the people taking action in spite of rather than because of their rulers. For this and other reasons, it is often considered the first expression of sentimiento nacional, grass-roots Spanish patriotism. This sentimiento nacional would play a central part in the politics of Spain for the next two centuries, as successive rulers disdained, repressed, feared or exploited it.

Francisco Goya. Two of Goya's best known paintings were based on the Madrid Uprising. El Dos de Mayo 1808 (The Second of May, 1808), also known as the Charge of the Marmelukes, shows the fearsomeness of the actual fighting. El Tres de Mayo 1808 (The Third of May, 1808) depicts the executions on the Principe Pío Hill. They were painted years after the event, which in no way detracts from their effectiveness.

The Heroines. In Madrid that day, many of the wounded were tended in a hospital near the Iglesia de la Buena Dicha, still standing, though the hospital and the adjacent cemetery of the same name, where many of the dead were buried, no longer exist. One of these dead was a woman named Clara del Rey, who died with her husband and one of her sons on May the Second, in the defence of the Palace of Monteleón. A commemorative tombstone to her can be seen in the façade of the church.

And almost no-one calls the district of Maravillas, between Chueca and Bilbao, by that name. It is Malasaña, for Manuela Malasaña, a 17-year-old needleworker who lived there and was executed for taking part in the defence of Monteleón. She had been arrested for carrying a pair of scissors.

Dos de Mayo in Madrid Today
These places are all marked on the map:
The Plaza de Oriente, the large square to the east of the Royal Palace, where it all started.
The Palacio Real, Royal Palace, and its Patio de Armas, parade ground.
The Puerta del Sol, Madrid's central square where much of the fighting took place.
The Plaza del Dos de Mayo in the Malasaña district, site of the Monteleón Palace Artillery Depot. An archway of the palace is preserved there, and in front of it stands a statue to Pedro Velarde and Luis Daoiz.
The entire Malasaña district takes its name from that of Dos de Mayo heroine Manuela Malasaña. It is now a somewhat run-down area, but contains some of Madrid's more entertaining alternative nightspots.
The Prado Museum contains Goya's two paintings depicting these events: the Dos de Mayo and Tres de Mayo.
The Puerta de Alcalá and the Puerta de Toledo, through which French troops entered to capture Madrid. Both carry the marks of bullets and shrapnel. The Puerta de Fuencarral no longer exists, but the Calle de Fuencarral does.
Obelisco a los Héroes del Dos de Mayo, the Monument to the Heroes of May the Second, in the Paseo del Prado (on the east side of the street, north of the Prado Museum and of the Ritz Hotel. It was renamed the Monument to the Fallen for Spain in 1985 (hence the eternal flame), but no-one takes much notice.
The Cemetery of the Victims of May the Second is next to the Rosaleda (rose garden), near the Teleférico, the cable car which enters the Casa del Campo. The cemetery is closed to the public except on May the second (a holiday in Madrid), but you can peer in from the outside.
The Buena Dicha Church used to have a hospital and a cemetery, where many Dos de Mayo casualties were treated and/or buried. Both have disappeared, but the façade of the church has a commemorative tombstone to heroine Clara del Rey, who was buried there.
The Palacio de Godoy or Palacio del Marqués de Grimaldi, where Murat lodged.