What happened on May 2, 1808 in Spain

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The Spanish monarchy of Carlos IV suffered a severe setback at the end of his reign, because the constant abuses of his validity, Manuel Godoy and the aspirations of his son Fernando to obtain the throne made the Spanish political instability immense. In this lesson from a TEACHER we bring you a summary of the fight of the second of May, a confrontation between the Spanish people and the French troops produced in Madrid and that has gone down in history as the beginning of the War of Independence.

Index

1. France occupies Spain
2. The days before the conflict
3. The second of May
4. The end of the fight

We begin the summary of the battle of May 2 by talking about March 17, 1808, at which time the riot of Aranjuez for which, Fernando VII forced his father, Carlos IV to abdicate in him, at the same time that Manuel Godoy was made prisoner.

To this instability, we must add that the French army was in Spanish territory, since the valid of the king had signed the

Due to the events that occurred in Aranjuez, Napoleon took the opportunity to attract the two monarchs to Bayonne, while the General Murat appeared in Madrid on March 23 with the bulk of the army, where only the royal council remained. By trickery, the emperor succeeded in making the two monarchs abdicate in him, which yielded the Crown to his brother Joseph Bonaparte, which was known as Pepe Bottle.

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From the beginning, French troops were very poorly accepted by the local population since they only caused major conflicts where they passed, not being an isolated case in that sense Madrid. Thus we will find a series of conflicts between the French and the locals themselves, in which, at first, the Spanish army did not want to enter to avoid a war.

One of the most tense moments, the day was lived April 27, date on which ordered the transfer of the royal family, that is, to the children of Carlos IV, María Luisa de Parma and the infant Francisco de Paula to Bayona, where they had to meet with Carlos IV and Fernando VII.

Faced with this request, the government refused since they could not allow the capital to lose the royal family. For this reason, it was necessary for Fernando VII himself to write a letter sent by emissaries to Madrid, so that on May 1, the family began to be transferred.

After the king's emissary arrived, the order was to transfer the royal family on May 2 to the city of Bayonne but, early in the afternoon day, a large crowd was at the gates of the royal palace (according to various historians, the people came from various parts of Spain).

They were in the palace to demand an end to abuses by French troops on the people of Madrid, which had to feed and shelter them, in addition to putting up with their grievances. At that moment, a member of the royal council came out to the balcony of the palace and announced that they were taking the infant Francisco de Paula, this set fire to the crowd that already had a great hatred towards the French troops, which ended in the start of a battle field.

Thus within the summary of the fight of May 2, we will find that said day occurred a street fight throughout Madrid where the majority of the Spanish army remained inside the barracks, since Captain General Francisco Javier Negrete so ordered.

Only two soldiers took to the streets to help the people, these being Luis Daoíz and Pedro Velarde. These two men, along with the Madrid artillery corps, died in the streets along with many of the Madrilenians. But, unsurprisingly, this rebellion against the French army was insane, for in a short time some 30,000 French men entered Madrid ending all resistance and taking over control of the country.

In this other article we discover the history of the combat of the second of May.

To conclude with the summary of the fight of the second of May we must know that that same day, the regency meeting fell into the hands of Murat until the arrival of José Bonaparte, thus falling into French power the throne of Spain.

On the other hand, the French repression on the rebels was enormous, a fact that was reflected in Goya's paintings in 1814. It is estimated that between 300-500 Spaniards lost their lives on that day, while the French army only had between 70-150 casualties.

However, General Murat himself in a letter warned that the Spanish had to be taken into account, since for a time they had put the French soldiers in great trouble.

Finally, we will say that this date was known as the start of the War of Independence in Spain, because as a result of the arrival of the news to the rest of the peninsula of what happened in Madrid, a series of Juntas were created to organize and fight against the invaders.

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