Dos de Mayo Uprising (1808): Madrid Rises Against France

The Dos de Mayo uprising was a popular revolt in Madrid on 2 May 1808 against the French troops that Napoleon had sent into Spain. Ordinary townspeople, joined by a handful of Spanish soldiers, fought the occupiers in the streets for several hours before being crushed, and many were executed that night and the following morning. Though a military failure, the rising became the founding legend of Spain’s war of independence and was immortalised by Francisco de Goya in two of the most famous paintings in European art.

Background

In October 1807 France and Spain signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which allowed French troops to cross Spain to invade Portugal, Britain’s ally. Over the following months far more French soldiers entered Spain than the operation required, and they occupied key fortresses such as Pamplona and Barcelona. Many Spaniards began to suspect that Napoleon intended to take over their country.

The Spanish monarchy was itself in crisis. King Charles IV was widely despised for his dependence on his chief minister, Manuel Godoy. In March 1808 the Mutiny of Aranjuez, a riot organised by supporters of the heir to the throne, toppled Godoy and forced Charles to abdicate in favour of his son, who became Ferdinand VII. Ferdinand was popular, but his position was weak.

On 23 March 1808 French forces under Marshal Joachim Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, entered Madrid. Napoleon then invited both Charles and Ferdinand to Bayonne, just across the French border, ostensibly to settle their quarrel. By the end of April almost the whole royal family had left Spain, and the capital was full of rumours that the king was a prisoner.

What happened on 2 May

On the morning of 2 May 1808 a crowd gathered outside the Royal Palace, where French officers were preparing carriages to take the remaining royals, including the young Infante Francisco de Paula, to Bayonne. When a French aide-de-camp appeared, the crowd attacked him, and Murat sent in a battalion of grenadiers with artillery, which fired on the people.

The violence spread quickly. Armed with knives, old firearms and whatever they could find, Madrid’s citizens attacked French soldiers across the centre of the city, especially around the Puerta del Sol and the Calle de Alcalá. Murat brought in thousands of troops from camps outside Madrid. Cavalry, including the Mamluks of the Imperial Guard, charged through the streets, and the outnumbered crowds were gradually driven back.

The Spanish garrison had been ordered to stay in barracks and not intervene. At the Monteleón artillery park in the north of the city, however, two artillery captains, Luis Daoíz and Pedro Velarde, opened the gates, armed civilians and turned their guns on the French. With a few dozen soldiers and a crowd of volunteers, including women, they held out for several hours. Both captains were killed when the French stormed the position, and Lieutenant Jacinto Ruiz was badly wounded.

By early afternoon the fighting was over. Spanish officials, fearing a massacre, helped restore order, and an amnesty was announced. The same day, the two mayors of the nearby town of Móstoles signed a short proclamation, the so-called Bando de Móstoles, calling on Spaniards to rise against the invaders. It spread rapidly through the country.

The executions of 3 May

Despite the promised amnesty, Murat was determined to make an example of the city. A military commission under General Emmanuel Grouchy ordered that anyone captured with a weapon should be shot. On the evening of 2 May and through the night and early morning of 3 May, French firing squads executed prisoners at several places, including the hill of Príncipe Pío, the Paseo del Prado and the Retiro.

Many of those shot had done little more than carry a pocket knife or a pair of scissors. Among the most famous victims of the day was Manuela Malasaña, a young seamstress, whose story was later embroidered into legend. The Madrid district around the former Monteleón barracks is still known as Malasaña.

Key people

• Joachim Murat – French marshal and commander in Spain, who ordered the suppression and the executions. Napoleon later made him King of Naples rather than King of Spain.
• Luis Daoíz and Pedro Velarde – artillery captains who led the defence of Monteleón and died in the fighting; they are commemorated by statues and street names across Spain.
• Ferdinand VII – the young king, by then in Bayonne, in whose name the rising was fought.
• Francisco de Goya – court painter who turned the events into enduring images six years later.

By the numbers

Consequences

The uprising failed in Madrid, but it convinced many Spaniards that the French were enemies rather than allies. Within days, at Bayonne, Ferdinand returned the crown to his father, who had already ceded his rights to Napoleon. On 6 June 1808 Napoleon proclaimed his elder brother Joseph Bonaparte King of Spain.

The news from Madrid and Bayonne triggered rebellions across the country in late May. Local juntas, or governing committees, were formed in the provinces and declared war on France. In July 1808 a Spanish army forced a French corps to surrender at Bailén, the first major capitulation of a Napoleonic army in the field. The conflict grew into the long and brutal Peninsular War, which tied down hundreds of thousands of French soldiers until 1814 and saw episodes such as the Sieges of Zaragoza and the defence of Portugal behind the Lines of Torres Vedras.

Goya’s paintings

In 1814, after the French had been driven out, Goya asked the regency government for support to paint “the most notable and heroic actions” of the insurrection against Europe’s tyrant. The result was two large canvases: The Second of May 1808, also called The Charge of the Mamelukes, and The Third of May 1808.

The first shows the chaos of street fighting, with citizens dragging Mamluk horsemen from their saddles. The second shows a faceless line of French soldiers shooting a group of terrified civilians, the central figure in a white shirt with his arms raised. It broke with tradition by showing war’s victims rather than its heroes, and it influenced later works such as Manet’s The Execution of Emperor Maximilian and Picasso’s Guernica. Both paintings are in the Prado Museum in Madrid.

Myths and facts

A popular story holds that Goya watched the 3 May executions from his window and visited the bodies by lantern light to sketch them. There is no contemporary evidence for this, and he did not paint the scenes until 1814. Another common simplification is that the uprising began the war on its own; in fact, the general revolt across Spain came several weeks later, after news of the Bayonne abdications.

Timeline

• 1807, 27 October: Treaty of Fontainebleau allows French troops to cross Spain.
• 1808, 17–19 March: Mutiny of Aranjuez; Charles IV abdicates in favour of Ferdinand VII.
• 1808, 23 March: Murat’s troops enter Madrid.
• 1808, 2 May: Uprising in Madrid; defence of the Monteleón barracks; Bando de Móstoles issued.
• 1808, 2–3 May: French firing squads execute prisoners in and around Madrid.
• 1808, 5–6 May: Abdications of Bayonne hand the Spanish crown to Napoleon.
• 1808, 6 June: Joseph Bonaparte proclaimed King of Spain.
• 1814: Goya paints The Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808.

Why it matters

The Dos de Mayo turned a dynastic crisis into a national war. It showed that Napoleon’s methods, which had worked in many European states, would meet fierce popular resistance in Spain, and it gave Spain a lasting symbol of resistance to foreign rule. Through Goya’s paintings, it also became one of the defining images of the human cost of war.