The starving troops have resisted heroically

[henry_flower]

The aftermath of the battle of Vitoria (21 June 1813), in which the French army under Joseph Bonaparte collapsed & fled from the field:

'As for Joseph he scarcely looked back before he reached the walls of Pamplona in Navarre. [The French troops were still occupying the city, but w/ an inadequate food supply]

Joseph was admitted into its walls; but the [French] fugitives from Vittoria were refused an entrance; and when they attempted to scale the walls they were fired upon by their own countrymen, as if they had been mortal foes; and they were compelled to continue their flight across the Pyrenees towards France.'

(From The History of England, Vol. III, Ch. XXIX, by Edward Henry Nolan, Edward Farr.)