HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 206

Generation of '98 (Generación
del 98)
The cultural movement designated by this
term incorporates a group of writers who
deeply felt the defeat of Spain in the S PAN -
ISH -A MERICAN W AR with the resulting loss
of the last vestiges of empire and analyzed
this catastrophe while trying to find ways to
create a new Spain. The phrase is generally
attributed to the writer J OSÉ M ARTÍNEZ R UIZ
(Azorín), who used it in his Clásicos y moder-
nos (1913), although it had probably been
used by others for some years. In fact, there
had been lamentations over the decline of
Spain's stature in the world and questions
raised about the deterioration of her moral
fiber as far back as the late 1600s, and these
had grown in frequency since the early
19th century due to the initial loss of her
colonial possessions and the deterioration
of the domestic economy.
Assignment of particular novelists, essay-
ists, and even poets to this cohort has been
much disputed but those most commonly
listed as members of the generation include
Azorín himself, P ÍO B AROJA , R AMÓN DEL
V ALLE I NCLÁN , A NTONIO M ACHADO , and
M IGUEL DE U NAMUNO , as well as, perhaps,
the playwright J ACINTO B ENAVENTE .

5,000 French soldiers were beaten back by
defenders. A second attack, in July, with
double the number of troops, was similarly
repelled. The third and major phase of the
siege began in August under the direct
oversight of Marshal Gouvion-Saint-Cyr
and continued for nearly a year as the
French tried every expedient, from heavy
bombardment to frontal infantry assault, to
break through the defenses. Under the mili-
tary governor Mariano Álvarez de Castro
the resistance was carried on by regular
troops, including a large contingent of
Spain's Irish Brigade, and civilian volun-
teers, among whom women grouped in the
Company of St. Barbara handled artillery
with great zeal and effect. As the siege
dragged on into early 1809 Gouvion-Saint-
Cyr called for still more troops, much to the
disgust of Napoléon, who replaced him with
one of his most trusted officers, Marshal
Augereau. Increased pressure was applied
to the outlying forts, which were succes-
sively overwhelmed by the French. General
Joaquín Blake, who had managed to bring
a detachment into the city to reinforce his
Irish compatriots some weeks earlier, was
beaten back in a second attempt. The walls
and major buildings of Gerona began to
crumble, and hundreds of dead bodies lay
among the rubble. Disease began to spread,
particularly affecting the civilian popula-
tion. As early as June 21 Gouvion Saint-Cyr
had urged the defenders to capitulate. Álva-
rez de Castro had responded that he would
not negotiate with the enemies of his coun-
try and warned that any more attempts to
propose talks would be met only by bullets.
By late September, despite another sortie
by Spaniards and a massive counterattack
by the French, the situation seemed
unchanged. But to the commander's dep-

Gerona, siege of (1808-1809)
Gerona, a fortified city in C ATALONIA , with-
stood a prolonged siege during the opening
phase of Napoléon's invasion of Spain. As
in the siege of Z ARAGOZA in the neighbor-
ing region of A RAGON , the heroism of Gero-
na's defenders provided inspiration
throughout the long subsequent struggle of
the Spanish people to liberate themselves
from French occupation.
The siege actually consisted of three
phases. During the first, in June 1808, some