José Rebolledo de Palafox y Melzi, 1st Duke of Zaragoza (28 October 1775 – 15 February 1847) was a Spanish Army officer and nobleman who served in the Peninsular War. He received his title of Duke for successfully repelling the First Siege of Zaragoza by the French. Marshal Jean Lannes conducted the successful Second Siege of Zaragoza.
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Early life
He was born in Zaragoza, Aragon, into an old Aragonese family. Palafox was born to Juan Felipe Rebolledo de Palafox and doña Paula Melzi d'Eril and educated at the St. Thomas Aquinas College of the Pious Schools of Zaragoza.
Brought up at the Spanish court, he entered the guards at an early age, and in 1808 as a sub-lieutenant accompanied King Ferdinand VII of Spain to Bayonne; but after vainly attempting, in company with others, to secure Ferdinand's escape, he fled to Spain, and after a short period of retirement placed himself at the head of the patriot movement in Aragon. He was proclaimed by the populace governor of Zaragoza and captain-general of Aragon (25 May 1808) at the beginning of the Peninsular War. Despite the want of money and of regular troops, he lost no time in declaring war against the French, who had already overrun the neighboring provinces of Catalonia and Navarre.
Zaragoza
In Zaragoza, Palafox built a gunpowder and small arms factory, created a corps of sappers and brought 30,000 men under arms. Soon afterward the attack he had provoked began under French general Charles Lefebvre. Zaragoza as a fortress was both antiquated in design and scantily provided with munitions and supplies, and the defenses resisted but a short time. But it was at that point that the real resistance began. A week's street fighting made the assailants masters of half the town, but Palafox's older brother, the Marquis of Lazán, succeeded in forcing a passage into the city with 3,000 troops. Stimulated by the appeals of Palafox and of the fierce and resolute demagogues who ruled the mob, the inhabitants resolved to contest possession of the remaining quarters of Zaragoza inch by inch, and if necessary to retire to the suburb across the Ebro, destroying the bridge. The struggle, which was prolonged for nine days longer, resulted in the withdrawal of the French (14 August), after a siege which had lasted 61 days in all.