Dos de Mayo Uprising
The Dos de Mayo Uprising began not with generals or kings, but with a crowd gathered outside the Royal Palace in Madrid on the 2nd of May 1808. They had come to stop the French from taking away Francisco de Paula, the youngest son of the deposed Spanish king. Marshal Murat answered them with grenadiers from the Imperial Guard and artillery. When the cannons opened fire, the streets of the capital erupted. What followed was one of the most consequential popular rebellions of the Napoleonic era: a badly armed city rising against the most powerful military force in Europe, fighting with kitchen knives and sewing needles against soldiers carrying muskets and scimitars. The uprising would be crushed within days. But the repression that followed would ignite all of Spain.
Napoleon's army had been present in Madrid since the 23rd of March 1808, nearly six weeks before the revolt broke out. The Spanish monarchy was in disarray. King Charles IV had been forced to abdicate in favor of his son Ferdinand VII during the Tumult of Aranjuez, a popular uprising against the royal court. By early May, both father and son were in Bayonne, across the French border, at Napoleon's insistence. Spain was effectively leaderless. Marshal Joachim Murat, commanding French forces in the capital, held firm control. When he tried to move the remaining royal family members to Bayonne, Madrileños understood what it meant. The dynasty was being hollowed out from within, and the city's population was the only force left to resist.
The Dos de Mayo stood apart from other wartime uprisings because it was genuinely unplanned. No government funds backed it. No senior official organized it. The labouring poor moved first, without the blessing of Spain's military or bureaucratic establishment. Senior officers within the state did dream of expelling the French, but they believed Murat's grip on Madrid was too strong to challenge directly. Pedro Velarde y Santillán, a 28-year-old artillery captain, is a striking example of this ambivalence. He had been quietly plotting military action elsewhere in the country, and considered a frontal assault on the capital impractical. Drawn to the sound of gunfire, he abandoned his own judgment and joined the fighting anyway. He would die defending the Monteleón artillery barracks before the day was out.
Heavy fighting broke out across multiple parts of Madrid as the poorly armed civilian population took on French troops. The area around the Puerta del Sol and the Puerta de Toledo saw some of the fiercest clashes. Murat moved the bulk of his army into the city and imposed martial law, taking personal control of the civil administration. Spanish troops stationed in the capital were ordered to remain in their barracks and nearly all obeyed. The exception was the artillery unit at the Monteleón barracks, whose officers Luis Daoíz y Torres and Pedro Velarde y Santiyán chose to disobey. Both died when French forces stormed the position and overwhelmed the defenders by weight of numbers. Francisco de Goya's painting The Charge of the Mamelukes preserves the chaos of the Puerta del Sol, where soldiers of the Imperial Guard wearing turbans and wielding curved scimitars fought Madrid residents in the open street.
Marshal Murat did not wait until the fighting ended to begin punishing the city. On the evening of the 2nd of May he convened a military commission, to be chaired by General Grouchy, with orders to sentence to death anyone taken prisoner while carrying a weapon of any kind. Murat's statement that day was direct: "The population of Madrid, led astray, has given itself to revolt and murder. French blood has flowed. It demands vengeance. All those arrested in the uprising, arms in hand, will be shot." Hundreds of prisoners were executed the following day, the 3rd of May, a scene that Goya captured in his painting The Third of May 1808. The definition of "bearing arms" was applied with brutal breadth. Craftsmen found carrying shearing scissors, kitchen knives, or sewing needles were shot on the spot, their everyday tools treated as weapons. Only a small number of French-speaking Madrileños escaped execution by addressing their captors in a language those captors understood.
News of the massacre traveled fast. In the nearby town of Móstoles, Juan Pérez Villamil, secretary of the Admiralty and prosecutor of the Supreme War Council, responded by urging the town's two mayors, Andrés Torrejón and Simón Hernández, to sign a declaration calling on all Spaniards to take up arms. The document became known as the "Bando de los alcaldes de Móstoles" or "bando de la Independencia," meaning the Edict of Independence. What had begun as a crowd outside a palace gate had, within twenty-four hours, acquired the structure of a national proclamation. Historian Ronald Fraser described the broader Spanish revolts that followed as "the common people's Baroque victory over the Enlightenment." The parallel drawn to the War in the Vendée has limits, though: the Spanish resistance was urban as well as rural, spread across the country rather than confined to a region, and united labourers and elites under a shared demand that the nobility and clergy enlist alongside the poor.
The 2nd of May is now a public holiday in the Community of Madrid. The site where the Monteleón artillery barracks once stood is today a square called the Plaza del Dos de Mayo, and the surrounding district carries the name Malasaña in honor of Manuela Malasaña, a teenage girl executed by French troops in the aftermath of the revolt. Daoíz and Velarde are still commemorated as heroes across the city, and memorials including the Monumento a los Caídos por España stand as permanent markers of the day. Decades later, a Spanish Navy screw frigate placed in commission in 1863 and retired in 1884 took a name that, while literally translating to "City of Madrid," was chosen specifically to honor the Madrileños who had fought and died on that May morning. Goya's two great paintings of the events, The Charge of the Mamelukes and The Third of May 1808, remain among the most recognized images of wartime violence ever made.
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Common questions
What was the Dos de Mayo Uprising?
The Dos de Mayo Uprising was a rebellion by the civilian population of Madrid against French military occupation, which took place on the 2nd and the 3rd of May 1808. It was largely spontaneous, lacking formal planning or elite leadership, and was violently suppressed by French Imperial forces with hundreds of public executions. The uprising triggered the Peninsular War and ended the Franco-Spanish alliance in the Napoleonic Wars.
Why did the Dos de Mayo Uprising start?
The immediate cause was Marshal Murat's attempt to move Francisco de Paula, the youngest son of deposed King Charles IV, and other royal family members from Madrid to Bayonne, France. A crowd gathered at the Royal Palace to prevent this removal, and when Murat responded with grenadiers and artillery that opened fire on the crowd, the rebellion spread across the city.
Who were Daoiz and Velarde in the Dos de Mayo Uprising?
Luis Daoíz y Torres and Pedro Velarde y Santiyán were the two artillery officers who disobeyed orders and joined the Dos de Mayo Uprising at the Monteleón barracks in Madrid. Velarde was a 28-year-old artillery captain who had been secretly planning military action elsewhere but was drawn to the sound of gunfire on the 2nd of May 1808. Both died when French forces stormed the barracks, and both are still commemorated as heroes of the rebellion.
How did Marshal Murat respond to the Dos de Mayo Uprising?
Marshal Murat imposed martial law, moved the majority of his troops into Madrid, and established a military commission on the evening of the 2nd of May 1808 chaired by General Grouchy. The commission issued death sentences to all prisoners found carrying weapons of any kind. Hundreds were executed on the 3rd of May; craftsmen carrying everyday tools such as scissors or kitchen knives were shot alongside those who had actively fought.
How did the Dos de Mayo Uprising spark the Peninsular War?
The French repression of the uprising, including the mass executions on the 3rd of May 1808, spread outrage beyond Madrid. In the town of Móstoles, Juan Pérez Villamil encouraged mayors Andrés Torrejón and Simón Hernández to sign the "Bando de los alcaldes de Móstoles," a declaration calling all Spaniards to rise against the French. This national call to arms, combined with Napoleon's installation of his brother Joseph as king, turned a local revolt into a country-wide guerrilla war.
How is the Dos de Mayo Uprising commemorated today?
The 2nd of May is a public holiday in the Community of Madrid. The site of the Monteleón artillery barracks is now the Plaza del Dos de Mayo, and the surrounding district is called Malasaña after Manuela Malasaña, a teenager executed by French troops after the revolt. Francisco de Goya's paintings The Charge of the Mamelukes and The Third of May 1808 are the most famous artistic records of the events.