The Conquistadors (23 page)

He sent Moctezuma's ambassadors packing, with orders to have the people back in their houses and the markets functioning normally, or he would not be responsible for what his men would do to them. This ultimatum was to prove utterly disastrous. It was conveyed to Moctezuma, who replied that as he was a prisoner he could do nothing, but that if Cortés would release his brother, Cuitlahuac, all would be done according to his wishes. This Cortés did, though Cuitlahuac, lord of Iztapalapa, was one of those who had supported Cacama's insurrection.

Cortés appears to have failed to understand what was in Moctezuma's mind. Though there is no reason why he should have been conversant with the constitutional arrangements in Mexico, he knew very well the sort of man Cuitlahuac was and his dominant position in the Mexican hierarchy as Moctezuma's kinsman. Instead of re-establishing the markets, Cuitlahuac at once summoned the elective council of the Indian state, the
tlatlocan.
This was composed mainly of war chiefs, who from the beginning had wanted to throw the invaders back into the sea. They immediately deposed Moctezuma and elected Cuitlahuac in his place.

Cortés knew nothing of this. But, tired though he was, he spent the night reorganizing the defences. In the morning a badly wounded soldier arrived from Tacuba with the news that the causeway was crowded with armed warriors, and one of the bridges was already destroyed. Cortés states that the man was a messenger he had dispatched to Vera Cruz, but Bernal Díaz describes him differently, as ‘escorting some Indian women who belonged to Cortés, among them a daughter of Moctezuma', who had been left in the care of the king of Tacuba during his absence.

Cortés at once ordered Ordaz, with four hundred men, to reconnoitre the Tacuba causeway; but the force was heavily engaged before it had even got out of the city. The Mexican attack was delivered head-on in the streets, supported
by heavy arrow-fire from the roof-tops on either side. In the first assault Ordaz lost eight men killed and another as he retreated back to the temple square. By then hordes of Mexican warriors were attacking the palace of Axayacatl itself. Arrows, javelins, sling-stones poured in upon the Spaniards. Forty-six of them were wounded in this one onslaught. The din was so great that orders could not be heard, the pressure of the attack so heavy that the sword-play of the Spanish soldiers seemed to have no effect.

In the end, it was the guns that cleared a way for Ordaz' force to enter. But by then it had been badly mauled and there was scarcely a man unhurt; fourteen were dead and Ordaz himself had been wounded three times. They were followed by a great horde of howling warriors. The attack was pressed, breaches were made in the palace walls, and only the fire of the falconets, crossbows and arquebuses kept the Spaniards from being overwhelmed. Even so, the Mexicans penetrated into the quarters and fired the palace. With no water, the only way to put the flames out was to pull the walls down on top of them. The battle raged all day and the Spaniards got little rest during the night, for they had to repair their defences and put out the fires. There was not much food, and the only water they had was from holes dug in the ground. There were over eighty seriously wounded, and Cortés himself was in great pain from an injury to his left hand.

Anybody who has seen the canals in Amsterdam will appreciate the tactical difficulties facing the Spaniards. Cortés, in describing Mexico to his Emperor, says: ‘Its streets are very broad and straight, some of these, and all the others, are one half land, and the other half water on which they go about in canoes. All the streets have openings at regular intervals, to let the water flow from one to the other, and at all of these openings, some of which are very broad, there are bridges, very large, strong and well-constructed, so that, over many, ten horsemen can ride abreast. … They might', he adds, ‘by raising the bridges at the exits and entrances, starve us out without our being able to reach land.'

Nevertheless, at dawn the following day he mounted a counter-attack, two forces of two hundred men each, led by himself and one of his captains. But the bridges were already down and they were unable to charge. They got caught up amongst the houses and had to retire under the weight of stones and weapons being thrown down upon them. They were pursued by the Mexicans, yelling and whistling, blowing conches and trumpets, beating drums. Men who had fought against the Moors declared afterwards that they had never faced such a fierce and determined enemy, and veterans of the Italian wars said that even the French king's artillery was easier to face than these Indians, who charged and charged again in massed attacks that were no sooner broken than they reformed. Thirty or forty were killed at each charge, but it made no difference. Periodically they would lure the Spaniards out from the protection of their defences by feigning flight, and by combining cunning with incredible bravery they slowly reduced the numbers of the defenders.

That day the Spaniards lost another dozen killed and there was hardly a man left unwounded. Since they could not go on like that indefinitely Cortés decided to construct a number of mobile engines of war, wooden towers, each capable of holding some twenty men, from which his arquebusiers and crossbowmen could dominate the rooftops of the houses and so enable the cavalry to clear the streets. They were completed the following day in conditions of great difficulty, the Mexicans keeping up their attacks, so that as often as the breaches were bricked up, they broke in again. All the time their war chiefs urged them on, shouting that the Spaniards would have their hearts torn out and offered to the gods, and that the Tlaxcalans, who were with them, would be fattened in cages for sacrifice. The yelling and whistling went on through the night, stones and arrows pouring in upon the defenders.

At dawn, when the Spaniards sallied out with their towers, the Mexicans seemed more numerous than ever. The horses were useless, for they were stopped by newly erected street barricades, and though armoured, they faced such a deadly hail of missiles that their charges faltered before they could break the Mexican ranks. Even on the few occasions when they did, the Mexicans saved themselves by diving into the water, where other warriors stood waist-deep, stabbing up at the horses' bellies with long lances. The Spaniards tried to fire the houses, but it was a slow business, for they took a long time to burn, and as they were intersected by numerous canals, there was no hope of starting a general conflagration. In the end, the towers were badly damaged and the Spaniards forced to fall back on their quarters again.

It was another bad night, the quarters half hospital, half building camp, as the Spaniards dressed their wounds and rebuilt their walls, plagued all the time by the Indians outside. It could not go on like this. Narváez's men had reached the point of open mutiny. Withdrawal from Mexico was the only course left.

In the morning Cortés tried once again to play the only card he had ever really had – Moctezuma. But when he sent to the king, requesting him to tell his warriors to cease their attacks as the Spaniards had decided to leave the city, Moctezuma is reported to have declared sadly: ‘Fate has brought me to such a pass because of him that I do not wish to live or hear his voice again.' Fray Bartolomé and Olid then went to reason with him, but all he said was that he did not believe he could do anything to end the war. The Mexicans had chosen Cuitlahuac as king in his place. And he added: ‘I believe, therefore, that all of you will be killed.'

Nevertheless, Moctezuma did attempt to speak to his people. Whether of his own volition or not is another matter. He is described as being ‘lifted' to one of the battlements of the roof with a guard of Spanish soldiers to protect him. He was apparently seen and recognized by his war chiefs, who at once ordered the attacks to cease, and four of them came forward to talk with him. The tenor of their speech appears to have been extraordinarily conciliatory, considering the disasters he had brought upon them. But there were others present who were not prepared to wait submissively whilst the ex-king once again sapped their warriors' will to fight. Cuitlahuac was one of them. Another was Cuauhtemoc, a youth born to be king, and trained to violence and war.

Whether any order was given, and if so who gave it, we do not know, but the parley ended with a sudden shower of stones and arrows. In face of this barrage the soldiers were unable to give Moctezuma full protection and he was hit in three places – on the leg, the arm and the head. Gómara says he lived for three days in great pain and then died. Bernal Díaz, who must have been one of those who actually saw him brought down from the battlement, said he refused to have his wounds dressed or to eat any food; ‘then quite unexpectedly we were told that he was dead.' And he adds: ‘Cortés and all of us captains and soldiers wept for him.'

Neither source gives details of the actual death. Nor does Cortés, who simply writes in his dispatches that a stone struck Moctezuma on the head with such force that ‘within three days he died'. And he adds: ‘I then had him taken out, dead as he was, by two of the Indian prisoners, who bore him away to his people; but I do not know what they did with him, except that the war did not cease …' Others, who were not there at the time, have described how he was found dead with chains on his feet and five dagger wounds in his breast, how the Spaniards plunged a sword into his fundament, and also, how many of the other prisoners were murdered – Cacama with forty-five stab wounds. But these are no more than political afterthoughts aimed at Cortés, for though the dispatch of prisoners, who have become an embarrassment to an army in retreat, is fairly common, and Cortés now had every reason to distrust Moctezuma, he certainly had no intention of making him a martyr. In any case, why wait three days? It is much more probable that Moctezuma had reached the point where death was preferable to life. An Indian, deeply involved in a primitive, superstitious religion, he was quite capable of dying through lack of the will to live, and, even though he had been privy to the election of a new and more militaristic king, he cannot have viewed the future with much enthusiasm. In any case, what had the Spaniards to gain by his death? True, the sight of his body being carried out of the camp produced shrieks and lamentations, but it did not result in any slackening of the attacks. Indeed, it had the opposite effect, for the death of the man who had ruled them for more than seventeen years was bound to excite the Mexicans to vengeance.

At the time of his death Moctezuma had been a ‘voluntary' prisoner of the Spaniards for more than six months. Now, suddenly, their tenuous hold over the realm was gone. Henceforth, they must rely on the strength of their arms alone. The position was untenable,, for, as Cortés says, if twenty-five thousand Indians perished for every Spaniard, his men would still be destroyed. But to get his force out of the city, he had to have control of the short Tacuba causeway. The day after Moctezuma died he tried again, attacking westward with his mobile towers, four guns and over three thousand Tlaxcalans. But after fighting all morning, he was forced to retreat, harried right to the gates of the camp.

It was at this point that the Mexicans occupied the great temple – Cortés says with about five hundred ‘notable persons'; Bernal Díaz claims ‘more than four thousand warriors ascended it'. Whichever figure is correct, its terraces and its single stairway of 114 steps made it a natural fortress. Moreover, as can be seen from the plan of the city, it dominated the Spanish quarters. That the Mexicans had not occupied it before was probably due to religious scruples. Now, however, they were commanded by a man who was trained, not to the priesthood, but to war. Cuitlahuac may also have been motivated by the fact that his election as king had not yet been solemnized, a ceremony that involved sacrificial rites at the war god's temple.

Cortés reacted immediately, for ‘besides doing us much injury from it, they also gained fresh courage to attack us'. And when his troops failed to conquer it, he sallied forth himself, surrounded the base of the temple and mounted a frontal attack up the stairway. It was a bitter struggle. The cavalry was ineffective in the courtyard below, the horses slithering on the smooth surface of the flagstones, and though the guns mowed the Indians down in batches of ten or fifteen at a time, the enemy was so numerous that the ranks closed immediately. It was Spanish steel that finally prevailed. Fighting hand-to-hand, and advancing a step at a time, they reached the top, ‘all streaming with blood', and then hunted out the wretched defenders, pitching them down from the terraces the way their priests discarded the corpses of their sacrificial victims. Aided by the Tlaxcalans, they burned the
towers, the idol-rooms, the idols themselves. It was the first real victory since Alvarado had so senselessly massacred the defenceless dancers. ‘Some of their pride was taken out of them', as Cortés laconically puts it.

But, at the parley that followed, it was clear that the Mexicans were now determined to destroy the Spaniards utterly. They had broken down all the bridges, and if they couldn't kill the Spaniards, then they would starve them out. That night Cortés made a surprise attack, captured a street, burned some three hundred houses, and then returned by another street, burning more, and also some terraces that overlooked the quarters. He was out again at daybreak, fighting through to the Tacuba causeway, where there were eight ‘very large deep bridges', by now simply gaps in the road, all protected by barricades of adobe and clay. He captured four of these bridge-sites, filled the gaps with the debris of the barricades and burned the houses and terraces overlooking them. By nightfall he was sufficiently in command of the situation to mount guards on the rubble-filled gaps. The next day he was out again, breaking right through to the mainland, where news reached him that the Mexicans were suing for peace. With several horsemen, he galloped back to the quarters.