 Following the Dos de Mayo Uprising in Madrid, French and Polish forces under Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes were sent by Napoleon to put down the insurrection.On 15 June 1808, Lefebvre-Desnouettes arrived at Zaragoza ready to attack the city.The attack on the city was particularly brutal, being a combination of hand to hand combat on the streets and a siege to starve the citizens, which led to a huge human toll from disease as well as the conflict itself.