Gabriel Mendizábal Yraeta

Gabriel de Mendizábal

Gabriel María de Mendizábal Yraeta, 1st Count of Cuadro de Alba de Tormes (14 May 1765, in Bergara, Gipuzkoa – 1 September 1838, in Madrid) was a Spanish general officer. He fought in the Peninsular War, where he commanded the Spanish forces at the Battle of the Gebora.

Military career

His military career began as a sergeant major. His first action came during the War of the Pyrenees. Mendizábal fought on the Basque-Navarrese and Catalan fronts.

In 1793, he was promoted to the rank of colonel and was given command of a new regiment, the Voluntarios de Burgos posted to the north of Portugal. Due to the Spanish military disaster at Irún at the end of the Battle of the Baztan Valley in 1794, he was transferred to western Gipuzkoa with the inferior rank of First Comandante. On 2 December 1794, he commanded a joint Álavan, Gipuzkoan and Biscayan militia to achieve a victory in his home town of Bergara over French troops.

In 1802, Mendizábal was again promoted to the rank of colonel and given the command of a regiment of volunteers from Navarre. On 23 September 1804, he entered Bilbao at the head of his troops to put an end to a series of riots collectively known as the Zamacolada.

In 1809, at the start of the Peninsular War, Mendizábal was promoted to mariscal de campo, a rank equivalent to major general. Later that year, he was granted the noble title of Count, officially Conde de Cuadro de Alba de Tormes, for his military achievements against the French cavalry. In 1810, he was promoted to lieutenant general.

He was named commander of the Army of the Left and suffered a defeat at the Battle of the Gebora after which he was kept from command. Humiliated, Mendizábal begged to serve as a simple rank and file soldier, a request that was granted. After distinguishing himself at the Battle of Albuera in May 1811, he was reinstated with the title of Commander of the Seventh Army or Séptimo Exército, which he took to the north of Spain in the territories that make up the Basque Provinces (Biscay), Navarre, La Rioja, Burgos, and Santander. He fought in this mountainous region using guerrilla tactics.

On 16 December 1812, Mendizábal was named political chief of the Seigneury of Biscay. He called the acting Council of Biscay which, in the wake of the approval of a new Constitution in Cádiz, sent a task force to the city with a negotiation mandate. In the final phases of the war, on 31 August 1813, he controlled a division at the Battle of San Marcial. For his actions, he was decorated with the highest military honors of the Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand, and the Laureate of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Hermenegild.

Politics

Between 1814 and 1820, he gained political power as a member of the Consejo Supremo de la Guerra. In 1834, he was named president of the Tribunal Supremo de Guerra y Marina, a position he held until his death in 1838.