Joaquín Blake y Joyes

Joaquín Blake y Joyes

Joaquín Blake y Joyes , (born August 10, 1759 (according to other sources August 19 or September 19) in Málaga , Spain , †  April 27, 1827 in Valladolid , Spain) was a Spanish officer and general who served in the war of liberation against Napoleon acted.

Life

Origin and education

Blake's family came from Ireland on his father's side, the ancestors were Counts of Galway and had settled in Spain in the early 18th century. Joaquín's father, Agustín Blake y Browne, had received Spanish citizenship in 1710; his mother, Inés Joyes y Joyes, was also of Irish descent (the name is the Hispanized form of the Irish name Joyce ); she was born in Madrid . The parents attached great importance to a good education, so that Joaquín completed a comprehensive range of subjects.

At the age of 15 he began his military service at the cadet institute of El Puerto de Santa María ; soon afterwards he joined the American infantry regiment of the royal Spanish army. In 1775 he was promoted to lieutenant and in 1777 - at the age of 18 - he was responsible for the cadet training of his regiment.

Military career

When Spain went to war with France against England in the American War of Independence , he took part in the (unsuccessful) siege of Gibraltar (1779–1783) and in the siege and capture of Maó on Menorca . In 1782 he was promoted to lieutenant. After the end of the war in 1783, he went to the cadet school of El Puerto de Santa María near Cádiz as a trainer .

In 1789 he married Dorotea de Tovar y Pierce.

His promotion to captain took place in 1791. In the First Coalition War against revolutionary France, he took part in the fighting in Roussillon . From 1793 he commanded the Volunteer Regiment of Castile as Sargento Mayor . He was seriously wounded at the battle of San-Lorenzo de la Muga on August 19, 1794 and spent several months in the hospital.

After his recovery he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1795 and placed in front of the newly established regiment of hunters of the Crown Volunteers . This elite unit was composed of experienced soldiers from other regiments in order to counter the advance of the French. He was successful and was promoted to colonel in 1795.

In September 1795 he asked to be released from active service and settled in his hometown of Malaga.

In 1802 he resumed active service in the rank of brigadier general and was given command of the fortress Ferrol in Galicia .

General in the war of liberation against Napoleon

In 1807 he invaded Portugal with his troops (and with French support) ; when Napoleonic troops occupied Spain, he asked for his replacement.

When the Spaniards rose against Manuel de Godoy's supposedly pro-France policies (" Aranjuez Uprising "), the angry crowd also killed the captain-general of Galicia as a friend of the French. Immediately the junta of Galicia nominated Blake as a replacement and entrusted him with the command of all parts of the Galician army in the fight against the French. At the same time he received the rank of lieutenant general (and thus jumped over the rank of marshal / division general).

His military mission was to unite with the troops of General Gregorio García de la Cuesta , due to a lack of coordination between the Spanish military leaders, the numerically superior Spanish suffered a severe defeat in the battle of Medina del Rio Seco . While Cuesta led his troops towards Benavente (Zamora) , Blake withdrew to Astorga .

After the defeat at the Battle of Bailén , the French had to give way to the Ebro . Blake pursued them with his troops and captured Santander and the north coast of Spain. His army formed the left wing of the Spanish armed forces with the aim of driving the French out of the Spanish Basque Country towards the Pyrenees.

After taking Bilbao with his troops , the Spaniards were defeated at Zornoza and had to back down. On November 10th, the French under Marshal Victor attacked the Spaniards at Espinosa de los Monteros (Burgos) and defeated them. The arduous retreat over mountainous terrain in bad weather claimed further victims; when Blake's army reformed in Reinosa in December , fewer than 5,000 men remained. Blake was removed from his command.

He was sent to Valencia and Murcia as commander in chief . These provinces had not had their own militias before the occupation, so Blake was given the task of quickly assembling and training a combat-ready force. With this he was supposed to rush to the aid of the besieged Saragossa , but he did not succeed. The French Third Army Corps under Marshal Louis Gabriel Suchet appeared weakened, and so Blake sought the challenge with a view to the recovery of Zaragoza. On May 23, the Spaniards won a victory over the French at Alcañiz ; Blake refrained from chasing the French so that they could regroup and in turn inflicted a defeat on the Spanish at Belchite on June 18, 1809. Blake's army withdrew; this time he managed to maintain his powers.

Blake then tried to lift the siege of Gerona , which had been surrounded by the French since June. Several attempts at relocation failed, Gerona surrendered to the French on December 11, 1809 after seven months of siege. Blake's army then moved south towards Valencia, as all the fortresses in Catalonia and Aragón had fallen to the French.

In early 1810, Blake reformed his troops and worked on a proposal to establish a general staff in Spain's army . The defeats against the French were due in large part to the poor coordination and organization of the Spanish troops. He presented his proposal to the government council in May and was approved. He himself was appointed regent of the Spanish Kingdom by the Cortes of Cadiz together with Pedro Agar y Bustillo and Gabriel Ciscar y Ciscar ( Segunda Regencia ).

In the meantime, the Spanish military situation had become precarious: the government organs had to withdraw to Cádiz, which was besieged by the French.

An expeditionary army should bring relief. Led by Blake, the newly formed army united with the Extremadura Army under General Francisco Javier Castaños and the British Army in Portugal under General William Carr Beresford . Again there was a lack of clarity about the competencies between the military leaders; Nevertheless, the combined forces managed to defeat the French under the leadership of Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult in May 1811 in the battle of La Albuera . While Beresford and Castaños pursued the French, Blake should turn towards Seville. He besieged the Niebla fortress and then moved to Cádiz.

The government council there appointed him captain general of Catalonia , Murcia, Valencia and Aragón . Blake received orders to protect Valencia from the advancing Marshal Suchet. He reached the city with his expeditionary army on July 12, 1811. However, only a small number of his 30,000 men were adequately equipped and trained. In addition, diseases weakened the fighting strength of his troops.

Suchet began the siege of Sagunto on September 23 . The Spaniards attacked at the Battle of Murviedro on October 25 , but were repulsed. Unlike Blake, Suchet received reinforcements for his ranks. On December 26th, Suchet managed to completely encircle the Spaniards at Valencia. An attempt to break out on December 28th failed. Blake hoped for support, but it never came. On January 10, 1812, he surrendered to the French.

Late years

Like other high-ranking Spanish politicians and military officials, he was interned at Vincennes Castle. With the Treaty of Valençay , which also sealed the return of King Ferdinand to Spain, he was released again in 1814.

He received the Grand Cross of the Ferdinand Order and the Order of St. Hermenegild . In 1815 the king appointed him inspector general of the engineering corps of the Spanish army. He held this office until 1819.

The leaders of the liberal revolution of 1820 appointed him chairman of the State Council. In 1823 he was briefly a member of the Junta de Defensa .

When Ferdinand VII returned to absolutism in 1823, he lost his office, was captured and tortured. He was not allowed to approach more than 30 miles from the coast of Malaga and retired to Valladolid for private life. He was rehabilitated in March 1827, a few weeks before his death in April 1827.

Web links

• Biography (spanish)
• Short biography (Spanish)
• Entry in the Instituto de historia y cultura militar of the Spanish Army (Spanish)
• Entry at geneall.net
• Biography (English)