Francisco Ballesteros

Who was Francisco Ballesteros?

Francisco Ballesteros, emerged as a career Spanish General during the Peninsular War.

Ballasteros served against the First French Republic in the 1793 War of the Pyrenees. He was dismissed from his post for lack of service in 1804 until Prime Minister Godoy rehabilitated him and assigned him to customs in Asturias.

Following the French invasion of 1808, Ballasteros took command of a regiment from the Junta General del Principado de Asturias and attached himself to the Army of Galicia under Blake and Castaños. After Napoleon's defeat of the Spanish popular armies and the subsequent French invasion of Andalusia, Ballasteros carried on operations against Marshal Soult in the south of Spain. With Blake and Zayas, he commanded the Spanish divisions that resisted every blow at the Battle of Albuera. His forces liberated Málaga in August 1812.

On October 12, 1812, unwilling to accept a foreigner as supreme commander of the Spanish Army, Ballasteros mutinied and was imprisoned in Ceuta, on the North African coast.