Arsenio Linares y Pombo (1848-1914) was a Spanish Army general who served as Minister of War of Spain from 18 October 1900 to 6 March 1901 (succeeding Marcelo Azcarraga Palmero and preceding Valeriano Weyler), from 6 December 1902 to 20 July 1903 (succeeding Weyler and preceding Vicente Martitegui), from 5 December 1903 to 16 December 1904 (succeeding Martitegui and preceding Cesar del Villar y Villate), and from 1 March to 21 October 1909 (succeeding Fernando Primo de Rivera and preceding Agustin de Luque y Coca).
Biography[]
Arsenio Linares y Pombo was born in Valencia, Spain in 1848, and he was commissioner into the Spanish Army in 1868 as a lieutenant. He served in Cuba during the Ten Years' War and the Little War, in the Third Carlist War (during which he put down Basque separatist uprisings), was stationed in Philippine and Melilla, and later returned to Cuba. He was passionately loyal to King Alfonso XIII of Spain and was an avowed anti-Semite, white supremacist, and reactionary who believed that democracy was a "flawed idea". During the Spanish-American War, he commanded the Spanish army in Santiago at the Battle of San Juan Hill, after which he wrote to his commander, "The situation is fatal; surrender inevitable; we are only prolonging the agony; the sacrifice is useless..." He went on to serve as Minister of War several times during the 1900s and became a Senator for Life in 1900. In 1909, he called up Catalan troops to be sent to Morocco, resulting in the Tragic Week. He died in Madrid in 1914.