Tomás de Zumalacárregui e Imaz (Basque: Tomas Zumalakarregi Imatz; 29 December 1788 – 24 June 1835), known among his troops as "Uncle Tomás", was a Spanish Basque officer who lead the Carlist faction as Captain general of the Army during the First Carlist War. He was occasionally nicknamed the "Wolf of the Amezcoas", making reference to his famous military victory in the region of Navarre.
Biography[]
Zumalacárregui was born in Ormaiztegi in Gipuzkoa, a Basque province in Spain, on 29 December 1788. His father, Francisco Antonio de Zumalacárregui Muxica, was a lawyer who possessed some property, and the son was articled to a solicitor. His mother was Maria Ana Imaz Altolaguirre.
When the Peninsular War began with a French invasion of Spain in 1808 he enlisted in Zaragoza. He served in the 1808 First Siege of Zaragoza, at the Battle of Tudela, and during the 1809 Second Siege of Zaragoza until he was taken prisoner in a sortie. He succeeded in escaping and in reaching his family in Navarre. For a short time he served with Gaspar de Jáuregui, another Gipuzkoan known as "The Shepherd" (Basque: Artzaia), one of the guerrilla leaders, who later became a general in the regular army against which Zumalacarregui fought.
Zumalacárregui had no sympathy with the liberal principles which were spreading in Spain, and became noted as what was called a servil or strong Royalist. He became lieutenant-colonel in 1825 and colonel in 1829. In 1832 he was named military governor of Ferrol, Galicia. Before King Ferdinand VII died in 1833, Zumalacárregui was marked out as a natural supporter of the traditionalist party, which favoured the king's brother, Infante Carlos, Count of Molina.
The proclamation of the king's daughter Isabel as heiress was almost the occasion of an armed conflict between him and the naval authorities at Ferrol, who were partisans of the liberal and so-called "constitutional" cause. He was put on half pay by the new authorities and ordered to live under police observation at Pamplona in Navarre. When the Carlist uprising began on the death of Ferdinand VII, he is said to have held back because he knew that the first leaders would be politicians and talkers. He did not take the field until the Carlist cause appeared to be at a very low ebb, and until he had received a commission from Don Carlos as Commander-in-Chief in Navarre.
He escaped Pamplona on the night of 29 October 1833 and took the command next day in the Araquil Valley. At that time the Carlist forces comprised no more than a few hundred ill-armed and dispirited guerrilleros; in a few months Zumalacárregui had organized them into a regular army. Whether as a guerrilla leader, or as a general conducting regular war in the mountains, he proved unconquerable. He won the battles of Alsasua, Alegría de Álava, and Venta de Echavarri, for example, by employing guerrilla tactics.
By July 1834 he had made it safe for Don Carlos to join his headquarters. Zumalacárregui was by then strongly envied by the courtiers that surrounded the pretender, as well as by other military officers. Besides, Don Carlos was a somewhat naïve and easily suggestible man, and Zumalacárregui had therefore to drag behind him the whole weight of the distrust and intrigues of the court. Yet by the beginning of June 1835 he had made the Carlist cause triumphant to the north of the Ebro, and had formed an army of more than 30,000 men, of much better quality than the constitutional forces. He won the battle of Artaza (20–22 April 1835).
If Zumalacárregui had been allowed to follow his own plans, which were to concentrate his forces and march on Madrid, firstly seizing Logroño (La Rioja, Castile), he might well have put Don Carlos in possession of the capital. But the court was eager to obtain command of a seaport, because they thought this will facilitate the official recognition of Don Carlos as the legitimate heir to the Spanish Throne by other European courts. Thus, Zumalacárregui was ordered to besiege Bilbao. He obeyed reluctantly, and on 14 June 1835 was wounded in the calf by a musket shot, near the Basilica of Begoña. The general died on 24 June 1835.