Gabriel Mendizábal Yraeta

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.

[1] 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.

[2] In 1809, at the start of the Peninsular War, Mendizábal was promoted to mariscal de campo, a rank equivalent to major general.

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 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.