José Miaja
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
José Miaja Menant (Oviedo, Asturias, 1878 - Mexico, January 14, 1958) was a Spanish Army Officer in the Second Spanish Republic.
He entered the Infantry Academy at Toledo in 1896. His first post was in Asturias. Miaja was later transferred to Melilla where he served in the Moroccan War of 1900, achieving the rank of major [comandante] in 1911, and rising to General in 1932. Despite Miaja's membership in the right-wing Unión Militar Española in 1935 conservative minister of War,José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones, sent him to Lérida, a relatively obscure posting far from that capital, an indication that he didn't have the full confidence of the government.
At the start of the military rebellion that lead to the Spanish Civil War, he was stationed in Madrid, remaining loyal to the republican government. In November 1936 he was named commander of the Junta de Defensa (Defense Council) for Madrid, when the government evacuated the capital before the imminent arrival of Nationalist troops. With Vicente Rojo Lluch as chief-of-staff, he managed to halt the Nationalists at the river Manzanares at the Battle of Madrid.
As commander of the Central Zone, he directed the battles of Guadalajara and Brunete. He later supported the rebellion lead by Segismundo Casado against the government in March 1939, heading the Council of National Defense. After the end of the Civil War he went to Gandia, where he boarded an English ship that took him into exile, first to Algeria and France, then to Mexico, where he died on January 14, 1958.
