Diego de Cañas y Portocarrero, Duke del Parque
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Diego Vicente Cañas y Portocarrero (also given in contemporary and later references as Vicente María Cañas y Portocarrero) was a Spanish Army officer who held the rank of Lieutenant general and commanded large Spanish formations in the Peninsular War. He was born in 1755 and succeeded to the dukedom as Duke del Parque (styled in Spanish usage as duque del Parque).
By early 1808 he was already a senior officer at court, serving as a captain in the Real Cuerpo de Guardias de Corps and as a royal chamber gentleman (gentilhombre de cámara) to King Charles IV. In the political crisis surrounding the fall of Manuel Godoy and the transfer of the crown from Charles IV to Ferdinand VII, he was part of the circle around the Prince of Asturias (Ferdinand). He went to Bayonne in 1808 during the events that led to the abdications and the installation of Joseph Bonaparte as king. On 8 June 1808 at Bayonne he issued a printed address to Spaniards urging an end to the uprising. After the Spanish victory at Bailén (July 1808) altered the immediate balance, he changed alignment and joined the anti-French cause.
In March 1809 his field command brought him into contact with French forces in Extremadura. On 17 March 1809, at Mesas de Ibor (province of Cáceres), his troops were defeated in a sharp action by a French division under Jean François Leval.
In April 1809 he was appointed captain-general of Old Castile and given command of the Army of the Left (Ejército de la Izquierda). His best-known operations came in the autumn campaign of 1809 in and around Salamanca. On 18 October 1809, at the Battle of Tamames (near Salamanca), he commanded the Spanish army that defeated General of Division Jean Marchand’s French force. His army deployed on a ridge line above Tamames and repulsed repeated French attacks, regaining guns lost early in the fighting and forcing Marchand to retreat; the action is generally treated as a significant Spanish battlefield success of that year.
The following month his forces again engaged François Étienne de Kellermann. On 23 November 1809, at El Carpio (near Medina del Campo, Valladolid), del Parque’s army fought and won the Battle of Carpio, compelling the French to abandon the town after hard fighting.
His campaign then ended in a Major reverse. On 28 November 1809, at Alba de Tormes, Kellermann struck del Parque’s army while it was in the process of crossing the Tormes River. Kellermann’s cavalry attacked before Marchand’s infantry arrived in full strength, and the Spanish were routed on the near bank with heavy losses; del Parque’s army retreated into the mountains for the winter.
In February 1810, when overall command of the Army of the Left reverted to the Marquis of La Romana, del Parque was removed from that field command and appointed governor of the Canary Islands. In 1812 he was again given a Major wartime appointment, receiving command of the Army of Castile.
He lived into the post-Napoleonic period and died on 12 March 1824.
Sources
XX (Cav.) 09 Medellin, Tamames (W), L; XXX 09 Alba de Tormes (L); XXXX (30000 – the Army of the Left) 09 (replaced Ballesteros) - Alba (L)