Blas de Lezo - Biography

Biography

Born in Pasajes, Guipúzcoa, Spain, Blas de Lezo y Olavarrieta commenced his naval career in the French navy in 1701 as a midshipman. In 1704 he fought in the War of Spanish Succession as a crew member in the Franco-Spanish fleet which threw back the combined forces of Britain and Netherlands at the Battle of Vélez Málaga. There Lezo lost his left leg. He received a cannon-shot and he had his leg amputated under the knee without anesthesia and without saying a word or making a noise. Promoted to ensign, he was present at the battles off Peñíscola, Spain and Palermo in Sicily; his service in these and other actions resulted in his promotion to ship's lieutenant. The defense of Toulon cost him his left eye. He demonstrated a shrewd command in a number of convoys, deceiving the Royal Navy off east Spanish coast. In 1711 he served in the Navy under the orders of Andrés de Pez. In 1713 he was promoted to captain. In 1714 he lost his right arm in the Siege of Barcelona. Later in this campaign, at the head of one frigate, he captured eleven British ships and privateers, including the East Indiaman Stanhope.

At the conclusion of the War of Spanish Succession he was entrusted with the command of the flagship Lanfranco and with it the control and generalship of the South Seas Fleet on February 16, 1723. He destroyed and drove out British and Dutch pirates from the Pacific coasts of the Americas, and captured twelve ships. He was married in Peru in 1725.

In 1730 he returned to Spain and was promoted to chief of the Mediterranean Fleet; with this force he went to the Republic of Genoa to enforce the payment of two million pesos owed to Spain that had been retained in the Bank of San Jorge. Deeming the honour of the Spanish flag to be at stake, Blas de Lezo menaced the city with bombardment.

In 1732, on board the Santiago, he and José Carrillo de Albornoz commanded an expedition to Oran and Mers-el-Kébir with 54 ships and 30,000 men. In the Battle of Aïn-el-Turk they recaptured the cities lost to the Ottoman Empire in 1708. After the defeat, Bey Abu l-Hasan Ali I managed to reunite his troops and surrounded the city of Oran. Lezo returned to its aid with six ships and 5,000 men and managed to drive off the Algerian pirate after a hard fight. Dissatisfied with this he took his 60-gun flagship into the corsair's refuge of Mostaganem Bay, a bastion defended by two forts and 4,000 Moors. He inflicted heavy damage on the forts and town. In the following months he established a naval blockade, preventing the Algerians from receiving reinforcements from Istanbul, thereby gaining valuable time for the securing of Oran's defense, until an epidemic forced him to return to Cadiz.

In 1734 the king promoted him to Lieutenant General of the Navy. He returned to the Americas with the ships Fuerte and Conquistador in 1737 as General Commander of Cartagena de Indias, in modern-day Colombia. There, his greatly outnumbered forces defeated the British admiral Edward Vernon in the Battle of Cartagena de Indias (1741). The battle proved a turning point in the War of Jenkins' Ear. The complex series of ship to ship skirmishes, sieges and land battles against overwhelming forces lasted sixty-seven days. It was de Lezo's finest victory.

The defeat of the British invasion force assured the preservation of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. Blas de Lezo, suffering from a wound to his one remaining arm, died at Cartagena de Indias shortly after the victory. His burial site remains lost to history.