Gaspar de Vigodet (also called Gaspar de Bigodé) (1747–1834) was a Spanish military officer with French roots who served as last

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governme ...

Governor of Montevideo The office of Governor of Montevideo was created shortly after the Treaty of Madrid in 1750 by Ferdinand VI of Spain, with the objective of establishing more effective control of the ''Banda Oriental'' (left bank) area of the Río de la Plata, pr ...

Biography

De Vigodet participated in the

Great Siege of Gibraltar The Great Siege of Gibraltar was an unsuccessful attempt by Spain and France to capture Gibraltar from the British during the War of the American Revolution. It was the largest battle in the war by number of combatants. The American war had end ...

in 1783 and fought in the

War of the Pyrenees The War of the Pyrenees, also known as War of Roussillon or War of the Convention, was the Pyrenean front of the First Coalition's war against the First French Republic. It pitted Revolutionary France against the kingdoms of Spain and Portuga ...

in 1793, where he was promoted to ''Mariscal de campo''. He was in command of a division in the lost battles of Almonacid and Ocana (1809). By the end of 1811, he was made Governor of

Montevideo Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

, to stop the advance of the Independentist rebels forces of Río de la Plata. By October 1812 the entire region was under control of the rebels, except for the city of Montevideo itself, which was

besieged Besieged may refer to: * the state of being under siege * ''Besieged'' (film), a 1998 film by Bernardo Bertolucci {{disambiguation ...

. On December 31, Vigodet broke out of the city but was defeated in the

Battle of Cerrito The Battle of Cerrito (outskirts of Montevideo, 31 December 1812), was a battle for the War of Independence of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, between the royalist forces who had control of the city of Montevideo and the rebel forces of t ...

. Supplied from over the sea, the city still held out until May 17, 1814, when the naval victories of Admiral William Brown, cut off the supply route and the city faced starvation. By the end of June, Vigodet was forced to surrender Montevideo to General Carlos María de Alvear. The following years he stayed in

Río de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

, where he tried to take revenge on Alvear, who was also exiled to this city, due to political differences. In 1820 he returned to Spain where he became ''capitán general'' of Castille, and member of the Liberal Regency during the Trienio Liberal. When King

Ferdinand VII of Spain , house = Bourbon-Anjou , father = Charles IV of Spain , mother = Maria Luisa of Parma , birth_date = 14 October 1784 , birth_place = El Escorial, Spain , death_date = , death_place = Madrid, Spain , burial_plac ...

was restored in 1823, de Vigodet went into exile in France, from where he could only return in 1834, after the death of the King.

Biography

See also