Carlos Masquelet Lacaci

Carlos Masquelet Lacaci (14 July 1871 – 14 September 1948) was a Spanish military officer. During the Second Spanish Republic, he held various positions, including Chief of the Central General Staff of the Army and Minister of War on two mandates. He played a significant role during the Spanish Civil War, designing a defensive front based on fortifications, distributed in four rings, which were built for the Siege of Madrid.

Biography Born in Ferrol in 1871,he entered the General Military Academy of Toledo in 1896. He participated in the Rif War Moroccan campaigns. A military officer from the Corps of Engineers, he was a Freemason and of republican-liberal ideology.

During the Dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, Masquelet worked as a professor at the Academy of Engineers and was the author of the construction project for the new Ferrol Naval Base, whose works he personally directed in the 1920s.

Promoted to the position of army general in 1930, upon the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, Masquelet was appointed Chief of the Central General Staff by the President of the Council of Ministers, Manuel Azaña, and later Minister of War in the government headed by Alejandro Lerroux, between April 3 and May 6, 1935. On August 1, 1935, he was appointed Military Commander of the Balearic Islands.

Despite being Chief of the Central General Staff, he played no role during the Asturian miners' strike due to the distrust that a sincere republican like Masquelet inspired in the radical-conservative government. Instead, the Minister of War, Diego Hidalgo, authorized General Francisco Franco to take command of the Central General Staff. With the electoral victory of the Popular Front in the 1936 Spanish general election, Masquelet once again occupied the ministerial portfolio of war in the governments successively presided over by Manuel Azaña and Augusto Barcia Trelles, between 19 February and 13 May 1936.

Once the Spanish Civil War, Masquelet remained loyal to the Republic. Until then, he had been head of the Military Household of the President of the Republic. He played a prominent role in the fortification of Madrid through the design of a defensive front based on fortifications, distributed in four rings, which were built for the defense of Madrid (November 1936). On July 19, 1937, he was placed on reserve status, although after the restructuring of the Spanish Republican Army in December, he was appointed head of the new Fortifications Commission.

At the end of the conflict he went into exile in France, although years later he returned to Spain, where he died in 1948.

Awards Royal and Military Order of Saint Hermenegild