Pedro Sarsfield y Waters

Pedro Sarsfield y Waters, 1st Count Sarsfield (1781–1837), was a Spanish general of Irish descent. He is considered one of the best Spanish tacticians among his generation.

Sarsfield was a descendant of Patrick Sarsfield, a celebrated Jacobite general,

Early career Having enlisted as a cadet in the Ultonia Infantry Regiment in 1791, he formed part of the garrison at Ceuta during the Siege of Ceuta (1790–1791), remaining there until the following year. That August, during the Second siege of Girona, his column of 200 men was attacked by French troops near the Capuchins Fort,

Post-war career

In 1819, he was second-in-command to Enrique O'Donnell, Conde de La Bisbal of the Ejército de Ultramar, the expeditionary force that was being prepared to put down the Spanish American wars of independence and was instrumental to foiling a liberal plot in 1819.

That year he was rewarded with promotion to Lieutenant General. But when the liberals took power the next year in the Trienio Liberal, he was banished to the Balearic Islands. He opposed the French intervention to restore Ferdinand, known as the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis. The 1830s found him leading the liberal army of Navarre during the First Carlist War. He was killed by mutineers at Pamplona in 1837, the same year he led his troops at the Battle of Oriamendi.