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Thomás O´Ryan y Vázquez (Madrid 1821 - 1902). Spanish Military Lieutenant General and Minister of War of Irish descent. Professor at the Guadalajara Military School of Engineers. He fought in 1848 against the Spanish Revolution.

[edit] Military career

He also fought afterwards in Cuba, aged around 30, participating in the defeat of the second Intent of Maritime Invasion of Venezuelian filibuster, slavist, adventurer and Freemason Narciso López, (1797 - executed 1851), who had been helped with exiles, mercenaries and money by United States Governor John Quitman of Mississippi, (1797 - 1858), former Senator John Henderson of Mississipi , (1797 - 1857) and the editor of the New Orleans Delta, Laurence Sigur, contravening the Spain - USA neutrality conventions operative since 1818. Quitman, Henderson and others were judged by the U.S.A. Tribunals but were finally acquitted.

He was a Military Attaché, 1855, as a Lieutenant Colonel, aged 34, invited by the General Headquarters of the French - English Army at the War of Crimea against Russia, together with his assistant Lieutenant of the Military Engineers Corp, Andres Villalon Hechebarria, deceased in 1885 as a Brigadier of the Spanish Army, who participated in Military Campaigns in Africa, Mexico and the Philippine Islands.

They wrote in Spanish a most interesting description of the Crimean War in 3 volumes, namely : Memorias sobre el viaje militar a La Crimea, presentada por los oficiales del Cuerpo de Ingenieros nombrados en 1855 para seguir y estudiar las operaciones de la Guerra entre Rusia y las potencias occidentales de Francia e Inglaterra auxiliando a la Turquía. Madrid, Imprenta Memorial Engineers (Reports on the journey to The Crimea military, by officers of the Corps of Engineers appointed in 1855 to monitor and study the operations of the War between Russia and Western powers France and England, helping to Turkey.).

O´Ryan wrote also in Spanish, alone, Guerra de Oriente (1854 a 1856). Conferencias dadas en el Centro del Ejército y de la Armada by General Don Tomás O´Ryan y Vázquez (East War (1854 to 1856). Lectures given at the Army and Navy.). Madrid, Imprenta Memorial Engineers (1886).

He published in 1856, in vol. 11, at the Imprenta Memorial Engineers, (Madrid), a 360 pages treatise with 36 deployable designs translation of the German language of the Austrian Julius von Wurmb Tratado de Arquitectura Militar (Treatise on Military Architecture).

In 1859 he was commissioned as a Colonel to witness the Italian War.

He wrote also some treatises on War Engineering. He was a Governor of Melilla, (1864 - 1866) He was a Personal Aide of King Alfonso XII of Spain, (1857 - King under a coup détat in 1875 - 1885), Minister of War under the Cabinet of Engineer Praxedes Mateo Sagasta, (1825 - 1903), and General Director of the Infantry Corps.

He received the Legion d´Honneur medal in France, the Portuguese medal of the "Concepcion de Villaviciosa", the medals of "San Maurizio" and "San Lazaro" in Italy and the one of "Medjidié" from Turkey.

[edit] References

• Sanz Guitian, Pablo (1995) Viajeros españoles en Rusia. Madrid: Compañia Literaria ISBN 84-8213-018-8. 473 pages, in Spanish.