Carlos Asensio Cabanillas
Carlos Asensio Cabanillas was a Spanish soldier and statesman who served during the Spanish Civil War, rising in command from Colonel to General in Franco's Army of Africa.
When Franco's military conspiracy flared into revolt in July 1936, Asensio Cabanillas and Colonel Sáenz de Buruaga easily secured Tetuan for the rebels. In the first month of the war his column, fighting alongside Juan Yagüe's troops, made an impressive forced march from Seville to Madrid, storming and taking the cities of Badajoz, Toledo, and Talavera. His bloody advance into the University City during the Siege of Madrid would mark the farthest Nationalist advance against the city until the end of the war. At the Jarama his column spearheaded the attack across the river but was stalled thereafter by the International Brigades.
After the war Franco promoted Asensio Cabanillas to Lieutenant General. He served on the Spanish High Commission in Morocco, and later as Minister of War and Captain General of the Balearic Islands from 1945 to 1948.
Asensio Cabanillas died in 1969.
