Juan Miguel de Vives y Feliu


Juan Miguel de Vives y Feliu or Joan Miquel Vives i Feliu was a Spanish general who commanded a division during the French Revolutionary Wars and briefly led an army in the Napoleonic Wars. He was described as a native of Girona. In 1794 he led a division against the French in the War of the Pyrenees. He fought at Boulou and the Black Mountain in the eastern Pyrenees. In 1796 he was posted to Cartagena and in 1799 he became Captain General of Mallorca.
Soon after the outbreak of the Peninsular War the Junta named him Captain General of Catalonia. In the summer and fall of 1808, de Vives was in charge of the blockade of Barcelona and its French Imperial garrison led by Guillaume Philibert Duhesme. He failed to take vigorous action against Barcelona and was defeated by a second column of French troops under Laurent Gouvion Saint-Cyr at Cardadeu and Molins de Rey in December. Replaced in army command by Theodor Reding, he was appointed to another post when he died at Ciudad Rodrigo.

Commentary

When writing about his Peninsular War service, historian David G. Chandler called Vives "an aged, overcautious, Anglophobic booby".