Juan Van Halen

Juan Van Halen y Sarti, (16 February 1788 – 8 November 1864), was a Spanish military officer. After fighting on the losing side in the Peninsular War, he was forced to flee to Spain after the war. Van Halen became a military adventurer throughout Europe, including an 18-month tenure as a colonel in the Russian Caucasus Dragoon Regiment, until his removal by Tsar Alexander I of Russia.

Early career
Van Halen was born in-Isla de León, Cadiz, into a family of Flemish sailing merchants who settled in Cadiz. In 1803, Halen left Cadiz as a Spanish Navy cadet on the frigate Anfitrite headed for La Habana, Cuba and Veracruz, Mexico. He entered the service of the French King of Spain, Joseph Bonaparte, in 1808. Van Halen accompanied Joseph during his refuge in France in 1813.

In 1814 Van Halen decided to change sides: he forged the signature of Marshal Louis-Gabriel Suchet in documents advising the French commanders of various fortresses to surrender because the war was over. Fooled by the trick, the French garrisons of Lleida, Mequinenza and Monzón marched out and laid down their arms. A total of 1,900 men surrendered. Only Louis Benoît Robert, commanding at Tortosa, was not fooled by the forged papers.

On his return to Spain in 1815, Captain Van Halen's activities during the Spanish War of Independence were investigated. He was imprisoned on 21 March 1817, first in Murcia and later in Madrid, because of his connections with a Masonic Lodge in Granada. He was also acquainted with General José María de Torrijos y Uriarte, who was later executed by a firing squad.

Adventurer
Escaping from prison, Van Halen traveled to Saint Petersburg, Russia around the beginning of 1819. He met various Russian dignitaries including Prince Pyotr Mikhailovich Volkonsky, close advisor to Tsar Alexander I and Chief of the General Staff from 1815 to 1823. Volkonsky resigned in 1824 after a conflict with War Minister Count Alexey Arakcheyev. Van Halen visited the Tsar's assistant, Prince Dmitriy Vladimirovich Golitsyn, who had fought bravely during the Napoleonic wars and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General, governing Moscow for 25 years.

He also visited the famous Spanish engineer Agustín de Betancourt, then Director and one of the founders of the First Engineering Academy School of Russia. Supported by Betancourt, who was trusted by other Russian military leaders, Van Halen was appointed colonel of the Caucasus Dragoon Regiment in Tblisi, Georgia.

He served under, among others, General Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov and Armenian Prince Valerian Madatov, participating in the conquest of Josereck on 21 June 1820, against the troops of Surghai Khan, replaced by Ashan Khan, in the region of Kazikoumik in Daghestan. For this he received the medal of the Russian Order of St. George. In 1854, Van Halen donated the tartar Yatagan long knife he had taken on 12 June 1820 to the Naval Museum of Madrid.



His liberal political convictions prompted the Tsar's secret police to inform the Tsar, who in December 1820 removed Van Halen from the Caucasus and put him on the Austrian frontier. In 1821 he returned to Spain in the middle of the Trienio Liberal (1820–1823), until the revolution was crushed by a European Kingdom Absolutist coalition (including Tsarist Russia). He then stayed for three years (1823–1826) at Matanzas, Cuba, also doing business, apparently, in the USA (New York and Philadelphia).

Feeling the call of the blood from his Flemish Catholic ancestors, in 1830, Van Halen went to fight against the Netherlands to participate in the creation of the new kingdom of Belgium.

In 1831, as a "Condottiere" in the 15th century Italian Style, he formed a military brigade of Belgian subjects to defend Portuguese Liberals from the prosecutions of absolutist King Miguel I of Portugal. This was funded by Cadiz businessman, banker and politician Juan Álvarez Mendizabal.

Before and after the war against the Netherlands, Van Halen took part in the First Carlist War in Catalunya under Generals José María Torrijos, Francisco Miláns del Bosch and Francisco Espoz y Mina.

Van Halen returned to Spain in February 1833, on the death of Absolutist King Fernando VII, but he would travel and stay briefly in 1835, 1837 and 1838 in Belgium and England.

Since he was very close to General Baldomero Espartero, Van Halen joined him in exile in England when Espartero fell from grace in 1843.

He returned to Madrid in 1854, receiving on November 30 the Great Cross of King Carlos III.

He married first Maria del Carmen Quiroga y Hermida in 1821. She died 14 February 1859. After her death, Van Halen married Clotilde Butler y Abrines, the daughter of a Spanish Navy Frigate Captain, who died after 1854.

Van Halen died in El Puerto de Santa María, Cadiz, Spain, at the age of 76.