outstanding guerrilla leader during the Peninsular War, or Spanish War of Independence (1808–14), against the French; he later embraced the Liberal cause and played a role in various uprisings and in the First Carlist War (1833–39).

Espoz y Mina farmed a small family inheritance until 1808, when he joined the struggle against the French invaders. A skilled organizer and strategist, by 1810 he had become the leader of the guerrillas of Navarre, a northern province. In 1813–14 he served with distinction under the Duke of Wellington, the British commander.

After the absolutist Bourbon king Ferdinand VII was restored in 1814, Espoz y Mina led an unsuccessful Liberal coup at Pamplona and fled to France. After the successful revolution against Ferdinand in 1820, he returned and in 1823 led the Liberal army in Catalonia against the French, who had intervened to restore Ferdinand. Defeated, he escaped to England but returned again in 1830 for another abortive uprising. In 1834 after Ferdinand's death, Espoz y Mina took the field with mixed success in engagements with the Carlists, supporters of Ferdinand's brother Don Carlos.