Calle del General Pintos

Guillermo Pintos Ledesma (1856-1909) entered the Infantry Academy at sixteen and was hardened in the Third Carlist War, in Cuba and in Mindanao before commanding, as a brigadier general, a brigade based in Madrid. His name was tied forever to a ravine. In July 1909, during the second Melilla campaign, Pintos advanced with his battalions through a narrow gorge of the Gurugú called the Barranco del Lobo. The Rif tribes feigned retreat and drew the column toward the bottom; when the Spanish crowded into the pass, they rose up from the ridges and fired. On 27 July a bullet struck the general in the head. The day left hundreds of casualties and became one of the army’s most notorious reverses in Africa. In this corner of Almenara, his surname lines up with the roll of soldiers and North African campaigns that christened the first streets of Tetuán de las Victorias.