As a lieutenant of the artillery, he participated in the
pronunciamiento of
Leopoldo O'Donnell in 1854. He was sent as observer to the
Crimean War and the
Second Italian War of Independence. In 1859 - 1860 he fought in the
Spanish-Moroccan War and reached the rank of
colonel. He joined the
Liberal Union Party and was elected as a deputy several times. Related to
General Serrano, he participated with him in the
Revolution of 1868 and the
Battle of Alcolea, in which the loyalists under
Manuel Pavía were defeated. López Dominguez was promoted to general. In 1871, he became
mariscal de campo and personal military advisor to King
Amadeo I of Spain. In 1873, he was appointed commander of the Army of the North against the Carlists in the
Third Carlist War, but in the same year, he was asked by
Emilio Castelar to lay siege to
Cartagena, where the
Cantonal Revolution had broken out. He had the city intensively bombarded and, on 12 January 1874, Cartagena was retaken. He then returned to the north and liberated
Bilbao, which was under siege by the Carlists. In 1874, under the new Serrano government, he became
captain general of Catalonia. In 1883, he was minister of war in the
Posada Herrera government and, between 1892 and 1895, in the
Sagasta government. During the
Second Melillan campaign, he became captain-general and was also the representative of Malaga in the Spanish senate, a chamber of which he became the president between 1905 and 1907. In July 1906, aged 77, he became prime minister of Spain with a government supported by
José Canalejas. In the first months, he was also minister of war. After a plot within his own party, led by
Segismundo Moret, he was forced to resign after five months. After his resignation, he retired from politics In 1908, he was given the
Toison de Oro, or
Order of the Golden Fleece. He died on 17 October 1911 in Madrid. == Sources ==