militia women that Mizzian personally interrogated, after which he handed them over to his men. When Whitaker expressed his concern about the fate of the girls he "attended horrified in helpless anger" when Meziane stated that the two teenage women "will not live more than four hours" once at the hands of his troops. After the Army of Africa commanded by Francisco Franco took over Toledo on 27 September 1936, Mizzian went with his troops to the military hospital and killed over 200 wounded Republican militia men in their beds, allegedly as a revenge for the Siege of the Alcazar. The proverbial cruelty and reckless behaviour of the Regulares troops were not random, but were part of a calculated plan of the Francoist military machine to allow these shock troops to spread fear among Republicans in order to demoralize them. In Madrid Mizzian was wounded in combat during the Battle of Ciudad Universitaria. After recovery he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and participated in the Siege of Oviedo at the head of the Galician column. Later in the Civil War, in 1938, he was promoted to Colonel and was named Commander of the First Navarra Division (1ª División de Navarra) of the Francoist army, at the head of which he took part in the Battle of the Ebro, breaking the deadlock of the battle at the Serra de Cavalls in October 1938, taking 19 fortified enemy positions, killing 1,500 republican troops and taking 1,000 prisoners. Shortly thereafter El Mizzian moved on with his troops to spearhead the Catalonia Offensive. After the defeat of the defeat of the Spanish Republic, Franco named Mizzian Commander General of Ceuta in the North African coast. In 1953, he was promoted to Lieutenant General and was sent to Galicia, in north-western Spain, as Captain General of the VIII Military Region. In 1955, he was named Governor General of the Canary Islands in what would be his last post in the Spanish Armed Forces. In Morocco In 1956, Morocco became an independent nation, and King Mohammed V called on Mizzian to take charge of the reorganisation of the new Royal Moroccan Army. Mizzian formally asked for Franco to relieve him from his duties in the Spanish Army, and the request was duly granted on 22 March 1957. In 1964, Mizzian was named Morocco's Minister of Defence, a post that he held for two years, when he