After the Battle of Chinchilla, Salmerón was able to re-establish republican control in much of southern Spain under the command of General Arsenio Martínez Campos. By August 12, all other independent cantons had dissolved and the remaining intransigent rebels in the region fell back to the defensible Cartagena where the canton became commonly known as the Canton of Cartagena. In mid-August, the republican army encircled Cartagena and began the , but the cantonal forces retained their naval fleet and were initially able to repel republican advances by sea. On September 7, Salmerón was replaced by the more conservative Emilio Castelar y Ripoll as President of the Executive Power. Pressured by the cantonal rebellion in the south and a monarchist Carlist war in the north, Castelar was granted emergency executive powers by the Cortes to bring all of Spain back into the First Republic's control.