On June 29, 1915, amidst a chaotic members' assembly, FC Barcelona elected a new president. The reason for the disarray at that meeting lay in a maneuver by the opposition to boycott the appointment of the then-interim president, Army Captain Joaquín Peris de Vargas, the clear favorite to win the vote. Following orders from the Captain General of Catalonia, who had received a mysterious letter from the opposition, Peris withdrew from the election, much to everyone's astonishment. The beneficiary of this last-minute move was Rafael Llopart Vidaud, a former board member and a native of Cuba—like Peris—who would become the new president. Llopart's birth in the Antilles and his second French surname were side effects of the adventure his father, Rafael Llopart Ferret, had embarked upon many years earlier.