This locality constitutes an intermediate step in the access to the heart of the Carlist Maestrazgo. The local authorities strove to maintain loyalty to the queen’s rule. At the same time, the existence of large pine forests in the municipality offered shelter to the main Carlist leaders, such as Carnicer, Quílez, Montañés, El Serrador, Forcadell and Cabrera, throughout the war.

For their part, the liberal generals always counted on Fortanete for the assault of Cantavieja, hence its inhabitants came to see in its streets Elizabethan officers of the renown of Espartero, O’Donnell, or the Marquis de las Amarillas.