The
Alcázar of Toledo is a stone fortification located in the highest part of
Toledo, SpainToledo is a municipality located in central Spain, 70 km south of Madrid. It is the capital of the province of Toledo and of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha...
. Once used as a Roman palace in the 3rd century, it was restored under
Alfonso VIAlfonso VI , nicknamed the Brave or the Valiant, was King of León from 1065, king of King of Castile and de facto King of Galicia from 1072, and self-proclaimed "Emperor of all Spain"...
and Alfonso X and renovated in 1535.
During the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
, Colonel
José Moscardó ItuarteGeneral José Moscardó Ituarte was the military Governor of Toledo Province during the Spanish Civil War...
held the building against overwhelming
Spanish RepublicanThe Second Spanish Republic was the system of government in Spain between April 14, 1931, when King Alfonso XIII left the country following local and municipal elections in which republican candidates won the majority of votes in urban areas and April 1, 1939, when the last of the Republican ...
forces in the
Siege of the AlcázarThe Siege of the Alcázar was a highly symbolic Nationalist victory in Toledo in the opening stages of the Spanish Civil War. The Alcázar of Toledo was held by a variety of military forces in favor of the Nationalist uprising...
. The incident became a central piece of Spanish Nationalist lore, especially the story of Moscardó's son Luis.
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The
Alcázar of Toledo is a stone fortification located in the highest part of
Toledo, SpainToledo is a municipality located in central Spain, 70 km south of Madrid. It is the capital of the province of Toledo and of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha...
. Once used as a Roman palace in the 3rd century, it was restored under
Alfonso VIAlfonso VI , nicknamed the Brave or the Valiant, was King of León from 1065, king of King of Castile and de facto King of Galicia from 1072, and self-proclaimed "Emperor of all Spain"...
and Alfonso X and renovated in 1535.
Spanish Civil War
During the
Spanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña...
, Colonel
José Moscardó ItuarteGeneral José Moscardó Ituarte was the military Governor of Toledo Province during the Spanish Civil War...
held the building against overwhelming
Spanish RepublicanThe Second Spanish Republic was the system of government in Spain between April 14, 1931, when King Alfonso XIII left the country following local and municipal elections in which republican candidates won the majority of votes in urban areas and April 1, 1939, when the last of the Republican ...
forces in the
Siege of the AlcázarThe Siege of the Alcázar was a highly symbolic Nationalist victory in Toledo in the opening stages of the Spanish Civil War. The Alcázar of Toledo was held by a variety of military forces in favor of the Nationalist uprising...
. The incident became a central piece of Spanish Nationalist lore, especially the story of Moscardó's son Luis. The Republicans took 16-year old Luis hostage, and demanded that the Alcázar be surrendered or they would kill him. Luis told his father, "Surrender or they will shoot me." His father replied, "Then commend your soul to God, shout 'Viva Cristo Rey' and die like a hero."
Moscardó refused to surrender. Contemporary reports indicated that the republicans then executed Moscardó's son. Other historians have reported that Luis was not in fact shot until a month later "in reprisal for an air raid." The dramatic story also camouflages the fact that the fate of a number of male hostages, mainly from the Guardia Civil, taken into the Alcázar at the beginning of the siege is unclear. Some sources say the men "were never heard of again." However at least one journalist who visited the Alcázar in the immediate aftermath of its liberation saw a number of prisoners chained to a railing in a cellar.
The events of the Spanish Civil War at the Alcázar made the structure a symbol for Spanish Nationalism and inspired the naming of
El AlcázarEl Alcázar was a Spanish far-right newspaper founded in 1936 . The paper was founded as the principal nationalist mouthpiece during the Siege of the Alcázar in homage to the defenders of the Alcázar of Toledo ....
, a far-right newspaper that began during the civil war and ended during the
Spanish transition to democracyThe Spanish transition to democracy was the era when Spain moved from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco to a liberal democratic state. The transition is usually said to have begun with Franco’s death on November 20, 1975, while its completion has been variously said to be marked by the Spanish...
as the mouthpiece for
BúnkerThe term búnker refers to a far-right faction during the Spanish transition to democracy. The group of hardline francoists opposed political and social reform; the group's steadfast refusal to compromise led to the name of "bunker." Under the presidency of Carlos Arias Navarro, búnker and its...
, a faction of francoists who opposed reform after
Francisco FrancoFrancisco Franco Bahamonde, commonly known as Francisco Franco , or simply Franco, was a military general and dictator of Spain from October 1936, and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in 1975...
's death.
By the end of the siege, the building had been severely damaged. After the war, it was rebuilt and now houses the
Castilla-La Mancha Regional Library ("Biblioteca Autonómica") and the Museum of the Army ("Museo del Ejército").
Footnotes
- Original article translated from the Spanish Wikipedia. Alcázar de Toledo
- Hugh Thomas
Hugh Thomas may refer to:* Hugh Thomas , British historian and life peer* Hugh Thomas * Hugh Evan-Thomas , World War I admiral* Huw Thomas , Welsh broadcaster, barrister and Liberal politician...
, The Spanish Civil War, 4th Rev. Ed. 2001.
- Antony Beevor
Antony James Beevor is a British historian, educated at Winchester College and Sandhurst. He studied under the famous historian of World War II, John Keegan. Beevor is a former officer with the 11th Hussars who served in England and Germany for 5 years before resigning his commission...
, The Battle for Spain, 2006.
- Cecil Eby, The Siege Of The Alcázar, 1965