Toledo, once the capital of medieval Spain, is awash with historic buildings and sights. However, none, perhaps, is more imbued with significance for the recent history of Spain than the mighty Alcazar, the fortified bastion within the old city walls that dominates the town from its elevated position.
Built upon Roman foundations, the current structure was built in the C16, though so substantially rebuilt and repaired over the centuries that little of the original fabric remains. The appearance is more of a ducal palace than a serious fortification, the 60m by 60m cube is adorned with windows, fashioned and proportioned relative to the construction or rebuilding of the relevant façade. However, appearances can be deceptive and the sheer bulk and depth of the walls growing out of the base rock on which it is built and its position high on a rocky outcrop at the very top of the hill upon which Toledo stands have made it a formidable presence throughout history.
History came to the Alcazar in a big way in 1936 when, at the outbreak of the civil war, the local commander, General Moscato, retreated behind its walls with a handful of cadets (the Alcazar at the time was a military college), the local Guardia Civil, a number of armed Falangists, some 500 women and children and around 100 left-sympathizing hostages. They also had the foresight to take with them much of the contents of the Toledo Arms Factory.
Soon a column of Republican militia arrived from Madrid to take the town and lay siege to the Alcazar. For two months, the Republican forces tried to break the defences, first in a rather desultory manner and then more frantically with artillery, mines and starvation. Famously, General Moscato when threatened with the execution of his son if he did not surrender, bade his son to die with pride. The siege became a cause celebre for the Nationalist side and Franco, at the time just one of several “leaders” of the rebels, made the much-debated decision to divert the army column heading for Madrid to relieve the siege. Franco may have had his own reasons for this decision, not least the personal boost to his profile as the saviour of the Alcazar, but what it did allow was time for the desperate defenders of Madrid to form a coherent defence of the city (which never in fact fell to the Nationalists until the end of the war).
With the approach of the army column, many of the Republican militia fled, those that stayed were massacred by the approaching Nationalist forces, who then reaped a bloody revenge on the citizens of Toledo. Franco wasted no time in declaring himself the saviour of the Alcazar, film crews and reporters were invited to witness a staged meeting between Franco and Moscato the day after the lifting of the siege. Within days, Franco was declared Generalisimo, the undisputed leader of the Nationalist forces, and was to remain in total power until his death in 1975.
Today, the reconstructed Alcazar is home to the National Army Museum, Museo del Ejercito. The museum is modern, expansive and exhaustive in its collection and does a good job of exploring Spain’s complicated relationship with arms and conflict over its long history. www.museo.ejercito.es
