The Pete Quiñones Show - Pete Reads 'The Last Crusade' by Warren H Carroll Part 4
Episode Date: July 6, 202440 MinutesPG-13Pete begins a reading of Warren H. Carroll's 1996 book, "The Last Crusade: 1936." In this episode, he covers more of the July chapter; the Summer of 1936.Antelope Hill - Promo code "pet...eq" for 5% off - https://antelopehillpublishing.com/FoxnSons Coffee - Promo code "peter" for 18% off - https://www.foxnsons.com/The Last CrusadePete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'VIP Summit 3-Truth To Freedom - Autonomy w/ Richard GroveSupport Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.
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I want to welcome everyone back to part four of my reading of The Last Crusade by Warren Carroll.
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let's get into reading this last part uh did a number
on me, so we'll pick up from where we left off. Still in July. Wars. Wars here.
The whole of Navarro was secured for the rising this day, and by four days later, the 23rd,
there were 20,000 Navaris, Ricketts, in service. General Molo was able to begin sending them
out immediately to assist the rising in other areas. 500 went to help take La Grosio to the east. It's
submitted with almost no resistance, somewhat to the disappointment of the eager, younger
Rickettis, who now shouted out their desire to march immediately to Madrid.
1,200 Ricketts called the terseo of Maria della Nievas, named for the wife of Alfonso
Carlos, went to Zaragoza to help General Miguel Cabaneas gain and hold that city,
despite its substantial number of anarchists.
A still larger number was sent to the small but populous and industrialized Basque provinces of Askaya
and Gipuscoa, whose people were predisposed by strong Basque separatist sentiment
to oppose military rule despite being mostly good Catholics.
Parentheses, the first, the third Basque province, Alava, had been secured by the 3,000,
Riketes on July 19th. In Burgos, capital of Old Castile, Riquetes gathered on the night of July
18th through 19th under pictures of the Carlist Kings in the presence of an 80-year-old veteran
of the Third Carlist War, who had assembled with the Riquete in Burgos in 1872.
They prayed the rosary together and marched out the next morning to help Colonel Marcellino
Gavilan take the city with virtually no resistance.
Burgos, the ancient capital of Castile, was soon to become the capital of nationalists
Spain.
Given the tremendous news far away in Vienna, old Alfonso Carlos gave written confirmation
of all the actions which Prince Javier and Falconde had taken in his name,
patrolling the streets of Regonio, July 21st, the Riquetes of the little town of
Mendi Goria sang a crusader's song.
Always Nevada has been a faithful defender of Jesus Christ our king.
For him now we go, Navaros, to defend his holy law, his holy law.
For Christ the king, our Redeemer, the boys of Navarra, brave champions, until victory or death, swear to fight the good fight.
In the mountainous province of Asturius, where a leftist revolution against the conservative
Republican government had occurred in 1934, two heroic officers took their stand on July 19th
at immense risk. Colonel Antonio Aranda, military commander at Oviedo, the capital of Asturias,
pretended to uphold the republic just long enough to send armed revolutionary mine workers,
marching away from the city, then called upon his soldiers and people to put an end once
and for all to this era of innumerable crimes perpetrated under cover of a love for democracy.
and the Republic. Colonel Antonio Pinilla Piniya, commanding the Samankas barracks at the Asturian
Port City of Guillaume, kept the loyalty of almost all his 3,350 men, rank and file, as well as officers,
as he assembled them at barracks surrounded by armed, shouting, and blaspheming revolutionaries.
Totally isolated, he and his men were to hold the barracks against enormous odds for almost a month.
In the south of Spain, on that bloody day, the rising gained Cordova in inland north of Sevilla,
but lost the port of Malaga.
The destroyer Churuka in the Straits of Gibraltar, whose officers had supported the rising,
was seized by its crew, as were the battleship Jaime I and the cruiser's Libertad and Miguel de Cervantes,
sent by the governments to augment the blockade of the straits.
Every officer on the Savantes was killed by the sailors, though the mutineers made poor shiphandlers and navigators.
Franco dared not risk his Moroccan veterans on narrow seas with six now hostile ships in the offing.
Once again, he must look to the air.
But Spain had relatively few aircrafts and fewer still in Morocco or any of the areas controlled by the rising.
At this moment, Franco controlled a grand total of five.
With the aid of General Alfredo Kandalan, the monarchist founder of the Spanish Air Force,
who was an active supporter of the Rising, Franco put them immediately into serving airlifting troops from Morocco.
But even with each aircraft making four trips a day, he could only bring about 400 soldiers per day across the Straits of Gibraltar.
He had to get help from outside to transport the greater part of the Army of Africa by air.
France, like Spain, had a popular front government, if not quite so revolutionary,
headed by Leon Bloom.
It would certainly not help the Spanish officers rising
and might well help the government in Madrid.
The English government of cautious Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin,
who distrusted all foreigners,
would certainly not help him,
nor would the United States still strongly isolationist.
Well, that's one way to put what the United States was in 1936,
but okay.
There's so much rugby on.
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Of the advanced industrial nations possessing significant numbers of aircraft, only Germany and Italy, ruled by Hitler and Mussolini respectively, might help.
Unavoidable necessity required Franco to turn to them. He never liked or trusted either man, but Franco could not disdain help from any nation because of the evil of its leaders.
Americans who sanctimoniously condemn him for not doing so forget how eagerly the United States during World War II courted for help against Japan as well as Germany, the hideous Soviet communist regime,
of Stalin, who casually told Franklin Roosevelt at Yalta how he had liquidated 10 million
Koolocks. In the first day of the airlift across the Straits of Gibraltar, July 19th,
just 35 men of the Spanish Foreign Legion were flown across to Algeciras, hard by the
Rock of Gibraltar. In the manner of Kieppo-Deano, they multiplied themselves by hundreds
folds, commandeering motor vehicles and rushing about the city, proclaiming the triumph of the new
regime. Rumor magnified their handful into an army, and Algrisiras was firmly controlled by
nightfall. The titanic events of July 19th that thoroughly discredited Martinez-Badio's day-old
government, while the revolutionaries in the streets demanded, with increasing ferocity,
that he give them arms. This, at least, Martinez-Badio's firmly resolved to do. In parentheses.
Once all the revolutionaries were armed, no government of the Republic could possibly stand against them, even if they wish to do so.
Shortly after midnight of the 20th, the flailing azania, now president of Spain and name only, decided to replace Martinez-Badio with Jose Garil, Gidal, the Navy minister who, by his quick response and effective use of the radio, had prevented most of Spain's warships from joining the rising.
Few ministerial changes were made, but hardly anyone cared about the composition of a cabinet amid the erupting chaos.
The only important decision Giral made as Prime Minister was his first.
At dawn of the 20th, he approved distribution of arms to the people throughout Republican Spain.
In Madrid, trucks were loaded at the arsenals with 65,000 rifles and driven to the headquarters of Largo Caballero's militant socialist labor union, UGT, and the anarchist union,
But then it was discovered that most of the rifles, 60,000 or the 65,000, were not equipped with bolts necessary to fire them.
They were held at the Montanjana barracks commanded by officers who supported the rising.
Madrid represented the greatest failure of Mola's planning for the military coup.
He had given the responsibility of organizing it there to a trusted associate, Colonel Valentin Galarza.
Galarsa had obtained the consent of General Rafael Villegas to act as its leader in Madrid,
but when Galarsa was arrested several days before it was scheduled to occur,
Villegas backed out.
He was belatedly replaced by General Joaquin von Hul, one of the original conspirators
who had been Undersecretary of War in the Leroux government.
Von Hul did not even reach the Montana barracks until the afternoon of the 19th,
whereupon he presented the case for the rising to the officers.
Most of them joined him, but when they attempted to leave their men out of the barracks,
they found themselves surrounded by a huge and hostile crowd,
many of whom were already armed with weapons collected earlier by the revolutionary unions.
With sporadic firing by both sides, the officers and their troops remained in the barracks.
The next morning an even larger crowd surrounded the barracks,
including most of those carrying the 5,000 rifles issued by the government, which did have bolts.
The revolutionaries had acquired three cannons and bombarded the barracks with them.
Some aircraft flew from nearby Gatofa Air Base to bomb it.
Fahunhu signaled for help to other barracks, but they were similarly beset.
In mid-morning Fahul and the commandant of the Montanagena barracks, Colonel Francisco Seda, were wounded.
There was confusion of command.
Someone waved a white flag from a window in the barracks,
while others fired machine guns into the crowd, infuriating it still more.
By no means all the troops in the barracks wanted to fight.
Just before noon, the attackers broke down the barricaded door of the barracks.
A brutal massacre followed.
One giant-sized revolutionary flung one officer after another
from the top floor to their death on the stone-flagged courtyard below.
wounded Colonel Sarah was shot in his bed.
The store of rifle bolts was found.
The other barracks were quickly taken, and Madrid belonged to the revolution.
Execution of officers who survived the massacre began that evening.
The victorious killers marched through the Puerta del Sol in the heart of Madrid,
carrying pictures of Lenin and Largo Caballero.
It's an awesome republic.
Awesome.
Three days later, the Giro, government,
and Madrid, in effect, recognized their authority by establishing people's courts consisting of
three judges, a president, a prosecuting attorney, and 14 jurymen appointed by the political and trade
union organizations. Lovely. In Barcelona, where the rising had already failed in the city,
anarchist led by Francisco Escaso and Buenaventura Derruti stormed its last bastion, the Ataranza's
barracks in the early after.
afternoon of the 20th after a hard-fought battle which left 500 dead and 3,000 wounded.
Stained with blood dripping with sweat, sitting with their rifles between their knees,
Derruti and two companions met with Luis Campanis, who claimed to be president of Catalonia.
Companies cared little for law and less for faith, but he was not an ultimate revolutionary
or mindless killer. Later, he was to save the life of Cardinal Archbishop of Tarragona
from the anarchists, and even to try to save the life of John.
General Gauded, but he knew who ruled Catalonia now. He told Duruti, you have one and everything
is in your power. If you do not need me, if you did not want me as president, say so now, and I shall
become just another soldier in the anti-fascist struggle. If, on the other hand, you believe me when
I say that I shall yield this post to, that I shall yield this post to victorious fascism, only
when I am dead, then perhaps with my party comrades, my name and my prestige, I can be of use
to you.
The anarchists allowed companies to remain as title, but set up an anti-fascist militias committee,
which immediately became the only real government in Catalonia.
Committee member, Jamie Maravitwitzels, of the less revolutionary Esqueda party,
recalled how the anarchists came to the meeting wearing bandoliers, stuffed full of cartridges,
and laid their pistols or submachine guns out in front of them.
By the table, they'd shout, this is how things are going to be done now.
You're a lot of petty bourgeois trying to hold back the revolution.
When companies approached the committee to protest the indiscriminate killing of monks and nuns and their relatives,
Derruti said, tell companies not to come here again.
If he does, I'll fill him full of bullets.
In the morning of the 21st, three Jesuit priests and a brother were arrested at a Jesuit retreat house in the Bona Nova district of Barcelona,
after a search of their house for arms had found none.
They were brought to Anarchus headquarters, where the crowd shouted,
We're going to kill you because you are a priest, not one of you will be left.
Taken to a hill outside the city, the martyrs declared that they died for Christ and forgave their killers,
giving each other absolution.
All were shot, but one survives until the tale with a bloody head wound that made him appear dead.
On the night of the 23rd, 12 nuns were shot in Barcelona beside a highway.
four of them over 60, one lay in agony for four hours before dying.
That day, Jamie Busquette Zaubezlaugé, lay organist to the parish of San Jose de Garcia,
practicing at the organ in the church, saw a mob coming, refused to flee,
and pleaded with them not to burn the church.
He was seized and shot a few hours later.
Elsewhere in Catalonia, Bishop Silvio Huix de Larida was captured by a mob and imprisoned on the 21st.
Cardinal Archbishop Francesc Vidal and Barakere of Tarragona and his auxiliary Bishop Manuel Borders were arrested by militia on the 23rd as they tried to escape.
In the cathedral city of Vich, truckloads of men from outside the city arrived on the 21st and announced in the plaza,
in two hours Vich will be burning from end to end.
They began immediately to bomb and burn all the churches, profane the tomb of the saints, including Anthony Claret,
and famous men, including Catholic writer and political theorist Jamie Balmuss, set fire to the
diocesan museum destroying the famous paintings of Jose Maria Sert, and collected an enormous pile
of religious books and articles which they burned in the main square.
If you're going to have a new Soviet or communist man, there can be no memory of the past.
everything has to be destroyed.
Only Bishop Manuel Rita of Barcelona found refuge.
A heroic jeweler named Antonio Tork hit him in the back room of his shop,
successfully concealing him there for the next five months.
In the center of Spain on the mountain of the Angels,
the five young men who had volunteered on the night of July 18th and 19th
to guard the shrine, maintain their vigil,
while assault guards took away the nuns who lived in the,
adjoining Carmelite convent and stayed even when anarchist militia took over from the assault guards
on the 22nd, though they tried to hide. The next day the anarchist found them, conducted a few minutes
parody of a trial, and shot them. Madrid stands relatively close to the center of Spain, north of
the mountain of the Angels. It lies on a broad plain, with the ancient capital of Toledo,
only 40 miles away to the southwest. North of Madrid, rise the mile high Guadarama
mountains dividing old Castile from New Castile.
The revolutionaries had gained control of almost all the plains of New Castile.
The nationalists, as we now begin to call them, for they were about to make their first
attempt at government under that name, controlled Old Castile from Burgos.
It was strategically vital to hold the Guadarama passes, and neither side lost any time in trying
to do so.
On the very day of the storming of the Montania barracks in Madrid, July 20th, a
column of troops and civil guards supporting the Republic marched from Alcala de Hennaras,
Hannares, toward Somosiera pass in the Guadamas, while another column of troops,
civil and assault guards and militaria headed for Navaserada pass on the roads of Segovia.
The next day, a third column composed of two battalions of infantry, two companies each of civil and
assault guards, a machine gun battalion, and six batteries of artillery, batteries of artillery,
commanded by Colonel Enrique Castillo, set out for Lions Peak Pass on the road to Galicia.
Another infantry battalion ordered to march with this column refused, saying the new government
had absolved them from the duty of obeying their officers.
Moscow trained communist Enrique Lister, who had studied at the Frunz Military Academy of the Soviet Union,
and Dolores Aburiturri hurried to tell this battalion how mistaken they were.
They must fight.
They marched with Castillo's column, after all, with Lister now their political advisor.
That midnight, a column of nationalist soldiers commanded by Colonel Serador of the Riquete set out for Lions Peak Pass from Valladolid in Old Castile amid scenes of wild enthusiasm.
With their head start, the Republican forces reached a pass as first.
They secured Somosietta pass against the desperate resistance
of a handful of Rickettsis and Falungas present there,
while Castillo's large column found Lions Peak Pass undefended.
There's so much rugby on Sports Extra from Sky,
they've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end.
Here goes.
This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby.
For the first time, we've got every Champions Cup match exclusively live,
plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more.
Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place.
Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra.
Jam packed with rugby.
Phew, that is a lot of rugby.
Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months.
Search Sports Extra.
New Sports Extra customers only.
Standard Pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply.
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Ireland's largest award-winning light show experience is back.
Wonderlights is now open in three spectacular locations,
Malahide Castle and Gardens and Marley Park in Dublin and Photo House in Cork.
Follow the enchanting walking trail that will captivate all ages
as the night comes alive with dazzling displays and unforgettable moments.
Who will you Wonderlights with?
For dates and bookings, visit wonderlights.com.
The overconfident Castillo returned immediately to Madrid.
When Rekete Colonel Serador's column arrived at Lions Peak Pass on the 22nd,
they attacked at once, still full of enthusiasm.
The surprised and leaderless Republican,
and forced panicked and fled. Later in the day, Cascio was shot by a militiaman who evidently disapproved
of his conduct of the operation. On the 23rd, another nationalist column under General Gisto
tried to storm Somosietta Pass, but was driven back by artillery just brought up by the Republicans,
which inflicted heavy casualties on his men. That evening, Colonel Garcia Eskames, with the Mountain Brigade
from a Navarra, and four companies of Verketis arrived to reinforce Gisto, while strong Republican
reinforcements, including the all-communist Thailman Battalion, arrived at Lions Peak.
Pass, under Castillo's replacement, Colonel Morales Carrasco.
Carrasco attacked the next day, but the disunity and indiscipline, which had killed his predecessor,
was still rife. Many of his men refused to obey his orders, and Sarasco.
and Cerrado's nationalist easily repelled the disorganized assault.
On the 25th, the Feast of Spain's national patron, St. James the Apostle, Santiago,
Garcia Escamas, called for an assault by the Riquete Terseo named for this saint.
In an overwhelming charge, the red-barade Carless Crusaders prevailed and took Somocia to pass,
but their prospective champion, General Sanjuro, was dead.
A large two-engine plane had originally been designated to pick him up in Portugal.
At one point, it was even suggested to use the Rapid Dragon for this purpose,
but the Portuguese guarding their neutrality did not wish to famous Spanish general,
expected to become military leader of the nationalist to take off from any of their regular airfields.
A young pilot named Juan Antonio Ansaldo was therefore sent in a two-seater aircraft,
called a pussmoth, to pick him up at an abandoned racetrack at La Manateau.
Marinha near Lisbon on July 20th.
Ansaldo began to takeoff run on the bumpy field.
As his wheels left the ground, the lone engine began to knock alarmingly.
The whole aircraft shuddered and failed to gain altitude.
Ancelado, an experienced pilot, knew he must land immediately.
Over a five-foot stone wall just beyond the racetrack was a flat, cultivated field suitable for the force grounding.
Anzado gave the laboring engine full throttle.
The plane seemed to rise.
Unsaldo's aircraft failed to clear the stone wall by no more than a few inches.
The undercarriage caught it, and the plane crashed.
The young pilot lost consciousness but recovered in moments.
64-year-old General Sanjuro sat motionless.
The plane caught fire.
Unsado screams to San Sincur to get out while there was still time.
There was no response.
The commander to be of the Great Rising, the man who would promise,
to Carlos much of what they had asked of him, who had given his respect and adherence to their king,
who had proudly recalled the Carlos' loyalties of his father and his uncle, who had seen his son
dressed in uniform of a Rickete, was gone. He might have made all the difference, might have made
it possible for the Carlos to bring their dream to reality, to preserve and extend what Franco had won,
instead of losing so much of it at his death 39 years later, or not, we shall never know.
six inches of lift on a wavering wing before a stone wall in Portugal.
Of such, may the turning points of history be made.
Meanwhile, in Halo Toledo, in the middle of the new Castilian plain, which the revolutionaries ruled,
the greatest epic of the war was beginning to unfold, a story of heroism with few parallels
in the history of Spain or of the world.
Crowning the highest point of the gigantic rock upon the ancient city was built stood what was
once been its citadel or castle, Azulkar, in Spanish. Shortly after it was liberated from
the Moors, El Cid had governed the city from it. The great king and emperor Charles V had built a palace there
in the 16th century. For more than 50 years, it had been a military academy, rebuilt after a fire in
1887, with an exceptionally strong framework of steel girders and walls up to 12 feet thick.
A square tower topped by a spire stood at each corner.
The walls enclosed a courtyard with a bronze statue of Charles V at its center.
On the south side of the courtyard, an immense stairway, with steps 50 feet wide, led up to the second story.
Adjoining the Al-Qazar on the east was a parade ground with a field house called the Picadero,
which was used as a riding academy on a level below it, and the Santiago Barracks for troops
permanently assigned to the academy just below,
overlooking the narrow gorge of the Tagos River a few hundred feet below.
The cadet's quarters were under the southeast tower,
and below the entire structure were extensive cellars.
At the foot of the hill, adjoining the Alzacar itself,
stood the Gobienno, the government building,
housing the offices of the military governor of the Department of Toledo
and his staff, with the numerous riding horses used to the
used by the academy kept in stables in the basement.
From the Gobiano, a steep winding road called the zigzag led up to the north face of the Alcazar, closed off by an iron gate.
Facing the Gobiano was a narrow street, which led to the Plaza de Zocadovor, the principal square of Toledo.
Because it was summer vacation, no cadets were at the Academy that July.
The Academy Commandant, Colonel Jose Moscaardo, was tall for a Spaniard, six feet and 60 years old, bald, rather awkward in his movements, passionately loyal to church and country.
He had graduated from the Academy 40 years before and was approaching the end of an honorable but undistinguished career.
None of the planners of the military coup had thought it worthwhile to include him.
When on the morning of July 18th, he heard the radio reports of the rising in Morocco, carefully tailored by the government to make it a
appear already doomed, he did not know what to think. Since Madrid was only 40 miles away,
he decided to drive there to consult with some of the officers stationed there whom he trusted.
Some of them knew what was planned and told him. He committed himself instantly to their cause.
He had once met Franco and admired him immensely. There was an arms factory in Toledo,
which would have been of great value to whichever side had possession of it.
Muscaro hurried back to Toledo to be in position to take it for the rising and at least prevent the government of the Republic from using it.
That evening he assembled a large group of officers of whom he was the ranking member and gained their support for the rising.
But Colonel Romero, chief of the civil guard in Toledo department, persuaded him to delay a public announcement until he could bring a substantial force of civil guards and large supply of ammunition from the arms factory into the Alcazaciz.
The need for such precautions was underlined by a clash between armed workers and civil guardsmen at 10 o'clock that night in the Plaza de Zokadovor.
Already civilians seeking protection from revolutionary violence were coming into the Alcazar.
Early the next morning, the terrible Sunday the 19th, mass was set in the Alcazar Chapel.
Quoting, the doll-featured madonna cast from plaster looked down from the altar,
An overflow crowd spilled out on the stairway outside, where civil guards stood stiffly at attention what rifles at their sides.
Ramrod reminders of the solemnity of the service.
Most of the crowd were civilians, rumbled and soiled from a fitful sleep in the chairs or on the floors of the Gobierno.
They seemed to be grateful for the Mass and doubly grateful for the guards.
In the Alcazar, one could attend Mass without having to endure the customary jeers and coarse jokes of the priest's hate.
who waited at the doors of the church
in the cathedral and Toledo,
in the front rank of worshippers,
Mascardo knelt.
There's so much rugby on sports extra from Sky,
they've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed
I usually use for the legal bit at the end.
Here goes.
This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby.
For the first time we've got every Champions Cup match
exclusively live, plus action from the URC,
the Challenge Cup, and much more.
Thus the U.S.C and all the best European rugby
all in the same place.
Get more exclusively live tournaments
than ever before on Sports Extra.
Jampacked with rugby.
Phew, that is a lot of rugby.
Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months.
Search Sports Extra.
New Sports Extra customers only.
Standard Pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply.
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Side effects may also include great value and exceptional customer service.
Talk to a friendly professional at Frank Heen Volkswagen today and see if upgrading your
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I mean, you have to deal with that in Spain in the 1930s.
There would be 54 days of fire and blood before another mask was set in the Alcazard
of Toledo.
Later that Sunday, the 1st,000.
war ministry in Madrid called Muscardo to order him to turn over the arms kept in the Alcazar.
Muscaro demanded the order in writing, as it was his legal right to do so.
The war ministry official said the written order would be delivered in the morning.
Toledo was quiet that night. Muscaro dined at home with his family.
All during Monday the 20th, the day of the storming of the Montania barracks in Madrid,
civil guardsmen, many with their wives and family steamed into the Alcazar,
some in cars and trucks, others on horses and mules totaling over 600.
23 were captured on the way and either shot on the spot or sent to Madrid where they were later executed.
In the evening, Muscardo called a meeting of all his officers and said the time for decision had come.
All committed themselves to the rising in many, but strangely, not Mascardo himself, brought their families into the Alcazar with them.
By the morning of the 21st, they totaled about 1,800 sold.
approximately 700 civil guardsmen,
250 officers, and academy staff,
100 other men of military age,
550 women and children.
However, not a single priest came in
to Muscardo's great regret.
Despite the danger, most of them were confident
that the rising would prevail,
and they would soon be rescued.
One of the women,
Carmen Aragonis,
widow of a soldier,
killed in battle in Morocco five years before,
very beautiful and exceptionally vivacious, particularly helped to keep everyone's spirits high.
At 7 o'clock in the morning, a proclamation was read, first in the courtyard of the Alcazar,
beside the statue of Charles V, and then in the Plaza de Zocadovor, stating that Toledo
no longer accepted the authority of the government in Madrid.
Late in the morning, an airplane circled the Alcazar and dropped leaflets, urging its garrison
to desert their officers, who, the leaflets said, were deceived.
them. Not a man left. In the heat of the afternoon, a roar of motors and a cloud of dust
heralded the arrival of cars and trucks carrying 3,000 men, mostly militia, from Madrid,
commanded by one of the highest-ranking officers to support the Revolutionary Republic,
General Jose Rickelme. Moscaro set up machine guns to command the approach roads.
Their fire quickly stopped the advance and an armored car sent forward
by the attackers was blown up by grenade.
Rekalme's demand that the Al-Zakar surrender in 15 minutes was scornfully ignored.
In the midst of the attack,
Mascardo brought eight of ten trucks loaded with ammunition from the arms factory into the Alcazar.
He now had 700,000 rounds of small arms ammunition,
enough for his men to fight for many weeks.
Late that evening, Rekalme telephoned Mascardo in person to demand his surrender again.
Mascardo abruptly refused.
Rekalme asked him why he remained defiant.
Quote,
Because I love Spain and have confidence in General Franco,
Mascardo avowed.
Furthermore, it would be dishonorable
to surrender the arms
of gentlemen to your red rabble.
Then I will seize them, Rikalme said.
I hear you, General, Mascardo said.
All the next day,
Wednesday the 22nd,
Rikalme's men shot at and shelled the Alcazar
with little effect.
Although their pressure did force Miscardo to withdraw
all his men from the city to bring them within sheltering walls,
within its sheltering walls and buildings.
Late in the evening, he called the meeting of his officers.
Since their electricity had been cut off,
the room was lit by acetylene torches.
Muscardo explained what apparently he had been told in Madrid on the 18th,
that Mola would march south and Franco North to take Madrid and relieve them.
Thanks to the hall from the arms factory,
they had plenty of ammunition.
Three cisterns in a swimming pool provided sufficient drinking water.
He believed that food could still be obtained by raids into the city.
In the middle of the meeting, the Minister of Education and Garals' government, Francisco Bodies, called to urge Mascardo to surrender.
His primary concerns at that time were obviously in areas other than education.
Mascardo asked the other officers to vote.
Most voted to maintain their resistance.
He told Barnes they had done so.
Then you will be responsible for the destruction of the Al-Sacar, Barnes said.
I can only do my duty to Spain, sir, Muscardo replied.
You know we have the artillery prepared and the troops ready.
Barnus threatened.
We have the means to annihilate you.
This is the last time you'll have the opportunity to avoid spilling blood, colonel.
If you do not change your mind, I must order the attack immediately.
Muscardo's dark eyes hardened to glistening points, like two spearheads of volcanic glass.
Then we will receive it, he said.
All the next day, Thursday the 23rd, gunfire swept the Gobierno building and the streets outside the Alcazar.
The revolutionary militia from Madrid filled the narrow streets of the old city, bellowing curses at the Alcazar, shouting their hatred of Christ.
Quoting, from El Cristo de la Vega, the church near the arms factory, they brought a famous wooden image of Christ and by working it like a puppet tried to fire, tried to draw,
fire from the north windows of the fortress. When this failed, they shouted,
Here is El Cristo de la Vega. We are going to burn it. If you are true Catholics, you come down here
and stop us. There was no reply from Al-Kazar. Dismembring the effigy with axes, the militia
through the pieces upon a heap of debris and clear view of the windows of the Al-Cazar.
But in igniting the bonfire, two militiamen rashly exposed themselves. Rifles cracked,
men dropped into the fire, and the smell of burning flesh.
mingled with a smoke from El Cristo de la Vega.
105 priests and religious were killed in Toledo during the next two months, many of them that day.
Father Pasquois Martin was gunned down in front of San Nicholas Church shouting,
Viva Christo Reyes, Hail Christ the King.
Father Pedro Rees de la Panios, Director General of the Brotherhood of Diocesian Priests,
in Spain, and a leading developer of seminary education was shot that day in front of the maternity hospital.
Pope John Paul II beatified him on October 1, 1995.
The rector of Toledo's seminary, Jose Sala, was martyred with him.
The Bible of San Luis was taken from Toledo Cathedral and priceless works of art were destroyed.
At 7 o'clock in the morning of the day of the horror in Toledo,
Mascardo's 24-year-old son Luis was picked up for questioning by a militia patrol who did not know who he was.
In Toledo, as in many other cities of Republican Spain, a committee of militant, socialists, and anarchists had been set up to question persons suspected of disloyalty to the Republic.
These committees were universally called Chekis.
The Spanish spelling of the name Lenin had given to the first Soviet secret police, Chekis.
The head of the Toledo's check-us was a lawyer named Candido Cabello.
He knew Luis Moscaro by sight.
The moment he saw him, he decided to use him to bring about the surrender of Alzacar.
He picked up the telephone and called the boy's father.
It was 10 o'clock.
After identifying himself, Cabello said,
you are responsible for all the crimes and everything else that is happening in Toledo.
I give you 10 minutes to surrender the Al-de-Car.
If you don't, I'll shoot your son, Luis, who is standing.
standing here beside me.
Mascardo's face did not betray his feeling.
Feeling.
I believe you, he said.
And so that you can see it's true, Cabello said.
He will speak to you.
Luis was then given the phone.
Papa, he cried.
What is happening, my boy?
Nothing, Luis answered.
They say they are going to shoot me if I was a card does not surrender.
But don't worry about me.
If it is true, replied Mascardo.
Commend your soul to God,
shot Viva Espania, and die like a hero.
Goodbye, my son, a kiss.
Goodbye, father, a very big kiss.
When Cabello was on the phone again,
Muscardo said,
You might as well forget the period of grace you gave me.
The Alzacar will never surrender.
In the disputation,
Cabello slammed down the receiver,
violently and cursed briefly.
Then he said to the militiamet around him,
since his father wants it,
do whatever you please with him.
Luis Mascardo was let out.
In the Alzacar, Colonel Mascardo stood for some moments
in stony silence, his staff too stunned even to console him.
Without a word to anyone, he walked into his sleeping quarters in the next room and quietly shut the door.
Luis was not killed immediately, but he was shot exactly one month later on August 23rd,
while the siege of the Alza Car still continued.
But in almost exactly the same time, Mascardo's oldest son Pepe was arrested in Barcelona,
where after the defeat of the rising, he had disguised himself for five days as a hospital or,
hospital orderly. He was about to board a train out of the city when a medal of the Blessed
Virgin Mary slipped out of his pocket and was seen by another passenger in the station. A few days
later, he was executed like so many others in that now demonic city. In the otherwise completely
restored Alcazar of Toledo, though, today the room where Colonel Mascardo received that
telephone call from Condido Cabello is preserved exactly as it was 60 years ago. On its scored and
battered walls hang translations of this conversation in most of the personal languages of the world.
A contemporary socialist government, no longer revolutionary but hardly sympathetic, has removed
all the most vivid and shocking mementos of the Great Siege, all but this, which they have dared
not touch. I don't know if they've touched it now. I'm sure it's gone. If they moved Franco and
Primo de Rivera's body. If they just interred them, then this is probably gone too.
642 years before in the year, 1294, an army of Moors was besieging the walled city of Tarifa on the straits of Gibraltar, whose garrison was commanded by Alfonso Perez de Guzman, called the Good.
A renegade Spanish prince with the Moorish army had captured Perez de Guzman's son and demanded the surrender of Tarifa as the prince as the price of the boy's life.
Guzman the good refused, answering the renegade Prince's message by flinging a sword over the ramparts.
Therifa held out until it was relieved with the aid of a fleet from Aragon, but not before Guzman's son was killed as the prince had threatened.
So does the Christian present enlaced the past, especially in Spain, such as the courage of crusaders.
All right.
We'll stop it right there and pick up the rest of this chapter in a couple days.
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