The Pete Quiñones Show - Pete Reads 'The Last Crusade' by Warren H Carroll Part 8

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

30 MinutesPG-13Pete continues a reading of Warren H. Carroll's 1996 book, "The Last Crusade: 1936." In this episode, he finishes the September chapter; 1936.Antelope Hill - Promo code "peteq" 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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Lidl, more to value. I want to welcome everyone back to part eight of my reading of Warren H. Carroll's The Last Crusade. Head on over to freeman beyond the wall.com forward slash movies. You have links to where Thomas and I watch and comment on movies. Also,

Anilop Hill Publishing, what or anything, using Pete Q at checkout, and you get 5% off the order. All right. Let's keep going here. Probably should be able to finish this chapter. Let's see what happens. In Revolutionary-controlled Spain,

the martyrdoms continued through September. 14 more Claritian seminarians died as martyrs, taken from the killing ground of Ciudadreale, and sent under guard by train to Madrid. they were dragged off the train at a town called Fernand Caballero, where the militia, urged on by a diabolical woman who marked each for death by a kiss, shot them all while their guard watched. Ten more priests were killed at a cemetery in Ciudad Real later in the month.

On September 10th, Reverend Salvador Massis Chova, a parish priest in Valencia department, arrested and tortured the previous day in an unsuccessful attempt to make him deny Christ, was shot in the street at dawn. but he did not die immediately. He lay there for two hours calling for water, which no pastor by would give him until he died breathing the name of Jesus.

On September 16th, facing immediate martyrdom, Reverend Andres Molina, pastor of a parish in Almera department, wrote a last letter to his family. I prefer that they kill me before I should deny our holy religion. And I hope in our Lord Jesus Christ

and our mother the most holy virgin, that they will give me strength to give my life to God. Dearest mother and dearest brothers and sisters, do not be distressed because I have been killed. On the contrary, give many thanks to our Lord because he has chosen me to be a martyr. From heaven, I will pray for all of you and for your family. And if here, in this present life, I cannot embrace you. In heaven, I will wait to give you an internal embrace and triumph and find eternal joy with our Lord, the most holy virgin and all the chosen saints.

There were thousands of lay martyrs as well, not as carefully numbered and thoroughly researched as the martyrs who were clergy and religious. Arrested on September 12th in Lareda, Francisco Castillo, arrested on September 12th in Lareda, Francisco Castello, 19, a holy young man devoted to Catholic actions, told his captors, if to be a Catholic is a crime, I accept with pleasure my delinquency, since the greatest happiness a man can find in this world is to die for Christ. If I had a thousand lives, I would give them without a moment's doubt for this cause. The next night, the militia shot Castillo Alu at a cemetery.

On September 15th, at a small town of Poso Blanco in Cordoba department, Teresa Seuda, who had been president of the group of women for Catholic action and worked closely with the solutions, and had offered herself as a victim to help her. save Spain, was shot with 20 men and three other women. At her trial, Teresa had declared that she was concerned neither with politics nor with capitalism, but only with proclaiming the truths of Christianity. Hearing this, her lawyer declared he could no longer defend one whose idea so contradicted those of the Lago Gaballero government. On September 24th, nationalist air raids on Malaga,

following a nationalist naval victory in the Straits of Gibraltar, led to another mass reprisal killing of about 120, including 15 priests and religious and religious and eight laywomen. The others being laymen. Catalonia continued to take the leading killings of both clergy and Catholic laity. By the end of September, more than 600 priests, religious and seminarians have been killed in the Archdiocese of Barcelona alone. One especially satanic episode occurred at the village of Rio Derenos near Garona in Catalonia on

September 22nd. where three members of the Bashmaso family, a man and two women, were condemned to death. One of the women was a nun. Her brother Carlos asked to be killed first, so he would not have to witness the death of his sisters. His eyes were gouged out, then all three were horribly slaughtered. On September 24th, Barcelona Militia killed the entire family of Placido Armengol, a devoutly Catholic baker in the city. Placito, his wife, his three sons, all in their 20s, and a young man who tried to intercede for them.

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On September 18th in the Kremlin, the executive committee of the common turn met to consider how it would deal with the Spanish Civil War. Its one-time leader, Zinoviev, had been shot less than a month before with his longtime ally Kemenev, the first top party leaders executed in Stalin's great party purge. The Soviet members were fearful and hesitant to speak up or take any strong action until they had a better understanding of what Stalin intended and desired. But Georgi Dmitrov, the fiercely brilliant Bulgarian, who was Secretary General of the Comintern, did not feel threatened. Indeed, he retained Stalin's full confidence and support until his death many years later, something not easy to do.

The Spanish delegate explained that the Communist Party in Spain was working hard to introduce greater discipline to the Spanish Revolution, actively supporting Largo Caballero's efforts to establish a unified military command, to which the fraction, militia would be subjected. He said that a revolutionary reshaping of agrarian relations would come to Spain in the near future, but the illusion of a popular front government must be maintained. Demitrov agreed. The state would emerge from a Republican victory in the civil war, he said, anticipating the official designations of the communist-rolled nations of Eastern Europe after World War II would not be a Democratic Republic, but a special state with genuine people's democracy, which would be

supported by substantial elements on the left, which were outside the Communist Party. This polity would be, he said, a special form of democratic dictatorship of the working class and the peasantry. To attain victory, the unified military command the Spanish communists were supporting was indispensable. Though some come-in-turn members complain that the Spanish Communist Party was not yet playing a sufficient leading role in the Republic, Palmyro Togliati, head of the Italian Communist Party had no use for such concerns. The Spanish Revolution, he declared,

was the greatest event since October 17th in the history for the struggle of liberation. So, again, if this may be the first episode you're turning on in this series, and you think the Spanish Revolution was about Republicans who took over the government, and then a bunch of fascists came in, and a bunch of fascists and fascist Catholics came in

to overthrow their, you know, republic like we have here. What was it tell you? The Spanish Revolution, the greatest events since October 17th in the history of the struggle for liberation? Yeah, just executing people in the streets if they're religious. I mean, we've gone beyond the execution of priests and laity and nuns and altar boys to, yeah, well, this family's religious. Execute them. Sure, right?

Yeah, it's just a republic, just like ours. As David Cattell states, it should be noted that the conditions under which the communists entered the Lagra Cabayero government corresponded very closely to the prerequisites set down by the 7th Congress of the Common Turn in 1935 for the formation of a popular front government. The breakdown of the old bourgeois state,

the masses and revolts against fascism, the socialists and other workers group actively fighting the fascists and reactionaries. When you used the word fascist, when you used a word reactionary, when you, when you, all of that, reaction, this is who you, this is who you're on the side of. No, no, you don't get to make excuses. This is who you side with. You don't get to play it down the middle. Oh, they're all authority. No, fuck you. Fuck you. This is who you side with. This is who you're on the side of. Okay?

Just two days after the common turn meeting on Spain, Largo Caballero's government formally decreed the unification into a single body of internal security forces in the Republic, including the assault guards, the civil guards, and the former security police, and the rear vigilance militias, which had been doing most of the killing of civilians. On September 22nd, French Communist Party leader Maurice Torres flew to, to Moscow to make a personal appeal for the greatest possible amount of Soviet aid for the Spanish Republic, but also for the formal organization and training of units of communist military volunteers under the authority of the common turn.

But this is France. This is happening in France, too. This is the 1930s. If communism is rising everywhere, something has to rise up to destroy it. What came first? Something is going to react to it. And you have to choose. You don't get to play the game.

You choose. His proposal was quickly accepted, leading to the establishment of the famous international brigades the following month. At the Alcazar of Teleto, in the last part of September, the fight went on. The besieger is still as determined on victory as to besiege, despite the spectacular failure of their heralded mind. The ruined Gobierno building was now almost untenable, though still held a remnant of heroes from the garrison. Their last center of resistance called the Room of Death, because no defender left it unless he was dead or wounded, was regularly raked by machine gunfire.

In the dark hours before the dawn of Sunday, September 20th, the attackers brought up a gasoline truck to try to set fire of what was left of the building, as they had done before. A long irrigation hose was run from the tanker truck, but a defender climbed out a window in the Gomerano, and cut it open with a stroke of a machete. The gasoline caught fire and burned back toward the attackers instead of the Gobierno building. At dawn, the militia attacked. Dynamite charges laid by the Asturian miners knocked down more of the wall in front of the Gobierno. More gasoline was brought up in buckets and bottles ignited. The defenders refused to retreat.

They found that a passageway through the ruins leading to their position was so situated as to silhouated attackers against a morning sun behind them. One after another, those illuminated targets were cut down. The Gobiarno held out until nightfall, when it was finally abandoned. At 9.30 in the morning on the 20th, a massive new attack was launched on the Alcazar, with a tank in support. The tank slowly climbed up the steep zigzag road to the north terrace, with militia coming behind it.

About 25 of the garrison faced it, with only a three-inch gun, which had not fired a live round in 20 years and a handful of grenades. But the zigzag road was choked with rubble from the tower destroyed in the mine explosion, pushing the front of the tank up to a 45-degree angle. Its treads began to slip on the jumbled stones. Twice it slid back, each time it came on again. On the third try, it almost reached its up, but then hit a steel girder from the tower ruins and came to a dead stop. Colonel Romero de Salamanca, whose spirited daughter Carmen, had told Kanan Kamarasa, that he was lying if he had said any woman in the Kalkazar, Al-Kazar wanted to leave it and

surrender it, ordered gasoline bottles and grenades, flung down upon the stop tank. Under this deadly hail it backed down the slope of rock, then all the way down to the bottom of the zigzag road. With their armored protection gone, the militia stood exposed. The 25 defenders fixed bayonets and charged, and the militia fled. That night, Largo Caballero himself arrived at Toledo, demanding it be taken with within 24 hours and calling on communist units to participate in the assault. Carrying Red Hammer and Sickle flags, they attacked the next day. What's a more Republican government than Hammer and Sickle flags?

Yeah. Carrying Red Hammer and Sickle flags, they attacked the next day, following the collapse under bombardment of the last of the 400-foot towers of the Al-Qasar. But they accomplished nothing. That was the day, September 21st, that General Franco decided that his main army advancing on Madrid must go first to relieve the Alcazar of Toledo. General Alfredo Kindelan recalls discussing that decision with Franco. Quoting, do you know, General, that Toledo could cost us Madrid, said Kindelan. Yes, I know,

answered Franco. I have long meditated on the consequences of my decision. In my place, what would you do? I, Kindelan explained without hesitating, would go for Toledo even if it meant not taking Madrid. Well, that's what I have decided, answered Franco, because I have come to appreciate that in all wars and above all in civil wars, spiritual factors count to an extraordinary degree. We have to impress the enemy by convincing him that whatever we propose to do, we achieve, and they can't do anything to stop it. Moreover, I hope that a delay of eight days in the march on Madrid will not bring the consequences you fear. but even if it should, I would not give up the idea of conquering Toledo and liberating the heroic defenders of the Alcazar, which I promised them I would do in my message that was dropped by air. That's from Brian Crozier's Franco, a biographical history, written in 1967. He meant the message of October 22nd, which had given the garrison its first ray of hope for rescue.

though there are persistent reports that Colonel Jagu was strongly opposed to this decision and even asked to be relieved of command because of it, and though in fact he was relieved that day of command of the column marching towards Aledo and Madrid, there is no solid evidence that this was the reason for Yagway's relief. The official story was that he had fallen ill as a result of the rigors and strains of his tremendous march. He did have a heart problem, and this could have been true. However, we know that he spent the next 10 days hard at work gaining some support among the officers for the proposal to make Franco's Supreme Commander, which does not sound as though he was very sick or had just been dismissed by Franco.

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.

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My goodness, it's great. Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at ginnestorehouse.com. Get the facts. Be Drinkaware. Visit drinkaware.com. His successor in command of the column was General Jose Varela, who had been so helpful to the carless in organizing and training the ricketes during the past three years. On September 23rd, Franco gave Varella six days to relieve the Alcazar of Toledo and began his advance toward it at once. That day, the besiegers made another tank and militia, attack up the zigzag drive. It failed in almost exactly the same way as the earlier tank attack there. In the cold clear dawn of Friday, the 25th, the defenders heard a distant rumble of

artillery fire to the westward, and from the direction knew at once that it was the nationalist uprising. One of them cried out, the Alcazar for the Holy Virgin. Others wept for joy or fell to their knees with prayers of Thanksgiving. Later in the day, a nationalist plane bombed Toledo, and the garrison watched militia retreating past the city toward Madrid, fleeing from Franco's army. But the struggle was not yet over. The militia in the city had plunged so deep into ultimate evil that few had the strength were graced to draw out of it. Most simply intensified their commitment to their hate-filled cause. On September the 26th, Varela's men cut the road from Toledo to Madrid,

and there were aerial dog fights over the Alcazar. the pilots of nationalist planes were machine guns while hanging helplessly in their parachutes. One had landed alive, was tortured for seven hours, cut up with razors, and beaten and trampled until his body was a mass of bleeding pulp. At the last moment his life was saved when it was learned that he was the brother of a prominent anarchist in Madrid. Word of his fate soon came to the nationalist soldiers and airmen. It did not make them more merciful. At dawn, Sunday the 27th, the second mine was detonated under the Al-Qasar, but this time at an open space at the northeast corner. The mine was smaller than its predecessor because it had been more quickly constructed and contained

only one ton of TNT. Its explosion like that of the first mine was visually spectacular. General Varela and his officers, seeing it from afar, believed that at the last moment the besiegers had won. But many of the attacking militia literally fell into the open crater the mine had made, where they were easy targets for the rifles and machine guns of the defenders. The attackers sprayed and ignited gasoline, but there was almost nothing left around them, but heaps of stone and stone does not burn. After a two-hour battle, the defenders won again, giving the lie to the government's announcement that day that the Al-Qasar had fallen.

Later that morning, Sienvarela's army massing on the long barren hills of the north, the garrison tied their gold and red Spanish traditional flag on a steel girder at the top of the pile of rubble in the northwest corner where the tower overthrown by the first mine had come down and Colonel Romero de la Salamanca and his men had twice driven back an attacking tank the republicans in salado now began to flee including the governor furious furious dedicated major barcelo would not leave but fewer and fewer of his men would now obey him at noon Varela attacked, the militia running before him. At 6.40 in the evening, Lieutenant La Huerta and 20 Moroccans, having entered the city through an undefended back gate, reached the Al-Qasar, followed five minutes later by Captain Tieda and 20 Spanish legionaries. Others of the relieving army were not far behind. Captain Aguilera later told Arnold Lund of how he first met Carmen Aragonus, the beautiful heroine of the garrison. The beautiful heroine of the Garrison that very night. Coming down into the cellar, he first caught sight of her and her children by

the light of a match. She glanced up as the match flickered in the gloom, and I shan't forget the darkness of her eyes or the death-like pallor of her face. The next morning, the 28th, as the last pockets of resistance by the revolutionaries in the city were being mopped up by the relieving army, General Varela entered the Alcazar with Father Pujol, a Jesuit, who had been selected to say the first mass there since Canon Camerasas. Colonel Mascardo stepped forward and saluted, saying, My general, there is nothing new in the Alcazar. He was then told for the first time of the death of his sons, Luis in Toledo, and Pepe in Catalonia.

He was reunited with his wife and his one surviving son, Carmelo. When he and his wife met, their faces were so ravaged by suffering that they had difficulty recognizing each other. Father Pujal said Mass and Cardinal Goma, Archbishop of Toledo, and primate of Spain, sent a message. from his refuge in Pamplona, hailing the triumph of the martyrs and the spirit of the crusade. Quoting the letter, To Ledens, our city and diocese have paid an enormous tribute of priestly lives. It is a glory in an infamy, Spaniards. It is a glory because if our enemies have known how to kill our priests have known how to die. In the clash of civilization with barbarism, of hell against Christ, they had to succumb first,

because mortal blows aimed for the heart, champions of Christian civilization. the banner bearers of Christ. Joined with them have fallen men, most representative of Spanish Catholicism, but among our sacrificed priests, there has not been one single defection. What is more, history will sing with an epic note, the sublime episodes in many of these deaths.

Glory to the martyrs, honor to the church, which has such ministers. On the next day of the 29th, General Franco came to the Alcazar, saluted the golden red flag, tied to the girder, and was greeted by Mascardo, who told him, you will find the Alcazar destroyed, but its honor intact. Franco embraced him.

Franco embraced him, pinned on his chest, the cross of San Fernando, Spain's highest decoration for valor, promoted him on the spots of general, and declared him worthy to stand among the greatest heroes of Spanish history. Never were accolades more richly deserved. Franco expressed a wish to see the sellers, where the defenders had lived all through the two months of the siege. He was led down in so that.

As he walked through, he heard a man delirious from his wounds, crying out incessantly. They attack. Don't let them in. To the guns. This was the summit of the last crusade. In some ways, it meant even more than the final victory. An epic had been brought whose memory will live, at least in some bold Catholic hearts until the end of time.

In the blackest night of persecution of apostasy and betrayal, of hope unfulfilled, of the son of justice darkened, of Christ's church hidden and for alone, they can always hear the deathless words of Jose Mascardo. The Alcazar will never surrender. On September 28th, the day after the relief of the Alcazar of Toledo, when the news of it had spread throughout Europe and the world, Alfonso Carlos at his desk in Vienna pulled out his writing paper and penned a letter to Manuel Falcande, voicing his inexpressible joy in the heroic defenders of the Alcazar and their valiant liberators. These were his last recorded words. Shortly after writing them, he stepped out into the street and failed to see an Austrian army vehicle hurtling toward him. It struck him, and a few minutes later,

he died. The apparently indestructible 87-year-old king, claimant, and mentor of the carless, their champion for no less than 65 years, was gone. With neither bodily ills nor enemy bullets could do, a street accident finally accomplished. All men must die, even such a man as this, but it seems especially sad that after having lived so very long, Alfonso Carlos did not live just two and a half more, two and a half years more to see the final triumph of heroic young men he had reached across two full generations to inspire. His widow, ever-faithful Maria della Nieves,

Mary of the Snowes, continued to speak out two and forth the Carlos during the years that still remained to her. On September 21st, De Franco decided that he must relieve the Alcazar of Tledo before completing his march to Madrid, the principal nationalist officers met in a state near the airfield at Salamanca at the invitation of the commander of the Air Force General Alfredo Kindelan to designate a supreme commander. General Cabaneus alone voiced opposition.

There were two forms of military rule, he said, a supreme commander and a council. Kingelan agreed that those were the two ways. With the first, he said, you win. with the second you lose. That's great understanding there. One person in charge. One person with wise counsel. But one person with the ultimate decision.

Though most of the generals present agree that there should be one supreme commander and that he should be Franco, no final decision was then made nor any public announcement. It was at this point that Colonel Jagwe laid down his command of the column attacking Madrid and went to work building up broad-based support for Franco among the nationalist officers, most of whom were already inclined in his favor. General Kindelan, of whom were— General Kingelan, Milan Estray of the Legion and Jaguay now urged that Franco be named head of the state as well as Generalissimo and obtained his reluctant consent.

Following the announcement of the arrival of the Nationalist Army at Teleto, on September 27th, At a great celebration of its relief at Casetas that evening, Jaguay became the first officer to hail Franco publicly as a supreme leader, Hefe Unico, of the nationalists. On the 28th, another meeting of top nationalist officers at Salamanca accepted Franco as General Isamou and head of state with supreme military and political authority. Kindelan and Yagwe continued to take the lead in this action. Cabaneas continued to be opposed.

Mola and Kiepo de Iano, were lukewarm and left the meeting early. That evening, the latter three generals talked by telephone. Kieppo, though he had not spoken out himself against Franco, a supreme commander, urged Kabanayas to continue to do so. Mola said he should accept it, despite his reservations and Kabanayas agreed. The official decree of the National Defense Council, designating Franco-Generleissimo of the nationalist armies and head of state was published

in the next day. no time limit was placed on Franco's rule and in fact he never relinquished it for which he has for which he was much criticized throughout his life especially by foreigners 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 back with rugby for the first time we've met every Champions Cup match exclusively live plus action from the URC the Challenge Cup and much more thus the URC and all in the same place get more exclusively live

tournaments that 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. Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back.

At foot solutions, we specialize in high quality supportive footwear. And use the latest scanning technology to custom-make orthotics. Designed for your unique feet. If you want to free your feet and joints from pain, improve balance or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at footsolutions.com or pop-in store today. Foot Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet. On the many days of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee, a visit filled with festivity. Experience a story of Ireland's most iconic beer in a stunning Christmas setting at the Guinness Storehouse.

Enjoy seven floors of interactive exhibitions and finish your visit with breathtaking views of Dublin City from the home Guinness. Live entertainment, great memories, and the gravity bar. My goodness is Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at ginnestorehouse.com. Get the facts. Be drinkaware. Visit drinkaware. But there was never much real opposition to him during the 36 years he ruled Spain from the end of the civil war to his death. What there was came from ethnic separatists, the Basque and Catalans, and surviving at admirers of the Revolutionary Republic. Spain owed Francoe, owed Francoe, too much much to reject them, and most Spaniards knew that. It is easy to say that Franco should have held elections, perhaps once full stability had been established and World War II ended, he should have.

But elections and representative government had never worked very well in Hispanic countries, where most did not see them, where most did not see them as they were seen in English-speaking countries, and in France, as conveying genuine legitimacy to the government. And the searing experience of Franco and every genuine Spanish Catholic during the Civil War in which the massacres and martyrdoms of the Republic were all carried out in the name of an elected government, very few of whose members then or later processed it against them was not likely to cause them to look favorably on governments produced by elections. The world, even the Hispanic world, has changed much in 60 years. And these conclusions and generalizations, though so long, well-supported, probably no

longer apply. All the world today, with the exception of the four remaining communist-ruled countries, accepts democratic elections as a sole legitimate source of political authority. A modern-day Franco would in all likelihood recognize this and hold them, but one cannot take a man out of his time. Most certainly, they're eternal truths, but political systems do not partake of them. In his time, as Paul Johnson has so trenchantly pointed out, Franco was right, his success in war and in peace justified his decision based on a profound understanding. of the traditions of his people as they then existed. He was, as stated earlier, neither a totalitarian nor an oppressor.

In his own words, in his last testament, issued just before his death. In 1975, he always wished to live and die as a Catholic. That is the end of the September chapter. We'll get into October next. And, yeah, I just want to say that when you look at what, the West became after World War II, with their elections and their parliament, all this stuff, all the freedom they got. How's that working out?

Franco kept communists and radicals at bay until he died. You can make arguments about, you know, what's happened since he's died and what Spain has become. Yep. But still. he knew that that wasn't going to work. And it certainly wasn't going to work in Spain. You can't have elections in a country that is that divided, that has autonomous zones and provinces.

You rule it using authority. That's it. That's the message. There are ads during this. If you want to support the show, get the episodes early and ad-free. Go to free man beyond the wall.com forward slash support. There you have, you can do right there on the website,

substack, gumroad, Patreon, and subscribe star. All right. Until part nine, where we start the October chapter. Thank you. See you then.