Alcázar of Toledo

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The Alcázar of Toledo at dusk

The Alcázar of Toledo is a stone fortification located in the highest part of Toledo, Spain. Once used as a Roman palace in the 3rd century, it was restored under Alfonso VI and Alfonso X and renovated in 1535.

During the Spanish Civil War, nationalist Colonel José Moscardó Ituarte held the building against overwhelming Spanish Republican forces in the Siege of the Alcázar. The incident became a central piece of Spanish Nationalist lore especially the story of Moscardó's son Luis. The Republicans took Moscardó's 16-year old son 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.^[1]"

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^[2]. 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^[3]". 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.^[4]

The events of the Spanish Civil War at the Alcázar made the structure a symbol for the Spanish Nationalism and inspired the naming of El Alcázar, a far-right newspaper that began during the civil war and ended during the Spanish transition to democracy as the mouthpiece for Búnker, a faction of francoists who opposed reform after Francisco Franco'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").

[edit] Footnotes

Original article translated from the Spanish Wikipedia. Alcázar de Toledo (Spanish)
Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, 4th Rev. Ed. 2001.
Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain, 2006.
Cecil Eby, The Siege Of The Alcázar, 1965