This action will be well known to many readers. It represents, perhaps, the last siege of a single fortress (as opposed to a fortified city) in history. The story of how one man's obstinacy and garrisons endurance defeated everything that 20th century weaponry could throw at them is inspiring and the setting could not be more dramatic. The two viewpoints from which I told the story of the 10 week siege were, firstly, a rocky hill due south of Toledo that gave a good view over the whole city and secondly, within the rebuilt Alcazar itself. I abandoned a planned third stand north of the city because, despite extensive searching, I could find no trace of the earth emplacements from which the main republican artillery had lobbed over 9,000 shells into the Alcazar on the Deheseo de Pinedos.

The highlights of the Alcazar's interior connected with the siege are the two adjacent scale models that show the Academy 'before' and 'after' the siege, Colonel Moscardo's office complete with bullet riddled ceiling and the fateful telephone over which he sacrificed his son, a small museum containing siege relies including the Harley-Davidson motorbikes used to power the flour mill and radio receiver and home made grenades fashioned from two hemispherical Academy doorknobs and the maternity area where two children were born during the siege (one as a result of the mine explosion under the Alcazar).

Unconnected with the siege, the building also contains some galleries of the Spanish Army Museum including an interesting one on the Army of Africa, a display of current Army uniforms, a weapons display and a rather sinister room full of the robes of the Military orders. The rest of the Spanish Army Museum, currently situated behind the Prado in Madrid is due to move down to Toledo to unite with the bits already within the Alcazar, but that does not seem imminent (as at April 2000). Whilst in Toledo we took the opportunity to sample local specialities of stewed partridge and marzipan (not together). One militaria shop in the back streets of Toledo was found to be still selling obvious genuine SCW relics and less obviously genuine items from the Spanish Blue Division in WWII.

As a postscript to our Alcazar trip, a month later I met a Spanish Army officer on exchange with the British Army whose grandfather was the commandant of the Alcazar in 1936. It was his absence on leave on 20 July (on which day he was arrested and shot by the Republicans) that allowed Moscardo to take command. His son (the officer's father) was born within the Alcazar just before the SCW.

A Battlefield Tour of the Madrid Front

Introduction
Siege of Alcazar
Battle for Madrid
Battle of Jarama 1937
Battle of Guadalajara 1937
Battle of Brunete 1937
Other Places of Interest