This is the third and final part of Dr Sutherland’s account of the siege of the Alcazar in Toledo.
The Mayor of Toledo showed us over the Alcazar, and there was no better guide as he had been there throughout the siege. With the aid of electric torches we saw the great vaults where the garrison had lived and where two children were born. During the siege the vaults were lit by oil lamps. The floors were of small cobble stones, and in the vault still carried the odour of antiseptics, I saw the operating table. Near it was a large kitchen table. On this table those about to have operations had lain side by side and face to face. So scarce was chloroform that one dose anæsthetised two patients. It is remarkable that none died of sepsis. There was no sanitation except improvised earth latrines. There was no ventilation. The military casualties were – killed 82; wounded 580. There were no civilian casualties, but two old women died natural deaths.
The Colonel’s room has two small windows, a small ceiling, whitewashed walls, and a stone floor partly covered by an old chair and desk. On the desk is a telephone with cut wires hanging over the side. At the opposite side of the room a red plush settee looks incongruous. A few chairs complete the room as it was coming out of the siege. One additional piece of furniture stands in a corner. It is a table with another telephone whose wires are cut. This is the telephone through which the Chief of the Militia in Toledo spoke to Colonel Moscardo on the afternoon of July 23, 1936. On the white wall behind the Colonel’s chair the conversation is now recorded in letters of pure gold:
Militia Chief: You are responsible for all the crimes and for all that is now happening in Toledo. I give you ten minutes in which to surrender the Alcazar. If you don’t, I shall have your son Luis, who is standing here beside me, shot.
Colonel Moscardo: I don’t believe it.
Militia Chief: As a proof, he will now come to the telephone.
Luis: Father!
Colonel Moscardo: What it it, my boy?
Luis: They say that if you don’t surrender they are going to shoot me. What am I to do?
Colonel Moscardo: You are to commend your soul to God and die like a true patriot, crying out Viva Cristo Rey! Viva Espana!
Luis: I embrace you, Father.
Colonel Moscardo: I embrace you, my boy. Bow tell the Militia Chief to speak to me … (to Militia Chief) You may save yourself those ten minutes and shoot my son. The Alcazar will never surrender.
Having read those words with eyes dim with tears, I turned to the Mayor and said, “That is an epic in the history of the world. And did they shoot the boy?”
“A month later. On the way to Madrid. he was seventeen.”
On the way out as we were crossing the rubble in the Patio, the Mayor pointed to a little door in the outer wall through which General Varela, who raised the siege, entered the Alcazar on September 28, 1936. Colonel Moscardo and his officers were waiting to receive him. If the General was surprised by the ruins, he may have been equally surprised by Colonel Moscardo who saluted and said, “In the Alcazar there is nothing to report.”
I told the Mayor that an English weekly Catholic paper had published a poem in which each verse ended with the words, “They are dancing in the Alcazar.” He shook his head. “That was kind, but there was no dancing. A few of the Civil Guards had musical instruments, a concertina, a flute, a guitar; and sometimes they played to amuse the children. The ‘reds’ outside heard the music, and thought we were dancing. There was no dancing. Half of us had dysentery, and all were too weak to dance. We said the Rosary every night, and I wrote some special prayers. They have now been approved by the Archbishop and are printed in a little book. I have only one copy or I would give it to you.”
As we were crossing the rubble I picked up a small piece of granite and put it in my pocket. “That is worthless,” said the Mayor. “Granite was recently used to support some dangerous masonry. It is forbidden to remove souvenirs from the Alcazar, but wait a minute.” He disappeared behind a ruined arch. When he returned he pressed into my hand two broken fragments of mosaic. “It is forbidden, but this is an exception. These are from the oldest part of the Alcazar.”
The Mayor took us to lunch to the “Restaurant of the Winds” on the outskirts. A marriage party filled the restaurant, but we for a table in the fore-court, separated from the road by the iron railings. The Mayor’s guests included two Spaniards in addition to Don Alberto, his nephew and myself. Great was our disappointment when the waiter said the partridges were reserved for the wedding guests. Toledo partridges are the best. They are larger and better flavoured than the British variety; and whey the Mayor told the manager that I had come from England to eat Toledo Partridge, there were three less for the wedding party. Through the iron railings four boys and a girl watched us eating. They were well dressed and not bare-footed. Middle-class children, they reminded me of how in childhood my sister and I had watched from an upper landing until our parents and their guests were safe in the drawing room, when we descended in our nightgowns and looted what remained on the dinner table. After lunch, when my companions had gone indoors to talk to the wedding guests and when the waiter was out of the way, the oldest boy walked quickly through the gateway and came up to the table on which he eyed a large pear. “May I take it?” he asked. I nodded. In a flash he was off down the road followed by the others clamouring for a share.
During lunch I sat at one end of the table with the Mayor’s two friends on my right. In the course of the conversation they asked what my politics were in England. I replied, “Socialist.” [Dr Sutherland stood as a Labour candidate in the 1945 General Election]
At that each man quietly laid down his knife and fork, looked at the Mayor, and said in a low voice, “Socialist!”
“No, no,” cried the Mayor, “it is different in England. He is a good man, Senores. This morning in the Alazar he was crying.”
“Yes, yes,” added Don Alberto, “he is a very good man. He has a devotion to Lezoko.”
“To Lezoko? But he is from England.”
“No matter. For twenty-five years he has had a devotion to Lezoko. I myself have seek his offering at the Shrine.”
Lezoko was better than a passport. The Mayor’s friends nodded their approval and continued their lunch with this strange socialist.
The siege of the Alcazar is one of the great stories of heroism from the Twentieth Century. You can watch the 1940 film depicting the siege on Rumble – highly recommended! El Alcazar is a book of photographs showing the damage and destruction sustained by the Alcazar during the siege. You can read Geoffrey Moss’s account of the siege on archive.org.
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