The Alcázar, a huge cube-shaped medieval fortress, looms over Toledo, a conservative city 40 miles south of Madrid. Ringed by the River Tagus, Toledo is famous for its many churches, its production of bladed weapons, and as the one-time home of the Spanish Renaissance artist El Greco.
But, to this day, it is the Alcázar, on a height overlooking the town, that dominates, resembling the White Tower, the oldest part of the Tower of London, with its sheer walls and four rectangular turrets – one at each corner. Ninety years ago, in 1936, this vast building was used as Spain’s principal academy for training army officers – the Spanish equivalent of Sandhurst or West Point.
Toledo also contained a modern arms factory, and a military sports centre where the academy’s officers honed their skills in athletics and team games. This latter establishment was commanded at the time by Colonel José Moscardó, the military governor of Toledo, an officer with equal passions for football and a faith in God and Spain. In the burning summer of 1936, officers like Moscardó were furious with Spain’s recently elected left-wing Popular Front government. Not only had the new Republican regime cut the numbers of the top-heavy army, but it was destroying the Spain that conservatives held sacred: the Catholic Church, land ownership by the upper classes, and national unity and traditions. In their place, right-wingers believed, the godless new government was opening the door to Marxism, anarchism, and separatism: breaking the country up by offering independence to Spain’s ethnic Basque and Catalan regions.
