Toledo gloria del ejército

Toledo gloria del ejército

1938-01-05

Yugo was a bi-weekly publication of the Philippines Delegation of Spanish Fascist Party Falange Española (1938 - 1941). 

The Siege of Toledo’s Alcazar (a medieval palace used as Military Academy) was one of the most important myths of the Spanish Fascist propaganda and played a central role in its retelling of history. Commander José  Moscardo claimed the town for the Nationalists but had to retreat to the Alcazar after reinforcements from the Government arrived. The defenders of the Alcazar resisted until 27 September 1936, when a Nationalist army retook Toledo on its way to besieging Madrid. 

Spanish speakers of the Philippines were also targeted by this propaganda, which identified Spanish nationalism with a chivalric ideal, represented by the soldier riding a white stallion and framed by the monarchic Spanish flag that occupies the central position of the illustration. Even in front of the ruins of historical Spain, represented by the destroyed Alcazar, the “essence” of Spain and Latin-Catholic civilization seems triumphant. The palette of colors inscribes in the illustration the entire history of Spain (and therefore of the Philippines’ Spanish colonial past) as a violent contrast of blood and gold, of the West against the Orient, of Fascism against Communism and Liberalism.

Aguirre, Mercedes. "Battles of the past: the siege of the Alcázar of Toledo in Collier's Weekly", in The Spanish Civil War: Exhuming a Buried Past. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2013: 102-109.

Graham Helen. 2005. The Spanish Civil War : A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Rodao, Florentino. “Spanish Falange in the Philippines, 1936-1945”, Philippine Studies, 43(1) (1995): 3-26.

Rodao, Florentino. “Spanish language in the Philippines: 1900-1940”, Philippine studies, 45(1) (1997): 94-107.

Schue, Paul. “Remember the Alcazar! The creation of nationalist myths in the Spanish Civil War: The writings of Robert Brasillach”, National Identities, 10:2 (2008): 131-147. 

Scanned from Hemeroteca Municipal de Madrid by Rocío Ortuño and Cristina Guillén thanks to the project (Klein Project), “Philippines at the crossroads: mapping the international presence in the Philippine literary field in Spanish between 1872 and 1945”, funded by the Flemish BOF (Bijzonder Onderzoek Fonds)

Emilio Vivó Capdevila

Spanish