SPANISH SIEGE

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22201, 18 September 1937, Page 18

SPANISH SIEGE

The Epic of the Alcazar. By Major Geoffrev McNeill-Moss Moss). Rich and Cowan Ltd. pp. (9/- net.) Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd This is an account, quiet in tone, hair-raising in substance, of the siege of the Alcazar in Toledo, last year. A garrison of about a thousand men, headed by the staff of the Military Academy, and with them some hundreds of women and children, held out against the attacks of the loyalist forces from July till the end of September, when at last the Nationalist relief force arrived. No effort was spared by the Government to take the place. Bombardment reduced the Alcazar and adjoining buildings almost to ruins; in mid-September came a pause, a silence, when the besieged knew—they had long heard the tunnellers at work—that the rhines beneath them were to be exploded. But though a great part of the fortress .was shattered the defenders still held out. Food was soon reduced to starvation point; the water was foul. They despaired, but held out, A curious feature of the defence was the advantage that came from weakness: It was from the first clear to the command of the Alcazar that the garrirson was not strong enough to indulge in that text-book favourite, “the offensive-defensive," and it accepted that the only wise policy was that of a purely “passive defence.” It proved astonishingly effective. For days on end not a shot was fired by the defenders of the Alcazar. Often the enemy did not know whether this or that building was held at all. To find cut it was necessary to risk a sudden burst of fire and heavy casualties. A barricade, silent for weeks, would blaze rifle-fire. And in the end the enemy came to be distrustful of every stone. Major Moss knows the Alcazar and environs personally. He explored the siege-ground and drew his information from survivors and, particularly, from an officer's diary. His book is thoroughly well done and the illustrations are clear and good.