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out the garrison, who beat back every
attempt to drive them out of their impro-
vised positions. Starvation and disease were
setting in with almost nothing left to eat
but the putrefying flesh of butchered cav-
alry horses and mules. Then Moscardo and
his staff, who had received virtually no
news about the progress of the uprising,
saw evidence of battles raging on the hills
surrounding the city and realized that relief
was at hand. Troops from the Army of
Africa broke through the Loyalists' outposts
during the last days of September. The
Republicans proved no match for the For-
eign Legion and Moorish battalions who
swarmed into Toledo. The siege came to an
end with Moscardo stepping forward from
the ranks of his soldiers, saluting the leader
of the rescuing army, and reporting laconi-
cally with the standard phrase
“Sin novedad”
(“Nothing new”).
The siege of the Alcazar of Toledo became
the iconic event of the Nationalist move-
ment during the civil war. Although the
struggle would continue until early 1939,
with tens of thousands of lives lost on both
sides, the image of determination, valor,
and sacrifice embodied the highest princi-
ples of the Spanish army. Even their ene-
mies, while they might despise the
professional ideals of the rebels, were often
secret admirers of the very “Spanish” way
in which Moscardo and his men had con-
ducted themselves.
of global empire paralleling that of Spain.
King S
EBASTIAN
, ever since coming of age
and emerging from the tutelage of his
elders, had aspired to military glory. In par-
ticular he was determined to lead a great
crusade against the Muslims of North Africa.
Against the advice of his uncle, P
HILIP
II of
Spain, the young monarch assembled all
the available resources of Portugal, hired
German mercenaries, and even diverted a
force of Italian soldiers sailing under papal
mandate to aid Catholic rebels in Ireland.
This army he conveyed to the Moroccan
coast where he intended to support one
candidate for the sultanate against a rival.
The entire campaign was not only ill con-
ceived but poorly planned and executed.
Having marched into the desert to a point
near the town of Alcazarquivir, Sebastian
and his 17,000 men encountered a superior
force of Moroccans. On August 4, 1578,
after a hard-fought battle, virtually all of
the Portuguese and their allies were slain or
carried off as slaves. The exact fate of Sebas-
tian has never been determined, and tales
of his survival and ultimate return to save
his country from adversity long persisted.
The only remaining member of the Aviz
dynasty, the elderly cardinal Enrique suc-
ceeded his great nephew, but following his
death in 1580, the disarray into which Por-
tugal had fallen after the defeat at Alcazar-
quivir laid the way open for invasion and
annexation by Spain. Philip II, whose wise
counsel to Sebastian had been ignored, now
reaped the benefit of the young king's folly.
He was proclaimed Philip I of Portugal, and
the two kingdoms were joined in a personal
union for the next 60 years. It was more
than a century before Portugal recovered
from the consequences of the North African
disaster, and even then the country never
Alcazarquivir, Battle of
(1578)
No event in Portuguese history was more
catastrophic than the Battle of Alcazarqui-
vir, for it brought to an abrupt halt the tra-
jectory of good fortune that had taken the
lesser of the two Iberian kingdoms to a level
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