Brihuega, sounds of war (part one)

Our last field work took us to the province of Guadalajara. Initially the idea was to locate a suspected bunker used by the Republican side during the civil war. The truth is that traces of the war we did not find too many, although the future of reporting the facts we ran many surprises, but let's go by parts.
Early in the morning we reached the town of Brihuega. The surroundings of this beautiful villa, have been shaken over the history of important battles and the December 8, 1710, as part of the War of Spanish Succession (Bourbon against Austria), about 2,000 soldiers lost life to the entrenched British troops in the village. He made a desperate defense of the village, since French Spanish troops outnumbered 5 to 1 ratio to the English, being bombarded with artillery fire Brihuega while the defenders annihilated the troops who tried to storm the place with fire grenades until they run out of gunpowder and were forced to surrender.

Subsequently, from 8 to March 14, 1937, as part of our Civil War (battle of Guadalajara), Brihuega was shaken by another bloody battle. Hemingway wrote about it "was a battle of seven days, hotly disputed, with rain and snow disabling most of the time the transport trucks. The last day for the final attack that breaks the head of the Italian troops and put to flight, weather conditions permit planes just fly away, and one hundred twenty units, sixty tanks and about ten thousand government troops, defeat three Italian divisions of five thousand men each. "The forests of oaks located northeast of the palace of Ibarra, near a sharp bend in the road and Utande Brihuega are still full of Italian dead that have not been collected by the gravediggers, the traces of the assault vehicles are to where they died, not cowards but defending skillfully positions for machine gunners and riflemen prepared, which were discovered by the assault vehicles and where they still lie "..." In the battlefield located in the heights overlooking Brihuega were scattered letters and papers, backpacks, shovels to dig trenches and everywhere the dead. " The final fall amounted to approximately 3000 deaths of some 2000 Italian and battalions of the Republican ranks

Brihuega 1937 batalla de Guadalajara - YouTube

Well, our first destination in the town gathered from the history of these two battles, it was the Royal Textile Factory, built between 1750 and 1752 to compensate the village for the War of Succession. The factory had its period of glory between 1768 and 1790, during the War of Independence was bled away by French troops that became one of their headquarters being finally abandoned after the civil war, which was the subject of scathing bombing by the troops Republicans.
And the truth is that as on other occasions it has happened, we took a serious disappointment. Part of the factory has been restored to be converted into apartments for the accommodation of tourists and trade craft and what was once its most famous building, known as "La Rotonda" is in a sorry state of neglect.
Access to it is impossible for us to be closed by two huge wooden doors, but that did not stop we could get some pictures and the attempt to obtain a registration EVP in this case was negative.

photo gallery

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