Millan-Astray, The General

Synopsis

Millan-Astray, the General (Blood, sweat and iron) Spain has known many soldiers but few men have turned their own lives into a flag. José Millán-Astray was born into an old, proud and wounded homeland, while the echo of the empire still resounds over the ports and military academies. From La Coruña to Toledo, from the Philippines to Africa, his destiny goes through discipline, faith, gunpowder and sacrifice. He's not an officer anymore. He can't be. It burns a serious idea of honor, a vocation of command and an relentless certainty: Spain does not hold back with memories but with men willing to pay for it with his blood. The first wound to his homeland was found in the Philippines. In Morocco you will find the oven where men are tested. A new force, a military brotherhood capable of looking at death without bowing its head, begins to be thought of by dusts, ambushes and exhausted soldiers. Inspired by the Japanese search, by the Christian gentleman, by Spanish tradition and by the brutal Africa school, Millan-Astray will shape his immortal work: the Legion. But to have found the Legion will be to build one more unity. That'll be creating a creed. A way to live, fight and die. A modern order of poor, fierce and voluntary soldiers united by discipline, fellowship, sacrifice and a mystique that still today scares as his men sing to the groom of death. At his side will walk Francisco Franco, first African comrade, later an effective lieutenant, later head of state and inevitable shadow about his life. Between them a relationship of admiration, respect and distance will come about: two different men united by war and separated by the nature of power. One will be fire, symbol and word. The other, quiet, computation and command. The life of Millan-Astray will not stop at glory. His body will be broken again and again by war: chest, leg, arm, eye. Each wound will bring him closer to his myth. Each mutilation will make more visible what his legionaries already knew: that the founder did not preach his sacrifice from far but from his own flesh. But there'll be injuries that don't bleed. Rita Gasset, Lisbon and the birth of Pilgrim will open up a more intimate, more painful and more difficult border to conquer than any African ravine. Millan-Astray, the general isn't the comfortable story of a soldier discussed by those who haven't been wanting to understand. It's an epic portrait of a man who made honor a law, death a companion, word a weapon and legion a work intended to survive him. A tragic hero. A founder. A mutilate who didn't ask for pity. A soldier who laughed at pain and walked to the end under the weight of Spain. Because man dies. But the play goes.