Academia General Militar.

The gun staircase assault

At the West side of the historical building, near the portico of the Parade Ground, is the so-called "gun staircase", name given by the cadets of La General. Forged in the Catalan way and with steps of artificial marble, it owes its name to the fact that an ancient piece of artillery was found at its feet. Accessing from the Parade Ground to the interior corridor, an arch precedes with the well-known sentence, which resumes with eloquent simplicity the reason d’être of our armies: "si vis pacem para bellum".

In the historical building, students can access from the ground floor to the upper floors through five staircases, but only the gun staircase has traditionally been vetoed to first-year cadets. Consequently, they very often have to find a more dangerous alternative route in order to reach the place where the teacher awaits with demanding punctuality so as to begin the lesson or the programmed activity.

Gun staircase. (Photo: Luis Arcarazo/AGM)

This access ban finishes in an unspecified date, never ever before the Oath of Allegiance Ceremony, when "the plebes" – "nuevos") who have just started not to feel so, decide to accomplish their first coordinated combat action, gathering at the foot of the staircase with the aim of assaulting it. However, their second-year comrades, “the yearlings - retras”, who underwent the same experience as attackers one year before, now feel the need to defend the post, impeding with mass-force the loss of just a centimeter of terrain, i.e. a step, using for this purpose some water and flour as throwing weapons, reciting at the same time, as a deterrent effect, the verses from the Staircase Song, which lyrics say:

One autumn morning
the plebes arrived at la General
and all the second-lieutenants with great joy
started to sing:
they won’t climb upstairs...
even if they pledge the Oath of Allegiance...
The plebes of la General!!!
¡No way, no way, no way...!

After some minutes of impossible advance, classes dissolve with the complicit and parsimonious arrival of the officers on duty. These ones similarly enjoyed the same experience, altogether with their comrades, attacking and defending a staircase, which was, is and will be a silent witness of how to forge, through respect and love to old traditions, the Esprit of la General, a unifying bond among generations. However, it is a fact that all will claim that their class was the only one who succeeded in climbing up the gun staircase.