Touch the degüello
The blow to the slaughter was originally a ruthless drumming and / or horn that ordered the troops to fight without quarter, without taking prisoners, cutting the neck "from ear to ear" to any enemy that surrendered .
Originally, the touch was of Muslim origin, of the Moors settled in the Iberian peninsula. Later it was adopted by the Spanish troops, as many texts and quotes of the time relate:
Tired after enduring and counterattacking for hours (suffering few casualties), the children of Hispania would get mad at the touch of the groom ordered by their master. Like hungry wolves, displaying their reputation as ruthless war demons, many of them leave pikes and harquebuses, drawing their steels from Toledo, Vizcaya and Sahagun, and pounce on the retreating enemy, surnamed Santiago. They run to catch up with them and kill them (a deadly weak point of the three-quarters armor of enemy coroseletes), without pleading for pity requests, surrenders or furious attacks. Some veteran said, before running away, that it was time to warm up, even if he was cutting off heretics.
Finally the touch to degüello is adopted like trumpet touch of the Mexican cavalry, that ordered the troops to enter in combat without requesting neither truce nor quarter. This touch included the order not to take prisoners, even if they surrendered, and these were beheaded.
The order of General Antonio López de Santa Anna during the battle of El Álamo is known to give the touch to slaughter for several days before the final assault, as a measure of psychological warfare against the defenders.
In Cuba, during the wars of independence, Cuban troops almost always lacking ammunition, used the machete charges in both infantry and cavalry battles. Its first use in combat was ordered by General Máximo Gómez the 26 of October of 1868, with a result so devastating for the Spanish troops, that was used during all the following years of war accompanied with a touch of bug called touch to degüello. One of the most renowned touches of Cuban military history was led by Major General Ignacio Agramonte during the rescue of another separatist, known as the "Sanguily Rescue": Ignacio Agramonte, commanded by a small cavalry group (35 men) attacked a Spanish troop of 120 soldiers; his words were: "Commander Aguero, tell your soldiers that your chief, Brigadier Sanguily, is in the power of those Spaniards, that he must be rescued alive or dead or perish in the lawsuit." And, addressing Juan Antonio Avilés, Aguero ordered: "Corneta, touch to death." Notes
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