El degüello (Spanish: El toque a degüello) is a bugle call, notable in the United States for its use as a march by Mexican Army buglers during the 1836 Siege and Battle of the Alamo[1] to signal that the defenders of the garrison would receive no quarter by the attacking Mexican Army under General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
[1] It "signifies the act of beheading or throat-cutting and in Spanish history became associated with the battle music, which, in different versions, meant complete destruction of the enemy without mercy.
"[6] In it, Keller wrote, "When they sound the 'No Quarter', they'll rise to the slaughter, when they play 'The Deguello', the wail of despair."
K. R. Wood's 1997 compilation album Fathers of Texas[7] explains the bugle call and what it meant at the Alamo through song and narration.
It is depicted as a bugle call in Disney's Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955),[8] in The Last Command (1955), in Viva Max!