Ten Years War
The movement broke out October of October of 1868, to the rise in arms Bayamo lawyer Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, one of the main conspirators, who in his ingenuity The Demajagua proclaimed independence and gave freedom to his slaves. [5]The uprising, seconded shortly after by the Camagüey and Las Villas conspirators, managed to assert itself, despite the ruthless Hispanic reaction.
The Cuban Liberation Army, after months of hard military training, achieved an offensive capacity that would be revealed in the invasion of the rich region of Guantánamo by General Máximo Gómez Báez and the brilliant actions carried out in the savannas of Camagüey by the cavalry in command. scored by Ignacio Agramonte. But this military advance was hampered by political differences in the revolutionary field, which led to the deposition of Céspedes from his post as President of the Republic (1873) and prevented the much-needed support in arms and resources from the emigrated patriots.
According to Thesciencetutor, the Cuban military thrust reached its zenith between 1874 and 1875, first with the campaign of Máximo Gómez in Camagüey, marked by the victorious battles of La Sacra and Palo Seco and the battle of Las Guásimas – where the Cuban army defeated a Spanish force of more 4,000 men – and the subsequent invasion of Las Villas by the Mambi troops under the command of Gómez. The transcendental strategic advance was again distorted by internal dissensions that, by hindering the arrival of vital reinforcements, made it possible for the invasion to get bogged down without achieving its objective of bringing the war to the rich western territory of Cuba.
The unfavorable bias of the correlation of forces and the wear and tear in the insurgent camp, made it possible for an important sector of the independence movement to accept the proposals of the Spanish General Arsenio Martínez Campos. The peace without independence signed in Zanjón (1878) did not obtain the consensus of the Mambisa forces and in particular was rejected by General Antonio Maceo, chief of the forces of the easternmost part of the Island, who, despite his humble origin He had risen to the highest hierarchy of the Liberation Army by dint of courage and fighting capacity.
Although the insurrectionary military actions could not be sustained for long, the Baraguá Protest, staged by Maceo and his troops, who embodied the most popular sectors of the revolutionary movement, constituted the greatest evidence of the irrevocable will of the Cubans to continue the struggle for the independence. [6]
War of Independence in Cuba
Delivered since his adolescence to the independence ideal, José Martí y Pérez (Havana, 1853) suffered imprisonment and exile during the Ten Years’ War.
His links with later conspiratorial movements allowed him to understand that the Cuban revolution had to be based on new programmatic and organizational bases, a task to which he gave himself entirely. Martí came to possess a deep political thought, enriched by the experience of his years of life in Spain, the United States and different Latin American countries.
His work of clarification and unification, focused on the nuclei of Cuban emigrants, mainly in the United States, but with wide repercussions on the island, crystallized in 1892 with the constitution of the Cuban Revolutionary Party. Conceived as the sole organization of all Cuban independentists, the party had to obtain the material and human resources for the new emancipatory enterprise, and invest the military leaders with the essential political authority to unleash the Necessary War. [7]This broke out on February 24, 1895.
Martí, who landed in Cuba accompanied by Máximo Gómez, Chief of the Liberation Army, fell shortly after in the action of Dos Ríos. Despite this irreparable loss, the revolution unfolded in Oriente province, where Maceo – arrived on an expedition from Costa Rica – had assumed command of the Mambisa forces, and soon after spread to Camagüey and Las Villas. Meeting in Jimaguayú, the delegates of the Liberation Army drew up the constitution that would govern the destiny of the Republic in Arms.
In December of 1896 the fall of Maceo occurs in the battle of San Pedro, and is replaced in the office of Lieutenant General of the Liberation Army by Calixto García, another brilliant general of the Ten Years’ War. Gómez then decided to concentrate on himself the best of the Spanish forces, which he subjected to a devastating campaign of attrition in the center of the island. In this way, he left García’s hands free, who fought important battles in the East, and achieved the capture of the fortified squares of Las Tunas and Guisa. Meanwhile, in the West there are thousands of small and medium-scale actions. The fate of Spanish colonialism was cast.
In February 1898, the explosion of the Battleship Maine occurred in the port of Havana, a fact that Washington took as a pretext to mobilize public opinion and intervene directly in the war. [8] Although it formally admits the independence of Cuba, without recognizing its institutions, the United States goes to war with Spain and, with the collaboration of the Mambisa forces, lands its troops on the southern coast of the eastern part of Cuba. The actions are fought around Santiago de Cuba.