124 years ago, on December 7th, it was a quiet day at the camp of the palmar de San Pedro, Major General Antonio Maceo issued orders to the officers of his staff for the future Havana campaign.

Maceo was confident of the success of his new campaign and that it would bring Weyler’s collapse, and thus, a radical change in the struggle.

This new phase was preceded by the fame of the Western Campaign where military successes were combined, the destruction of a part of the colonialist economy based on tobacco; together with the failure of Valeriano Weyler to defeat Maceo and thereby bring peace to the region.

After studying the blueprints of the towns that Captain Andrés Fernández had provided him, which included the forts and defenses of the perfectly marked squares, he planned to leave on the night of the 7th itself towards Mariano, located on the outskirts of Havana.

Maceo and a good reading

The general was in a good mood and the camp was quiet. After having for lunch a fried chicken with some root vegetables in the company of the chiefs and officers who surrounded him, he withdrew. Leaning back in his hammock, he listened enthusiastically together with Pedro Díaz, Baldomero Acosta, Carlos Guas and Juan Delgado to Miró who, at his request, read the invasion campaign aloud.

Maceo liked the pages referring to the Coliseo battle, he always repeated: (…) the star of his fortune sank when it was not yet mid-afternoon in that gloomy sky (…), since it made reference to his buddy Martinete, the way in which Arsenio Martínez Campos was called.

When the silence ended

Shots rang out, breaking into the silence of the afternoon, preceded by several volleys. The evident negligence of the scouting patrols that General Maceo had ordered Juan Delgado to send in pursuit of the Spanish column of about 650 men, which left Punta Brava in the morning under the command of Commander Francisco Cirujeda.

The Spanish troops found no obstacle following Maceo’s fresh trail stealthily until they found themselves in front of the Cuban guard of Matilde, defeating their 87 men and mading it up to the camp where the Major General rested due to the Peral guerrilla.

After the confusion because of the surprise, and the rapid response capacity of the Mambi officers of the Maceo, who together with 40 men managed to displace the Peral guerrilla from Matilde. The Titan, impressed for few seconds, stood up and immediately ordered a bugle to be brought to him to play the post.

Courage and integrity

Like always, he only needed ten minutes to fully dress, tighten the belt that held the machete and revolver, and saddle the horse, a task that he practiced in war cases to be safe on the stirrups. Being convinced that nothing was missing, he ordered: This way!, showing the way to battle.

When Maceo entered through the stone fence that divided the Purísima Concepción and Bobadilla estates, he ran into the obstacle of a wire fence that prevented him from reaching the Spanish positions at a charge rate.

When he ordered the fence to be pierced and General Díaz to flank on the right, he was heard saying: This is going well!

The last bullets

As he stood up, a bullet hit his face. He stayed on the horse for about three seconds until he dropped his bridle, his machete fell off, and he collapsed. Along with him twelve soldiers from his escort fell by the fire of the Spanish.

Upon incorporating him almost dying, the head of the escort Juan Manuel Sánchez, Maceo said: “That’s nothing! Don’t be intimidated!” He then died, not before being hit by another shot in the chest.

Upon hearing the news with the arrival of the wounded to the camp, Captain Francisco (Panchito) Gómez Toro, assistant to the Major General since the meeting between Maceo and the Three Friends expedition members on September 18th, who had arrived in Cuba on September 10th., and that he had not participated in a combat due to the wound that he had since the Governor’s combat; He left to meet his general and in the attempts to rescue the body he was mortally wounded, being finished off with a machete by a Spanish soldier.

His mark

The Bronze Titan, the hero of Baraguá, fell in combat, the man who had joined the Great War since October 12th, 1868, as a soldier and during its development his work was characterized by the rise of military authority and prestige for the growth of its leadership and the constant radicalization of its ideas.

These allowed him to transcend his military performance and assume political positions in defense of the revolution and its continuity.

The institutions established in the Republic in Arms had his support as well as his decisions, even when he did not fully share them or consider them inappropriate. Along with unavoidable principles such as the need to not resort to insubordination in order solve the problems that have arisen, to obey the laws and established governmental bodies, as well as to count on the people, characterized their actions.

Antonio Maceo’s fall in combat was the second catastrophe of the war, because, apart from the immeasurable loss that it meant in the military field due to his genius in military art; it represented him on the political plane for his enormous talent. He had become the only man who, in the absence of the irreplaceable Martí, could, because of his splendid vision, guide the Cuban struggle.

History gives birth to a brave man again

Thirty-eight years after the Bronze Titan fell in combat in San Pedro, it happened that that day in Santiago de Cuba but in 1934, a child was born who would become one of the most admired figures by Cubans, Frank Isaac País García

From Maceo to Frank

His Christian ethical training did not prevent him since he was 18 years old from opposing the Batista dictatorship from the very day of March 10th, 1952.

The attack on the Moncada barracks on July 26th, 1953 by young people onder the direction of Fidel Castro who challenged the military might of the dictatorship to keep alive leading figure of the Apostle in the year of his centenary, aroused a profound impact on Frank, reflected in the letter that he wrote on July 28th to Elia Frómeta, expressing:

“… I’m not into anything, but I would like to. That day I went out into the street looking for someone who had a rifle or a revolver and luckily for them I didn’t find it, because if not for every bullet they had given me I would have killed one … ”

The repressive actions of the dictatorship against the survivors are also the subject of comments in the epistle:

“… They kill them like mosquitoes. They are murderers. They want to retaliate like cowards what they did not know how to defend as men when they had to. It angered and pained me to see dozens of young boys die over and over again. ”

His fiery prose

In his prose writings there is a reference between the months of July and October 1953, without a title, but there is no doubt that it was dedicated to Fidel:

“Do not be discouraged, my friend, that triumph belongs to those who sacrifice and you have sacrificed enough. Today I looked at you so sad, with all your hopes lying on the ground, wanting to cry your bitterness, and I wanted to cry with you…

You have not missed an opportunity to show the country your great love for it, and you have not lost an opportunity either to show us, who are honored to call ourselves your friends, the firm ideal of your feelings, the noble affection and the clean and clear way of your faithful judgment.

(…) Don’t be discouraged, my friend, that triumph belongs to those who sacrifice and your triumph is near”.

We must clarify that at the time Frank did not know Fidel, but his identification with him was such.

His training

Graduated as a teacher since July 6th, 1953, he began to work at the El Salvador school, all classes were taught with devotion, but in history he showed special fervor.

He sought to transmit to his students the true history, exalting the courage and selflessness of our patriots, their civic spirit and their political thinking. With the constant allusions to these themes, Frank created in the minds of his students a feeling of patriotism and repudiation against the tyrant.

Such was the case that for him, his birthday was not a day of celebration, since that day was commemorated the fall in combat of Maceo and, in his name, that of all those who gave their lives for the freedom of Cuba.

How much integrity and he did not know that one day he would also give his life for the full freedom of Cuba.

His extensive revolutionary work and the prestige he has acquired despite his young age from the FEU of the East UniversityUniversidad, in the National Revolutionary Movement led by Professor Rafael García Bárcenas where Armando Hard and Faustino Pérez among others served until forming the Eastern Revolutionary Action . With this, Frank wanted it to resemble that of the Moncadistas in the level of compartmentalization in the fight against Batista.

His approach to the University Student Federation dates back to January 1955 when José Antonio Echevarría visited the East University for the forum on the Canal Vía Cuba and in a second meeting this time in Havana, he met Fructuoso Rodríguez, Joe Westbrook, Juan Pedro Carbó, José Machado, Faure Chomón, Rene Anillo among others, with a firm attitude of struggle against the dictatorship.

But it would be Lester Rodríguez who attacked Moncada, a man from Santiago who had managed to escape, and had already had ties with Frank in the months after Moncada, where they had drawn up a plan to rescue the Moncada members from the Boniato prison, a plan that never materialized.

Returning clandestinely to Cuba in early 1955 from Mexico, and when the government granted amnesty to the Centennial youth as a result of popular pressure, Lester met with Fidel and commented to him about young Frank, as someone who should be counted on in the future organization. And so it would be, in the formation of the July 26 Movement in the East, the young man of just 21 years old would assume the position of head of Action.

The meeting

They would finally meet in Mexico in August 1956, when Frank traveled to the Aztec country, to prepare with Fidel the actions to support the future arrival of the expeditionaries to Cuba.

No introductions were necessary, a hug replaced the formalities. On November 30th, Santiago de Cuba woke up in the middle of a combat, in support of the landing of the yacht Granma, which would finally arrive on the Cuban coast on December 2th after seven days of navigation. Brave young men would lose their lives in the action, among them Pepito Tey, Otto Parellada, Tony Aloma and several others.

After the actions of November 30th, a ferocious persecution against Frank was launched by the Batista’s henchmen, he would go into hiding and from there he would fulfill all the tasks as head of action and sabotage of the M-July 26th in the country. Every time it guaranteed the shipment of reinforcement and provisions to the mountains.

On July 30th, 1957, an exact month after the death of his brother Josué at the hands of the dictatorship, he was assassinated in the Muro alley along with his friend Raúl Pujol. Cuba was losing one of its most precious children.

His death

About him, the leader of the revolution synthesized all the value that the figure of Frank País contained when he expressed when he heard the news he wrote to Celia, a former collaborator of Frank “It is hard to believe the news (…) they are monsters! They do not know the intelligence, the character, the integrity that they have killed. The people of Cuba did not even know who Frank País was, what was great and promising about him. It hurts to see him like this, killed at the age of 25, when he was giving the Revolution the best of himself.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García