Máximo Gómez Báez

Major General Máximo Gómez Báez was born in Baní (Dominican Republic), son of Andrés Gómez y Guerrero and Clemencia Báez y Pérez. Thanks to the efforts of his relatives, he learned to read and write at home because at that time there were few schools and he was unable to attend any.

Later, his godfather, the priest Andrés Roson, continued his education. He wanted to educate the boy for the priesthood. But Máximo Gómez enlisted in the Spanish army at 20 years of age. A soldier of those who fought with machete, on horseback or on foot and even barefoot.

He arrived in Cuba in 1865 as a commander of the Spanish Army. In Cuba he saw things that made him change his way of thinking. There were many slaves there, and the treatment they received made a strong impression on him.

In 1868 he enlisted in the Cuban emancipation movement. Máximo Gómez entered the war for independence with the military rank of sergeant. The knowledge he demonstrated was so great that a few days later he was promoted to General of the Revolutionary Army.

He fought in the Ten Years' War, the first struggle for Cuba's independence. After the war he traveled to the United States and met with José Martí, but the two men's approach to the problem of Cuban liberation was different. Gómez tended to favor the military side.

However, in 1895 Martí asked Gómez to lead the new struggle in the eastern provinces. His tactics were rapid attacks for which guerrilla forces were well suited. Spanish General Valeriano Weyler responded with the trocha or fortified ditches built to stop those forces. Gómez fought despite the considerable obstacles presented by Weyler's 160,000 men.

In 1892 he joined José Martí, leader of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, with whom he landed in Cuba after the cry of Baire (1895) which initiated Cuba's War of Independence. He was the military chief of the revolutionary forces until the end of the war in 1898. After the expulsion of the Spanish and the independence of the island, and removed from office by the Assembly, he supported the candidacy of Tomás Estrada Palma in the 1901 presidential elections.

At the end of the war, Gómez was 75 years old, and had dedicated more than half his life to the liberation of Cuba. Gómez was a fine example of internationalism, as he dedicated most of his life to his "beloved and suffering Cuba," while at the same time being an admirable military man for his courage and intransigence. Being courteous with the brave enemy, he was merciless with cowards or the undisciplined among his own troops. His brilliant military strategy, his personal example and his command style, famous for its severity, enabled him to carry out campaigns (the Invasion and subsequent campaigns) without historical precedent due to the disparity of his forces both in manpower (from 35,000 to 40,000 mambises against more than a quarter million Spanish) and in military technique: the mambises had no artillery, except at the end of the war, when Calixto García besieged the city of Holguín with some cannons, taken from the enemy, not to mention the enormous difficulties in getting expeditions with men and weapons for the struggle.

Finally, his selfless conduct in withdrawing from political affairs after the Cuban triumph was also admirable in a certain way, as he never sought any role in the civil political life of Cuba, to which he actually had a right due to his extraordinary merits. Although there were many great Cuban patriots, when the trilogy of fundamental men of the War of Independence is cited, Máximo Gómez stands alongside José Martí and Antonio Maceo.