Background
Earlier in the month, an amphibious assault from sea by the Cuban army Battalion 18, was crushed by Castro's forces at the Battle of La Plata. Battalion 18 was surrounded and sniped at by the rebel forces. General Cantillo ordered Battalion 17 to cross over the Sierra Maestra to come to the aid of Battalion 18. However, Castro's troops were able to block the road and prevent any relief for the surrounded soldiers. After 10 days of fighting, Battalion 18 surrendered.
This left Battalion 17 in an exposed position on the road south of Las Mercedes lake. General Cantillo thought that since he was going to pull Battalion 17 back in any event, he might try to trap any guerrillas which chased the ineffective battalion. Castro did try to ambush the retreat of Battalion 17, just as General Cantillo expected.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Las Mercedes
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)