Gerardo Machado - War Experience

War Experience

He rustled cattle from the Spanish Imperial Army for distribution to the starving Cuban People, who were denied such food for their children. General Machado was the oldest brother of Colonel Lorenzo Machado-Morales of the Cuban Mambi army of Las Villas Province under General Calixto Garcia. General Machado was one of the youngest Cuban generals of the 1895 to 1898 Cuban War of Independence. Only two other War of Independence generals were younger: Calixto Enamorado (1874–1951) and Enrique Loynaz del Castillo (1871–1963),. Gerardo Machado fought in the middle provinces along with José Miguel Gómez (1858–1921) who also was president on the Liberal Party ticket and José de Jesús Monteagudo who would later defeat the disorganized black separatist forces of Evaristo Estenoz and Pedro Ivonet in the 1912 Race War and cruelly crush this rebellion.

Machado, said to the party's War leader in Las Villas province, fought on the defeated Liberal side in the 1917 "Little War of February 1917” La Chambelona (Chambelona War), with José Miguel Gómez, Alfredo Zayas and with Enrique Loynaz del Castillo. Calixto Enamorado fought on the Conservative side. After the initial victories of the Liberals, things turned worse. Yet Machado continued to fight even after the Liberals lost to the machine guns of Colonel Rosendo Collazo at Caicaje once the hacienda of Santiago Saura Orraque and Juan Manuel Perez de la Cruz on 8 March until his cause was unsustainable and surrendered.

President Mario García Menocal had clearly won. Technically there was no US intervention in this war and Cuban Army Offices notably Julio Sanguilí, in Santiago, regained control. Since in this war the Liberals were said to be pro-German, US President Woodrow Wilson, worried about Mexico and Pancho Villa, and the loss of able general, Menocal's friend and Cuba hand Frederick Funston had one less distraction on his hands. Menocal declared war on Germany April 7 of that same year. John J. Pershing, less tactful than Funston, in the Cuban circumstance, would be sent first to Mexico and then Europe.