Máximo Gómez

Máximo Gómez
General Máximo Gómez in 1889 lithograph
Born	(1836-11-18)November 18, 1836 Baní, Dominican Republic
Died	June 17, 1905(1905-06-17) (aged 68) Havana, Cuba
Allegiance	Cuba
Service/branch	Army
Rank	Generalissimo
Battles/wars	Cuban War of Independence

Máximo Gómez y Báez (November 18, 1836 – June 17, 1905) was a Major General in Cuba's Ten Years' War (1868–1878) against Spain. He was also Cuba's military commander in that country's War of Independence (1895–1898).

Máximo Gómez was born in the town of Baní, in the province of Peravia, in the Dominican Republic. During his teenage years, he joined in the battles against the frequent Haitian incursions of Faustin Soulouque in the 1850s. He was trained as an officer of the Spanish Army at the (Spanish). He had arrived originally in Cuba as a cavalry officer - a Captain - in the Spanish Army and fought alongside the Spanish forces in the Dominican Annexation War (1861–1865). After the Spanish forces were defeated and fled the Dominican Republic in 1865 by order of Queen Isabel II, many supporters of the Annexionist cause left with them, and Maximo Gomez moved his family to Cuba.

Gomez retired from the Spanish Army and soon took up the rebel cause in 1868, helping transform the Cuban Army's military tactics and strategy from the conventional approach favored by Thomas Jordan and others. He gave the Cuban Mambises their most feared tactic: The "Machete Charge".

On October 26, 1868 at Pinos de Baire, Gomez led a Machete Charge on foot, ambushing a Spanish column and obliterating it. The Spanish Army was terrified of these charges because the majority (there were at least 200 Spanish casualties in the attack) were infantry troops, mainly conscripts, who were fearfuleing cut down by the machetes. Because the Cuban Army always lacked sufficient munitions, the usual combat technique was to shoot once and then charge the Spanish.