Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada (* 12. August 1871 in New York City , USA ; † 28. March 1939 in Havana ) was a Cuban politician, diplomat, writer and president of Cuba from 12 August 1933 to 4 September 1,933th

Life

Former Cuban Embassy and home of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada in Washington, DC

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada was born in New York to Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and Ana María de Quesada y Loinaz. He was trained in New York until 1885 and later studied in Germany and France. He completed his studies in diplomacy and international law in Paris .

In 1895 he moved to Cuba and participated in the Cuban War of Independence until 1898 , during which he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1897 he became chief of the General Inspectorate of the Mambí and participated in the drafting of the La Yaya constitution and became governor of the province of Santiago de Cuba .

From 1902 to 1908 he was a member of the Cuban parliament and in the following years from 1909 Cuba's ambassador to Italy, Greece and Argentina. From 1914 he was Cuban ambassador to the USA. In 1915 he married the Italian Laura Bertini, with whom he later had a daughter.

Presidency and dismissal in the 1933 revolution

After the resignation of the dictator Gerardo Machado in August 1933, which was forced by a broad popular uprising , the leading political parties, with the help of US Ambassador Sumner Welles, agreed to hand over the presidency of Céspedes to a cross-factional transitional government, in which he was sworn in on September 12 . The revolutionary mood in the country, which had initially been directed against Machado, did not dissolve when he was replaced. When the police, who had previously supported Machado's power with often extremely brutal methods, withdrew from the streets in view of the popular anger now directed against them, there was a high level of looting and violence in Havana, which Céspedes' government had no means to control would have. In the countryside, dozens of sugar factories were taken over by workers who organized themselves in workers' councils, and the revolutionary mood there also united small farmers and soldiers.

Tomb

In anticipation of a coup by the remaining military officers of the hated Machado, a group of NCOs led by Fulgencio Batista came together at the largest military base in the country in Havana and preceded such a takeover on September 4, 1933 with a coup of their own, thus setting Céspedes as president from. The NCOs they joined with the student body of the University of Havana, which had played a major role in the revolutionary uprising against Machado. On September 5, they published a joint statement to the Cuban people, signed by Batista, two ex-soldiers and 16 civilians, that announced a constituent assembly and the prosecution of the crimes committed under Machado's rule. On September 10, the university professor Ramón Grau San Martín was sworn in as the new president, who held this office for the next four months. In view of the dreadful lack of popular support and the open rejection of his government by the USA, Batista, who controlled the armed forces, reached an agreement with Ambassador Welles on former party friend Machados and former captain of the War of Independence Carlos Mendieta as the new president, who was sworn in on January 18, 1934 has been.

With his dismissal, Céspedes withdrew from political life and devoted himself to historical studies. On March 28, 1939, he died of a heart attack in Havana and was buried at the Cementerio Cristóbal Colón .

Web links

Commons : Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada on EcuRed

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Richard Gott: Cuba: A New History. Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2004, pp. 135-137.
2. ↑ God: Cuba. Pp. 137-141.

predecessor	Office	successor
	Cuban Ministre plénipotentiaire in Rome 1909–1912	Leonardo Fernández Sánchez
Carlos García Vélez	Cuban envoy extraordinary and Ministre plénipotentiaire in Buenos Aires 1912–1913	Emilio Aragonés
Pablo Desvernine y Galdós	Cuban Envoy Extraordinary and Ministre plénipotentiaire in Washington, DC July 22, 1914–1922	Cosme de la Torriente y Peraza