Historical Organization
Rebel Army
Rebel Army
Details
Organization Timeline
Peasant networks assist Granma survivors
đź“… 2 December 1956Local residents and organizers helped scattered expeditionaries evade government patrols and reach the Sierra Maestra.
Rebels attack La Plata outpost
đź“… 17 January 1957The guerrillas captured a small army post on the coast, their first military victory after the Granma disaster.
Battle of Arroyo del Infierno
đź“… 22 January 1957Rebel forces ambushed an army patrol, showing that the Sierra Maestra guerrilla nucleus had survived.
Herbert Matthews interviews Fidel Castro
đź“… 17 February 1957The New York Times correspondent met Castro in the Sierra Maestra, contradicting government claims that the rebel leader was dead.
New York Times publishes the Castro interview
📅 24 February 1957Publication gave the guerrilla movement international visibility and weakened Batista’s information campaign.
Battle of El Uvero
đź“… 28 May 1957The Rebel Army attacked a fortified coastal garrison. The costly victory demonstrated its growing military capacity.
Rebel doctors treat wounded from both sides at El Uvero
📅 28 May 1957Medical work after the battle helped establish the Rebel Army’s claim to different rules of conduct from Batista’s forces.
Battle of Palma Mocha
đź“… 20 August 1957Rebel forces defeated an army detachment during the expansion of guerrilla operations in the Sierra Maestra.
First Battle of Pino del Agua
đź“… 10 September 1957The Rebel Army attacked an army position and strengthened its control of routes in the Sierra Maestra.
Battle of Mar Verde
đź“… 29 November 1957Rebel forces fought an army unit in the Sierra Maestra; commander Ciro Redondo was killed in the engagement.
Second Battle of Pino del Agua begins
đź“… 16 February 1958The Rebel Army launched a coordinated attack against a larger government position.
Rebels win the Second Battle of Pino del Agua
📅 17 February 1958The victory yielded weapons and reinforced the guerrillas’ capacity to resist larger government formations.
Radio Rebelde begins broadcasting
📅 24 February 1958Che Guevara’s column established a rebel radio station that circulated news, instructions and political messages across Cuba.
Castro calls for total war against the dictatorship
đź“… 17 March 1958A rebel appeal urged coordinated civil resistance, sabotage and armed action to remove Batista.
Castro broadcasts his first major Radio Rebelde speech
📅 14 April 1958The broadcast defended the failed strike movement, condemned Batista’s repression and insisted that the armed struggle would continue.
Operation Verano begins
đź“… 24 May 1958Batista sent thousands of soldiers into the Sierra Maestra to destroy a much smaller rebel force.
First Battle of Santo Domingo begins
📅 27 June 1958Rebel forces resisted the government’s summer offensive in difficult mountain terrain.
Rebel intelligence slows the Santo Domingo offensive
📅 27 June 1958Guides, scouts and local knowledge allowed a much smaller force to resist Batista’s army in the mountains.
Rebels halt the advance at Santo Domingo
đź“… 29 June 1958The army failed to break through the rebel defensive zone, beginning the reversal of Operation Verano.
Battle of El JigĂĽe begins
đź“… 11 July 1958Rebels surrounded an army battalion near La Plata, cutting its supplies and communications.
Rebels encircle Battalion 18 at El JigĂĽe
đź“… 11 July 1958The guerrillas cut roads and supplies, turning a government advance into a siege that undermined army morale.
Army battalion surrenders at El JigĂĽe
📅 21 July 1958Major José Quevedo surrendered his surrounded force. The rebel victory became a turning point in the summer offensive.
Captured soldiers are released after El JigĂĽe
đź“… 21 July 1958The rebels treated prisoners and returned many through the Red Cross, using the victory to contrast their conduct with dictatorship violence.
Second Battle of Santo Domingo begins
đź“… 25 July 1958Government troops again tried to penetrate the rebel zone as Operation Verano weakened.
Second Santo Domingo battle ends
đź“… 28 July 1958Rebel resistance prevented the government army from recovering the initiative in the Sierra Maestra.
Battle of Las Mercedes begins
📅 31 July 1958Government forces attempted to trap Castro’s main force in the final major battle of the summer offensive.
Operation Verano collapses
📅 6 August 1958Rebel manoeuvres and negotiated pauses enabled the guerrillas to escape the attempted encirclement. Batista’s offensive ended in failure.
Castro answers government propaganda on Radio Rebelde
đź“… 18 August 1958He argued that the failed summer offensive showed the revolution had spread beyond the Sierra Maestra and could not be destroyed militarily.
Camilo Cienfuegos receives an invasion mission
📅 18 August 1958Fidel Castro ordered Cienfuegos’s Column 2 to advance westward, echoing Antonio Maceo’s nineteenth-century liberation campaign.
Column 8 receives a national strategic mission
📅 21 August 1958Che Guevara was instructed to cross Cuba, unite forces in Las Villas and disrupt the island’s main transport routes.
Che Guevara receives orders to invade Las Villas
đź“… 21 August 1958The order assigned Column 8 to carry the war from the Sierra Maestra into central Cuba and coordinate revolutionary forces there.
Rebel columns begin the westward campaign
đź“… 31 August 1958The columns of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos moved across difficult terrain while pursued by government forces.
Congress of Peasants in Arms meets in rebel territory
đź“… 21 September 1958Peasant delegates discussed land, roads, schools and political participation, linking agrarian demands to the armed struggle.
Rebel Army promulgates Agrarian Law No. 3
đź“… 10 October 1958In liberated territory the law granted land rights to many tenants and sharecroppers, anticipating the wider reform of 1959.
Che Guevara reaches the Escambray
đź“… 16 October 1958Column 8 arrived in central Cuba and began coordinating with other anti-Batista forces despite political differences.
Radio Rebelde announces agrarian reform in liberated zones
đź“… 20 October 1958The broadcast told rural Cubans that the Rebel Army had begun changing land relations before national victory.
Radio Rebelde reports the expanding national war
đź“… 2 November 1958A wartime transmission connected scattered columns and informed listeners about the widening rebel campaign.
Rebel command regulates movement through liberated territory
đź“… 8 November 1958Instructions to commanders aimed to protect civilians and maintain transport as rebel administration expanded.
Radio Rebelde broadcasts reports from the fronts
📅 14 November 1958The clandestine station challenged government communiqués and linked rural military advances with supporters in the cities.
Battle of Guisa begins
đź“… 20 November 1958Rebel forces attacked government positions near Bayamo as the eastern offensive expanded beyond the Sierra Maestra.
Rebels appeal to the residents of Guisa
📅 24 November 1958The Rebel Army warned civilians before fighting for the town and presented the offensive as liberation from Batista’s forces.
Radio Rebelde commemorates the executed medical students
đź“… 27 November 1958The broadcast connected the nineteenth-century anti-colonial memory of 1871 with the contemporary struggle against dictatorship.
Rebels win the Battle of Guisa
📅 30 November 1958The victory opened routes across Oriente and further weakened the government army’s ability to defend provincial towns.
Battle of Yaguajay begins
📅 19 December 1958Camilo Cienfuegos’s forces surrounded the army garrison at Yaguajay during the campaign for Las Villas.
Column 8 declares a liberated territory
đź“… 20 December 1958A military order identified sugar districts under rebel control and attempted to establish administration behind the advancing front.
Rebels take Placetas
đź“… 23 December 1958The capture of the strategic town further isolated Santa Clara and government forces in central Cuba.
Battle of Santa Clara begins
📅 28 December 1958Forces under Che Guevara attacked strategic positions in Santa Clara, Cuba’s central transport hub.
Rebels derail the armoured train
📅 29 December 1958Guevara’s fighters disabled and captured a train carrying troops and weapons, breaking a central pillar of Santa Clara’s defence.
Yaguajay garrison surrenders
đź“… 30 December 1958After prolonged resistance, the government garrison surrendered to Camilo Cienfuegos, clearing the road toward Havana.
Rebel forces secure Santa Clara
📅 31 December 1958The government’s defence of the central city collapsed, making Batista’s position untenable.
Santiago de Cuba passes to the Rebel Army
đź“… 1 January 1959Rebel commanders accepted the surrender of the city, where Castro proclaimed the triumph of the revolution.
Fidel Castro rejects a military succession
đź“… 1 January 1959Castro denounced attempts by senior officers to transfer power without a complete revolutionary victory.
Castro declares that the revolution will not be frustrated
đź“… 1 January 1959Speaking in Santiago, he warned against replacing Batista with another military arrangement and called for continued popular mobilization.
The revolutionary general strike secures the victory
đź“… 2 January 1959Workers kept transport, communications and major workplaces halted until the military succession collapsed and the Rebel Army controlled the capital.
Camilo Cienfuegos occupies Camp Columbia
📅 2 January 1959Cienfuegos took control of the country’s largest military installation, completing the collapse of Batista’s command in Havana.
Che Guevara enters Havana
📅 2 January 1959Guevara’s column entered the capital and took control of La Cabaña fortress.
Castro says the revolution is beginning rather than ending
đź“… 3 January 1959A Santiago speech presented military victory as the start of social reconstruction and insisted on vigilance against elite restoration.
Castro addresses the crowd at Camp Columbia
đź“… 8 January 1959In a nationally broadcast speech, Castro warned that victory did not mean that every problem had been solved.
Fidel Castro enters Havana
📅 8 January 1959Castro’s Caravan of Freedom reached the capital after a journey from Santiago marked by mass rallies.
Che Guevara discusses the social ideas of the Rebel Army
📅 27 January 1959Guevara described the armed movement’s commitments to agrarian reform, sovereignty and transformation beyond a change of rulers.
Huber Matos resigns his command
đź“… 19 October 1959Matos and other officers resigned in protest at the growing influence of communists within the revolutionary government.
Huber Matos is arrested
📅 21 October 1959Camilo Cienfuegos carried out Castro’s order to arrest Matos in Camagüey on accusations of treason and conspiracy.
Camilo Cienfuegos disappears
📅 28 October 1959Cienfuegos’s aircraft vanished during a flight from Camagüey to Havana, prompting a major but unsuccessful search.