Second Battle of Santo Domingo begins

Rebels surrounded an army battalion near La Plata, cutting its supplies and communications.

The guerrillas cut roads and supplies, turning a government advance into a siege that undermined army morale.

Cuban opposition groups agreed to coordinate the struggle against Batista and support a provisional government after victory.

Major José Quevedo surrendered his surrounded force. The rebel victory became a turning point in the summer offensive.

The rebels treated prisoners and returned many through the Red Cross, using the victory to contrast their conduct with dictatorship violence.

Rebel resistance prevented the government army from recovering the initiative in the Sierra Maestra.

Government forces attempted to trap Castro’s main force in the final major battle of the summer offensive.

Rebel manoeuvres and negotiated pauses enabled the guerrillas to escape the attempted encirclement. Batista’s offensive ended in failure.

Fidel Castro ordered Cienfuegos’s Column 2 to advance westward, echoing Antonio Maceo’s nineteenth-century liberation campaign.

He argued that the failed summer offensive showed the revolution had spread beyond the Sierra Maestra and could not be destroyed militarily.