It will not be like 1898, when the North Americans came and made themselves masters of our country. Belying his inferior location, Castro's tour was designed to make sure it was he who filled it. When the revolutionaries captured the key cities in central Cuba, Batista fled to the Dominican Republic, leaving behind a power vacuum. Despite its vastly superior force, the army was unprepared for guerrilla warfare and suffered major defeats that allowed the M26 to move westward. In the summer of 1958 Batista launched a surge in the east against Castro. The three guerrilla forces shared a common enemy-Batista-but little more.įidel Castro and his fellow revolutionaries enter Havana, January 8, 1959. Disputes within the Directorio saw the formation of a splinter group, the Second Front. The rump of the Directorate fled to the Escambray mountains in central Cuba and began its own guerrilla campaign, independent of Castro. Batista narrowly escaped but the Directorate's leader, José Antonio Echeverría, was killed. A few months later, the Directorate attacked the presidential palace in Havana. In late 1956 Castro's rag-tag band of rebels sailed to their proposed hideout, the Sierra Maestra. At that point, the Cuban rebellion centred on urban resistance led by the Revolutionary National Action (which merged into Castro's July 26, Movement, or M26) and the Revolutionary Directorate. Upon his release he went into exile in Mexico, where he plotted a guerrilla insurgency to be headquartered in the mountains of Eastern Province.

With no electoral avenue to change the status quo, opposition groups turned to violent insurrection.Ĭastro's revolt began on Jwith a disastrous attack on the barracks in Santiago, the major city in Eastern Province. He cancelled elections, suppressed dissent and struck deals with the US Mafia for personal financial gain at ordinary Cubans' expense. General Batista had been a progressive, democratically elected president in the 1940s, but returned to power in 1952 through a military coup. His task was to ensure he would be Batista's successor. Knowing he would lose the race, Castro turned his positional weakness into a strength and embarked on an eight-day, island-long victory parade or caravana.

While Castro was stuck in the south-eastern hinterland, his rivals for power-the regime's top brass and the commanders of partially-allied guerrilla forces-were headed north-west to the capital. Batista's flight had caught him by surprise. When the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Havana in the early hours of January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro was 550 miles away, at the opposite end of the island. Undeterred, the would-be leader turned his journey to the capital into a victory march. Dickie Crawford, Tech’s Vice President for Student Advancement.Īlso, in March and for the ninth straight year, the University was awarded the Silver Designation in Victory Media’s 2022-23 Military Friendly Schools list.When the Cuban Revolution succeeded in January 1959, Fidel Castro had a problem: he was 550 miles from Havana. “As we continue to develop strategies to recruit, retain, and educate a diverse community of students who contribute to Tech’s inclusive learning environment, the nation’s veterans and active-duty military will continue to be an important part of our Tech Family,” said Dr. This collaboration increases veterans’ ability to earn their undergraduate or graduate degrees close to home. In the Veterans Resource Center – a partnership between Tech and Bossier Parish Community College – veterans and their families can receive services and information. Much more recently, Louisiana Tech Research Institute at National Cyber Research Park in Bossier City has partnered with Cyber Innovation Center in supporting several defense-sector efforts. Programs at Tech Barksdale, founded more than 50 years ago, are designed to help maximize credits military students might have gotten elsewhere today, many classes are online. Tech’s relationship with Barksdale Air Force Base is a long and strong one. “So, the program was created to showcase our community and how each of those organizations go above and beyond to champion our military.” “We know that a lot of retail businesses provide military discounts, but we also know that there are many other organizations who can’t necessarily provide that, but have a lot of other ways to show their support to our military,” Chamber Military Relations Liaison Kattie Hollay said.

Launched in May, the new program highlights those organizations within Bossier City that go “above and beyond to support our military,” Chamber President and CEO Lisa Johnson said.

Louisiana Tech University has been named a Military Community Champion by the Bossier Chamber of Commerce for being “committed to the growth of our community by investing in our military, their families, and our veterans.”

Tech victory march