On November 17, 1895, Churchill and
Barnes boarded a train from New York to
Tampa, Florida, and from there they sailed on
the steamer Olivette to Havana, where they
arrived on November 20.
Once in the Cuban capital, Churchill and
Barnes were welcomed —once again thanks
to Drummond-Wolf— by the Captain-General
(Governor) of Cuba, General Martínez
Campos. After the customary greetings, the
latter granted them their wish and attached
the two young British officers to the General
Staff of a mobile military column under the
command of Major-General Alvaro Suárez
Valdés, which was then deployed in Santa
Clara. Once Churchill and Barnes achieved
their goal, they immediately set off for Sancti
Spiritus by train. This was a village located
in the centre of the island, from where they
reached —with a mounted military column—,
the fortifications of the combat outpost in
Arroyo Blanco.
It is worth mentioning that Suárez Valdés
was actively involved, as a Major-General,
in the campaigns in Holguín, La Habana,
Matanzas, Capellanías and Ingenio Viejo,
and his clashes during those years with
Antonio Maceo’s and Máximo Gómez’s men
deserve special mention. And it was precisely
against Gómez’s men that Suárez Valdés’
mobile column was operating in those days.
Churchill had his baptism of fire on
December 2, (however, Colonel Martínez
Viqueira, one of the few authors who mention
these events, maintains that the attack took
place on November 30, Churchill’s twenty-first
birthday. The decoration seems to have been
awarded on December 2, although given that
the skirmishes lasted at least 36 hours, it is
difficult to pinpoint exactly when Churchill was
considered worthy of winning the cross).
During a journey between Arroyo Blanco
and La Reforma, when they were about to
reach the village of Guayos, his column was
caught by surprise by rebel fire. Churchill
himself put it this way: “On that day for the
first time I heard shots fired in anger, and
heard bullets strike flesh or whistle through
the air”. The first ambush lasted more than
ten minutes and during that time Churchill
and Barnes were under continuous rifle
fire. For the next 36 hours, as the column
New York Times review
of December 6, 1895. The
penultimate decoration
(above) is the Cross with
Red Ribbon.
National Archives
As Churchill
himself recalled
“bullets strike
flesh or whistle
through the air”
marched forward, the mounted unit was
under constant enemy fire. The firing did
not subside during the time needed for the
column to drive the rebels from the positions
into which they had entrenched themselves.
Churchill and Barnes only remained on
the island for 24 days —they left Havana
on December 14— but no doubt these were
very full days: in experience, emotions,
writings and also in combats. Not even
Churchill himself in his wildest dreams
could have imagined before arriving in the
August 2020 Revista Española de Defensa 49