Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada
Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada ( born August 12, 1871 in New York City, USA, † March 28, 1939 in Havana ) was a Cuban politician, diplomat, writer and president of Cuba from 12 August 1933 to 4 September 1933.
Life
Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada was born the son of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and Ana María de Quesada y Loinaz in New York. By the year 1885, he was educated in New York and studied in Germany and France later. In Paris, he completed his studies of diplomacy and international law.
In 1895 he moved to Cuba and participated until 1898 at the Cuban War of Independence, in which he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1897 he became chief of the General Inspectorate of Mambí and participated in the drafting of the Constitution of La Yaya 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 subsequent period from 1909 Cuban ambassador in Italy, Greece and Argentina. From 1914 he was Cuban ambassador to the United States. In 1915 he married the Italian Laura Bertini, with whom he had a daughter later.
Presidency and deposition in the Revolution of 1933
After the forced by a broad popular uprising resignation of the dictator Gerardo Machado in August 1933 the leading political parties agreed with the significant mediation of the U.S. Ambassador Sumner Welles on Cespedes to hand over the presidency of a cross-party transitional government, in which he was sworn in on 12 September. The revolutionary mood in the country, which had initially directed against Machado, however, did not dissolve with its replacement. When the police forces that had hitherto supported with often extremely brutal methods Machado power, retreated in the face of public anger now directed against them from the streets, it was in Havana at a high level of looting and violence, for their control Céspedes ' government has no means had. In the country, dozens of sugar factories were taken over by organizing itself in workers' councils workforces, the revolutionary mood united there also small farmers and soldiers.
In anticipation of a coup by the remaining military officers of the hated Machado one led by Fulgencio Batista group of officers joined the largest military base in the country in Havana together and came of such a takeover on September 4, 1933 its own coup earlier, continuing Céspedes as President from. The sergeants they joined forces with the Student Union of the University of Havana, who had played a leading role in the revolutionary uprising against Machado. On September 5, they released a joint statement to the Cuban people, which was signed by Batista, two former soldiers and 16 civilians and in which a Constituent Assembly as well as the prosecution of crimes committed under Machado's reign crimes were announced. 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. Given Gray's lacking support in the population and the open rejection of his government by the United States, the armed forces controlling Batista agreed with Ambassador Welles on the former party colleague Machado and former captain of the Revolutionary War Carlos Mendieta as the new president, who then sworn in on January 18, 1934 been.
Céspedes retired with his removal from political life and devoted himself to the science of history. On March 28, 1939, he died in Havana of a heart attack and was buried in the Cementerio Cristóbal Colón.