Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution
Praise be the village and zapata of Frank McLlynn
Refreshing ... Frank McLlynn plunged into an important episode in modern Mexican experience, namely the social and political revolution that shook the country for about twenty years, cost two million lives and reformulated its institutions.
-Wall Street Journal
A masterful book .... McLlynn tells an exciting story and tells so well that you can hear the strains of the Mexican patriotic pattern, `` Zacatecas '', as you read it. It's a fascinating work, a page that is sophisticated.
-Austin American-Statesman
In a rare achievement, McLlynn presents his topic in a logical and understandable way, while incorporating the latest research.McLlynn produced a careful analytical account of the 1910-20 Mexican Revolution.His narrative is alive and witty, leading the reader to this careful study.
-Library Journal
Thoroughly researched....The author makes this informative and insightful study all the more compelling with his witty, fluid prose.McLynn so thoroughly grasps and so deftly communicates the nuances of government and corruption...that this book feels less like a story than a great story, as exciting as a Saturday series.
-Publishers weekly
Vivid .... This work has its own charm [and] gives the essence of the period.
-Choice Magazine
By the same author
France and Jacobita Rising of '1745
The Jacobite Army in England
OS Jacobitas
Invasion: From Armed to Hitler
Charles Edward Stuart
Crime and punishment in 18th century England
Stanley: the creation of an African explorer
Snats in the Desert: The Life of Sir Richard Burton
From the Sierras to the Pampas: Richard Burton's Travels in the Americas, I86o-69
Stanley: Wizard Apprentice
Dark hearts: European exploration of Africa
Fitzroy MacLean
Robert Louis Stevenson
CG.Jung
Napoleon
IO66: The Year of the Three Battles
Dedication
For Jose Briseno, compadre
Illustrations
First session
Emiliano Zapata: Dandy as a hero
PIPLORIO 1910
Francesco Madero
Francisco Villa
Pascual Orozco
A DYNAMITED TRAIN TRAIN
Rebels crossing train tracks
General Victoriano Huerta
Huerta e Orozco
The Madero Family
Francisco Madero
Venustiano Carranza
Alvaro Obregon
Villa in the full uniform of the revolutionary 'dress'
Rodolfo Fierro
Second section
Zapatistas No Restaurante de Sanborn
The meeting at the Presidential Palace in 1914
American forces that occupy Veracruz, 1914
Villa with his enemies, Obergon and General Pershing
villa in a good mood
Zapata also of a happy mood (for him)
Felix Diaz
Orozco
Venustiano Carranza
Obregon at the Battle of Celaya
The women of the revolution
Zapata's last authentic image
Villa putting a brave face in adversity
Maps
Mexico
North Mexico
South of Mexico
North Mexico
South of Mexico
Preface
Three pendant volumes acted as my lodestar while writing this book: two -volume Alan Knight The Mexican Revolution; The Life and Times of Friedrich Katz de Pancho and John Womack and the Mexican Revolution. I here and now I recognize my great debt withThese scholars without peers. But in recent years, all the roads seemed to take to Mexico City, because all my interests seemed to point in the same direction, be it Jack London's war reporting, Diego Rivera's paintings or filmsSergio Leone.Espero, if nothing more, that I communicated my enthusiasm for the incredible story of the 1910-20 years, which was written as fiction would be fired by possible editors as `exaggerated '.
Any author who writes such a book has a debt with hundreds of unknown writers of monographs and newspaper articles and even long forgotten newspaper reporters.Among those who inhabit the face -to -face world, I can't help but mention Jonathan Cape's 'Three Musketeers' - Will Sulkin, Tony Whittome and Jorg Hensgen - whose enthusiasm and support were crucial.If I mention an even more striking influence, it is just because my wife Pauline, editor, collaborator and inspiring, is D'Artagnan da play.Others who deserve honorable mention are Professor Alan Knight, from St.Antony's College in Oxford, which provided research materials for me, dr.Malcolm Chapman, whose sharp editorial look was a trump card, and mr.Paul Taylor, Master in Maps, Drawing and Internet.
Frank McLlynn, Twickenham, March 2000
The Mexico de Porfirio Diaz
As 1910 moved to the fall, even the most reckless player would not bet on the likelihood that the first major revolution of the century (and the fourth importance throughout the century) was about to begin.The year had been silent. Chinese abolished slavery, Portugal was about to discard their monarchy and South Africa became an independent nation with dominance status within the British Empire.and not in politics.Rodin, Braque, Matisse, Leger and Henri's dying Douanier 'Rousseau produced important works, as well as Ravel, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams and Mahler in the music world.Literature, with Shaw, Barrie, Wells, Forster and Bennett All active, but the main public event that year was the death of Edward VII to the sixties and the succession of his son George V. Rigating Protocol who rules the real mourning, it was announced that it was announced thatThere would be no official British representation in the next Jamboree in Mexico, for which representatives of all nations in the world were invited, the expenses paid.
Few have heard of Saint Porfirio's obscure Saint Porfirio, whose party day fell on September 15, but everyone in Mexico knew Porfirio, who shared the saint's birthday.years. Now, on the night of September 15, he was about to celebrate his eighth birthday. The occasion was special in more than one way, as Mexico himself was also celebrating the centenary of his struggle for the independence of Spain.He delighted in a one -month nap, and large sums, equivalent to the country's annual spending on education, were intended for parties, banquets and dances.
About the lighted balconies of the National Palace of Mexico, Special Diplomats from the four corners of the world and the chosen guests of Diaz watched a stunning display of fireworks before retiring to a meal of ten dishes.Guests were already tired with a day of spectacle, during which Diaz Bade Fair was a second Moctezuma, king of the Aztecs; the people of Iooo had participated in a historical contest representing the Mexican history of Aztecs to Diaz., Japan, Latin America, and the United States, goumanded the eight tasty courses served on silver dishes and the two dessert courses brought on solid gold plates, their ears were bombarded by the multiple counterpoint and sixteen bands in the main square of Mexicoor Zocalo below. It is all sixteen played different songs, the complex rhythms of Mariachi and the passages, accelerated and ritardandos, which were not made, produced the effect of a Symphony of Charles Ives scored for a 200 -piece orchestra.
As for the real city of Mexico, the envoy were seeing is more doubtful. From a total national population of 15 million, the capital registered 471,000 in officially registered Itigo, but a large number of these people were from the working class, unemployed, undereated or in various stagesWith disguised unemployment, all grouped in densely packed slums in the thenorte and east of the city, covered with dust or mud (depending on the season), without proper sanitation, surrounded by trash piles and myriad and omnipresent pulsaries or grog bites.Typical Hogarthian favela scene would present a series of drunken customers of the dumps staggery into intoxicated through infested streets of careful dogs and semi -nineteen children. Diazar ensured that the special emissaries who came to pay tribute to him did not see any of that., ragged peasants and anyone who did not obey unknown sumptuous code were expelled from the central section of the capital with its paved streets and confined to external ghettos. In the streets around Zocalo Diaz, it created its own vanguard from Disneyland La Lettre, withStreet Cleaning Campaigns and Round Anti-Lixo Campaigns of a later age and a very different type of society.
The illustrious visitors were encouraged to admire the heterogeneous and eclectic architecture of Mexico City, symbolized by the cathedral that, which, began in 1573 and completed in 1813, was like a palimpsest or an archaeological site with many strata.Little is left of the Renaissance city of Cortes and the first Spanish vice, and even less from Tenochtitlan, the legendary old Aztec capital in this place (except that the three major avenues that led to Zócalo followed the course of the old Aztec avenues), as fire, floods, earthquakes and the pure devastation of time did the worst.Tenochtitlan's last trait was the channel network, along which the Indians were still traveling to the center in their characteristic boats or trajiners, bringing flowers and vegetables to the central market.Although the first cars began to be seen, Mexico City was not a magnet for 'horsepower' carriage because the roads outside the capital were not paved.Transport to the high classes was still mainly done on horseback, and to the low classes by the trams that extended from the center to the suburbs.
Something from the 16th century was still in the form of the checkered pattern of the main streets of the center and the oldest churches, although most architectural pieces were not beyond the seventeenth century.Baroque churches of the 600s, the monasteries of regular clergy (Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, Augustinians) of this century and religious hospitals, not to mention twenty convents, but this pattern was partially overlaid by the boom of the neoclassical construction of the neoclassical constructionlate eighteenth century.The recent fashion of French housing and design styles annoyed some of the locals and damaged the predominantly Spanish colonial environment, and the new national theater was widely considered a monstrosity.This pile of white marble, erected without any sense of style, was across the street of the new central agency of the Post Office, itself a version of Disneyland from a Renaissance Italian Palazzo.Ominously, the main contribution of the dominant architecture of the twentieth century so far has been in the form of a new prison and a psychiatric hospital.
I went and went to the celebrations. Some thought that the High Point was on September 23, when 2,000 guests attended a sumptuous ball at the National Palace, where Rivers of Champagne were drunk.Center of the capital, a few guests from Diaz would have some interest in Mexico City's history and even less in the social reality of Mexico that underlying the bright façade with which the facade with which he has tried to dazzle them. Some were impressed by recent innovationsAutocrat techniques, its improvement in water supply and street lighting. Interested visitors received the rail terminal and the phone, telegraph and postcards, which intended to show how Mexico was a modern country with modern communications.Reporters took time to investigate the new seismology station and the elaborate drainage system, projected immediately to solve the horrendous sewage problem in the capital, as well as the perennial threat of flooding.His governments focused on his own Diaz. Who was him, this white hair dictator of incredible personal and political longevity, and what was the secret of his power throughout his life?
Professional historians do not notarly like the story narrated through biography and, of course, no thumbnail sketch can do justice to the complexity of Mexico's social and economic structures in the nineteenth century, but to say that Mexico's political history during its early hundredYears can be summarized by the careers of three dominant personalities is not far below the truth. The first of the three great autocrats was Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (1797-1876), the self-adhered `Napoleon of the West.From 1821, Santa Anna set up Mexico as the Colossus he aspired to be. First in 1823, he overthrew Iturbide Agustin who, two years earlier, established himself as the first `` emperor '' of Mexico after expelling powerColonial of Spain. Always power behind the scenes, Santa Anna turned the early forties of Mexican history into a kind of Bouffe opera, in which he often lost the caste and was exiled, just to return and sear power once again.-It is Santa Anna emitted more pronounced than any other figure in Hispanic or Latin -American history. President of Mexico in 1833, he adopted the reactionary policy that led to the loss of Texas.From a powerful army in 1836, he annihilated Davy Crockett, Travis and Bowie in Alamo, and was defeated by Sam Houston in San Jacinto.
Arrested for eight months, Santa Anna returned to Mexico to find his star in Wane, but he climbed again after he lost a leg during Veracruz's defense against a French block in 1838 and was acclaimed as a patriotic hero.From Gloria three years later to the presidential president, he spent four years as Master of Mexico before being exiled again. In 1846, he was remembered to resume office during the hard war with the United States (1846-8), who finishedwith total defeat to Mexico and the loss of California, Arizona and New Mexico; Texas, an independent republic for ten years, from 1836 to 46, joined the United States as a state of full right.He was remembered Jamaica for a revolution in 1853 and appointed the president for a lifetime, but two years later was overthrown and banned to Cuba. During the French occupation of Mexico in the 1860s, he blatantly intrigued and tried a return to the seventyyears; he captured once again and sentenced to death, he retired to New York, but was allowed to return for her last years to Mexico, where she died in poverty.
If Santa Anna was a character of a Putschist melodrama, and increasingly considered as an embarrassment of the Mexicans trying to build an honorable heritage that they could be proud, the second great self -eutocrat in the country's history provided them with an authentic hero.ZAPOTEC, Benito Juarez (18th6-72) left his mark as a lawyer and then became governor of the southern state of Oaxaca in 1847. In Mexican politics of 185, he became dangerously polarized between a conservative party led by Santa Anna and the led liberationBy Ignacio asonfort and Juan Alvarez.Juarez was a leading light in the Liberal Party and, as a result, he was exiled in 1853, when Santa Anna seized power. In Santa Anna's overthrow two years later, Juarez became the Minister of Justice inAlvarez's government. Proposing fundamental changes, he abolished the Fueros (traditional feudal privileges), assumed control of the church's land, tried to push Mexico in relation to liberal capitalism and approved the 1857 anticlerical constitution.who appointed Juarez President of the Supreme Court, but when Atonfort moved to become dictator, Juarez declared his unconstitutional action; according to the articles of the Constitution, Juarez was now the president.
Taking advantage of liberal factionism, conservatives increased an armed revolt. The result, since Juarez dealt with Atfort and sent him to exile, was a fierce civil war between conservatives and liberals, which lasted from the beginning of 1858 until the end of 186; JUAREZ all the time was the president of Jure. Finally, the liberals were triumphant, but there was hardly a respiratory space before Mexico was immersed in the war once again.For damages and losses suffered by its nationals during the civil war, but Juarez now ruled a bankrupt country and could not even pay interest on foreign debt. When he suspended the payment of all foreign debts for two years, Emperor Napoleon III took advantage ofThe immersion of the United States in its own civil war and launched a quixotic foreign adventure. He tried to impose the Austrian Prince Hapsburg Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico. The Britain and Spain refused to support Bonaparte in this poorly advised intervention and removed their claims, but Juarez stayed to deal with the military force of France.
This was the context in which Mexico's third great autocrat came to light for the first time.Cholera in childhood and trained as a priest before moving to the law. Diaz became a national number during Juarez's five -year fight with the French, being injured twice and arrested three times (each time he escaped)., the French scanned everything before them, but could never subdue the field, and the rapid victory Napoleon III expected to evaporate soon. When the United States turned their attention to the south of the border after Lee surrendered to Grant in Apromattox in April 1865, ending the American Civil War, Bonaparte faced the logistical nightmare of having to provide an army for 5,000 miles of ocean to combat what was 1865, probably the most military nation in the world.And he left Mexico. Returning to withdraw with his military protectors, the Maximilian was captured by Juarez and executed in Queretaro, northern Mexico City, in 1867.
A war hero with a reputation for financial probity, Diaz was never liked by Juarez, but it was from Juarez that Diaz learned a taste for constant presidential re-election. In 1871, the conquering president sought a fourth term as chief executive, but was vehemently opposed by Diaz and by then faithful henchman Miguel Lerdo de Tejada. In the next election, no candidate won an absolute majority, showing that Juarez, despite all his autocratic tendencies, really believed in democracy and free elections. The election was launched in Congress, which nominated Juarez as president. The disgruntled Lerdo had to settle for the consolation prize of the presidency of the STF, but Diaz, made of tougher stuff, raised the banner of revolt. That was squashed and Juarez looked destined for undisputed hegemony. Then, in July 1872, he had a fatal heart attack. Lerdo was successful as president, but in 1876 he made the perennial mistake of all 19th-century Mexican presidents and tried to prolong his welcome through re-election. Once again Diaz raised an armed rebellion, fighting under the slogan 'effective suffrage and no re-election'. After initial setbacks and when the situation looked hopeless, Diaz was rescued from despair by a new surge of liberal partisanship, this time between Lerdo and the new president of the Supreme Court, José Iglesias. Able to deal with his enemies piece by piece, Diaz defeated both of them in turn and entered Mexico City in triumph in November 1876.
Diaz wanted to absolute power and he had learned enough under Juarez to know how to get it. He had elaborated this, as long as you reconcile certain important social groups, you can repress the rest. Diaz offered agreements to landowners, generals, elitesLocations, foreign capitalists, middle -class sections, and even powerful bandits' leaders; the rest he killed or intimidated. He was convinced that every man had its price and, when confronted by a recalcitating politician or general, always tried bribery first;He liked to quote a peasant label from his childhood, illustrating his base vision of human nature: "This rooster wants corn."Clube.He made it clear that he did not want to oppose, nor in presidential elections or elsewhere. Dois Generals, Garcia de La Cadena and Juan Corona, allowed their names to advance as presidential candidates just to be mysteriously murdered.Sudden death awaited all those who opposed Don Porfirio.
Generally, however, there was no need for extreme measures, because money made the trick; like Diaz, in another of his farm mountains, put it -a dog with a bone in his mouth does not kill or steal.He built a hierarchy of political influence, with himself at the top, then the twenty -seven state governors he named, followed by 300 political jefes (local political chiefs) and me, 8o mayors or municipal presidents.Cidade do Mexico, sometimes accompanied by manipulated elections, and controlled the Supreme Court by appointing placemen and pounds. He showed a particular favoritism of the men of his native state: of 227 representatives he appointed in 1886 to understand the role thatHe disguised the name of the congress, sixty -two came from Oaxaca.
There was a rigid government control of all aspects of education. The Diaz press dealt with carrots and stick. Ley's law of Ledaza or Chogging, which he cunningly put in the statute book during the chaotic `` Presidency 'by Manuel Gonzalez (see below) abolished the right to a jury trial to guilty journalists of 'liberators by the mere Say-SO of a single magistrate, inevitably a Stooge Diaz. Newspapers could also be arrested without judgment if someone reported their' `mood ', antipatrioticEither seditious or even their 'intentions' to the police. On the other hand, Diaz paid generous subsidies to owners and editors, as long as they reported the news as he wanted her to report. He even maintained the fiction of "opposition" newspapers toThat, at careful intervals, they could receive the wave of destroying the reputation of anyone in the army or politics that Diaz thought he was becoming too powerful. If the generous 'subsidies' did not work, Diaz sent his bandits, known asBravi, to crush newspaper impressions and offices or to provoke unwary editors in fatal duels. In the limit, Diaz could silence any press critic, condemning them to noisy tropical penitentaries from which almost someone returned alive.named Filomeno Mata, he really hit the chances going to the arrest of no less than thirty -four times during the porphiriat.
Diaz's next task was to perpetuate his government. The principle, he stepped carefully, aware of the slogan resonance "without reelection" in the Mexican unconscious. In 188, he seemed to walk away, allowing Manuel Gonzalez to become president.Gonzalez was his creature and made his offer in every respect. The years 1880-4 were notorious for government discomfort and financial incompetence, so that the Mexicans in 1884 received Diaz back as Savior. This was a favorite maneuver Diaz.If he saw a man with ambition, he found a nail political bed for him, some post as a governor where he would lose all reputation and credibility. In 1888, Diaz's squeeze in Mexico was so tight that he no longer needed proxies farce anymore anymoreLike Manuel Gonzalez.`Nenhuma Reelection 'was forgotten, the Constitution was amended in 1887 to allow a second successive term and again in 189th to allow an infinite series of successive presidencies by the same man; between 1884 and 1904, Diaz reelected six times (As.Other `` elections '' were in 1888, 1892, 1896 and 1900).
Diaz's regime was a repressive tyranny, but he lacked the technology to impose a totalitarian dictatorship or police state. He did not seek to control all aspects of Mexican life and was lax about conflicts between local elites or powerful families within a state; His main concern was that no one should arise who could challenge his power in the center. Diaz's rule was therefore an intermittently coercive tyranny, whose main outward sign was the rural, the quasi-military mounted police force that patrolled the countryside. , uniformed in suede and armed with the latest Mauser rifles, were effectively above the law outside of Mexico City and were greatly feared as a result. His favorite method of dealing with opponents was through the Ley Fuga, or Law for dealing with fugitives from justice: this allowed anyone to be shot dead who 'tried to escape.'
Sometimes it is suggested that Diaz's 34 -year -old hegemony was a quiet dictatorship, but the evidence suggests that there were few revolts just because of the terrible consequences.The rebellion in Veracruz by the exile of the exile of Ledo in 1879 resulted in the execution of innocents, as well as the genuine rebels.In all regions of Mexico, the political jews allowed the privileges of Droit du Seigneur in the villages, taking any woman who pleased them.In the state of Hidalgo, the Indians who rebelled after their lands were unfairly taken were buried to their neck in their ancestral lands and trampled to death by the rural ones, which ran over them.Those who opposed each other or their employees, or were unnatural for them for any reason, were labeled "criminals": the penalty for "crimes" was to work to gangs or sent to plantations in the far south of Mexico,where the scorching sun or tropical diseases would do the work of the executioner for it.
The level of violence in Mexico during the so -called Porphyria was also underestimated by Diaz apologists. This is because most of them were foreign, for whom Mexico was indeed a land of peace, security., and especially for the indigenous people. In the years 188, there was a bitter and bloody war with the sound warrior tribe, the Yaquis, predictably on the issue of Indian lands by Diaz's henchmen. The first, the Yaquis were invincible and defeatedAll the armies that every day sent against them; but in the end, a friction campaign without remorse reduced them to hunger and surrender in 1887. The Sonora Governor interviewed Yaqui chief, Cajeme, after his capture and found him highly intelligentand versed in military strategy - no surprise, since he feasted with Juarez against the French in the 186s. However, the governor's sympathy was useless: he received his orders from Diaz, so Cajeme went to the squad.They were then made by the governor and his companions, who sold the Yaqui warriors to 75 pesos (£ 7) a head to the slave work in Yucatan's plantations, where most of them died early in the tropical sun.
It is difficult to exaggerate Yaquis's sufferings during the terrible thirty years after the 1899, after another Yaqui rebellion, Diaz offered a reward of weights oo (about) to the ears of all the warriors killed fromYaqui. This money prize defined in a cruel scam, when hunters of rewards killed unarmed peasants, cut their ears and stated that they were Yaqui organs. Other brutalities included the extermination of the entire male population of the city of Navojoa in 1892 and, in the sameYear, 200 Yaqui prisoners were taken in a cannon to the Pacific Ocean in Guaymas and thrown into the sea to drown or be foods for sharks. When the desperate Yaquis went up again in 1898, they were massive in Mazacoba by the Federal Army, nowEquipped with the most modern Mauser Rifles. In 19th, a Yaquis boat, destined for slavery in Yucatan, committed mass suicide.
Diaz always believed in the division and rule: In a political confrontation, he supports a state governor against the local military leader until the governor won, then change Tack and build the military leader again as a counterweight, so that the governor was not very powerful.Porfirio extended this thought to indigenous peoples: By transferring Yaquis to Yucatan, he expected to place Mexico's most martial Indians in the throat of the second most belligered.51 And it was a race war in the true sense, where the Maya killed whites in sight and vice versa-Nunca had been totally context.Military effort to crush the Mayans. In 1900, he sent the army in a massive search and destruction operation. For two years, under the brutal general Victorian Huerta, the army systematically established the Yucatan peninsula, burning the earth, burning villages, burning villagesDestroying the food until finally, like Yaquis in sound, the strong Maya were reduced by hunger.
The division and rule was only one of the ways in which Diaz's regime had a double, ambiguous or ambivalent face. There was no set of official state doctrines or myths, so that the ideology of the regime was a confusing mix of positivism andCatholic piety. Positivism (approximately, the application of the scientific method in all intellectual contexts and the denial of a distinction between fact and value) was a powerful force in Europe, representing a reaction to the romantic movement that contested the wisdom of lighting.Porphyria, Diaz's most influential counselors were the so -called aware or Mexican positivists, who believed in modern capitalism, industrialization and technology; they despised the colonial past and Indian heritage of Mexico. Most of the Mexican elite - political, bankers, editors, editors, entrepreneurs, generals - signed the ideals of scientific: capitalism of preference to the mode of production Hacienda; white Creole as the racial superior or Indian; the foreign entrepreneur with his greatest skill to the native Mexican;for the whole conversation about spirituality or old values.
Positivist bankers and economists, who with Diaz's help quickly became millionaires, formed a powerful comrade under the dictator's tutelage. Three scientific positivists had a particular influence on Diaz. , a believer in sound cash and balancing the budget, who cleared up the mess left behind by Manuel Gonzalez and achieved economic stability through classic deflationary policies. of British bonds since Juirez's repudiation of the external debt and, although this has been widely criticized as a `` of the offer '' for the gringos, Dublin honored the selection.
The second major influence was Romero Rubio, a former political managers of Ledo, who rapidly changed sides when he realized that Diaz was there to stay.Diaz PelphorMine Head. However, Diaz kept a Trump card convonding to the acquisition of Rubio from a series of illegal gambling pits in the capital, if he ever became necessary, Diaz could indicate it for reasons of moral clod.To further consolidate the ties in 1881, the 51 -year -old dictator married Rubio's 18 -year -old daughter, Carmen; Dona Carmelita, as she used to be known, was an important influence on Diaz.
The third scientific was the most important of all.When Romero Rubio died in 1895, a new leader emerged, José Yves LimaTunt.Under his aegis, Dublin's dream of balancing the budget was finally made: in 1894, revenue was 43 million pesos and expenses of only 41 million.LimaTunti was, in some respects, the Bernadotte of Mexican history.Of humble origin, an illegitimate son of a French adventurer who had begged Gold in the California Gold Race in 1849, LimaTunti made a new life in Mexico, where he revealed high -level business talents, first as speculator in church confiscated lands and later and later speculator.as a broker of the scholarship and financier in the twilight world between the bribe and the big business.LimaTunti, with Diaz's carte blanche to manage the economy, eliminated feudal waste as internal tariffs, established state banks, abolished bimetalism and placed Mexico in the gold standard.International confidence in the Mexican economy fired and government titles began to be sold in the international market.
This emphasis on capitalism, modernization, and scientific ideas, grafted in the Juarist Juarist program of Liberalism, Free Trade and Anticlericalism, should logically have made Diaz's government as strongly anticlerical as Carranza and Calles regimes in the twentieth century.However, once again Diaz revealed his peasant caution and his instinct to play on both sides against the middle.During its presidency, the Catholic hierarchy - or at least its conservative sections - enjoyed a quiet period.He kept the Catholic Church on the line not revoking or implementing the anticlerical laws of the reform, which Juarez had introduced in the late 1850s;He maintained an official anticlericals stance while secretly conspired by the church, especially his intimate friend, Oaxaca's archbishop and Gillow.
This one with the church had two main sources. It was his young Carmelite wife. Castivated by Carmelita, Diaz returned from honeymoon to externally a new man: instead of the thick and inconounly Indian peasant of old, there was a faster porphyrian diaz, well tidy and courteous. Nor important, he paid attention to his wife's devotee Catholicism. Rubio, like Bernadotte, had started life like a Jacobin, but again as Gascon's apostate, he changed his points when he put his handsIn power, becoming a pillar of the establishment and a bastion of the Church. Once the good offices of Carmelita, Diaz held a secret meeting with the head of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in Mexico, Archbishop Labastida y Divalos.Reform would not be fulfilled and that the Church could have properties; in return, Labastida promised the church to send all ecclesiastical consultations at Diaz for its approval and to encourage the parish priests to preach submission to Don Porfirio.Faustian line line between the Catholic Church and the temporal power.
The other impetus for accommodation came from his youth.Until old age dulled his faculties, Diaz had notably good political antennas, and his instinct told him that the conflict with the Catholic Church was a mistake.When governor of Oaxaca in 1870, his brother Felix implemented Juarez's reform laws with jacobin zeal, closing religious schools, expelling nuns, prohibiting the teaching of the catechism, destroying or disfiguring the statues or idols of favorite saints.A particular offense was given to the village of Jchitan when Felix Diaz stole the statue of his patron saint and returned it with his feet cut.In 1871, when Porfirio Diaz staged his unsuccessful revolt against Juarez, Felix joined him, fled with the failure of the rebellion and was persecuted and captured by the vindictive men of Jchitan.First they cut off their soles, then the genitals and finally forced him to walk on shards and embers before letting him suffer an agonizing death.Díaz learned the lesson: He never asked how many divisions the Pope had, and even when he had the supreme power, he did not seek revenge his brother.
Diaz seemed to have reached all his political goals, but his economic ones were harder to achieve. He was neither the first nor the last dictator to find that the economy will not give in to Fiat from an autocrat. The problems he faced were numerous: how howTurning Mexico into a modern capitalist economy, without delivering it totally in the hands of foreign interests, such as integrating Hacienda and Indian villages in this system; and, above all, how to manipulate the physiparous interests of a nation state with centrifugal economiesand conflicting. Apart from, he faced the United States dilemma before the US Civil War, except that the North had to integrate only an antagonistic economy, while Diaz had to rationalize several.
Mexico has always been an artificial creation as nation state. In the 20th century Africa, the artificiality of nation states is a legacy of the colonial powers that attracted limits between tribal lines, rather than creating homogeneous units corresponding to tribalism.The problem was given by God or geographical. The eighth largest country in the world, with an area of 761, Ooo Square Miles, Mexico is a curious melange of tropics, plateaus and mountains. A quarter of the Mexico area is composed of the various mountain ranges area area.from Serra Madre. The Western Mother Mother is in geological terms, a continuation of the North American rock mountains, while Sierra East Mother Run from Nuevo Leon, in the Northeast to the Costa.Broad in the north, with a border of 2,000 miles withThe US, Mexico narrows quickly towards the isthmus, where the two lanes of the mountain fus in a tangle of peaks and valleys - the heart of the ancient Aztec empire.In one fifth of the country's total area, one third of the population lived, including most whites. Here were the big cities: in 1910, Mexico City was not far from half a million millions of people, and the second city., Guadalajara, had 120,000 inhabitants.
The southern tropical areas on the Pacific border and the gulf of Mexico were overwhelmingly Indian. Here, temperatures were excessive, lush precipitation and disease - especially malaria and yellow fever - unbridled.Enjoying that steaming jungles and southern fetals were in the same country as the high peaks of the cold and mountainous country of Serra Madre, but while about a third of the national area was below i, 6oo feet, more than half was above3,000 feet, with the altitude of Mexico City itself to 7,350 feet. In this level, it raised the large peaks of Sierra Madre, including 18,700 feet orizaba), popococatepetl (17,887 feet) and IXTACCIATL (17,343 feet).
The nature very different from the landscape in the thirty-seven different states meant that Mexico's economy, even at the pre-industrial level, was disconcertingly heterogeneous. In the mountainous and plateau areas, mining, especially gold, silver, lead, copper andZinc, it was important; in the northern states, cattle and other animals, leather, corn and chickpeas were dominant; and for tropics, sugar, vanilla, rubber, chewing gum and henequen - the Yucatan native agave plant, whoseFiber was used to make rope and rope - were the main money manufacturers. All these products were grown for export and, in addition, corn, beans and pepper were produced for domestic consumption.
Mexico's agricultural sector was particularly complex, centered on the two institutions very different from the village and Hacienda. Millions of people, especially Indians, lived in villages that before 1857 had been free and had community lands;They worked in hacindas. Hacienda, a primitive colonial institution aimed at local food consumption instead of production for the market, in theory had a strict owner/ master, manager/ superintendent and pawns that did labor.Haciendas were usually inefficient, their working methods had not changed over three centuries and most of its owners and managers were incompetent. All the water rights issue was a legal mess, soil erosion was an endemic problem aboutWhat nothing was done, and most of the hacendated refused to cultivate more than a small part of their lands. Daí the paradox that a country where three rooms of the population lived on the land could not feed and needed to import food, even at its peakof the `` Economic Miracle 'of Diaz.
However, it is one of the annoying aspects of Mexican economic history that almost no generalization about the farm can be risky.It was unique, unique, sui generis.At the time of Díaz, some farmers had surpassed traditional business contempt for business and produced for the market;Since from this point of view, one can align the hacings with a capitalist mode of production, but there are other aspects of the system that seem classically feudal: servitude, servitude, in kind, corvea and so on.Any attempt to classify Hacienda in terms of classic Marxist modes of production leads only to almost theological debate of the type how many-nodes-nose-of-a-jug is appreciated by a certain type of academic.sociologist.The only secure general statement, however banal, is that agriculture became gradually more marketed in the nineteenth century.
In any case, the term that Hacienda covered so much ground: the conditions varied from state to state and locality to locality. different would use different types of workers or a mixture of resident workers, seasonal employees of AMD Sharecroppers; some completely gave up the Peonage and paid salaries. It's easier to discuss the farm in terms of hacendated lifestyle. Mexico City or Paris - to France, although Louis Napoleon and Maximiliano, enjoyed a remarkable cache during the porphiriato. Their families were the object of many Latin -American novels. Devatually Catholic in ideology, if not in practice and behavior, they gave their children a European education; more than a social historian commented on the propensity for sending boys to the Jesuit school of Stonyhurstrst in England.
It was hard for Diaz to stimulate lazy, reactionary and reluctant farmers to become modern capitalists without losing their support, so that the farm system has always been an obstacle to their plans.The problem of indigenous villages seemed easier to solve.The indigenous titles of their land dated the conquest and many had never been formally registered;On paper, it seemed a simple question to use the law to deprive indigenous owners of their assets.Juarez, by Ley Ledo, intended to abolish traditional lands in common (the ejido) as part of his project of turning Mexico into a nation of owners, which is why the Indians fought overwhelmingly by Maximilian in the wars of the years 186. Stripping the Indians of their lands provided a bonanza for speculators, many operating through prosecutors to preserve the myth of the small property.Foreign real estate corporations were particularly predatory when it came to buying or simply stealing lands that previously belonged to Indians;How many legal subtleties were observed depended on the policy of local power, the relative force of villages and rural ones, and the degree of corruption in the courts.
The result of the attacks on Diaz's Indian Land and his national and foreign real estate companions was spectacular. In a time more Mexican lands, whether the former Indian ejide, confiscated church lands or public lands in the north, were concentrated in less andLess hands, especially after 1894, when the legal limits owned by any individual were raised. Domestic real estate companies received a third of all the lands they researched, and public lands at this time represented 125 million acres, or a quarter of the territoryNacional.Na Baja California, four plutocrats had thirty million adds; in Chihuahua, the Terrazas family acquired seventeen millions of acres; only 3,000 families had almost half of Mexico and one fifth of the country (ie an area as large as the wholeJapan) was in the hands of seventeen individuals. A result was the increase in northern Ranches as a class, grazing vast herds of cattle in empty pastures.
By rewarding his loyal followers with so much land, Diaz expected to keep them loyal and encourage his trends of "improve", because, under the influence of scientifics, he intended to provide Mexico industry and modern infrastructure.The age of the railroads. When it came to power in 1876, there were only 400 miles of track, completed in 1873, linking the city of Mexico to Querearo and Veracruz. In the 188s, 1,250 track miles were being placed each year,So that in 1910 Mexico had about 12,000 miles of railways. It was the mania of the construction of railroads that the Prodigy and Extravagant government of Manuel Gonzalez (188o-4) promised to pay the American rail builders by 6-9, oooWeights for each kilometer of completed track; the inevitable result was that Mexico had a distorted rail system. One of LimaNunt's undisputed balls was to bring the railroads to public property.United States at a time when he was seriously worrying about the raids of the northern colossus.
The arrival of the `Iron Time 'was a necessary, if not sufficient condition, for the Mexican Revolution. It was no lines in the south of Mexico City, but three different railways linked it to the US border.From Mexico City, a line ran west, by Guadalajara, Tepic and Mazatlan, climbing the Pacific coast to Hemosillo and Nogales. The central line ran from the capital to Leon and Zacatecas, then passed north via Torreon and Jimenez toCiudad Juarez, on the other side of El Paso's border in Texas. The eastern railroad ran to Nuevo Laredo, across the Laredo border, Texas, after following a track that led her by San Luis Potosi, Saltillo and Monterrey.All of this meant that the large landowners could increase their harvests and take advantage of the economies of scale, as they could now produce for a domestic market, not just a place.
Hand in hand with the railroads was a program of hard industrialization. Iron and steel works were built in Nuevo Leon, textile factories in Veracruz, and there was a huge mining boom, especially of lead and copper, spurred by new technologies to refine precious metals. Above all there was oil, the black gold of the 20th century. production began in 1901. By 1910, Mexico was one of the world's leading producers, and by 1918 it was second only to the United States. Such was Diaz's myopia, however, that his mining code of 1884 vested ownership of the rights from underground to surface landowner. Those who acquired public land at an offer price now found that they had a second and far more profitable bite of the cherry when oil was found on their territories.
This was the context in which foreign capital, already a leech in the Mexican economy, became a real octopus. It's doubtful if Diaz has said: "Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States" - seems very witty.For him - but he was aware of the truth contained in the observation.Guggenheim, McCormick and Doheny; Mexicans were familiar with the corporate identities of standard oil, Anaconda, United States Steel and many others. Order Americans had three rooms of mines and more than half of oil fields and also diversified in sugar,Coffee, cotton, rubber, orquila, maguey and, in northern sound and chihuahua provinces.billion dollars, more than the total capital of ownership of the native Mexicans. In 1900, Edward L. Doheny acquired huge tracks of oil -rich, close to the topic, complete underground rights, for less than a dollar per Acre.After Oilwells was installed, Doheny's factory could literally suck the Mexican National Treasury of the land, worth 50,000 barrels a day, all completely without tax except for an infinitesimal seal tax.
Americans were not the only economic predators. British (who still held 55 % of all foreign investment in Latin America as a whole) were well represented with 29 % of foreign investment in Mexico, especially in Minas, Banks and Oil.Great English entrepreneur in Mexico was Weetman Pearson, later Lord CowDray, whose construction company, Pearson & Son, had built the Blackwall tunnel in London, the East River tunnel in New York and several rail bridges in Mexico.Diaz, Pearson was able to profit from oil and obtained the rights of the tuxedo fields in I 909; Diaz found a good idea to build Pearson's oil company, Mexican Eagle, as a counterweight to Doheny and Rockefeller's standard oil.Lord CowDray (as he became in I9io) extended his business ambitions to Ecuador, Colombia and Costa Rica, exacerbating pre-existing Anglo-American tensions in Latin America and leading Washington to summon Monroe's doctrine.
The Anglo-Saxon nations, although by far the largest foreign investors, were not the only ones. French, forgiven by their sins of the I86, were allowed to control the textile industry, while the widely hated Spanish or Gachupines dominated retail trade andTobacco plantations. All foreign capitalists were secretly resonated at larger or smaller degrees - the Spaniards sometimes openly - but Diaz expressed their judiciary so that in any dispute involving foreign and mexican national companies, foreigners always receive a favorable sentence.It was a permanent joke that only gringos and bulls (another of the favorite groups of Diaz) could obtain justice from a Mexican court. Foreigners did not give themselves to the inhabitants for their lifestyle and obvious contempt for Mexico and Mexicans.acquiring Mexican citizenship, the expatriate community lived in splendid and luxurious isolation, repatriates profits and ensuring that their own nationals border on privileged managerial sauce. For all complaints about the explorers at their midnight, they returned the same answer: foreignersThey were needed to make Mexico a modern nation, as the Mexicans themselves needed the know-how.
At the time of his eighth anniversary in I9io, Diaz was relaxed, not to say complacent, about the achievements of his seemingly perpetual presidency. The federal government's revenues were one million millions, an increase of almost three times in fifteen years and fromIndividual states in sixty -four million. Casting to manage a budget surplus every year since 1894, the government has accumulated a total of 136 million in black fiscal, most of which was kept as a cash reserve in the Treasury.It was more than good in foreign exchanges, and Diaz could argue that thirty -four years of "stability" had produced this healthy economic situation; in the old days of Santa Anna, Juarez and even Manuel Gonzalez, it was always deficit, deficit, deficit.After all, it was a deficit that led Juarez to suspend the payment of national debt, which in turn had brought Maximilian and the French.
Seeing only superficial prosperity and being themselves the main beneficiaries of the porfiriato, outsiders had long been accustomed to taking praise from Diaz, so that his eighth birthday was simply an occasion for more hyperbolic tributes than usual. treatment as his right, for had he not the best and best pronounced of accord? Andrew Carnegie's homage to the `Moses and Joshua of his people' was well known, Cecil Rhodes thought him a beacon of civilization, Theodore Roosevelt the declared 'bully' and even Tolstoy, whose sympathy for peasants should have warned of the downfalls of the Mexican Peon, extolled him as a political genius whose rule was unique. Elihu Root, US Secretary of State 1905-9 and a future victor of the Nobel Prize, went straight to the top in a much-quoted commission, in which he described Diaz as `one of the greatest men to be held up for the hero worship of mankind'. American journalist James Creelman, who had a famous interview with Diaz in 19o8 on the heights of the castle of Chapultepec indicated the following: `` There is no figure in the whole world that is more romantic and heroic than that man of soldiers whose young adventurers surpass the pages of Dumas and whose iron hand transformed the Mexican masses warlike, ignorant, superstitious and impoverished, after centuries of cruel oppression by greedy Spaniards, into a strong, progressive, pacifist and prosperous nation that honors its debts. '
Creelman saw only Don Porfirio's bright surface.The few who approached Diaz noticed many psychological peculiarities.Like Francisco Franco, the dictator with whom he looked most, both in personality and in political longevity, Diaz was an intellectual mediocrity without sophistication and little imagination, which was nevertheless had a peasant cunning (the state of Oaxaca de Diaz is, in this sense, a good mirror for Franco's Galicia), an unparalleled talent for political manipulation and an intuitive sense of men's weaknesses.Like so many autocrats, he knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.Extremely reserved, he would like to refer to himself, even in private conversations, in the third person and thus use the indirect speech as if reporting someone else's words.This psychological peculiarity of many despotes, sometimes excited as the "third cesarean section" (after the use of Julius Caesar in his book on the Gaul War), is indeed more indicative of a fragmented personality in a difficult relationship with realityexternal.
Many people at the time (after all, it was a "politically incorrect" era) liked to explain Diaz's personality in terms of his Indian blood; there is an old Mexican saying, "When the Spanish decreases, Indian waxes."Near Diaz, the more discerning the wild under the varnish of cultivation; some interviewers even claimed that Diaz's white skin seemed to darken the more you looked at it. How many idioms, not to mention your intonation and pronunciation, revealed their Mixtec origins.He believed that true leadership meant building a divine worship of itself, because in Indian culture deer was the only sign of authority. Diaz was proud of his worship and even more of the rude health that never seemed to fail him, and that heIf I boasted not to exchange for all the millions of barons of American thieves. Even in the seventies, he stood up at dawn, exercised and weightlifting at the gym at the Military Academy, took cold baths and walked with high horses.It was very commented: well built, ramrod-straight, wide shoulders and barrel breast, he looked as solid and monolithic as a large oak. However, he did not have the immobility of a tree; instead, his restless energy,Its prowling intensity and the rapid blink of your eyes suggested a panther or some other big cat.
However, under the placid surface of Mexico de Diaz, the magma of a future volcano was taking shape. Diaz could effectively hide residents and pedestrians with their rural ones, but their program of accidents of modern capitalism and foreign investment was having effects notIntentional, the most important of which was the rise of an urban working class, not as easily read as the peasantry. The first group to disturb the dictator was the textile workers, grouped mainly around the area between Puebla and Veracruz.Trinta and twoA thousand strong, according to the 191 census, textile workers made up the largest group among the urban proletariats properly so -called, and were the first to be hit by economic recession.Company housing - some scholars actually referred to the Mexican textile industry such as `` `Urban Hacing '' - they were demoralized after 1900 as industry, facing overproduction threats, reduced production, reduced salaries and spill workers.Textile workers became increasingly unionized; in 19th6, there was a general strike in industry, with 30,000 idle hands. The unions asked Diaz to arbitrate and he did, marking the first entrance of the Mexican state in industrial relations.
Perhaps Diaz realized that the intransigence of employers and not the excessive demands of workers was to blame, because their arbitration prize was not as hard with the workers as expected.No summer. In subsequent problems in the Blanco River textile plant, he sent the police and the army; they left more than seventy workers, effectively beating the workforce. However, there were no requests for revolution.They were reformist organizations and the proletariat attached to the Lenin stage called "union consciousness", where the working class makes simple demands in the existing system, rather than trying to destroy it and branch.Mexican workers did not dream of the armed struggle.
The unintentional consequences were more severe in the mining industry, located mainly in the northern states of Mexico, and in 1906 they caused real problems in the Cananea copper mine.The salaries of the miners rose while those of the textile workers decreased and there were quiet days until 1906, when the veins began to run out.Unfortunately, aspirations appeared that could not simply be extinguished like closing a tap.Until then, the Canaanian mine looked like a classic triumph of "radical individualism."The American owner was William Greene, former player, Indian fighter and miner.With bravata, bluff and pride, he built for himself an empire of cattle and mining in sound.The Canaana mine employed 5,360 Mexicans as miners and 2,300 foreigners, most of them Americans in management or administrative positions.The American ethos himself generated a high level of unionization, and Cananea was, on paper, a "organic" community, with friendly relations between administration and workers, Mexicans and gringos.
The obstacle was that it all depended on a floating copper industry. Due to the drop in production, management changed unilaterally salary scales and service conditions. The workers went on strike and demonstrated in the streets of Cananea. The feelings were high: seeking to convince themCarpenters in the workshop to go out in solidarity with them, the attackers marched at the carpentry store, where the American manager turned the hoses. The subjects rapidly increased: Protesters rushed the building; armed Americans entered them and killed two men; in retaliation,The angry strikers burned the building, killing four Americans in the fire. While the violence was out of control, the attackers acquired firearms and shootings occurred between the administration and the work in which there were thirteen deaths.
Greene Browbeat, the Sonora Governor, allowing US border irregularities and summoned Arizona Rangers in Bisbee. The governor was in an impossible position, having to balance this insult to Mexican sovereignty against the well -known compliance with Diaz;His dilemma for the legal fiction of cursing in Rangers as Sonora Soldiers. A furious shooting now developed between armed strikers and a combined force of Arizona Rangers, local police and rural ones;Torres arrived with a regiment of federal troops to garnish the city. The result was that Greene removed three unpopular forens, but strike leaders were sentenced to fifteen years in prison (they were released in May 1911 after the revolution's beginning).
Diaz has lost a lot of caste through the bloody repression of this explosion. It will be to say that the dictator and the Americans blamed this clear case of spontaneous combustion in unidentified "external agitators". Use of Arizona Rangers particularly irritated Mexicans, but the importance of this incidentIt can be exaggerated. In no sense this "led to" or triggered the Mexican Revolution. Okay, copper production returned to Halcyon days, mainly because of new management and technology and efficiency improvement.Liquidity problems in its empire, sold to another American consortium, and the high school group that dealt with its labor relations with tact. Although Canaanea was built in revolutionary mythology after Igio as the precursor of the revolution, its main meaning was to reveal some consequencesPossible less palatable to Diaz's industrial revolution and show that the Mexican economy was less solid than the most complacent thinking of scientific.Quotes the curious case of Manuel Dieguez.Lader dos Mineiros in Canaanea in 1916, ten years later, he was the Federal Military Commander in Sonora, in which the capacity acted as the previously radical John Wilkes towards Gordon's riots in London of 1780.
Although the aggravation of economic conditions did not cause a revolution in Mexico - they had deteriorated before in the diaz years without causing an explosion - the increase in prices and the decline of real wages in the years 1907-10 meant that if ever, if ever, ifDiaz was a serious threat, less and fewer hands would be raised to save it; and after 1907, there is no doubt that it looked structurally, instead of a narrow way of salary payment, the Mexican economy was withProblems. A crisis at Wall Street in 1907 had a ripple effect in Mexico, where LimaTunti restricted credit and followed deflationary policies. Wages did not follow the pace of growing prices, the cost of staples doubled between 189 and 1910, and theFall in life standards was exacerbated by bad harvests, particularly in 1909, when he was hungry in some rural areas, and peasants starved. After 1907, even relatively privileged miners, who always did better than industrial workers, were hitby layoffs and closures of mines.
Diaz could expect to overcome a short -term financial and economic crisis, with the inevitable recovery of the business cycle, but he never seemed to solve Mexico's root problem: the disharmony between the late Hacienda system and its aspirations for a modernized capitalist nation.The capitalism overlapping Hacienda's mode of production simply did not work: after all, even the powerful United States were destroyed by a civil war in 1861-5, struggled to correct the imbalance between an industrial north and a plantation economy in the south.Attempt to impose a 'top' capitalist revolution it was impossible because the power of the owner's class and the bordered, his repressive labor methods and, in particular, the establishment of a semi-server peonage worked to harm the efficiency of theMarket.Diaz was not a stupid man and he was aware of the problem, but trying to extir hacienda in favor of capitalist mode would mean reducing the privileges of the same people he trusted to remain in power. Porphyrian political imperatives pointed in a directionand the economic ones exactly in the opposite direction.
By jogo, even the political system of repression was beginning to look worn out at the edges. Synus politicians of jefes became complaining and presented reassuring reports, containing only what he wanted to hear.In size, full of corrupt drones and time they considered "intelligence" a sinecure. In Merida, in Yucatan, far from the country's most rebellious state, the governor employed 700 agents paid in a city with a population of 50,000.Corrupt and incompetent from all Diaz agents, however, were the rural ones. Customed to find summary justice shooting prisoners 'while trying to escape' (Leyfuga) or beating them black and blue with a bull's penis (The Bastino), the Rurales became lazy and the caliber of their recruitment decreased. Nepotism was abundant, negligent discipline, and officers were generally illiterate OAFs that behaved like petty despot.Most of it because they were too busy delivering sine -cuddded children and nephews, pays for payment sheets and organizing bribes, sweeteners and Payola of protective rackets. Rurules were an adequate symbol of a lazy, corrupt and unpopular regime, and impression, and the impressionGeneral of the Superannada Senescence was reinforced by the governors of the various states, who, by themselves, formed a gerontocracy: the governor of Querearearo had sixty -ethone -two, seventy -five from Aguascalientes, seventy -seven of Tlaxcala de Tlaxcala and seven eight eight fromTabasco.
If there were signs that Diaz was losing control economically and politically, even clearer evidence was provided by his disastrous new influence on foreign policy in the first decade of the century. It is axiomatic in Latin America (and especially in Central America and the Caribbean) that only a nation fully behind its leader can hope to resist the incredible power of the 'Colossus of the North'. However, in the Igoos Diaz seemed to deliberately decide to alienate the United States. generous grants of public lands to the Pearson Company, favoring Lord Cowdray over Standard Oil and Doheny interests.
This may have been interpreted as a solid national interest, but other anti -American attitudes seemed free.When President Zelaya of Nicaragua was overthrown by a pro-American blow, Diaz gave him refuge.In 1907, Washington, concerned about Japan's growing power in the Pacific, called for a permanent lease of Magdalena Bay in Baixa California as a naval base.Diaz hesitated, then granted a rent for only three years, under severely restricted conditions.A meeting in 1909 with William Taft, the president of the United States, on the international bridge that connects Ciudad Juracz to El Paso, Texas, was not well and Diaz worsened the offense he had committed on Magdalena Bay, offering an ostensibly friendly reception to oneparty.of Japanese Naval Marines visiting Mexico.For Washington Diaz now it seemed ungrateful: where they had once cooperated with him and even deported their political enemies back to Mexico, they have now made it clear that Diaz's enemies were free to use American soil as the basis for their activities.
All of these factors indicated the weakening of Diaz's political understanding, but even in combination, they were not enough to trigger the social earthquake in Itigo. The revolution broke out at the end of that year, mainly because the 8th-YEAROLD DIAZ could not decide whatDo about succession; in this regard, he was Elizabeth I. General Bernardo Reyes do Mexico, governor of Nuevo Leon and Northeast Military Commander, had long considered the apparent heir, but the scientifics favored Limantou.diaz played his former game ofFavor the first side, then the other. He built Reyes, making him ministering by war, then fired him abruptly and seemed to be leaning to Limantou.The, in 1904, he extended his presidential term of four to six years, agreed toEstablishing a vice -presidency and appointed a no -nobid, Ramon Corral, as his vice -president and successor, thus launching Limantou.Diaz was playing again, because he knew that the mediocre corral was dying of cancer and that, anyway,No one would want such a man in the presidential office. He would have a permanent fear of Diaz that if he appointed a credible figure - either Reyes or LimaTonti or some third party - such as his vice -president and successor, he would be the victim of murder.
Having eliminated all viable presidential candidates, Diaz later displayed his hand. In 1908, he gave a long interview to US journalist James Creelman, who was largely a breath of his real and alleged achievements.Repression and gravity, Diaz replied that he was much more serious to the rulers of Mexico than the governed. He admitted that there was no mercy to whom he caught cutting the telegraph wires and that anyone so seized had to be executed a few hours after being takenand without appeal. On the other hand, the owners of all the hacings along which the wires ran were their own responsible for the death penalty if the wires were cut, as well as all magistrates who did not catch the wire cutters.At least in his mind, he established himself as a Solomonic impartiality figure, Diaz tried to prove a consummate figure: he said he would like to see the emergence of an opposition party now that he had guided Mexicoem at a time when he was readyFor democracy. To prove his seriousness, he was ready to declare here and now that he would not be a candidate in the 1910 presidential elections.
The announcement caused a sensation and proved to be the biggest mistake of Diaz's career. Naturally, he had no intention of keeping his word and was duly re-elected when 1910 loomed, but opposition immediately manifested itself, from the revolutionary socialism of the exiled Magon brothers to a newly formed Democratic Party, a front for the political ambitions of Bernardo Reyes. The Reyistas at first made only the "innocuous" demand that their man succeed in Corral as Vice President in 1910, but everyone knew what that meant. Alarmed by the Democratic Party's growing popularity, Diaz banished Reyes to exile in Europe. More controlling, it went quietly. Currently, there seemed no possible obstacle to Diaz's peaceful re-election in 1yio. a sound of liberal opinion in the US, to assuage Diaz's recent anti-Americanism? Did the old man simply lose his political senses? Or was it, as I suspect, a ploy to lure the unwary out of their holes, so that the dictator could learn exactly who the opposition and how great is its strength?
This was the context in which Diaz was suddenly challenged from the most unexpected quarter. The man who launched the Mexican revolution was certainly the most unlikely revolutionary of all time.Well -trimmed goatee - supposedly cultivated to mask a chin that was as weak as the rest of his physique - Francisco Madero was vegetarian and teettalellor, with a nervous tic and a sharp fake that would become falsete in times of emotion.Cause of his enthusiasm for spiritualism and theosophy, Madero had no social or economic program; his opposition to Diaz was purely political, and if Mexico really were democracy, he mentally said he was, he simply had act as the leader of an oppositionparliamentary. However, how Diaz's usual threats failed to burn this new challenger, diplomats and journalists have increasingly asked: who is Francisco Madero?
At the age of thirty -seven in Itigo, Madero was aligned to inherit the fortune of Mexico's fifth richest family. In the northern state of Coahuila, Madero's grandfather Evaristo founded the dynasty through entrepreneurship and cunning speculation., he initialized in vineyards, cotton and textiles, but soon diversified in Guayule plantations, silver mines, rubber plantations, cattle, coal, castings and banks. Evaristo's commercial empire extended their tentacles to virtually every state of Mexico: His cotton mills alone stretched from sound, at the far northwest to Yucatan, at the southeast. The North Earth of the Earth Cream, the Maders were, from the 188s, the wire lockers who provided the Coahuila state governors.
Patriarch Evaristo married twice and twice produced a large family. Francisco, his eldest son for his first wife, married an oligarch woman named Mercedes, who gave her a son, also called Francis in 30of October 1873. The full name of the child, the oldest of fifteen, was Francisco Ignacio; he was named to St. Francis of Assisi and Inácio Loyola, although more fanciful biographers have suggested that his surname (Madera is Spanish for wood) carriedCalvary wooden cross connotations. 12 years old, he entered the Jesuit school of San Jose de Saltillo. He was impressed by the self -discipline of the Jesuits, but his parents took him too late (not by the legendary age of seven), so that he has always received religion inculcated at him with a silent question. After studying in Baltimore, he spent five years in Europe (especially in Paris), then studied English and agriculture for a year at the University of California,Berkeley, where he became involved in theosophy and tried to elaborate a general theory that fired Madame Blavatskye Spiritualism.Your critics say that in all his travels, and especially his time in Europe, the only thing that really impressed him was spiritualism.cego or indifferentTo the art and culture of France and Italy, he returned to Mexico obsessed with the darkest mania of the Victorian era: belief in a world of spirits 'on the other side'.
At the end of 1893, at the age of twenty, he returned to Mexico to start his royal training as a businessman. His first job was to manage one of the family's hacings, San Pedro de Las Colonias, and he acquitted himself well. In his youth, he wasA specimen of weeds, often with health problems, but worked hard to gain physical strength and now was an excellent swimmer and dancer. A "improved" work and radical, he was full of bright ideas and new schemes: toA soap factory, to import new US cotton strains, for a weather observatory, for an ice factory.Praised by Diaz himself. A good businessman and manager, he built his purely personal capital for 500,000 pesos at the turn of the century.
This was not achieved by the terrible exploitation of its workers, as Madero was a compassionate man who lived in austerity in imitating Francisco de Assis. The workers of his San Pedro farm lived in clean houses and received high wages and good health care.In addition to feeding sixty children without -Teto and contributing to numerous charity institutions, Madero, as a believer in homeopathic medicine, made his own round of doctor, dismissing lemon charcoal, nux vomica and other nostrils to his pedestrians.In January 1903,He married Sara Perez, a woman who thinks in the same way, and together they created schools, hospitals and soup kitchens, supported even more orphans and financed scholarships. However, the turning point of Madero's life was notHis marriage to Sara, but two events that occurred a few years earlier.
In 1901, Madero's beloved mother, Mercedes, died of a typhoid. Substantially affected by this and probably on an unconscious level guilty because he had 'caused', his death, Madero gave up on drink and tobacco and sold his winery.Coincidence, his interest in spiritualism has risen equipment. The first attempts to contact the spirits were hardly auspicious: practicing automatic writing, he created the banal phrase: 'Love God above all things and your neighbor as you' 'However, in Igoi, he also began to receive daily visits to his brother Raul, who had died by an accident in a fire at the age of four.To avoid the material in favor of the spiritual. Some Madero scholars say that, not the death of his mother, was the true trigger of the new regime of vegetarianism and explains why he gave up smoking and destroyed his winery.
Until he was 28 years old, Madero was apolitical. The first glimpses of political conscience came when Bernardo Reyes, governor of Nuevo Leon, used excessive violence by dispersing a political demonstration in April 1903-2. For the first time, Madero began to questionDiaz's own roots. Conveniently, 'Raul' has now instructed him that the best way to help his colleague was to go into politics. He became a candidate in municipal elections, founded Benito Juarez club to take Mexico back to principlesLiberals of the Constitution of 1857 and narrowly lost its first electoral contest. He wrote articles to the press, trying to link the world of politics to spiritual values and signing them `arjuna ', the hero prince of the Hindu epic, the Mahahharata.To compete for the election for the governor in Coahuila in 1905 and was almost arrested when his rival Miguel Cardinas won. Cardenas, returned for the third time as state governor, was sufficiently alarmed with the Madero challenge to warn Diaz that the `` crankshaft ''Madero showed all the signs of becoming a political embarrassment and, moreover, that, with unlimited funds at his disposal, could develop in a real headache. Cardens pointed to the way Madero funded his own newspaper (El Democrat), as well as a satirical publication (El Mosco-The Fl). Alarmed, Diaz consulted Bernardo Reyes and asked if he should arrest Madero. Reyes advised against: The best first step was to convince Francis Madero to get his rebel son to boil.
Madero did not lose hope after his defeat by Cardenas, but comforted himself with a fervent belief that his time would arrive. Being an apostle with an mission and his political work as a fulfillment of the words of a crucified Savior, he wrote toHis brother Evaristo in Paris, asking him to return and join the great job. While that, from 1907, he began to make visits from Jose ', a more militant spirit.by Jose ', with Loyola's' spiritual exercises'. The notebooks are impregnated with a deep feeling of guilt - not only to blame that he is "failing" in Mexico, but also that he cannot generate a child in Sara Perez;There is a suggestion that Madero is being punished and his wife will get pregnant when Madero fulfills his patriotic mission.
Soon another spirit arrived to reinforce 'Joseph' and ordered him to preach his political message throughout the country.Madero wrote prolificly in all opposition newspapers, even buying them to publicize his message.In early 1907, the spirits ordered him to abstain from sex, but then, in October 1907, the spirits gave him the sign that he had "purified" and triumphed on matter;Now he should copiously read Mexican history in preparation for a fight that would hit his heyday in 1908. To become an increasingly worthy ship, Madero increased his austerity campaign, reducing sleep, eliminating nap, going to bed afternoonand getting up early.At this point, a virtual recluse, abstent and without pleasures, he started eating less and established a massive reading program of Mexican history.After the interview with Creelman, he also decided to write a long treaty about the 1910 presidential election.
On his thirty -fifth anniversary - October 30, 1908 - Madero received a message from 'Jose': `You were chosen by your heavenly father to perform a great mission on Earth ... because this divine cause you will have to sacrifice tudomaterial, allof this world. In November, a new visit - this time the spirit of Benito Juarez - told him that the pamphlet he was writing would send diaz in panic and that he should use the "Sword of Truth" against the president.From Diaz, use loyalty, 'Juarez' insisted; against his falsehood, sincerity; against hypocrisy, sincerity. Madero finished his book and then removed his forty days and forty nights in a desert ranch he called "Australia."He told his father that he had been chosen by Providence for a great task and that his book about the election would be published until January 25, 1909.
The first edition in 1909, in Madero, Igro's presidential succession immediately sold out. Madero structured his book on a double pimple of diagnosis and healing. The diagnosis was that the absolute power in a man was always bad and had harmful consequences: Madero inspiredCzarist Russia and its humiliating defeat by Japan in 1905. He pointed out that Diaz had come to power expressly in the slogan 'without reelection.: "This is the cause of ... the corruption of the spirit, the disinterest in public life, a disdain by law and the tendency to deception, in cynicism, fear.If governing, there is mutilation, a degradation, a degradation that can easily translate into submission before the foreigner ... We are sleeping under the cold but harmful tone of a poisonous tree ... We should not fool ourselves, we are going to a precipice.
The cure prescribed by Madero was a simple return to the Constitution of 1857, fair and valid vote and no reelection. In February 2, Igog Madero sent a copy at Diaz, asking him to obtain real historical immortality, adopting democracy., he sold much of his property with a loss to raise money for his political programs, set up the anti-rehelist center in Mexico City and published an anti-reel magazine, edited by Jose Vasconellos and Luis Cabrera.seuGrandfather Evaristo, founder of the Madero Dynasty, noted cynically: `` It is the struggle of a microbe against an elephant ', but without letting herself let, her grandson made a complainant tour of Coahuila in September, IGOQ and was arrested by enthusiasts.
At this point, Diaz's patience was running out.Just before the first anti-reeling party convention, Diaz decided to attack the Madero family to show them the danger of letting their puppy run loose.First, he tried to take control of Nuevo Leon's bank, but was forced to withdraw when it was clear that the public would only accept money issued directly by that bank.After pressing Evaristo Madero in vain, Diaz decided to go straight to the matter and arrest Madero himself on the forged accusation of illegal rubber trafficking.A warrant was issued to the arrest of Madero, but was never fulfilled because of the extended protection to Madero by his old family friend, José LimaTonti, still the indispensable minister of the Economy of Diaz.
The new party convention took place in Itigo. In the day before the opening, Diaz tried to anticipate Madero, inviting him to an interview. This was predictably a dialogue of the deaf people in which banalities and bromides were exchanged.But he insisted that his system should give way to democracy. Diaz suggested that the man who took his power would accept a poisoned chalice and ironically asked who Madero had in mind as the next president. When Madero said it didn't matter much as long as heBeing honest, Diaz said Sardonically that, to rule Mexico, a man needed to be much more than honest. Madero said he wanted the Mexicans to take the idea of free and fair elections seriously, and Diaz said, again possibly ironically, that thisIt was a praiseworthy ambition. A man moved away from the meeting with a low opinion of the other. Diaz said he had just met a lunatic to match the genuine Crazy (Zuniga y Miranda), who had been placed by students as presidential candidate in 1896.Madero turned Diaz's corral back to him, noting that Don Porfirio was no longer looking at the ulore stick. For his suggestions, he said that Diaz was in his second childhood, but still maintained the cunning of a maniac for senile control.
In the Convention Hall, the next day, the strength of the Madero movement was apparent. Madero was appointed candidate for the presidency and chose as his mate of plate, career politician Francisco Vasquez Gomez, ex -family of the Diaz family and one of the mainsupporters of Bernardo Reyes. It was remarkable that most of the Reyists had moved to Madero now that their leader had been exiled. Most of Mexico's best intellects, including Jose Vasconcelos, joined him and the speakers' list was fullFrom names that would become very familiar over the next three years: Roque Road, Federico Gonzalez Garza, Pino Suarez, Felix Palavicini.The dictator and warned that the force would be received hard. After the successful convention, the moment of Madero's campaign seemed unstoppable and he departed on a national tour. He was acclaimed by a 30,000 multitude in the city of Puebla, by 10,000 atCity of Jalapa and for another 20,000 supporters in Orizaba. In Veracruz, he announced his manifesto, to include individual rights, municipal freedoms and autonomy of states.
Meanwhile, Diaz was not idle. Having exiled Reyes, he dealt with the next hopeful, LimaTonti, removing him from his inner circle and failing to consult it over the next batch of `nominees' to Congress., he left angry for Europe, aware that his presidential chances had ended; apparently, he would negotiate a new debt agreement with European banks, but it was an open secret that he would not return from this side of the presidential election., whose cancer had shown in remission, Diaz even tried to move away, building another hopeful, Governor Teodoro Dehesa of Veracruz as the rising star.Denunciation, even the short -sighted Diaz finally realized that he had a serious challenge in his hands. When Madero arrived in Monterrey, he was arrested on charges of planning the armed insurrection and arrested in San Luis Potosi.
Diaz has now called for a purge from the new party. After more than 6, ooo arrests of the main lights, the crisp has gone under and Diaz is free to fix voter turnout numbers and intimidate the electorate. Madero remained in jail while the lavish celebrations took place. Diaz's birthday celebrations continued into September, and it was from his prison cell the same month that he heard the startling news that Diaz had been re-elected president by a record margin, with Corral as vice president. and false statistics that characterize so many autocrats, Diaz actually allowed Congress three months (from June to September) to "examine" the election results and then announced an exact number for the presidential votes cast for the anti-Eartion Party: 196 for Madero and 187 for Vasquez Gomez; No doubt this diaphanous hoax was set up for the benefit of US observers.
In prison, Madero considered his options. His middle-class movement, with purely political aspirations, with a definite appeal to literate urban elites and intellectuals, for whom the Porfiriato was a blot on the national shield. It is futile to look for deep socioeconomic currents in Maderismo and even Madero's `radical' statements were Fustian rhetoric. He rolled a lot about Mexico's penetration, but his move was not a reaction against foreign investment; Madero and his top lieutenants deeply admired the US and looked to it for inspiration. was in a quandary. Calling for an armed revolt would put property at risk, could lead to the kind of slide towards real social change that occurred in the French Revolution, and would probably not succeed anyway, because Diaz's military power was too great. or why the US can intervene to prevent `chaos'. On the other hand, to do nothing would be to hand Diaz victory on a plate. Reluctantly, Madero concluded that Diaz would have to oppose force and laid out plans for a national revolt to begin. in November November.
Restless and a workaholic, even behind bars, Madero flooded his followers with letters, promising he would not weaken. When Diaz was declared president, he sent a huge dossier on voter fraud to Congress, where he was predictably buried. Meanwhile, his father intervened with the state governor and recorded a substantial bond, allowing Francisco to walk around San Luis Potosi during the day, accompanied by guards. Soon the guards became drugged by the boring daily rhythms and became inattentive. simply galloping away from his lazy jailers. He found refuge in a nearby village and from there traveled incognito by train to the US border, where he was smuggled to Laredo. In San Antonio, Texas, in late October, he issued his plan of San Luis Potosi, which proclaimed the 1910 elections null and void, declared that he was the true president of Mexico, and urged all Mexicans to refuse allegiance to Diaz. He proposed himself as interim president and promised the restitution of lands to Indian villages and communities and an amnesty for political prisoners. Mexico depended on the national response to this call from Tocsin.
The rise of Zapata
Among those who watched the challenge from Madero to Diaz with great interest, there was a head of the 3 -year -old village in the state of Morelos called Emiliano Zapata.Morelos, one of Mexico's smallest states, was 80 kilometers south of Mexico City andIt had borders with the state of Mexico, Puebla, Guerrero and the Federal District itself (within which capital was situated). The native state of Zapata was, in a way, a microcosm of Mexico, because in a relatively small area it contained the areaTerra of the typical mountain of northern Mexico and tropical plains most generally associated with planting states of the extreme southeast.
Zapata was a mestizo, of white and mixed Indian paternity. The race was an extremely important factor in Mexican society; in Itigio, a third of the population was Indian and a half -mastery. As for the extent of racial prejudice, experts differ.Side, many oligarchs were racist, disregarded the predicting Indian as a drag to the national chain and embraced a form of social Darwinism in which Mexico's future was in transcending his Indian past; so they sought to England and FranceFor their inspiration and sent their children to school there. On the other hand, Mexico's national ethos officially proud of the achievements of the Aztecs and Mayans and, in everyday life, the evident racial prejudice was rare.However, that whiteness was the supreme ethnic value, and the goal of all aspiring Indians should be "lightened".
Since North America Plains tribes, Mexican Indians have never made a common cause against their white rulers. This occurred because the differences between the tribes were perceived as important as between Indians and white.The tribes, most of which were grouped in downtown and southern Mexico, where they composed anything from 50 to 75 % of the population. It was Indians in northern Mexico - the mayoes of Sinaloa, the Tarahumaras of Chihuahua and, especially,The martial and powerful yaques of sound - but most of the time, the tribes were located south of Mexico City: the tarascos of Michoacan, Tzeltales, Tzeltales, Tobojales, Cryales, Tzotziles de Chiapas, Zapotecs, Mijes, Zaques, Huavesand Mixtecs of Oaxaca, the Huastelos and Totonacos de Veracruz, the Mayans of Yucatan, plus Tribes' Astorgrams (Mahuas, Nahuz, Nakatan, another Tribes Astartation (Mazahuas, Nahuz, Nakatan, plus Tribes Astartise (Mahuas, Nahuz, Nakatan, besides a tribes' astortion (Mahuas, Nahuz, Nakatan, as well as an Angons. Central Mexico.
Even so, generalizations about southern Mexico are difficult. Oaxaca, Chiapas (both states a mix of jungle and high valleys) and Yucatán were predominantly indigenous, all living on a subsistence economy of corn, beans and squash, but each of the three was different from the other two in important ways. Oaxaca had two great advantages: it had a higher proportion of mestizos in the population, reducing racial tensions, and it had more free land in the villages. In Chiapas, on the contrary, the situation of the Indians was such that a large number of them lived as bandits in the area of the coastal lagoons, supported by their communities and pointlessly persecuted by rural people: they were the classic “primitive rebels” or “primitive rebels”. social criminals so beloved by sociological historians. Yucatan, set on a limestone plateau, was different again. There, the disastrous caste wars had brought racial tensions to a boiling point, and the white city of Merida sat restlessly like an island in a sea of Mayan communities, with the Creole communities owning the huge sisal and hemp farms. Separated from the rest of Mexico by jungles and swamps and plagued by malaria and yellow fever, Yucatan was an unhappy land, drawing inspiration from the Caribbean and nurturing vague aspirations for independence.
Undoubtedly, the Mexican Indian was socially fuel material, but without outside leadership, there was no possibility of deprivation and resentment in villages being converted into revolutionary activity. Caciquism - the absolute dominance of a boss or chief - worked against it, as well asThe extreme factionism and parishism of the villages. It has been excess of ooo, the one in jogo, often a few kilometers from each other, but each had a totally different culture. The regionalism was so intense that there was extreme localism, even withina region. In the state of Hidalgo, eleven neighboring puebos were identified, all totally different in politics, economics and culture. Indians were devout Catholic in that syncretic mode that allowed them to merge their old pagan beliefs with the teachings of the church, and the parish priests ofParish generally advised head bend, except perhaps on December 12, the church's biggest date, when the Guadalupe Virgin Festival was celebrated.
All other factors worked in the same Quietian direction. There is some evidence of an inculcated cosmic despair in the unconscious collective Indian by the memories of 16th century demographic disaster race. When cuts and the conquerors arrived, Mexico had an estimated population of eleven million,But eighty years later this fell to a million, and population levels relived only in the eighteenth century. The lack of knowledge was also the lack of power for the Amerindians. Levels of literacy, political awareness and education were abismatic, but that was aCharacteristic of Mexico in general. In the north `advanced ', a Mine owner, thinking of educating his workforce, held a simulated election for president among the miners while Diaz was reelected and discovered some surprising results: of the 300 voters, 15He voted for Nobenito Juarez for a long time for a bullfighter and fifty to the local bandits leader.
Above all, however, the question of the earth was; it was no coincidence that the great slogan of the Mexican Revolution (equivalent to 'freedom, equality and fraternity' in the French Revolution) was Earth and Libertad - Earth and Freedom.of the Diaz years was the way the farm invaded the lands of the village. Most villages enjoyed its community lands for centuries through the usual right and had not presented a documentary title to the territories in Mexico City.This is to affirm property in the land and water of the village. In 1910, half of Mexico's rural population had been reduced to Hacienda's dependence and many villages were Hacienda Pueblos. Even where the villages were not in Hacienda's territory, their inhabitants werefrequently landless and had to work in hacindas. The free villages were not largely Indian and these were squeezed unlucky until only a few kept their own old lands. The peaceful resistance was virtually impossible, as the Bonds controlled the courtsstate and dominated local politics, making it impossible to make local democracy or free elections.
Residents could, in a way, have luck, as there were a group of even more explored people: the pawns who lived and worked permanently on Hacienda land, as opposed to residents who worked as daytime workers.Employed debt system, common in the south, which made the states of Veracruz, Campeche, Chiapas and Yucatan the closest thing to the notorious servitude of Russia and Eastern Europe. The pawn, hired for Hacienda and unable to leave, working the dayAll under the sun, at the mercy of brutal superintendents and harsh discipline applied by whips and piloting, performed to buy all their needs in the company's store, where debts were honestly or dishonestly.Children inherited their parents' debt, Peonage became slavery in all names. Increasing cynical transactions in Gogol's dead souls, the owners bought and sold the pedestrians of each other and used reward hunters to track fugitives, which would then bebeaten to death as a bloody warning to others.
It is hard to overstate the cynical savagery of the debt peonage. page to each peon's debt. overseers or managers, the gachupines were particularly hated and Spain has always been the main target of xenophobia in Mexico. The threat to all residents was clear: if they lost their land to the haciendas or became economically unviable, they would face starvation, unless they became permanent employees on the haciendas and thus were sucked into the debt peonage.
Although the state of Morelos has not suffered the worst excesses of the southernmost farms system, the mind of Emiliano Zapata cannot be understood without enjoying the role of the earth in its mindset: both its mystical feeling by the soil of its ancestors and its assessmentNegative of what was reserved for the villagers of their state if they did not resist the large farmers.He was born on August 8, 1879, son of Gabriel Zapata and Cleofas Salazar, the second son and ninth of ten children (of which two boys and two girls survived to adulthood) in the village of Anenecuilco (literally "where the place wherethe whirlpool '), an ancient settlement that preceded the Spanish conquest. Zapata was the old indigenous name of Pueblo. The Zapats were an important family in Anenecuilco, with a reputation for political activism since 1800: they had fought in the independence wars and,,notably against the French in the 1860s.
Many legends clung to Emiliano's birth, but two facts seem well founded: he was born with a cherry-colored birthmark, the shape of a small hand; and his birth was attended by an Indian woman healer or Curandera. Childbirth had a powerful mystical resonance among the people of Morelos, and the pre-conquest Indians of the area are believed to have had a bizarre religious baby cult. Fathers were present at births, helping their wives who carried children in a sitting position. During the whole operation there was the Curandera, who massaged the body of the pregnant woman, sprinkling incense or copalli, a gum made of resinous pine wood and chanting magical formulas. When the child was delivered, the Curandera cut the umbilical cord, tied it and washed the baby, leaving the mother to sleep. After wrapping the child, she handed it to the father in a stylized, ritualistic way that everyone understood. All the other children would be present at the birth. A successful live birth, in a culture that so awarded, it was the occasion to draw fireworks and rockets and drunken merry-go-round.
Emiliano Zapata was born in a troubled land. The Basic Social Conflict in Moreos was among residents (mainly small farmers) and the owners of the large sugarcane plantations. Sugar hacings and subsistence villages have coexisting restlessly since the centuryXVI.In 1910, Moreos produced one third of Mexico's sugar harvest and was the third largest area of sugar barrel production in the world (behind Hawaii and Puerto Rico).State and all the best lands. Diaz came to power in 1876, there was a huge expansion of hacings at the expense of villages and small farmers. In this conflict, the Zapata family played an important, although ambivalent role; despite its reverenceBy the lands of his ancestors, Emiliano must have realized that not all the political actions of his ancestors had a close investigation.
In the 1870s, the family was a porphyirist, and a certain José Zapata (not Emiliano's uncle with that name) had been Diaz's political fixer in the state.In 1874, this Jose Zapata, now head of Anenecuilco village, wrote to Diaz, then a war hero, but not yet dictator, about the tyranny of sugar mills and their owners.In 1876, when Diaz was the Supreme Ruler, the new village head wrote again to Don Porfirio, asking his help and mentioning that the previous petitioner, José Zapata, was dead.Diaz promised to do everything he could, but nothing was done.The tensions continued.In 1878, Manuel Mendoza Cortina, owner of Cuahuixtla's farm, tried to put his hands on the water supply of Anenecuilco;When the villagers knew that one of the elders was secretly helping him, they took the man and cut his head.In 1887, when Emiliano was eight years old, curtain attached the east end of the village, leading residents to tax to buy weapons, but the Zapata family did not stand out in this initiative.At this stage, they tended to align themselves with the hacendated: the owner of the hospital's gigantic farm had been Emiliano baptism godfather.
However, in 1895, when Emiliano was sixteen, there were problems with the new owner of Hacienda Hospital - a name that would be repeated in the biography of Zapata. Hacedated occupied the land of pasture of residents, killed some of their animals and put fencesof barbed wire. It was not satisfied through local channels, at the turn of the century, they hired one of the main lawyers, who sent to national archives in Mexico City for their title actions; upon receiving, the lawyer confirmed that the title of the villageIt was inalienable. The young Emiliano Zapata was deeply impressed by this incident and developed a kind of obsession with title actions, which he would see as a living soil symbol of his beloved brunettes. He also developed a railroad, seeing - -as a sign of bustling power.
In the growing conflict in brunettes between villages and sugarcane plantations, the farmers received a asset in 1881, when a VERACRUZ-CITY LINE extension was extended to Moreos, giving farmers access to larger markets and allowing-Hees import heavy machinery to build larger sugar plants.The role of railways as an important and exponential, although not exclusive cause of conflicts between villages and farms should never be underestimated: during the 1877-84 rail construction boom, fifty-five serious armed conflicts were recorded by the authorities.Zapata realized that certain phenomena always seemed to walk hand in hand: whenever there was rail expansion, farmers sent armed men to take the lands of the villages, increase the cultivated area and meet the growing demand for sugar in national and international markets.His xenophobia was fueled by the presence of the Spanish hated at all stages of the farm's expansion, and he felt the power of the omnipresent slogan: 'Death to Gachupines.'
It is easy to see the influences that made Zapata acquire his political conscience, but the details of his life are scarce. Naturally, when he became famous, all kinds of legends grew around him, many focused on the fact that heHe was born with a birthmark in his chest, but only a handful of early anecdotes is well grounded. It seems that even when a child, Zapata was a dandy, with a taste for flashy clothes.coins.The story was that Cristino had fought with the bandits known as The Plastados ('Men Dresses of Silver') who devastated brunettes in the last part of the nineteenth century and wore his nephew in this way elaborate so that he was remembered from his only timecomrades.To not staying behind, the other brother of Emiliano, the other brother, gave him a gift from a muzzle loading rifle that dated the same campaign.
Two other formative incidents that we owe to Zapata's own memories. He was linked to seeing his father crying when one of the orchards in the family for generations was appropriated by a powerful Hacienda; Emiliano promised that one day he would recover the stolen land.Another occasion, when the people of a neighboring village resisted the fencing of their ordinary lands by a powerful bustling, the man sent to the rural ones, who burned the village on the floor. When an Emilian boy stayed with his brother Euphemio and his father, watchingThe flames lick the sky. Zapata's friends later said that you could ensure that Emiliano is anger simply by mentioning this incident, which seemed to make his eyes shine like warm embers when he remembered.
We know little about Emiliano's childhood and youth, except that he went to an anenecuilk elementary school, where his education included the basics of book maintenance. However, we know an extraordinary amount about everyday social life in Morelos at the end of the end of19th century, which allows us to reconstruct its environment. He came from a prosperous "superior peasant" family, so he would have been spared his worst private private, but it was impossible for him to avoid seeing the misery around him.It was not at the levels of Chiapas and Yucatan and there were no cases of bustling demanding Droit du Seigneur about the nubile women on his property, as happened in other states, only a Humbug would have described the lot of so much happy Morelians.
Alex Tweedie, a British traveler, described conditions at the San Gabriel Hacienda in Moreos in 1901, which was widely considered as a model plantation in the treatment of his workers. Enclosed by huge walls, as if it were a gigantic monastery, Hacienda housed almost 3,000 soulsAnd with its long runners, ornate balconies, a multitude of rooms, dependencies, churches and companies, it seemed a village in their own account. With any safety in possession, pedestrians were allowed to build primitive residences with bamboo walls and roofsPalma leaves intertwined like Straw. All purchases had to be made at the company's stores, everything was made based on ready money and the employees were paid in cash on Saturday night - that alone made San Gabriel remarkable,For in most hacings pawns had to receive their salaries purely in goods from the store. Medium salaries were 50 cents a week, which allowed pedestrians to obtain naked livelihood, although some of them already had 400 pesos in debt.
For independent residents, life was better, though still difficult. The plow had replaced the coa - a narrow and long -handed stick - and the donkeys did the work of the traditional Indian or TireeMe.White pants and shirts had replaced the loin cloths like the clothes accepted for working in the fields. The most prosperous houses were usually pre-history, with adobe walls or joint grass walls, splash roofs and wooden tiles.For a man from Zapata's class diet would extend beyond the traditional Indian corn, beans, pumpkin, cocoa, pepper and the occasional Peru - under the influence of the conquerors, the Indians, originally vegetarian, transformed the carnivorous - but even the culinary culinaryIt was mainly intended in the standard dishes: pozole stew, mole sauces and cornmeal tortillas.
The Indians also learned the attractions of alcohol, usually with devastating results. Longe were the days before conquest, when drinking at times other than religious festivals were a serious crime. Now men frequented grog stores, drinking pulque or waitingAnd accumulating the debt to the company's store in the process. When they got sick, the Indians had two options. If they lived on a farm, they could consult the company's doctor that each bustle should provide together with a priest on Sundays and sacred daysHowever, a much more popular option, as the Indians still believed in magic, animism and folkloric drugs, was to consult the healers or healing (healing if they were women) and take the drugs they prescribed.
The Curanderas were especially popular, as they were considered witches with magical powers. The living modalities of Jung's `wise old women', they had the authority of doctors or psychoanalysts, although their folk remedies were more redolent of Thomas Hardy's ``conjurers'' than of modern medicine. Like Chaucer's pardon, they carried many strange specimens in their 'magic bags', mostly bones or animal organs with which they practiced sympathetic magic. accepted midwives in Morelos, childbirth mortality was high (which some attributed to their dubious methods) and many of their adult patients died of gangrene or blood. , these women, as herbalists, homeopathic healers, doctors, midwives, counselors, lucky tellers, were the eyes and ears of a village, its very system of intelligence; they were respected and feared as much as they were cherished and admired.
By the standards of the urban life of the late twentieth century, everyday existence in Moreos - lived near nature and soil, circumscribed by the Catholic Church, with permanently nervous residents with Hacienda invasions - was boring and tedious when he was not threatening threatening.In common with other Morelians, the young Emiliano Zapata was waiting for the highlight of the calendar, the Village Annual Fair, an occasion of social, religious and economic meaning.Aldeias de Morelos followed a strict division of work when it comes to producing goods exchanged for exchange. Each village had its own specialization, whether ceramic, leather, straw rugs, saddles, blankets, clothes; TEPAC, for example, specializing in black ceramics, Leather and equal in silver jewelry. So many villages and so many fairs, traders of these products have lived a traveling life, often traveling for kilometers from one fair to another.
Socially, the annual fairs were projected as a gigantic one week party, reaching a climax on Sunday closer to the day of the village's patron saint.JESTER's uniform of each village), elaborate dances, the singing of folkloric or running songs, gourmandising, drunk, leaving fireworks. The bars and lungs opened around mid -day and closed at dawn the next day, when theClientele was trapped by disorderly conduct or sleeping at home. The Vila Square would echo the peculiar peculiar and acute or carcassed cry of drunken Indians. While men were getting drunk, women and children had fun in the fairs, complete with acrobats, primitive giant wheels and madness shows.
Religiously, the celebrations gained strength on Friday and culminated on Sunday, when the priest prayed the mass in such a crowded church that the faithful spread across the square.Devoted Indians passed through the statues of the crucified Christ, then aligned into the church to kiss the Savior's feet in a gigantic wooden crucifix.The bizarre synthesis of God, Mammon and the flesh, which lasted a week, would end, suddenly and mysteriously, on Sunday night.No one whistled to end the party, but by a kind of pre-established harmony the revelers seemed to know the exact time to move away and resume normal life.On Monday morning, hard work and eternal struggle between villages and farms would be resumed.
When Emiliano was sixteen, his parents died, one year from each other; the head of the family was now his brother Euphemio, five years in his veteran. Euphemio was always lower moral and intellectual of Emiliano, and without his famous brother would have disappeared unknownIn the bumps of history. In 1892, at the age of eighteen, he had revealed his basic conformism by enrolling in a local porphirist club.But Emiliano usually revered him and postponed to him, anyway in these years. He had all his qualities, Emiliano never transcended the limitations of the narrow culture of the village of Morelos and, therefore, never entered a room where Euphemio was without kissingHand of his brother. In his relations with his two surviving sisters, Maria de Jesus and Maria de Luz, we know little, but as a typical Male Male Male Chauvinist Emiliano would have to command his automatic deference.
Neither brother was ever sponsored: they always lived in a stone and adobe house, not a cabin, and the land was owned by the family. Now, with their inheritance, they went their separate ways. Eufemio became a businessman and salesman in the state. of Veracruz, but he was not successful and, his estate spent, he returned to Morelos to shelter under the aegis of his more successful brother. Meanwhile, Emiliano bought a team of ten mules and used them to transport corn from farms. to the cities, so he diversified into hauling bricks and lime for construction work at the Chinameca hacienda - like the hospital hacienda, that was a name that would recur throughout his career. Zapata was never the anti-capitalist his socialist champions would have liked him to be. he was and was proud of his talents as a businessman and his versatility as a farmer and muledriver. "One of the happiest days of my life," he later recalled, "was when I made about five or six hundred pesos from a watermelon harvest that I raised on my own".
Unlike Eufemio, whose reflex action should go where power was, Emiliano was very early on a passionate opponent of the Hacienda system and its village land enclosure.His opposition to the status quo was not beyond the abstract defense; however, he was forced to flee Morelos and hide for a long time in the ranch of a family friend in Puebla. When the dust calmed down, he returned to Anenecuilco andHe continued his moderately successful commercial career, working on his own lands, intermittently sharing a local hacond and building his reputation as Teamster and Muledriver.Elaborately he covered horses. Normally, these features would have alienated the Morelians, but tolerated them in Emiliano.
His political education continued. In the years 1902-5, he learned the art of local politics by observing the dispute between his own village and the Yautepec Pueblo, on the one hand, and Hacienda Altihuayan, on the other.From Yautepec, he organized a delegation that went to Mexico City to Petition in person, and Zapata was one of the delegates of Anenecuilco. We can say goodbye to the legendary story that Zapata was the main engine in a Diaz and Diaz marked confrontation and that Diaz marked himas "one to be observed." It was very early for this and, anyway, Diaz made Jovito Serrano deported with brunettes immediately after daring to put his case in person. If Zapata had said on this occasion, he would have suffered the sameHowever, he listened, observed, and drawn obvious conclusions about Diaz, the so -called "father of the nation."
The year 19th6 was a turn to Emiliano. A teacher named Pablo Torres Burgos settled in anencuilco, giving his life by managing a market tent and selling second -hand books.Books in the Burgos Library and current newspapers, especially the regeneration of an anti-diabric anarchist organ.Zapata heard Firebrand's public lectures, passionately committed from Montano, and was so taken to him that he invited him to be his compadre. This was the greatest tribute that a friend could pay another, because in Mexican culture the fictional kinship of Compadazgo in the Mexican culture(literally co-parish) was the supreme value of men.
In a way, Zapata received the classic training prescribed by Marx to a revolutionary, because at the moment he was absorbing Kropotkin and the anarchism of Torres Burgos and Montano, the daily political struggle was in itself elevating his political conscience.Among the brunette villages and sugar planters had climbed a march, for the blocked in the first decade of the twentieth century, it was realized that it was involved in a life or death struggle with two different enemies: other Mexican producers decana -de -Sugar and the world's sugar beet producers. In years, Igoo-Hé saw US capitalists, investing strongly in Mexican sugar, installing the latest technologies that increase productivity in the states of Sinala, Tepic, Puebla, Michoacan, Jalisco and, especially, Veracruz, where productivity was 30 % at the levels of horses. A even worse threat was the introduction of sugar beet in the state of northern Sonora, when sugar demand had already reached the point ofsaturation. The planting of brunettes had no capital to invest in new technologies and decided to squeeze the villages, despite the widely expressed fears that soil erosion in brunettes could soon exhaust the land itself.
To win this titanic battle, the Hacendados Morelian had to destroy both internal and external competition. The external threat they dealt with lobbying and politicking in Mexico City. In 1908, Diaz, doubling the import tax on foreign sugar, removed the threat from foreign sugar beets, so that by 1910 Morelos had regained its position as the third supplier of sugar in the world, behind Hawaii and Puerto Rico, but they were still in danger of being overhauled by new mills in Veracruz and elsewhere. They desperately needed a technological overhaul: modern milling machines, access to new markets through new railroads and, above all, more land, water and cheap labor in Morelos. Peaceful coexistence with the villages was no longer possible; In the minds of the planters, the lands of the village had to be plowed and the independent farmers extirpated. of pure debt from southeastern Mexico. New haciendas appeared, creating independent economic communities along with all the familiar by-products like company doctors and company stores. anachronistic obstacles to the economic programs that Diaz wanted; it was the Scientific project in deadly action.
A new cruelty was abroad.Hecendates surrounded the former Pasta Lands, and when cattle used to grazed there to reach a favorite mastive place, the guards of Hacienda seized them and freed them to the residents only for paymentof a fine. If residents would take their case to local courts, judges, in the palm of the planters, would rule them; if residents continued to insist on their rights, beating or even murders would be the next step.Villages of Morelos became squeezed in two directions. Pin-offs of Sugar Plant Economic (less and less working day), while there were more and more of their stolen lands, many Indian communities died and disappeared, became citiesGhosts or the Mexican equivalent of the deserted village of Goldsmith.More and more residents, finding their debts increasing, tried to hire for plantations as shares or daytime workers. A vicious circle was created: neglecting their own lands, they found their villages effectively assumedand they themselves were reduced by hand -resident in the plantations -the dreaded destination of the debt.
The year of crisis to Morelos was from 19th. Suddenly, Diaz faced a local version of his national reelection crisis just when he thought he had established branches in the near future.For a dozen years, always basically on the planters side, but intelligent and Machiavellian enough to throw the villagers.Title actions, asked him for justice. With a lot of false rhetoric about 'my children', Alarcon summoned a totally useless meeting, with the presence of hospital residents and managers; eloquent words were spoken, but nothing that wasMade about the problems. When the residents finally saw through Alarcon's impartiality mask, they passed their heads to Diaz. Applying a visit from Don Porfirio to his son -in -law Ignacio de la Torre, who had a hacond in Moreos, they did theWay of the president with his petition. He promised to intercede, but the only action he took was to identify the leaders of leaders of this act of 'sedition' and transported them to the work fields of Quintana Roo.
In December 1908, Alarcon, aged fifty-seven, dropped unexpectedly dead of a heart attack, having just been elected (in August) for the fourth consecutive time. The state's elite planters met Diaz in Mexico City to decide a suitable successor, but was in considerable disarray for Alarcon was a consummate fixer, a master of apparent compromise, verbal obfuscation and political camouflage, whose skills had defused an explosive situation to a decade-long situation. Morelos Hacendados were stunned when Diaz suggested his chief of staff Pablo Escandon as Alarcon's successor. So the planters had second thoughts. They were desperately short of land as there were no more public acres to buy and the villages would not sell their farms whatever was offered. in the governor's chair in Cuernavaca, planters would be able to manipulate events to their hearts' content; Escandon would certainly look the other way as he robs farms, judges of Browbeat, and exerts political leverage and (in the limit) brute force to get his hands on on the lands of the inhabitants.
Diaz placed his political machine in motion to ensure that Escavon was imposed as governor, but the appointment triggered a huge wave of resistance in the state.Political opposition turned to the politics of the great old man of Morelos, the war hero against the French, General Francisco Leyva, now at the seventy's house.Although a long time ago marginalized by Diaz, Leyva gained respect for all state factions and immediately agreed that her children should compete for elections to avoid an easy victory in Escavon.In February, Gog Patricio Leyva, the general's eldest son, presented his name as the opposition candidate.
Diaz and the Jefes politicians were seriously alarmed by the perspective of a genuinely free competition in Morelos. After Creelman's interview, with new presidential candidates establishing its tents in Mexico City, it seemed plausible to provincial dissidents stuck a bass in Diaz andIts system building bonds with these possible national politicians. The opposition of Moreos marked its hopes at a newly -formed party, led by Sanchez Alcohon, who in turn wanted to support Bernardo Reyes for the presidency in 19th. The result was a bitter struggle betweenEscandon and Leyva in 1909, an exacerbated struggle for the realization of national implications.
Increasing aspirations of the "out" groups and increased exasperation in the scandal of the imposition of Escandon by the diaz machine led to a serious riot in the city of Cuautla in February. The political Jefe used his powers to bake, obstruct and threaten leyvistas, using all thoseUsual corners, such as removing police permission for political meetings and then using bandits to divide any manifestation that occurred. In one of Escandon's poorly attended rallies, Leyvista Heckling increased to the stone throw, which caused the bloody intervention of rural ones.The political Jefe put posters stating that any scream of Leyvista slogans was ipso facto a violation of ordered peace and arrests. The resulting riots, in which fortunately there was no severe blood spill, scared the elite of brunettes and even Leyvistas,for they saw the spectrum of class war forming.
Repression, intimidation, hostage-taking, police brutality, rigged ballots, improper distribution of ballot slips, packing local polling commissions with "safe" members: these were just a few of the ways in which Jefes politicians ensured the completion of predeceased victory. Even after all the joking, gerrymandering and voting, the Leyvistas still secured a third of the vote, so there had to be a second wave of figures before Escandon could be declared the winner with a `landslide'. In March 1909, Playboy was sworn in as the new governor, but proved to be an almost permanent absentee in Mexico City, visiting the meat panels. decline in state services and infrastructure.
At the rare occasions where he appeared, stupidly shutdown all the experienced bureaucrats of Alarcon and gave his jobs to incompetent placemen. While that, he invited the persecution of local chiefs, not so petty, persecution of known Leyvistas. If these were smallFailures, their macropolitical failures were more serious. Openly, openly, flagrantly and fanatically favored the planters against the residents; there was no oversight and camouflage, none of their smoke -filled rooms. The owners of sugar plantations were nowFree to declare open season in the villages. The leader of the most militant village, Genovevo de La 0 de Santa Maria, later to be one of the great names in Zapata's history, very early decided that the prospects for reform from the Diaz regimeNow they were useless and hidden, preparing for the emergence of a guerrilla leader.
Escandon's stupid and brutal actions sharpened and aggravate the already vicious social conflict in Morelos. In 1909, more and more villages were deprived of water, their stolen cattle, their surrounded lands and all appeals to the political or judicial authorities were ignored.It was clear that Escandon intended to break the Pueblos as institutions, leaving an almost Marxian division between plantocracy and a vast body of expropriated ex -villagers who had only their sales work.Thus and thus allowing the evasion of taxes by the plantants to become legal tax evasion. In June, the hospital's administrator raised the bets when reducing the lands he played with Anenecuilco for the village.Charity of Escandon Madness is provided by historian John Womack, who notes that Escandon and the planters seemed to be seeking the 'perfect plantation' - a Platonic ideal of Hacienda that would eventually convert burn into Hacienda's territory, squeezing, squeezingOthers, even retailers and traders.
This was the context in which, in September, Agog, the elderly José Merino resigned as head of the village of Anenecuilco and Emiliano Zapata was elected in his place. Zapata was a popular figure in Pueblo, known for liking Brandy, but to drink onlyIn moderation and conspicuous, both for his dandy and his huge mustache (later to be a trademark around the world); he said he grew up so lush to differentiate him from those smaller "men, Touris and Priests."A slightly built man, more than 1.80m tall, Zapata had few attacks against him in the village's opinion. He vehemently opposition to Diaz and Escavon favored him, as well as his love for Anenecuilco, who (in the manner of his Indian ancestors) He seemed to imagine as a personal entity. In a macho society, which could have been considered as a defect by later thoughts - his compulsive womanizer - was considered in Anenecuilco as a distinctive of honor.
Zapata has always been known as a man of ladies. It is said that he was a master of seduction, in contrast to his brother Eufemio, to whom a woman's dating usually meant intimidation, violence or rape. In 1908, Emiliano was involved inSomething scandal, even by the standards of Lax Moreos, when he kidnapped a woman from Cuautla, Ines Alfaro, set up home with her and began three children - a son Nicolas and two daughters.Lesser punishment of serving a period in the 7th Army Battalion. He left and returned to Anenecuilco at the beginning of I 909 to participate in Leyvista's campaign against Escavon.Too far away in their behavior with Ines Alphao, they would have been eyeing because so estimated Zapata's ability and reputation as a knight.
In contrast to the men of northern Mexico, who had the wide open spaces of Sonora and Chihuahua to ride, riding the charro variety was not an expected feat of morelo males, so Zapata's prowess made an exceptional impact. Mexican charros or cowboys were admired by oligarchs and peons. The charro had to prove his worth by riding a wild horse bareback. An untamed steed, deliberately starved to make it especially wild, without bridle or saddle, would be led into a bullring. Several cowboys rode and wheeled, making the horse gallop faster and faster. At a predetermined signal, usually a pistol shot, the cowboy performing the stunt would ride at an angle to the wild animal on his own horse and, timing his movements perfectly, leap from his own horse onto the berserker's back. and agitated wild horse. With nothing, not even a mane to grab (since this was always the first to be grabbed), the rider had to stay aboard while the horse went through the entire permutation of throwing, twisting and rearing, using only its knees, legs and innate strength. sense of balance. Usually, the demonstration ended when the horse, desperate to throw its rider, attacked the enclosure railings, at which point the wise rider jumped from the horse to the fence. It was a superb riding feat and those who saw Zapata demonstrate it swore they had never seen a better rider in all of Mexico.
Zapata took her excellent equestrian bullfighting skills. One of the tricks was for a rider to larst the rear paws of a bull in the arena.The bull was pretended, the knight was summoned back to set up the bull as if it were a foolish bronco. An even more extravagant trick was collecting or `` a bull. A young bull was thrown into the ring, and the knight ran, challenging the bull to catch it. While the persecution accelerated, the pilot leaned, clung to the steering tail, wrapped around his legs and then exit at an angle so that the animal's posterior rooms were pulled transversely.Trick required exceptional strength and dexterity, but if successfully performed, the bull would stumble and roll on the floor. The rider jumped from the horse before the bull recovers and giving a loop around his rear legs.In The Wild Horse Riding, Zapata was still classified among the best brunettes in collecting.
Such was Zapata's fame as a knight that his reputation extended beyond the state. They brought him not only the admiration of men and the conquest of women, but the tangible economic rewards. Some time before I9O9, he was invitedTo be a personal trainer and manager in the stables of Mexico City of Ignacio de La Torre.de La Torre had a series of pure -blooded Arab horses and their stables in the capital were magnificent, built as palaces, marble managers and floorsSmall cobblestones placed in standards. Elegant charges were parked against the walls, their wheels always shining with fresh paint, their seats made of tapestry or silk padded. How all the brunette planters, an exponent of vulgar and metricious 'conspicuous consumption', ofLa Torre Tear his horses with silver and had silver tires in his carriages. Zapata found, however, that from La Torre drove his 'house of the city' - a vast millionaire mansion, complete with patio and extensive motifs - like a farm inMiniature: His pedestrians lived in black faults tightly to the splendid stables and it was obvious that the patron kept his horses in a much higher consideration than his employees without luck.Moreos. Experience left him with conviction, never to be extinguished, that the city was a place of corruption and that goodness would be found only in the countryside.
The role of riding in Zapata's life partly explains his taste for shouting clothes.Charro's traditional costume consisted of a huge, wide and pointed felt hat;tight black cashmira pants with silver buttons or a kind of boit silver on the outer sewing;a white silk or linen shirt and jacket;a silver -ornament fair vest;and a scarf around the neck.Boots, spurs, and a waist pistol completed the set, and has a highly ornate saddle, a machete and a silver whip, usually made of bull penis, dry and twisted on raw leather with a spring on it as a whale.Later, it became fashionable to embroider the Charro jacket, but this was not customary at the time of Zapata.Dandism was generally considered in brunettes as a manifestation of the hacendated sterile, with his well -known taste for building 'madness', poone pole and landscape gardens, but for a scorch like Zapata an obvious exception would be made.The people of Anenecuilco were proud of their Emilian and confident that he would leave his mark as head of the village.
The first task Zapata set himself was to study all the historical documents relating to the village and its lands. Among the other young men elected to the posts in the village was Francisco Franco, the pueblo secretary, and together with Franco Zapata spent eight days 'brainstorming', stopping only to eat and sleep, absorbing the history and legends of Anenecuilco almost through his pores. Upon discovering that many of the documents were written in Nahuatl - a tribe related to the Aztecs but now heavily reduced in numbers and concentrated in just six villages where they constituted about 10% of the state's population - Zapata sent Franco to the village of Tetelcingo to hire a priest to decipher Nahuatl writings; the priest himself was one of the last literate members of this once flourishing tribe. With all the documents, maps, title deeds, permits, opinions, and notarial translations complete, Zapata placed the contents in a tin box and buried it, so that his enemies would never destroy evidence of Anenecuilco's legitimate claims. Zapata had an almost fetishistic feeling about this vault and its contents. He told a later secretary, Serafin 'Robledo' Robles, that if the box was lost, he would hang Robles high in a cazahuate tree.
Certainly of his land after such an exhaustive survey, Zapata now felt confident enough to confront the Hacienda's administrators from the Hospital. After taking the precaution of obtaining yet another favorable and thorough legal opinion, he went to the Hacienda. hospital was uncodified and responded to Emiliano's request with severity: `If the people of Anenecuilco want to sow their seeds, let them sow it in a panel of flowers, because they will not have land, even on the arid slope of a hill. 'Perhaps not by chance, Zapata was almost immediately thereafter drafted into the army. From February to March 29, 1910, he served as a private in the 9th Cavalry Regiment, stationed in the state capital of Cuernavaca. Why was he demobilized after such a short time remains a mystery, but we can speculate that money played a role in such a quick "meeting".
The Hacienda Hospital, evidently in collusion with Governor Escandon, took advantage of Zapata's absence to put pressure on Anenecuilco, to destroy the village as a community. On his return, Emiliano tried one last time for a peaceful settlement of the dispute; he wrote to Escandon for a final decision on the estate, knowing that he kept all the Trump cards in his strongbox. When Escandon did not respond, he wrote to Diaz himself, who predictably passed the money back to the governor. The village then decided to bear Escandon in his lair and, finding one of the rare occasions when he was in Cuernavaca, sent a delegation there. Scrupulously, Escandon continued to stop and asked that he be given a complete list of all persons injured by the actions of the hospital farm. Tired of this prevarication, Zapata finally decided he had had enough. He armed eighty men, went to the disputed fields where the hacienda workers were working and ordered them to leave; first brought the name of Zapata to a wider, non-Mexican audience. An Englishwoman named Rosa King, owner of a small hotel in Cuernavaca, wrote of a `fellow near Cuautla' who was stirring people up. of the story of Zapata, the troublemaker who would finally reach his zenith in the legend of `Attila of the South'.
Preoccupied by Madero and the other pressing problems of the year 1910, neither Diaz nor Escandon took military action against Zapata. The hospital farm took no action for several months and then sent a request for `` rent '' on 'their' land When Zapata ignored this, the hacienda attracted the prefect of the district, who ordered a preliminary hearing. In court, Zapata spoke eloquently for Anenecuilco. Anencuilco would not be able to pay because of bad weather and bad harvests. After listening to him and realizing the depth of feeling the issue raised, the mayor decided to postpone a final decision on this hot potato. rent was paid by Anenecuilco in Igio, but that matter would be reviewed in 1911. Determined to force a resolution before that time, Zapata sent a delegation to Diaz to get the disputed lands restored permanently to Anenecuilco.
By this time, Zapata, Anenecuilco and the villages of Morelos were solidly behind Madero in his struggle with Diaz, which reached a climax in the summer of Igio. Madero had enormous ideological significance for Zapata and his followers, as Maderista's propaganda had penetrated the corners of Mexico, and the Morelos Pueblos now realized that they were not alone in their desire for reform and an end to porfiriato. that he could deal with the problems of the north only if he had peace in the south. To astonishment, Diaz suddenly ordered the owners of the Hacienda do Hospital to return to Anenecuilco everything they had appropriated over the last forty years and declared Zapata's claim to the title which proved beyond question. A Jefe Politico powder was forced to go to the Hospital Hacienda to render this nasty judgment.
While the enraged hauceders gathered in Conclave to decide how they could reverse or sabotage this ad from Mexico City, and their happy guards looked at the jubilious Zapatistas behind the new boundaries, Anenecuilco was wild. In December, japata personally personallybroke the stone walls with which the hospital had closed stolen lands and made a distribution of the land recovered to the village; in his own land, he planted a huge field of watermelons. A rodeo was held in Anenecuilco to celebrate this almost incredible triumph, but Emilian Euphoric neglected his usual precautions in the bull ranking and was criticized by one direction. Following his wound, he joined the taste in the alcoholic pieces in Pueblo.After the original anenecuilco concession (September 25, 1607), residents finally recovered what was due to them.
The clear-headed Zapata, however, knew that this was not necessarily the end of the story. Everything would depend on the success or failure of Madero's rebellion, and Emiliano knew he had to succeed. attempt in the Mexican Revolution, sending his mentor Pablo Torres Burgos as an envoy to Madero in Texas.
The Rise of the Village
The two giant states of northern Mexico, Sonora and Chihuahua could be in a different hemisphere than Morelos, instead of being in the same country. They were separated by the Sierra Madre, and it was in Chihuahua, the largest state - a land of cattle, haciendas, mining camps, and isolated towns and cities—in the broad plain between the two arms of the Sierra, that much of the fighting in the Mexican Revolution would take place. Most of the north was desert, so water was a scarce resource and the struggle for control of the water supply was a prime factor in the political conflict. Naturally, the land problem was crucial, but unlike Morelos, other issues were also prominent. The northern states had long-standing traditions of federalist opposition to central control from Mexico City, had a culture of anticlericalism, and, most importantly, shared a border with the US. When Diaz consolidated his power in the i88os, he had two powerful henchmen in the north, Governor Luis Torres in Sonora and Luis Terrazas in Chihuahua.
Everything here was different from the southern region of Mexico City, except that there was also an Indian problem, although from a very different kind. In the years 1876-19 to sound, it was the scene of the most violent resistance to Diaz and its governors forYaquis, whose war sustained against whites and mestizos was second in ferocity only for the terrible wars of the yucatan caste. The warrior of the warrior, the Yaquis were probably superior even to the Mayan of Yucatan, and the blood rebellion triggered by cause, The Great Yaqui Cacique was still boiling in the Igoos. CAJEME was dead for a long time, victim of Ramon Corral and Ley escapes, but his successor Tetabiate continued the fight. It was a war for the knife, because the sacred places of Yaqui and PueblosThey were redistributed to colonists and mestizo settlers from the US, who cultivated chickpeas and fruits for Richardson's company to California markets.
In 1900, Yaqui wars climbed new heights of savagery, with a growing pattern of atrocities. The federal troops dispatched the north per Diaz tore women and children with their mausers and sent men to a slow death in Yucatan and Quintana Roo plantations.The governor of sound justified his actions, referring to Yaqui's cruelty: they sported his living victims and tied them with ropes made from his own skin. Diaz was interested in crushing Yaquis and used a variety of excuses for his brutality.Reasons were equally diverse: racial hatred, 'improvement' of scientific ideology and the main question of credibility - leave Yaquis alone and who knows what new challenger in their authority may not arise. However, despite all their efforts, the Yaquis were still unbeaten when the revolution broke out in 191st. At this time, the proud Indian nation was taken by the faction: there were rescuers who corresponded to the US reserve Indians - who submitted to the upper force and went to work in the fields;And there were Yaquis or wild bronchos, who remained in general as guerrillas, invading and killing, having made a vow to fight to death or until the last white man was killed. When the revolution finally broke out in November 1910, the meekThey enlisted under the flag of Madero, but the scolding remained in their fortresses, seeing no one, still determined to exterminate all whites, whether revolutionary or porphirists.
Chihuahua, on the other hand, had no more indigenous problem of his own, but had not emerged for a long time from another mortal dispute of the red man against white.From the mid -eighteenth century, there was a serious problem with the Apaches attacks, as the desert warriors were pushed southern by the Comanches, the "Spartans of the Plains".New Spain's colonial authorities bought the Apaches and encouraged them to set up and become farmers.At first, Independent Mexico followed the same policy, but in the 1830s the Apache problem became acute again, in part as a consequence of the loss of Texas by St. Anna.Desperate with its advances to the north, the Mexican City Government interrupted its subsidies in food and money almost at the exact moment (as if by a perverse type of pre-established harmony) the Apaches perceived the military weakness of Mexicans and left for war.Chihuahua farmers fled, and only armed peasants and military settlers, who had no choice, remained and fought.
There was a fifty -year wild war, with multiple atrocities on both sides. Particularly during the turbulent years of 183th -1867 -when Mexico faced the loss of Texas, the war with the United States, the Civil War, the warfare with the United States, the Civil War, the Civil War, the Civil WarBetween liberals and conservatives and, finally stated, without pretense that the federal government's warrant ran there. After the defeat of the French at the end of 186, the hacendated returned. The main one was Luis Terrazas, founder of a powerful dynasty, an administrator andReformer capable who used the state's tax revenues to form and train anti-apache militias, instead of sending the money to Mexico.Apache in its northern states, the US would use illegality as a pretext to attach sound and chihuahua.
The return of the hacendados and the determined policy of Terrazas did not happen so soon, for from 1830 to 1880 some of the great names of Apache history were active in northern Mexico. In the 1830s and 1840s, Cochise, the famous Chiricahua Apache chief, fought in Pisago Cabezon's Apache band, participating in the inconclusive battles and peace conferences with the Mexicans on the Gila River, Arizpe (Sonora) and Janos (Chihuahua). From 1847 onward, much of Sonora was destroyed in relentless Apache raids, many featuring the warlords Narbonne and Cochise. Another widely feared Apache chief was Mangas Coloradas of the eastern Chiricahuas, active in northern Mexico since the 1830s; Such was the Coloradas' hatred of the Mexicans that in 1846 he actually tried to enlist the aid of the United States Army in his raids and found General Stephen Kearny for that purpose (admittedly this was during the 1846-8 Americans' War against Mexico ).
One of the permanent problems of Apaches was that they invaded both sides of the US-Mixic border, from Arizona to Texas and from Sonora to Chihuahua. This meant that a general peace involving a tripartite agreement between Americans, Mexicans and tribes, was difficult toreaching. Colorada Signed Signed such a general treatise in 1852, but brought a break instead of cessation in the eternal cycle of murder, destruction and reprisal. In 1858, Cochise and Colored sleeves collaborated in a wild foray into the north ofSonora to avenge the death of their sleeves and then robbed the Mexican Fort on Fronteras Presidio. Failure to Mexico, the attention of the two chiefs of Chiricoahua was adopted in the following years by `` Anglos', north of Rio Grande;He suffered a gringo version of the Ley Escape in 1863 while arrested for the US Army, and Cochise did not send his men south of the border again until 1872.
It should not be thought that Mexico has already reached any real pause of Apache invasion, because a peace treaty signed with a tribe in the country did not turn on the others. Other bosses feared in Sonora and Chihuahua in the 85s were deloged and VictorioFrom the mimble apaches.In the summer of 1855, Vittorio and Juh led a small army of their warriors in a giant scan by sound and chihuahua, returning through the US border with thousands of cattle and captive.Mexican, Victorio and Juh defeated them and did their escape well. The Mexicans took revenge two years later with a "peace offer" of food and whiskey for the Mimbres, which was deliberately poisoned with Arsenic; Victorio survived because he was teetotal.
The constant expansion of the United States to the west led the apaches to a violent collision with the United States, and the bloody confrontation has given the north of Mexico some space to breathe.However, the years 1875-85 saw Apache's worst problems to this day.Victorio and the Mimbres seemed to have been domesticated when they were placed at the San Carlos reserve in Arizona in 1877, but the indigenous agency made the mistake of trying to put them alongside some of their ancient tribal enemies.In 1879, Victorio led his warriors out of the reserve in one of the largest feats of indigenous annals.Crucial to his success was a fun attack of Juh, directed from Mexico.By this time, Juh had found a new ally in the form of the chief of war Bedonkohe, Geronimo, a man who hated the Mexicans with a blind passion after they massacred his mother, wife and three children in Janos, Chiricahua, in 1850.
Juh and Geronimo invaded San Carlos in August 1879 in a brilliantly executed cavalry maneuver who pushed the US cavalry away, allowing his ally Victorio to run out of hundreds of warriors.At first in American territory, Victorio fought his American persecutors in several skirmishes, then crossed his border with Chiricoahua.Disregarding the subtleties of International Law, United States Cavalry Major, Albert Morrow, followed the apoches through the border, but in the meantime, Juh and Geronimo returned from Arizona and joined Victorio.Together they turned to face Morrow and, in a dark battle waged to the moonlight northeast of Janos, forced him to retreat.Victorio then moved to the east in the mountains of Candelaria in Chihuahua, where he ambushed two Rurales companies, killing thirty of them without loss to himself.He then avoided the resulting clamor by crossing the border with New Mexico again.By this time, however, Juh and Geronimo thought they were already fed up, surrendered and settled for a while in San Carlos reserve.
In 188, Victorio and his men felt safe in their waters in the mountains of the black mountain range, but the US cavalry arrested them in a canyon there and defeated them strongly.Vital moment, allowing Victorio to move away to Mexico once again. Once once, they made their base on the Candelaria mountains, but waste precious time for fruitless attempts to penetrate the border strongly patrolled with Texas, hoping to raise the MescaleroApaches of the east of New Mexico in revolt. These abortive enterprises warned the Mexican authorities about their presence. Diaz, uncomfortable by the governor of Chihuahua, Luis Terrazas, finally launched some regular army units and, along with a large party of rolls heHe had collected, the governor's cousin, Colonel Joaquin Terrazas, finally felt strong enough for a decisive reckoning with Victorio. After a long and patient campaign, Terrazas launched a successful ambush in the hills of Tres Castilos.From October, Victorio and his main war band were trapped. This time, it was the Apache ammunition that gave first, but they fought for the last man with Lance, Bow and Arrow. Apaches lost seventy -eight dead warriors;Women and children were arrested. Colonel Terrazas lost only three dead and ten militiamen, earned $ 17,250 by the dead Warriors, and was leonized as a border hero.
Mexico was particularly proud that his men had managed to end the threat of Mimbres, where legendary US cavalry had failed, but Victorio's death in Tres Castilos in no way ended the Mimban War Leader.Nana, who was running one of Victorio's flanking columns and thus escaped from terraces annihilation, hit in 1881 in one of Apache's legendary attacks. Being in New Mexico, he covered more than me, Ooo Miles on his flightOf dishonest circulation back to the Sierra Mother in Chihuahua, during which his warriors, never than forty and many times only fifteen, fought dozens of skirmishes, almost fifty -American knocks and took more than two hundred horses and mules stolen through the border with them.
Since Nana joined Sierra Madre by Geronimo and Juh, who once again left the San Carlos reserve, the authorities on both sides of Rio Grande feared a reprise of Victorio's campaign. Diaz, therefore, instructed Luis Terrazas to cooperateFully with the North Americans and allow their forces to cross Mexico in search. While that, Washington attributed his greatest Indian fighter, General George Crook, to the task of pacifying the apache.In his own way as remarkable as Victorio, Juh and Nana's exploits. Only a cavalry company, but using the Apache Zoo Scouts to allow him to locate the enemy quickly, Crook reached the remarkable feat of speaking Nana and Geronimo backSan Carlos's reserve; Juh avoided Crook and could have been a continuous headache, but fell off his horse while crossing the Big Houses River in Chihuahua in November 1883 and drowned. In 1885, Nana and Geronimo again jumped the reserve andWe spent seventeen months invading their foundations in the mountains in northern Mexico, but once again it was Crook who persuaded them back to San Carlos on March 1, 886.
This was the end of the Apache problem in northern Mexico: Geronimo's final attack at the end of 1886 was a purely US -based case. However, the importance of the apache factor in the nineteenth century history of Chihuahua cannot betoo emphasized. He formed the people of Chihuahua in a martial culture, made them get arms to solve problems seemed a second nature and (following three Castilos) greatly increased the prestige of the dominant family of Terrazas.
Victorio was still spreading terror in northern Mexico when the man who would be known for history and legend as Pancho Villa was born. In June 6, 1878, a son, Doroteo, was born from Agustin Arango, the illegal son of a village of Jesus, and a sharecropper at La Loyotada ranch, which was part of one of the largest hacings in the state of Durango, owned by the Negrete Lopezfamily.Five children to defend himself. Odoroteo, the eldest son, has never been to school and, from an early age, had to support his family at work at El Gorgojito Ranch, also owned by the Lopez Negrete clan.
According to tradition, and his own account, the young Doroteo Arango became an outlaw at the age of sixteen, after Don Agustin Lopez Negrete tried to rape his sister Martina or (in some versions) demanded that she become his concubine. later he changed his name to Francisco ('Pancho') Villa, on the grounds that his grandfather's name was Villa. Dating this traumatic incident precisely to September 22, 1894, Villa claimed that he shot Negrete in the foot to to prevent his predatory advances towards his sister, as a result of which Negrete's men were about to execute him, but the Hacendado forbade it. Fearing that Negrete might have thoughts or arrest him, Villa fled to the mountains of Durango.
It is typical of obscurity that involves all aspects of the beginning of Villa's life that even scholars who accept this story cannot agree with their details. Who was Agustin Lopez Negrete? Some say he was the son of the owner of Hacienda, others that heIt was the administrator. According to another version, the bullet wound was more serious, Villa tried to escape, was caught, arrested and then received a death sentence under the ley escape for 'trying to escape'.villa then injured her jailer with aPylon and made his escape.
Subsequently, Villa claimed to have had all sorts of adventures to shill her hair: deceive possession, be captured and then escape, surpassing unqualified rurals, surpassing soldiers. Eventually, he joined an "supergroup" of Outlaws, led by Ignacio Parra and RefugioAlvarado.Pe being a fugitive, seeing a naked life, he became a left -handed entrepreneurial form: his part of the withdrawal in the first week with Alvarado was 3,000 pesos - ten times that pawn in the fields of Chihuahua would come into one.The gang stole a rich miner of 150,000 pesos, from which Villa's participation was 50,000. He claimed to have spent everything within a year, probably in a high life, but when he told the story of his early years, he was interested inTo portray himself as a "social bandit," he said he gave most of his family or in charity. This is said to polish his image as a robin Hood of the last days, the village of manufacture of myths later stated: `After eight or ten months, I had returned to the poor the money the rich had taken from them. '
When his money was over, for any reason, Villa returned to the gang. At this point, Parra was the most famous bandit in Durango, the King of the Mountains, prestigious enough to have the bandit hitherto notorious in the state, Heraclio Bernal, servingUnder him; Bernal and his four brothers had been the scourge of Durango in the 88ths. So as Villa was to learn from Parra, Parra learned from the Bernas, and the most vital lesson he digested was the importance of cultivating good relationships with networks ofpeasant support; if you paid your way with hard money on the villages, peasants would always protect you against the authorities. PARRA added the refinement that a good bandit leader would also have secret friends between the forces of law and order.He bribed or intimidated police judges and heads so that, if apprehended, he received light sentences or even finding the authorities coming back. In these years, Villa, no doubt, knew the corrupt judges and magistrates who would serve him well in the future.
In 1902, Villa learned how valuable these contacts were. The first record in official Porphyrian documents mentions him as one of Parra's bands, but soon after he fell with him - he claimed it was because Parra had died an harmless old man whoI would sell you bread. It was a slice of luck to Villa; almost immediately after leaving the gang, Parra was shot in a battle with the state police. Charmedly, in narrow circumstances, Villa was arrested in January 1901 for stealing two mules.It was saved from Ley's inevitable death sentence for such an offense by the powerful black marketing professional Pablo Valenzuela, to whom the gang of parra used to sell cattle.The accusation "for lack of evidence." A man to press luck, Villa was arrested four days later for assault and assault. This time there had to be some punishment, so he was sentenced to one year in the army.
In March 1902, he abandoned it and, finding Durango too dangerous, fled to Chihuahua, where he later made his base of operations. Some say Villa worked mines in Arizona for a time and on the Colorado railroads, but Villa later told his secretary Ramon Puente that he was never in the US: at the time he was supposed to be among the gringos he was actually running a Butcher's Shop in the town of Hidalgo Del Parral. he worked briefly for two American citizens named Stilwell and Burkhead, who were particularly impressed by Villa's knowledge of stick fighting. Villa appears to have worked for the Americans as a mule driver, which came in handy later: he was able to cite Stilwell and Burkhead as character witnesses when his passing thug threatened to catch up with him.
The fact of the butcher's shop seems to be well founded. According to one story, Villa suddenly saw the light and realized that a life of banditry would only lead to the gallows. After working as a miner, mason and bricklayer, he had to flee when his true identity was discovered. For a time, he rusted cattle and tried to sell them in the Chihuahua meat market, but he was unable to make a butcher business, as the Terrazas, the owners of the slaughterhouses, would not give him access. killing his own cattle in his high-tech facilities and unwilling to pay the middleman's commission, Villa gave up the idea of becoming a career butcher. Once again he tried to mine, again his identity was discovered, and again he fled , this time turning to the only safe way he knew to make a living: rustling cattle.
Here again, the noose may be beckoning, but Villa escaped the Hangman, or the hangman's bullet, mostly it seems for two reasons, one cultural, the other personal. Every state had its mortal and venial sins, a consequence of the extreme localism in customs and popular ways already noted. Banditry was frowned upon in Chihuahua while it was a bagatelle in Durango, but in Chihuahua the rustling of cattle attracted nothing like the same stigma and opprobrium as banditry. accepted the self-appointed right of the Hegemonic family of Terrazas to close the open range and surround it. On a personal level, Villa traded with a black marketteer, who was also a small-time farmer and butcher, and disposed of his stolen stock that way. Using black market contacts and the references of his American employers, Villa was able to navigate the criminal rapids.
The more research is done on Villa's early life, the more tangled the conjectural chronology becomes. US property. Another story is that he worked for eighteen months as a muleteer for a rich Englishman, who proved to be a tough but honest man: responsible for transporting ingots of gold and silver which he never lost and was never stolen. What we can say with certainty about Villa's life until Tgio is that he alternated bouts of banditry with periods of "normal" existence. The American scholar Friedrich Katz, who has made the most thorough study of Villa's early life, has identified the central: there is no agreed story of the first thirty years in Villa's biography, but three different traditions, which Katz labels the black, the white, and epic legends. and for revenge; the white that he was a simple man wanting a simple life that was catapulted reluctantly into a revolutionary milieu; and the epic that he was not the Bandit lusting after loot, but a genuine Robin Hood, bent on righting mistakes, taking the rich to give to the poor.
As Katz points out, each interpretation is supported by circumstantial evidence. Villa stated that poverty, corrupt staff and Ley Fuga has transformed him and a series of other Mexicans into bandits and later revolutionaries in short, which he was the victim of 'Lopez's black system was extremely cruel men, and it is entirely plausible that the young villa could have suffered under them. There is also nothing implausible in Villa's story that he was persecuted by the Terrazas and his meek police authoritiesOn the other hand, if all he wanted was a quiet life, why he didn't calm down with the 50,000 weights he received from the great attack of Ignacio Parra instead of (supposedly) to give the poor?He taxed him about it.
In addition, the whole story about saving your sister from rape is suspicious in its details; there is no agreement in traditional accounts, even with the identity of the possible rapist - was Lopez Negrete Senior, the Burrow, his son, the administrator of Hacienda, a oneSheriff or simply another pawn? Villa's critics use discrepancies in the various versions of history to argue that the whole story of their childhood, including their sister raped, is a manufacture and that Villa was never more than a simple killer.It is likely that the "white" legend is largely the result of Villa's reflections on his life after receiving a political education from the Maderal agent, Abraham Gonzalez, in Iglo and that his own account contains more than his fair partof rationalization.
The legend of the villa "Black" is equally unconvincing, even if we know that we know that most of the stories of this dossier emanate from the Herrera family, who was involved in a fight with him after jogo. The version of Herrera denies things we know to beFact, such as Abraham Gonzalez's sponsorship and requires almost all criminal acts in northern Mexico in the first decade of the century to be villa.Dig his own graves before shooting them. In short, Villa was accused of so many crimes he would need to billar them. In this context, he remembers the sardony words of the old Australian folk music about the gang Ned Kelly: "I thinkI'm going to steal a horse and blame it for the Kellys.
However, in a way, John Reed, the famous American leftist journalist and chief prosecutor of the `epic 'or the interpretation of Robin Hood of Villa, hostages to luck in his account of Villa's rise to the prominence.On 19th Villa certainly murdered four people and was involved in ten premeditated crimes, including a criminal fire, robbery, rustle and hijacking.May he be a much more important person in Chihuahua before I really than he really was.Villa's services in Itigo. Agent Madero in Chihuahua, Abraham Gonzalez would really be interested in the `` Public Enemy Number one 'of Chihuahua if Villa was the robin hood of John Reed's imagination or Jack, the ripper of frenzied fantasies ofHerreres of the documentary evidence of jogi clearly show that Villa arrested by minor, released offenses and even returning his gun, which would hardly have happened if he were the Chihuahua '`` most sought after man.
Since Villa was not an intellectual - in fact, he was not much more than basically literate by R91o - it was assumed that he could not have been a "real" revolutionary, which must always have been acted by the desire for looting.Abraham Gonzalez was far from being a fool, and he must have seen in Villa something more than a bandit he took him under his wing in Iglo. Older writers, even distinguished as John Steinbeck, referred to Villa as `Nothing but 'a bandit. All the academic industry related to "social bandits", a pioneer by Eric Hobsbawm and others, made us aware that there is no automatic law of medium operations excluded between "Bandit" and "revolutionary".Simpler example, Che Guevara, in the Bolivian jungle, in 1967, was, from one point of view, a bandit; but on another he was very clearly a revolutionary.objective socioeconomic causes.John Reed was on the right lines when he identified the Terrazas as the problem, but did not persecute his enough analysis.
Even before his spectacular success against the Apaches, Luis Terrazas was looking to the future, planning the next step in his master plan for his family's dominance of Chihuahua. or expropriating the haciendas of the pro-Frankish owners who sided with the wrong side in the R 86os. now that he no longer needed the free villages and military colonies to provide manpower for his militias, Terrazas began to stake out his lands and reduce all of his customary rights and privileges, such as hunting and gathering timber. water, land fencing, and the construction of barbed wire fences were just some of Terrazas' methods; taxation of agriculture, the removal of local autonomy, and Jefes corrupt politicians who rule through graft, corruption and nepotism were more weapons. In addition, the military colonist soon discovered that Porfirio Diaz was a more dangerous enemy than Victorio, Juh and Nana had ever been: the position of the colonists was further undermined by the coming of the railroads and the telegraph, the opening of mines and the deluge of foreign investment. entering the state.
No matter who were the ordinary people of Chihuahua. They are the original settlers of the colonial period, the military settlers of the period of independence, the traditional Indian villagers, the invaders in public lands or the genuinely landless land occupying common lands by prescriptive right, all, allThey were swept into the MAW of Great Capitalism. In the US, the 1862 Homestead Law had opened state -owned land for a new class of small landowners.From public lands for giant capitalists, whether the domestic variety as Terrazas or, more controversial, large foreign companies such as standard oil. In the late nineteenth century, Chihuahua was a microcosm of Mexico itself. The increase in gross national product and foreign investment wasCompared to state level, there was a flowering export trade with Europe and the US, and the alliance between the national oligarchy and foreign investors provided a perfectly beneficial deal for both.Murdered dissidents and the gagged press.
Such was Terrazas' dominance that his Banco Minero de Chihuahua was a broker or partner in all foreign investment schemes in the state. His political control was absolute and his power so great that he could even push Diaz from time to time. the better part of bravery ignored Terrazas' support for Lerdo in 1876 and contented himself with fighting formal political control of the Terrazas in the years 1884-1903. No one doubted, however, that Terrazas was the real power in the state, and that the Don Porfirio's regime depended on the stability of coexistence between himself and the Chihuahua strongman. Only in the 1890s did Terrazas have to fire a warning shot through Diaz's bows. Terrazas' enemies, Lauro Carrillo, as governor. Terrazas decided to teach Diaz the facts of Chihuahuan life, discrediting Carrillo. He tacitly engineered a rise in Tomochi, which he knew Carrillo would not be able to contain. turn to Terrazas for a solution.
The rivalry between elites was therefore the deep cause of the Tomochi case, which showed the Diaz that there were limits to its power.Tomochi was a village in western Chihuahua where, thanks to some skillful manipulation of behind the scenes, an insignificant revolt became a great confrontation between veterans of the Apaches and federal troops sent by Carrillo.The feds were repeatedly defeated by the brave indigenous fighters, even when the chances were ten to one in their favor, and this demonstration of army military incompetence encouraged resistance in other parts of Mexico.Diaz's prestige was seriously harmed and he was forced to abandon Carrillo.As soon as Terrazas achieved his goal of overthrowing the governor, he turned off Tomochi's revolt.Hunger with weapons and terraza money, the rebels Tomochi could not continue.
Bowing to the inevitable, realizing that there was no power in Chihuahua except Terrazas, Diaz formally co-opted him in 1903, naming him governor of Chihuahua. them openly. He therefore resigned from his office, citing old age, and handed the reins to his son-in-law Enrique Creel, who had made no promises and commitments to villagers or settlers. Creel bound himself to these unfortunates without mercy. The family coveted new land so they could kill land speculation. The key was the new railroads, for the Mexican Northwest Line, the Kansas Orient and the Pacific Railroad were all depositing Chihuahua. In 1904-5, Creel passed two special timing laws : the first heads of elected municipalities replaced by officials appointed by the governor; The second legislation amended by Juarez in 1857, so that the state, not the federal government, became the final arbiter in the case of expropriation of village land. of Creel to the free villages was noteworthy. Apart from the fact that they were an obstacle to his money-making schemes, he seems to have actually detested them as a ``shackle'' of economic progress in general; in short, he was an ideologue genuine scientific.
Creel took the less sophisticated Indian villages and non-Spanish speakers first. Expropriating immediately created a new class of landless workers, whose only appeal was an appeal to Mexico City.from local authorities to governors and then to state courts in a meaningless vicious circle - meaningless because Creel controlled everything and there was no way to break with it.
After Creel was confident of the full support of Diaz, he began to move against the hardcore of ancient military colonies. First, he refused to accept any traditional hidden rights. In the case of legally signed agreements, he asked to see the actions of theTitle; There were often no, or they were deliberately destroyed. When copies of the originals were requested from Mexico City archives, Diaz bureaucrats refused to join the request, or would tell the truth, but not the whole truth:Example, saying that no act existed in the National Archives, know well, was in the provincial archives.
It is surprising that Creel's Chicanery did not trigger armed rebellion, but conditions were different from those during the Tomochi revolt of I 891-5. Then there was economic depression, but now there was boom, with rising wages and, at least in the short term, More importantly, this time there was no hidden hand by Luis Terrazas in manipulating events; the Creel-Terrazas clique was monolithic and there were no divisions in Chihuahua's elite.
However, just as Diaz eventually decided that Luis Terrazas was too powerful and tried (unsuccessfully) to arrest his wings, so he now felt that Creel needed to be overthrown. The most militant villages could be too pushed, and he would have another TomochiIn his hands, Diaz advised Creel to facilitate his program of expropriations. Dreel rejected the council contempt, arguing that these concessions would be perceived as weakness. Arritite by the attitude of Creel, Diaz suddenly stated in correspondence with the governor that his land of landFrom 1905 it was unconstitutional - a direct slap in the face. Dreel retaliated by an implicit threat of rebellion, saying that those who would be expropriated, having obtained the earth by the 1905 law, were among the most powerful men of Chihuahua and certainly revolted.Once Diaz retreated, leaving the residents, whose hopes were increased by their intervention, high and dry. After the capitulated Diaz, Creel moved against the recalcitrant residents with even greater hardness.
Chihuahua under Creel was a divided society, with a clear line demarcating those who have no. The unfortunate residents who refused were balanced by those who managed to profit from the bonanza of land and their spin-offs: they included artisans, urban shopkeepers, small farmers, miners and other employees of foreign companies. However, alongside the expropriated residents, there were rural retailers who depended on them to live and, most importantly, many local tycoons who would have been elected to the high office if Creel had not abolished the electionsAnd it imposed its own candidates .Gually, the tide of dissent increased, informed not only by nostalgia in the old days of the village's autonomy, but also supported anti-American xenophobia and resentment in US national privileges over Mexicans.
Anti-Americanism as a phenomenon should not be exaggerated, but has made some progress in the last years of the Diaz regime, especially among railways and miners workers. Chihuahua was a fertile ground for the revolutionary party of anarchist-unionist magician, led by exile in exileTexas by the Magon brothers who preached the spontaneous revolution for the peasantry, which the intellectuals would go as a "avant -garde"; the problem was that the peasantry required leaders before they rebelled.Mexicans, as well as without reelection for four -year -old presidents. If a particular target in Chihuahua was the Mormon settlers, protected by Creel, who were hated three times: they practiced polygamy, were hostile to Catholicism and had bought expropriated lands.Magician did not have the expected impact, in part because he was a honeycomb's favors for Creel's spies, not to mention Diaz's, and was subject to systematic persecution on both sides of Rio Grande.
The moderate, non-violent opposition to the Creel-Terrazas circle in Chihuahua came mainly from wild Terrazas, former secretary of the bishop of Chihuahua and a man designed to play an important role in the life of Pancho Villa.Journalist of great talent and courage, Silvestre Terrazas founded the newspaper El Correo.At first he was cautious, never criticizing Diaz directly, but using the anti -capitalist ideas of the Catholic Church in the Papal Rerum Novarum to set up a subtle criticism of the penetration of the United States in the Mexican economy.After 1906, however, El Correo had Creel and Luis Terrazas firmly in his sight.Silvestre Terrazas presented the new idea that Creel had no right to be governor, for Creel's father was an American citizen and, according to the Mexican law, the parents of all state governors should be native.Soon El Correo became the focus of all legal opposition in Chihuahua, whether it meant supporting strikes or resisting village expropriation.Silvestre Terrazas became a man marked in the eyes of the regime, and was arrested for long periods in 1907, 1909, and 1910. Diaz did not dare to send him murder, but because Terrazas had an international reputation.
In 1909, politics in Chihuahua had reached a brittle and pre-revolutionary stage, composed of the Creel-Terrazas attack on villages, the general national political crisis involving Madero to Diaz's challenge and the consequences of the 19th economic depression, which hit chihuahuaHardedo that other parts of Mexico. The mines closed when the world's silver and copper price plummeted; food prices increased by bad harvests; and Creel responded to these events, increasing taxes (to compensate for the fall of revenues)About people who could less pay. While the residents shone angry in the war of Creel's class - there were no increased taxes on their mates of hacendado or foreign capitalists - it turned out that, as it were, to speak, put the limit in the general crisisof political legitimacy of Chihuahua.
Enrique Creel and his brother Juan owned their own bank, Banco Minero. Suddenly, in March 1908, it was announced that 300,000 pesos had been stolen from the vaults. Suspects were rounded up and tortured to extract confessions, but the Terrazas Silvestre caused a sensation. by revealing in El Correo, with an unshakable list of affidavits and alibis, that all the charges were outlawed; There was no robbery; The robbery was an "inside job" and Juan Creel had arranged to have his own bank robbed because, it seemed, he had lost 200,000 pesos playing the New York Stock Exchange and needed to replace the money quickly. No one reading Silvestre Terrazas' lucid account could doubt that Juan Creel was the real culprit. Damage to the Creels' credibility was done. Coinciding with Madero's national presidential candidacy, this cause celebre in Chihuahua only underscored the rottenness of the entire Diaz system.
Such was the political and economic context of the society in which Pancho Villa spent his twenties, drifting erratically in and out of normal life and legal activity. The schizoid nature of his existence can be gauged from two simple facts: in Agog Villa led a gang of desperadoes in an attack, during which they burned Rosario's town hall and archives in the Hidalgo district; however, the following year he bought a house in Chihuahua City, as if he were a solid bourgeois.
The zigzag pattern inside and outside the banditry was even more pronounced in 19th.There is something of zorro in the way Villa has conducted his military and parallel civil lives this year of decision.On the one hand, Villa was building his reputation as a bandit chief and building the core of a guerrilla army.In early 1900, he and his men broke into San Isidro farm, plundering the place and killing the owner and his son.In October, he and Tomas Urbina, his most prominent lieutenant, stole Talamontes Farm in the Jimenez district of Chihuahua.In July 1910, there was his most famous pre-revolutionary feat.One of his companions, of course, handed him to the authorities and pointed him as a bandit.Villa retalized cold and violently shooting him on the streets of the city of Chihuahua.There are several versions of this event, but John Reed's account may be the most accurate: Villa was drinking ice cream at Paseo Bolivar (he always had a passion for ice cream) when he saw Reza approach with a girlfriend.He challenged prayed to withdraw, shot him, and then walked away with indifference, challenging viewers to do anything about it.
However, at the same time, he was building contacts between the opposition to Creel and Diaz. He certainly met the wild editor in 19Le, but perhaps even more important was the meeting with Abraham Gonzalez, Madero's political agent in Chihuahua.Gonzalez hadAll the reasons to remember their first brush with Villa. It was organized by the intermediaries they would meet after dusk at the headquarters of the anti-Eleist party in the city of Chihuahua; Villa and his comrade Feliciano Dominguez went to meet with scratches pulled overface.Gonzalez approached his office at the moment Villa arrived and reached out in his back pocket to get the keys out of the office. In darkness, the village confused the movement with a quick draw. For his surprise, Gonzalez found two pistolsArmadas pointing to his head. He calmly reassured Villa as to his intentions, and Villa was so taken with Gonzalez's total fearlessness that he became an admirer at the scene.
Once inside the office, Gonzalez gave Villa a brief history lesson and explained his party's goals. He pointed out that the so-called bandits could be seen as political rebels, and that Madero would wipe the slate clean for all his supporters. an important event in "creation consciousness." Villa immediately saw how it all fitted together, how the difficulties of his own life made sense in the larger social and political context. He became the ardent disciple of Abraham Gonzalez. Some skeptics have asked why Gonzalez should have been worried about a minor bandit, but it is likely that Silvestre Terrazas had a preliminary interview with Villa and highly recommended him. Certainly, Villa always revered Gonzalez afterwards and always spoke fondly of him. Gonzalez also introduced Villa to his boss when Madero arrived in Chihuahua City. According to one story, Madero interviewed Villa at the Palacio Hotel. Villa tearfully spilled out his life story, as if he were a priest, and asked Madero forgiveness for his sins. Madero granted him absolution and he said the revolution would rescue him. Where cynics say Villa used the Mexican revolution to legitimize his own murderous instincts, more sympathetic critics are inclined to see Villa's long commitment to the revolution as a quest for redemption.
Admittedly, after he became involved with Abraham Gonzalez, the Creel -Terrazas Camarilha identified Villa as a dangerous enemy. Why they didn't do it before?It was not perceived as a danger to the elite, and they adopted Banditry's complicated attitude that the FBI says to the mafia: it is just a permaneous set killing another.more confident or more ride. He intensified his rustle activities, selling huge herds under a pseudonym, and participated in an attack on Hacienda de Talamontes. Then he killed Claro Reza, who, unknown to him, was a long police informantDate (Reza actually took rural to the mountains to capture Villa for betrayal, but escaped by chance. Villa intercepted the correspondence, making clear the status of Reza espionage).He was becoming politicized for his contacts with Abraham Gonzalez and Madero.
We can form a very accurate image of the villa on the eve of its great exploits. With thirty -two years and 5 feet tall, weighing 170 pounds, he was muscular with a strongly salient lower jaw, very stained teeth, black hair and a black mustachethick that made him look like a heavy Hollywood. The people commented above all in their hypnotic brown eyes that held and dominated the listener like a snake with a rat, or seemed to attack sparks when he was angry. He was a great knight,who rode in Mexican style in rectum and rigid legs and loved horses that won the northern centaur. He could spend miles of mountain in a single 24 -hour period.for the glamor and the merrelios. As for his prowess as a fast drawing gunslinger, an anecdote is eloquent. Solvestre Terrazas once asked him to reach a small wooden branch that was floating in a river 200 meters away.Pistol, took deliberate aim and shot the piece of wood in two chips.
He was extremely respectful of learning, passionate about education and deeply pitiful of his own ignorance; he would sometimes tearfully confess to his depth in intellectual matters. similar in that respect to Bernadotte, Hoche, Humbert, and Aureau of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period in France. family ties, his political inexperience and his reputation as a bandit would have sidelined him. Not even his great energy - a quality he possessed in abundance and more than any other personality in the revolution - would have taken advantage of him if he had been born in 1858 instead of 1878.
Villa did not smoke or drink, and did not use drugs, but he enjoyed singing and dancing. Emotionally, he was not an integrated person, as he lacked the intermediate range. Volatile and manic-depressive, he could move through the gamut of emotions with surprising speed. of rapid change, turning from anger to tears or from generosity to cruelty within minutes. Highly intelligent and cunning, except when his judgment was clouded by anger, he was a relentless hater, though constantly loyal to those he respected. He was a womanizer. compulsive disorder that raised the idea of serial monogamy to new power. He enjoyed humoring his women by undergoing fake marriage ceremonies: one of his first ``wives'' was Petra Espinosa, whom he kidnapped and with whom he lived for a period of time. short period of time in Parral.
Comparisons with Zapata are instructive. Naked within one year of each other, the two men were in trouble with the authorities, they were in coercion in the army, and acquired intellectual mentors; both were highlighted knights, dedicated Womenishers and both had singularly useless brothers.(Hipolito Villa in this respect, being totally the same as Eufemio Zapata). Babes lived in violent times, but the midst of Chihuahua was "organically" violent, as that of Morelos was not, mainly because of the tradition of the northern border and theLong wars against Apache. In the short term, Zapata faced the hardest task as a revolutionary leader. For Villa, the revolts in northern Sierras could mobilize the entire community in Pan-Regional resistance of "popular front" with class coalitions with class coalitionTrans and without class traitors, in part because the northern rebellion was concerned about local autonomy and also with the earth. Conflicts in the north were not only peasants and pedestrians against owners, but usually the entire locality in arms against the governmentcentral.
Because of their martial traditions, the men of Chihuahua and Sonora were more explosive and less suffering than Yucatan's brunette peasants, and their military traditions made them more capable of armed resistance;Protest for the Guerrilla War was much easier. Villa had the military advantage that the armies he created would be horses' armies, formed by elite shooters who improved their border wars skills. In addition, he could escape the border.For the US or importing weapons from North America more easily. In addition, it was easier to co-opt the northern rebels, as they did not seek great socioeconomic changes and even less a classless utopia, but they merely wanted to break free from interference fromMexico City and Freedom of Living Intacta in a macho martial culture.
Zapata, however, had some compensating advantages. Sleep reasons, the revolt once started in the south was harder to suppress or turn off. As there was no real ideological content in northern rebellions, and even what was later called vilism, it was so easy for the central government to cooperate these movements, or buy and bribe leaders with money and land. It is clear that the land issue was important in Chihuahua, but in terms of the revolutionary slogan Tierra y Libertad, perhaps the second wasmost importantly in the north.Villa had no mystical feeling of Zapata about the ground or on the village as a personality. He was another political, proactive opportunist, where Zapata was reactive. In 19zo, he clearly showed this being the first of violationRevolutionary.They days before Madero's request for a general climbing until November, Villa and four comrades that he recruited from his cattle days attacked Hacienda of Chavaria to get horses, money and supplies. Meaning resistance, they fought for Hacienda,killing the administrator. Villa's life as Bandit had ended and his career as a glorious hero of the revolution had begun.
The rise of Madero
When the period of November 20 of Madero approached, the tensions in Mexico were tooling hard. In the last moment, it seemed until potential revolutionary energies would be dissipated in anti -Americanism. In November 3, Itiga, Texas, a young Mexican accusedTo murder a woman was dragged out of prison by a crowd and linchou. In all Mexico, there was a spontaneous explosion of anti-gringo riots. Genuine revolutionaries used turbulence to foster dissatisfaction with diaz, supposedly the tens of thousands of thousands.From Ianquês in Mexico, and the dictator Idoditurbilhão. In addition, he estimated that the turbulence could be contained in the system, because the protesters were mainly students or the urban middle class. Where people depended on their gringo jobs, as in sound,where the largest volume of investment in the US was located, there were no riots.
However, for attentive observers, the wave of anti -American disorders that swept the country was evidence of a new boldness in the people, a volatility that had not been there before.First attempts to design laughs in cities did not come to nothing; many agents in Madero were arrested or gave up on despair. In a backward, the problem was that the timberists were aiming at a mere palace revolution or political transfer of power, to be performed byMiddle -class urban intellectuals. In this internship, the Guerrilla Rural War was not a perceived option, and the few people who tried to launch revolt in the countrySan Luis's plan and was first to Orizaba, where he found the Maderal Movement in Chaos. He then went to the south to the hot plains of the isthmus, where he knew the terrain, and turned to seventy disorganized guerrillas and poorly armed in Tabasco plantations.Incapates to attract more recruits, the guerrillas wandered for a stunned time, constantly plagued by federal troops. When the desertions reduced the regrettable band to no more than a dozen, Colmenares declared the end increase and returned with disgust from Veracruz.
The first blood in the fight was clearly for Diaz. In Puebla police, it went to the home of an important timper, Aquiles Serdan, a shoemaker. The extensive family of Serdan was at home at the time, the feelings were tall and the armed resistance ifFollowed. In the shooting, Puebla's police chief was killed; police summoned reinforcements, sealed the house, removed Serdan's bravest elite gunmen and forced a handful of survivors to surrender. No finger raised a finger to help Serdan,which was removed and filmed, even though Puebla had presented as a - -lamp area on the Madero Men's Plans in Puebla were intimidated, and the energetic police action in other states in downtown Mexico made their supporters to the ground.ORIZABA, the federal garrison easily hit a rebellious attack, while elsewhere in Mexico police in the center of Mexico were transported in some prize caught, including Alfredo Robles Dominguez, the man who should light the rebellion of Madero in the south.
Madero received with sadness the news of these first setbacks as he prepared to cross Rio Grande.His own operation has barely began conducive.On the morning of Sunday, November 20, he rode to the river bank, with the intention of crossing, assuming his uncle Catarino expect him with 400 well -armed coahuila pistoller.His uncle attended properly to meet, but with only ten men.Abandoning his plans for an attack on a northern city, Madero hid for a few days, then, after more hesitation, he traveled incognito to New Orleans with his younger brother Raul (who had the same name as his brother who died in 1887).Despite his wanderings aimlessly (he would later change his base of operations to Dallas, after returning to El Paso), Madero remained absurdly optimistic about the result of the revolution, as his optimistic letters to his wife (addressed under the pseudonym JuanaP. de Montiu) of the New Orleans show.In a letter, he described a typical day, where he slept well, did a nap, read in the library, exercised YMCA and went to the opera.He continued his eccentric research in Mahabharata, still deeply influenced by his teachings about the unreality of death, the illusory world of the senses, the need for renunciation and the primordial importance of duty, even if not corresponded.
In Mexico City, Diaz was furious with the "collusion Yankee" with Madero.Some US opinion makers were very happy with this, feeling that Diaz had received their punishment for their favoritism to the British capitalists;There was also a strong rumor that President Taft and Standard Oil Company were supporting Madero.The truth is that Washington had little interest in the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s.Taft was quite pleased with Diaz as a strong man guaranteeing stability, and the state department by no means disapproved of the November 1910 anti-American demonstrations, blaming them instead of "agitators."The US would probably attack Diaz only if its citizens or properties were damaged, which did not happen.All stories that Standard Oil funded Madero were mere rumors.It is true that Diaz was genuinely angry with Taft, but, as a dictator, could not understand that American laws did not allow Taft to prevent Madero from organizing political activities and buying weapons.
The revolution stopped, Madero was on the rise and the US was not interested. For a while, it seemed that Diaz had prevailed. So he came Thunder of Chihuahua - ironically, the very spontaneous revolution from which the magician had spoken, but not according to hisPlant. For all the reasons already mentioned, the people of Chihuahua have had enough of Creel, Terrazas and Diaz; their response to a crisis of political legitimacy was to take weapons and fight, because their ancestors fought against Apache.The first outbreaks of rebellion take place in the villages in northern Chihuahua, particularly associated with Apache wars: Namiquipa, Bachiniva, Cuchillo, Parano, San Antonio, San Carlos. The whole state was consumed in the revolution as an unstoppable reaction occurred.The beginning, the names of three revolutionary leaders were heard everywhere: Castulo Herrera, Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa.
The number one revolutionary leader in Chihuahua was Pascual Orozco, a 28-year-old-looking boy with blue eyes and a formidable reputation. Orozco was not a middle-class timber, but he was the evil-alphabetized son of a village shopkeeper who, in his childhood, he specialized in leading trains loaded with precious metals through the passages of the West Chihuahua mountain. This was a dangerous work in bandit country, and Orozco soon gained the reputation of being a mountain man who knew Sierra TransmSierra.Your, like Muleteer, aligns it superficially with Villa and Zapata, but Orozco is already worth it, Ooo Pesos, was a living oximoro, a kind of primitive-revolutionary capitalist.In early 1910, based on that he was known to be "Agin the Government," but Orozco's horizons were limited. Defendant in national politics, he wanted to overthrow his business rival Joaquin Chavez of his perch.From the Terrazas, he had a freight business that threatened Orozco's interests; Orozco's first `` `` `` `` `` `and surround Ciudad Guerrero.
When the red letter day of November 20 arrived, Pancho Villa took his gang to the plains of Chihuahua and joined the revolutionary manpower commanded by Castulo Herrera. The next day, the combined force occupied the former military colony of San Andres, only to learn that a Federal troop train was on its way. Villa led his own men to the station and opened fire as the troops began to disembark. After the Federal commander and several of his men were killed, the survivors reboarded the train and diverted back on the line in full retreat. The news of this "great victory" over the Federals was discussed, and within days the volunteers were assembling.
Herrera appointed Villa the second in command, with effective control of 325 men, but Herrera's deficiencies as guerrilla commander were becoming apparent. Princely a politician, and unable to control or impose his authority on the Selvages of the Séerras, the former Bandits of Séerras,Herrera was forced to know him in the indiscipline of her men, her noise and firing weapons on the streets of San Andres. Arrned with the waste of ammunition, Villa Browbeat The Rowdies and made them heel. In a macho society, this oneDomain was decisive and effective, if not yet nominal, authority changed from Herrera to Villa.
Euphoric and superconfident, Villa decided to start at the top attacking the state capital, Chihuahua City, with only 500 men. He personally commanded a platoon of recognition of only forty men, which he divided into four units of ten, investigating the city of different directions.Tal was the attitude of Gung-ho of the villa unit that they did not retreat when they saw 700 feds advancing to oppose them. The men of Villa dug and fought; strongly less, they were forced to retreat within halfTime, but not before Villa employs one of the tricks that would make him a legend. The long of his defensive position, at the top of El Tecolote Hill, he varied dozens of shades to make them look like the defenders' hats.Defended, the feds slowly advanced, wasting their ammunition against the rebels Phantom.Villa sent a corridor to bring back the rest of the units and dispatched a message to Herrera to come at full speed with the main force. He and his handful of defenders wereAbout to be impressed when the thirty men of the remembered units arrived; so reinforced, Villa held the feds for another hour, waiting for any minute that Herrera had a flanking force.Commitment whose result was uncertain.
That was the end of Herrera as Rebel Commander. Extremely bitter and contempt for him, Villa Flameed him. Decreasing a choice between following the dull herrera or the vigorous village, the guerrillas fell through Villa.His position was destroyed when Tomas Urbina, Villa's friend, deliberately led a separatist movement of Herrera and went to the south in an extended attack through Western Durango and the cities on the border with Chihuahua-Parango.Durango border, with Coahuila, attacked the city of Laguna and briefly occupied it, but the 200 guerrillas did not enjoy their triumph for a long time and were soon released by the federal. The federal troops gave the first sign of the dark war to come in the nextTen years, announcing that they would not be taking prisoners; they shot their out -of -control captives and left their corpses to rot as a warning to others.
Having overthrown Herrera, Villa decided to make common cause with Orozco, who enjoyed an initial golden campaign. After taking Ciudad Guerrero, Orozco defeated the Federals at Pedernales. Villa's help, he was ready to fight a pitched battle and chose the town of Cerro Prieto on the northwest railroad. heavy defeat for the rebels. After several hours of fierce battle, during which, at times, 2,000 men fought hand-to-hand combat, Villa and Orozco were forced to break and flee to the mountains. The lesson was clear. The armies guerrilla fighters have yet to defeat Diaz's forces in shipboard battles.
Following the victory in Cerro Prieto, the feds countered, resuming Ciudad Guerrero de Orozco and relieving the pressure on Ojinaga, Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez, on the US border.Seeing that the rest of the country was not joining the rebels, Diaz was confident that he could crush Chihuahua.To save the expenses of sending a large federal army to the north, he first offered the rebels a four -week truce, hoping that when the Chihuahuanos exhale to see the futility of their insurrection and depuse their weapons.Of course, Orozco and Villa wanted to know Madero's reaction, so they solved an embarrassing problem sending the irresponsible Herrera as his sent to him, but even before an answer arriveluxury of offering terms.to the rebels.The entrepreneurs' confidence in their regime had been severely harmed by the revolt and, in Europe, LimaTonti, trying to restore foreign debt, found that the terms of foreign banks increased increasing as the revolt continued.Believing that only a decisive military victory would restore confidence, Diaz sent 5,000 extra soldiers to Chihuahua under the command of his friend General Juan Hernandez, a man who had campaigned in the north and knew the terrain.
However, Diaz's political touch was failing, as his next action showed. Thriving of persistent rumors that the Terrazas family was playing on both sides against the middle in Chihuahua, he tried to force them outside the fence replacing the puppetBy Creel Jose Maria Sanchez as governor with his own candidate. It was a bad mistake, as the Terrazas clan would have to fight Orozco and Villa anyway.Betting and now had to win a definitive victory in Chihuahua. However, even though it was double or ground floor, Diaz felt that he had an unbeatable hand: 5,000 fresh troops, plus federal resources in the state must defeat i, 5oo rebels.Weeks, Diaz's confidence seemed quite grounded: the series of rebellious defeats in Cerro Prieto, Ojinaga and Ciudad Guerrero was followed by optimistic reports from his new governor, stating that Orozco was at the point of surrender.
It was all a chimera. In January 191i, it was becoming increasingly apparent that political and military factors favored the long-term rebels. Politically, Diaz and the Creel-Terrazas faction could prevail in Chihuahua only if the ruling classes and beneficiariesOf the Creel Land Laws stood firm. However, the government authorities fled, the properties of the properties refused to fight, and the Burders refused to arm anyway, for fear that they went to the rebels.They had known for a long time that since the end of the Apache wars, the link of rights and duties that bind the peons to them had collapsed and that they had hated themselves by introducing the idea of southern debt peonage. They kept their heads down., deaf to the appeals of Diaz and Terrazas, hoping that if they were quiet, the revolutionaries would ignore them. As for other beneficiaries of the Creel-Terrazas regime, the goodwill of the 'winners' in expropriated land agreements evaporate widely when Creel broughtTheir 1908 tax laws, since they seemed to recover with one hand what was given with the other.
Militarily, the situation was not much better, and here the legendary superiority of morals over material came to the fore: the rebels fought enthusiastically for core values and ideals, but federal troops were there simply because they had been sent. Most of the feds were fresh recruits, poorly trained and reluctant fighters. Most poorly equipped and poorly fed battalions were of purely nominal strength, as corrupt Army officers practiced 'payroll padding' or simply pocketed money intended for soldier upkeep. When federal officials became frustrated at not being able to pick up a highly mobile guerrilla force and requested more horses and pack animals to chase down groups of roadkill, they found themselves trapped in an Army bureaucracy bent on withholding, questioning all supplementary estimates and demanding for officers to fill out huge, stupid questionnaires.
Furthermore, although the feds still had a firm grip on Chihuahua's towns and cities, they could not control the countryside, which was abandoned to the guerrillas. Even 5,000 extra troops could not impress, as they needed the know-how that only local militias could. could provide - and there were no local militias; the pawnbrokers, ranchers and tokens who previously ran them had nearly all joined Villa and Orozco. the British had enjoyed in the Boer War of I8GQ-1902; Ten troops for every rebel. The arithmetic was simple: if the rebel strength went up to 3,000, that would imply having 30,000 regulars in Chihuahua - an impossible number, not only because it was the entire force of the Mexican army, but why would the rest of Mexico explode in revolution if Diazen sent all his troops into one state.
Diaz's advisers fought with this puzzle. In theory, it should have been possible to increase the size of the army, but there was no recruits: no one wanted to serve outside the territory of their own state, and no one wanted to fight for diaz.May the men of cabinet just aggravate the likelihood of rebellion elsewhere, and at the few occasions when it was attempted, the localities rose in revolt or the population melted in a mass exodus for the jungle or mountains.General Hernandez, the military commander of Chihuahua, advised Diaz to abandon the universally hated terraces. He also urged a pseudo-political solution Machiavellian, in which Diaz seems to compromise, then, when the rebels had disarmed, he would apply repression and mass executionsDraconian.
Diaz underestimated the rebellion in Chihuahua at both the political and military level, seeing it one-dimensional as just a gang of desperate fury, encouraged and stimulated by Madero.He failed to see the long -term advantages from the land for the rebels, which were mainly three: Orozco and Villa could smuggle weapons through the US border;They could invade and loot the state farms in search of horses, money and supplies, making the hacendates the unintentional arsenal of the revolution;And if very pressured on the plains, they could retreat to the mountains.No longer being the master of his mandate, Diaz decided to follow Hernandez's advice.He put another Ghost Governor, this time of 'Donivosh' camouflage, and even released the wild editor of the prison, hoping to use it as an intermediary.
Meanwhile, Pancho Villa was becoming the military hero of the revolution. Although number two in the hierarchy behind Orozco, he was increasingly building a personal energy base.Orozco and operated on his own, gaining more and more laurels in a whirlwind campaign from January 19 to March 19.Sucessing in this, he foolishly allowed his men to dispense in their homes, but was hit by a federal attackSurprise.He and his guard barred at a railway station and kept the feds away until night, when they escaped to the mountains, having lost most of their horses and supplies.
Despite the freezing climate, Villa's scattered men joined him and there was even an influx of new recruits. To equip his army, he invaded Hacienda after Hacienda, taking 40 horses into one and arms, money and supplies in another.From a successful attack on Naila's mining town, he gave him all the material he needed, Villa felt strong enough to attack the great city of Ciudad Camargo. A fierce fierce occurred when the villains invaded him. They were just eliminating themThe latest federal waste when government reinforcements arrived and, in turn, were expelled. Applying constantly, Villa barely broke the step, but led his men to an abortive attack in the city of Valle de Zaragoza.
Observing some light signs of demoralization in his men, Villa decided that it was time for another of his great deeds.where he was well known. The two men were soon recognized and challenged and had to go out, in the Hollywood style. Cold -to -headed, Villa returned to his camp to find him desert.And he told men that their leader was certainly dead; but as soon as they heard their miraculous survival, they all gathered, convinced that "Don Pancho" was really dear to Fortune.Successful to a 15th force of the feds, bringing together other precious supplies of weapons and equipment after the feds cut and ran.
Although the national press and the federal army still spoke in much of Orozco as a source of opposition, with Villa relegated to a footnote like 'The Bandit Villa', he was already leaving his mark in the local tradition and the corridor as a oneGreat charismatic leader. Their leadership qualities and the magnetic appeal he had for his adherents were a function of his great personal courage and exceptional ability to read men. Your followers were thrown by their coldness, audacity and face acceptance with facePoker, for his ability as a gunslinger and the touches of the gallery, as the `` attack '' in a single comrade. He knew human psychology, kept low, locking and always paid his men in advance, ifRequired, invading Haciendas before battle to get the necessary funds. He mixed hard discipline - shooting those who broke their rules - with stupability, appearing without notice at the bonfire of a unit and asking to share his food. He had the Napoleonic trickTo know or seem to know all about every man in his army, where he came from, if he was married, how many children he had, and so on. In short, he reached the hard time to make his men fear, admire him andRespect it immediately.
So far, however, Orozco, operating separately, has kept pace with him in terms of prestige. In a major two-headed task, he managed to lure a Federal troop train into an ambush at Canon Mal Paso, while one of his lieutenants a trap sprang up in another canyon and slaughtered 200 soldiers. Reporters covering the Federal campaign against the Orozco said it was Boer War again - heavy goers trying to swat fstriding sharpshooters. In the face of repeated guerrilla ambushes, the Federals abandoned all attempts. to reconquer the Sierras, with the result that the city of Chihuahua was choked with fleeing Hacendados and their families. food prices were rising, unemployment was rising, and the presence of 7,000 federal troops built up civil-military friction. Tensions rose when thirteen people were killed during a mass jailbreak in Chihuahua City in February 1911.
For Diaz, the problem about the success of the sister revolt was that increasingly bad accountants in the villages of the plain were encouraged to try.federal authorities. It was created a domino effect, whereby the more the rebels have achieved in different locations, the more other disparate groups came to take revenge on local complaints; Hacienda managers, cotton plantations and Jefes politicians joined the ranks ofDeath. In the time the federal authorities were being expelled from the smaller cities by force concentration, to be replaced by revolutionary employees. Some mines reopened, with the owners paying money to protect the new authorities. As a rule, the revolutionary bureaucrats would open themPrisons would release all prisoners and destroy all tax records and official archives.
Until April 1911, Diaz's answer to the northern crisis was still surprisingly complaining.He and his minions continued to denounce the rebels as 'bad guys', 'desperate' or even 'communists' while trying to alternate repression with conciliation.The repression only further alienated the cryptomaderist middle class, while conciliation was perceived as very little, very late or taken as an admission of weakness.The most worrying long -term signal for Diaz was the serious level of desertion in the Federal Army.Mexico City's rabble could be dragged to the ranks, but once in the open field of Chihuahua, they immediately deserted or joined the rebels.Finally the chickens seemed to be returning to the perch after thirty -four years of porphiriat.Even before Madero returned to Mexico to take command, the rebels controlled a huge range of land from the United States border to the states of Nayarit and Zacatecas.
On February 14, 1911, Madero, with only 130 men, crossed Mexico at a border point near El Paso.The southern border to avoid the arrest warrant that had been issued in it. Madero expected to enter Mexico through his home state, Coahuila, where he had a vast extensive family and a huge network of friends and supporters; instead he wasForced Chihuahua to make a common cause with the revolutionaries of the mountain. From this circumstance, a series of evil -Madero seemed to be and was portrayed by Diaz propaganda as a much more revolutionary figure than he really was. He expectedGetting to power through a political blow in Mexico City or with the support of the army, and now he has been dependent on Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa. The seeds of the future disaster were sown: the revolutionaries found Madero more radical than him and,,Therefore, he expected more from him, just to be disappointed; meanwhile, in Mexico City, the army took his revolutionary rhetoric seriously, hated it -for that and would never be loyal to him.
Madero crossed the San Buenaveura desert, gathering recruits as he went. He was called a great conference and meeting of revolutionary forces, where Madero first noticed the political whirlwind in which he was caught.It was the men of Chihuahua who had rescued the Madero Madero Extinction Madeist Movement and Followers, who had not failed to light the Urban Revolution, was now playing the second violin of the rural warlords, who fought under the Madero flag, purely as a flag of convenience and for legitimate local and sometimes personal complaints. The result was doubly unsatisfactory: in his heart, Madero had no real sympathy for Chihuahua revolutionaries, but he depended on them because he could not control events in the north.
Madero expected to be enthusiastically received as president that invasion, but found the local local revolutionaries. He hoped that the magicist faction would not receive orders from him, but was alarmed to find that he did not cut great figure in the eyes of local leaders, especially since heHe could not provide them with the weapons they needed. The most disappointing of all was the treatment of Orozco's arm. Sent sent to Orozco to converge to Ciudad Juarez and interrupted the federal reinforcements coming there, but the guerrilla replied that he did not accept any authorityin Chihuahua save his own and ignored the request. Orozco was particularly offended by well -authenticated rumors that Madero intended to name another person as military commander in Chihuahua;Thus the revolutionary opposition to Diaz divided three ways: between timber, magician and orozquisters.
Apart from Orozco's Book - Orozco had said he would fight against Diaz, but independently and in his own way - Madero concluded that what he needed was a military victory that would give him the local prestige Orozco and Villa liked it.He decided to attack large homes in the northwest railroad, where he thought his 6o men would face approximately equal numbers; he did not know that the feds were reinforcing the city. As an additional refinement, Madero decided to stage the attack at night to cause maximum confusion.The attack on March 6 was a fiasco, although Madero's gross recruits showed great courage. Federals first defeated the rebels in ditches outside the city and defeated terrible slaughter with machine guns; armed with Winchester rifles onlyand Springfield of the 186th years, the followers of Madero were surpassed. Even thus, at dawn, they were on the point of victory, when federal reinforcements arrived suddenly. For Firepower was the victory as, surpassed and outdated, the vanguard timberist Vanguard, dug inside an Adobe building, was surrounded and forced to surrender. Any chance that the rest of his raw rates could set up a against -thon when Madero was attacked at the rear. The rebels broke and fled, leaving behindMore than the victims of IOO (fifty -one dead) and most of their equipment and materials; Madero himself was injured in the arm and entered one to be captured.
The Large Houses lesson was that the monopoly of the federal machine guns and heavy artillery fire gave them a decisive advantage in the open country; it was only out of caution, defensive strategy, low morality between troops and uncertainty about the political future theyThey failed to follow: when Madero withdrew in confusion to Hacienda de Bustillos, the federal, fearing the ambush, did not chase them.
Diaz expected that Madero would be discredited by the defeat at Casas Grandes, but the opposite happened. Big Houses, rallied in Bustillos. There were political gains as well. Having rejected Madero earlier, Orozco now recognized him as head of the Revolution, but he still vehemently refused to accept Madero's choice, Giuseppe Garibaldi, grandson of the Italian Liberator, as commander in chief.
That was the confusing situation when Villa came to Bustilllos with 700 crack troops. Villa immediately merged over Melding Madero's men with his own veterans and create a disciplined and unified army; but for his fortunate advent the strength of Madero at the moment,It may have diminished. Madero was insightful enough to see that the villa was just the man needed: his courage and bold appealed to the Chihuahuans, his strong discipline impressed Madero, and everyone thought it is unlikely that this man of the masses, a oneimpoverished context, would never make agreements with hated oligarchs. Orozco's decision to keep Madero now seemed a bad mistake, because it was Villa who had the ear of the possible president.Paso Morning Times, praising the village to the sky like a Robin Hood. This was probably the first time a US readers heard of Pancho Villa.
Madero confided to Villa his concerns with the armed Magers who would not obey his orders, and Villa immediately thought of one of his artistic tricks. He pretended to leave Bustillos and took his men to the nearest railway station, inserting the unarmed and curious magician to stumbleWith them and watch the match. In a certain sign, Villa's men jumped from the train, dominated the viewers and took them back in triumph to Madero, having spilled not a drop of blood. Madero was delighted and promoted Villa, firstThe major, then to the colonel, be careful to promote Orozco Pari Passu, always a position ahead, so as not to alien him. The Diaz Advertising Bodies played a great game of the promotion of `` bandits '' but Madero, but MaderoAlthough not so many words, Villa said as a "social bandit" - a man forced to crime and later the armed struggle purely by the tyranny of Diaz.
The entente between Madero and Villa has intrigued some historians. The diminutive man getting along so well with the iron man, the spiritualist with the arch-materialist, the oligarchic intellectual with the semi-literate ruffian-none of this suggests natural synergy. Madero was increasingly aware that in Chihuahua he was an isolated figure. Most of those who opposed Diaz and the Terrazas were Magonistas or Orozquistas. The only man with a large following who was prepared to accept his orders was Villa, and in those circumstances Madero was willing to throw the flattery down with a spatula. For his part, Villa, while occasionally exasperated by Madero, especially later on, never really recovered from the confession he had made to Madero when Abraham Gonzalez introduced them at Igro. unwilling to idolize Madero, he was further thrown into Bustillos by the way the little man spoke to him as an equal. Here was a man with an intellect - a village of admired quality - who used his brain idealistically to help others and with a complete absence of arrogance. For Villa, always on the lookout for intellectual mentors, this was a potent drink.
In April, the revolution had spread to eighteen states in Mexico and new leaders had emerged in all states north of the isthmus. Some of these leaders were bizarrely academous: in Sinaloa, historian Alan Knight identified a kind of rebel patches - whichHe calls Jacobitas from Mexico (in contrast to the `` Whigs '') - whose goal was to restore traditional prererogatives that Diaz had short. In time, a lasting truth was revealed about the Mexican revolution, which has always been aRevolutionary mosaic, composed of often contradictory disparate elements. The line between banditry and revolution was especially blurred, with local heroes seizing caches of weapons and military equipment through pure bluff. Normally, a bandit leader with a handful of men threatened oneHacienda and gained possession of his arsenal, pretending to have ten times the apparent number hidden only out of sight; so psychologically the wrong feet were the blocked, by true tales of the feats of Villa, Orozco and Tomas Urbina, that they would invariably believe in the bluff andIn the surrender.
In early April, General Hernandez informed Diaz that the situation in Chihuahua was desperate.Far from being able to reinforce his army there, Diaz had to withdraw more and more men to deal with revolts in other parts of Mexico, especially in Durango, where Orozco's power increased daily;The 5,000 new soldiers soon decreased to 4,000.It was clear to everyone who, when failing to end the initial revolt in Chihuahua, Diaz involuntarily lit a national fire.Hernandez knew he could not chase the rebels, even if he repeated his attacks, for if he sent a force in his persecution, the inhabitants of the city would rise and massacre the skeleton garrison left behind.
In despair, Diaz, in April, offered land reform and an purge of his most unpopular offices such as the price of peace. Subsitating the gun, he ruled out all his high-ranking colleagues, replacing them with LimaTonti (finallyHe returned to Mexico City on March 21) and Francisco de La Barra, former USA in the US, who was promoted to Foreign Minister. Diaz, at this point, knew in detail the terms in which Madero would probably be established, becauseUpon returning from Europe Limantour had stopped in New York, where he and La Barra negotiated possible peace terms with his father of Madero, Francisco, and with Gustavo Madero, the family banker. Diaz found that the Maders were funding the revolution diverting375,000 advanced weights for Gustavo as a business broker by a Franco-Spanish rail consortium, so he had no illusions that the revolutionaries would run out of money. But certainly, however, LimaTonti and de la Barra did not reveal the diaz how cozy and cordial their conversationsWith the Maders they had been, and even less as they were willing to sell their master in Rio.
All concessions influenced by LimaTonti de Diaz were in vain. Once once, it was very little late: the rebels only read them as weakness. Defined with the rest of Diaz on the defensive, Madero decided to go to the jugular and attack Ciudad Juarez.ai.aSuccessful attack would allow him to control transfronio traffic of all kinds and could well be the final impulse needed to overthrow the porphiriato. As a deviation, he sent the strength to attack the city of Agua Prieta in Sonora, across the borderde Douglas, Arizona.GUA PRIETA had already been the scene of a rebel investigation in March, but the April attack was a more serious case. It was the first time a train played a significant role in a rebel attack.They gave the rebels the surprise element and, in their initial foray, they managed to explode the enemy's headquarters. The feds recovered strongly and were against it when the US cavalry intervened on the US border side to stop the fight, with the argumentthat the bullets were causing damage to Douglas.
The battle struggle at the US door always carried the danger of forcing a major US intervention; as a precaution against the war spilling over the border, President Taft had sent 20,000 soldiers to police the usmexic border."And protested that Taft's action was a provocative movement against a sovereign state, clearly designed to favor Madero. There was some Humbug in the US position, while protesting that any damage suffered by American nationals or his property would invite solid retaliation, they don'tThey did nothing to prevent the multitude of border tourists who followed the way. From the first battle of Bull Run in 1861, there was a peculiar US tradition, in which the ladies born organized picnics in places where they could see battles in comfort.From April, Douglas tourists enjoyed another melee, while 1,500 feds moved to recover Priet water. The action was short, sharp and, from the federal point of view, successful.
Agua Prieta, however, was never more than a sideshow. On April 7, 1911, Madero advanced on Ciudad Juarez, with two columns of 500 men each, one commanded by Villa, the other by Orozco. , they occupied Casas Grandes without resistance, but at Bauuche the Federals made a stand and Madero only managed to invade the position after a bloody battle. The Federals' only exit was the exit route to El Paso on the American side of the border. Both sides were confident of victory. confident that he had found the 'Equalizer' weapon. Guerrilla leader Ramon Iurbe showed for the first time how regular Army firepower could be matched, and fortified towns taken out. blockades from the outskirts to the city center of Sierra de Topia, Iurbe advised Madero that the same tactics would work in Juarez. It was in this battle that the (cinematically ubiquitous) use of dynamite as the weapon of the Mexican revolution came to the fore.
For his part, federal commander Juan Navarro, who refused Madero's demand for surrender, was also full of calm. Not knowing anything from Madero's secret weapon, he felt that his firepower was more than enough to see the ratesAlso, in addition to this, Madero would never dare to press his attack very strongly if the bullets turned to El Paso and killed or wounded citizens there, thus causing the American intervention. The only concern was that the feds could not play hisThe most obvious letter. The tactic of textbooks was for the federal to advance to the north of the city of Chihuahua and take the rebels in a tweezer between them and the Juarez garrison, but for fear of a rise in the city, the troops of the capital do notThey dared to try a screening.
Faced with Ciudad Juarez's siege, and with his Panic supporters, Diaz tried an 'offensive of peace'.His counselors advised him to try to separate Madero from the rest of the revolutionaries.Since Madero was campaigning for free elections and "without reelection", Diaz should grant these reformist demands, signing a truce with Madero and then hard to suppress the genuinely revolutionary demands that were being heard in other parts of Mexico;Otherwise, the continuation of anarchy would lead to the total loss of international confidence and the probable US armed intervention.José LimaTunti, just over his disputes with the European finance ministers, strongly defended the strategy of two stages of giving Madero and then crushing revolutionary peasants, but General Victorian Huerta, army-line spokesman, arguedagainst, claiming that recognizing Madero would be to recognize his strength as rivals of the regular army.Despite the discouraged reports of all field commanders, Huerta arrogantly marked that he could replace Ciudad Juarez with only 2,000 knights.
Diaz knew that equally ridiculous ostentations had been made at the US Western border in the 1860s and 1870s by the Fetterman and Costter colonels, with disastrous results, then he ignored Huerta and listened to LimaTunt.Porphyirians sent to Juarez to learn the terms of Madero.These were surprisingly moderate: he insisted on the principle of non-reelection, demanded four positions of governor and four positions in the cabinet for his followers, but surprisingly did not make a renunciation of Diaz a preview.Madero, more conservative than his followers, did not want a fight to death and agreed with a truce, which lasted two weeks from April 24 to May 7.He was not only concerned about the possibility of intervention by the United States and under pressure from his oligarchic family and friends to close an agreement with Diaz, but was also concerned that the growing peasant movements of the southern would become uncontrollable.Moreos was on fire and all over the south was heard the name of a new peasant leader: Emiliano Zapata.
To remains of Diaz
Where Villa was impulsive, emotional, pragmatic and volatile, Zapata was deep in thought, slow to make up his mind, but adamant and inflexible when he decided on a course of action. Villa plunged into revolution on day one, innocent of consequences, but Zapata thought of all the consequences and implications before committing. This was why there was no initial response in Morelos to Madero's call to arms. Gradually, however, as news of rebel successes in Chihuahua came in, Zapata and the residents of Morelos began to flex their muscles, seeing how far they could push Diaz and his minions. Zapata's first revolutionary act was to lead eight villagers in a land seizure that had long been a sticking point between Anenecuilco and the Haciendas. Because of the tense situation in Chihuahua, his reputation was made overnight and his name became known in other villages. By early 1911, the revolutionary electricity in Morelos was on surge power.
The first evident movement in the armed guerrilla war was made by Genovevo de la 0 from the village of Santa Maria, which took twenty -five men in the mountains north of Cuernavaca, although at this stage they fight with hoes and pikes, because de la 0 wasOAPENS One in the band with a firearm - an old -fashioned musket .70.
When the hitherto friendly mayor of Ayala resigned, Zapata, feeling the vacuum of energy, presented himself as the general leader of the villages. He built a defense fund and began to organize and arm a growing number of farmers.Of the Morelos Pueblos, he had the fences of Hacienda knocked down and, in January 1911, he had a state and high reputation throughout the state. The new mayor wisely did not fit with him, but was content with the brand of Zapata,The director of the Madeterist State. Until the moment, however, with few armed followers by her side, Zapata did not seek an open confrontation with the authorities.
In January 1911, Zapata controlled the central region of Morelos, the most important, geographical and economically. Luck was on his side, in many ways. If Diaz was not worried about Chihuahua, he would have no doubt sent an army to crush to crushThis incipient peasant movement. Putative rivals as masters of breens, brothers Leyva (Patricio and Eugenio) lost the caste by dodging the confrontation with Diaz, claiming health problems. In addition, the original plans from Madero to South MexicoBrunette attributed to a purely peripheral role. Your agent, Alfredo Robles Dominguez, aimed to concentrate the rebellion in Guerrero and Puebla, with brunettes a mere lateral presentation. If these plans had been followed, Zapata could never have emerged as a revolutionary leader.
When Diaz's police swept Maderista's entire southern network in their November purge, the revolution in the south took a spontaneous form. As already noted, Zapata's first action in November 1910 was to send Torres Burgos to learn more of the intentions de Madero. As far as Zapata understanding the San Luis Potosi plan, Madero's thinking on land reform was confused: he made vague promises to the Indian Pueblos but maintained Juarez's totemic position and his "capitalist" position of individual property. Torres Burgos was away, incommunicado, for three months and, in his absence, Zapata had difficult decisions to make. He knew that the planters were arming themselves and getting stronger every day, which meant that he really owed them attack them first, but what if Madero had some other master plan in mind? In the end, Zapata reluctantly decided that he would wait for Torres Burgos to return. it ran the risk of being occupied by the Morelians who had already taken to the mountains as guerrillas. There were no less than three groups. , sacking the city of Tepoztlan in February and gutting municipal archives and offices. However, a third band was headed by Bernabe Zabastida, a former Yvista who had been sentenced to hard labor in Quintana Roo, and has now returned, headquarters of vengeance against the people who had sent him to that graveyard; Finding them fleeing, he killed two of their kinsmen and retreated into the hills with a handful of followers.
The relief of the return of Burgos Torres in mid -February and the favorable reports of the envoy over Madero were offset by the `` Orders', Madero sent to Morelos: Zapata, it seems, it was just the number three ranking of the state politician,Patricio Leyva himself and Torres Burgos himself.Logo it was clear that Leyva was out of accounts and, for now, Zapata accepted the surplus policy of Burgos. When the Governor Escandon began to bring rural, Zapata decided that the timeFrom the military action had arrived. In March, he, Torres Burgos and Rafael Merino discussed the final details of the revolt, using the annual fair in Cuatla as coverage. On the next day, Zapata led a revolt in the neighboring village of Ayala, disarmed police andHe took over the crowd about San Luis Potosi's plan from Madero, ending his speech with the slogan: `down with the hacindas! Long live the Pueblos!
On March 12, the armed rebels spread along the Cuautla River - where Zapata earlier in life used to drive their mules - gathering in more volunteers.Recruits as they were. Although, at first, Torres Burgos still maintain the nominal leadership, Zapata was the master strategist. He was a long -term goal was to take Cuutla, from which he could take the state capital in Cuernavaca and then control the roadFor Mexico City and all the routes to the south. First, however, he had to train his raw and blood recruits in battle. He led them in guerrilla attacks below a designed line of Jojutla for Yecapixtla, giving-Hees easy targets and constructing morals for attacks on police forces to a smaller number. He intended to attack Cuautla as soon as his own forces were strong enough and weakened by the loss of Diaz troops would certainly have to deal with the revolt in Chihuahua.
Zapata's ragged army compensated for commitment, zeal and revolutionary Élan which was lacking in training and equipment.Foreign observers in brunettes, such as Rosa King in Cuernavaca, were paternalistic about peasants in their shirts and white pants, their simulated military habit of putting on multicolored socks on the legs of the pants as if they were walking, their hungry and sporadic horses,And the heterogeneous firearm selection, some of them rinning musques dug into attic or teller stores.The eyebrows were also raised with the number of women soldiers (loads) serving in the peasant army, some wearing beautiful dresses in which bandalers were hung.However, Zapata's charisma and his men's revolutionary willpower counted on more than mere armament.They worshiped their economic oratory - 'we ordered outside neither a bullet, no rifle, no weight;We took everything out of the enemy ' - and above all, the slogan he invented, which would be appropriate by La Pasionaria in the Spanish Civil War:' It is better to die of foot than to live on his knees. '
Zapata's slow and methodical approach did not please Torres Burgos, who was intensely called Tepepa and his group, stating that they were good enough to face federal troops. Zapata expressed his doubts, but Burgos Torres annulled him and ordered an immediate attack onJojutla. The Governor Escandon panicked and pulled his troops out of town on March 24, leaving only a few elite shooters to oppose the rebels. A new converted to the cause of Zapata, a lawyer from the city of Mexico named Octavio PazSolorzano, he saw Zapata in action against one of these snipers. From City Hall, someone shot in Zapata, an easy target, mounted when he was on his favorite horse - a powerful dark nut to him by the priest of Axochiapan priest -And chewing the brand cigar he always had on his bump, even in battle. Infound, Zapata entered the city in search of his alleged killer, riding the stairs to the upper rooms on his porter.
The rebels soon showed how much they needed Zapata's firm hand.Torres Burgos, who annulled Zapata, was now despised by Tepepa, whose men refused to receive orders from anyone beyond their boss.And they fired wholesale in Jojutla, a main target being the companies belonging to the hated Spanish.com disgust, Torres Burgos launched his command, but on the way back to Villa de Ayala, he and his two children were caught by federal troops (they wereLiterally picked asleep, arrested as they took a nap) and executed out of control. Maybe left with this event, Tepepa supported most rebel leaders to elect themselves electing Zapata 'supreme head of the southern revolutionary movement'.
Not all Gachupines learned the obvious lesson of Jojutla's bag. A Spanish named Cariles, hated both for his nationality and for being a Hacienda Chinameca administrator, challenging Zapata to attack Hacienda, bragging that he had enough men and weapons to ifSide away from this military flea. Incontured by the insult, Zapata sent her own units chosen her finger against Chinameca. The attack was completely well -sucessed and was the first exploration to make Zapata the hero of a bus.He allowed his army to completely provision. While he passed the smaller cities of more and more men, attracted to his growing reputation and caught in the euphoria of recovering lands and xenophobia anti-sponishing, or simply having nothing to lose, bloated his numbers;Significantly, high salaries in foreign ownership companies were distant.
Despite his magniloquent title of the Supreme Chief, Zapata still had no undisputed influence on all local brunette leaders and even less at this stage, in neighboring states. SEUS rivals saw enough clearly so that if the southern revolt would be well-Suceded - What seemed most likely over the weeks - who had the title of military supreme almost certainly would be the next governor of the state. Zapata had the internal track, because he alone received significant financial support - by Rodolfo Magana, aRevolutionary of the middle class, which `` gruntancined '' he in the music of IO, ooo pesos - and he also had other advantages: no one had his long record, his reputation and no one else was so reliable by the residents. However, as VillaHe was a prestigious charismatic leader; he was as good as his last exploitation. However, no one was surprised when, on April 14, the new Madero agent in Moreos officially designated Zapata as Madero's main representative in the state.
Diaz tried to contain the revolt in Morelos co -opting the Leyva family.They were voluntary accomplices, but they were paper tigers, their credibility already in pieces.All Diaz got was the definitive removal of another set of rivals for Zapata.Although Emiliano did not yet have the absolute loyalty of all Southern Guerrilla leaders - de la O, for example, although friendly, wrote to him as 'Senor Emiliano' and signed as 'Don Genovevo' - increasingly local chiefs recognized his sovereigntyeach bringing another bunch of men between 50 and 200 men.In mid -April, Zapata drove operations with all the resourcefulness of a veteran commander.He learned the art of breaking personal loyalties beyond himself, for example, sending Tepepa to fight on the Puebla/Guerrero border with men who were not from Tepepa's original band;These he however merged with the rest of the army.
Zapata's rise in southern Mexico was meteoric.Fame and influence of it spread like fire in the states of Puebla, Tlaxcala, Mexico, Guerrero, Michoacan.This soon conflicted him with the influential brokers of the political power of the state of Guerrero, the four Figueroa brothers, who were to Guerrero what the Terrazas were for Chihuahua, and until then saw branches as a traditional political appendix of their hegemony insouth..Zapata was determined that the independence of his state meant not only the freedom of Diaz, but also the freedom of the figureas.What he demanded, either from Madero or from the Figueroa himself, was a formal guarantee of the autonomy of brunettes.This meant that he should have in his possession all the main cities of Moreos when Madero begins serious negotiations with Diaz.When hostilities outside Ciudad Juarez were suspended in April, Zapata realized she was in a race against time.
On the first day of Madero's truce (April 22, 1911), he met Ambrosio Figueroa, patriarch of the dynasty in Puebla, at a conference brokered by Madero's Puebla agent. their forces could operate freely and independently anywhere in Mexico. If there were joint operations in Morelos, Zapata would be supreme commander; if in Guerrero, Figueroa. they would keep their end of the bargain. He knew they had their own reasons for not wanting Jojutla to attack again, as they took protection money from the city, and he suspected that when it came down to it, Ambrosio Figueroa would not allow him to lead Figueroa's men. in Morelos. Furthermore, he learned from his spies that Figueroa intended to stab him in the back, pulling his forces back in case of any Zapatista attacks on Jojutla and leaving Zapata to deal with a numerically superior Federal force.
Aware of Figueroas' potential betrayal, Zapata decided not to opt for Jojutla's smoother option, but to attack the city strongly defended by Cuautla. First, he disguised his intentions by attacking and occupying the cities of Chietla and Izucar de Matamoros.federals contract with reinforcements and machine guns; they managed to resume Izucar, but failed to dislodge the Zapatists of Chietla. Some of Zapata's commanders, especially Felipe Neri, bitterly complained that many pawns would not yet join them and those who often did so ifThey join with looting only, returning to hacings to get their salaries at the top.Neri threatened to cut the ears of such 'moon's long' he found, but Zapata was more tolerant, realizing that the pedestrians would join him only when he broke theDiaz power in Morelos.
Having been toward Chietla and Izucar de Matamoros, and leaving the rear to clean the resistance in early May, he circulated Cuautla, first taking the cities of Yautepec and Jonacatepec and taking Metepec and Atlixco in the state of Puebla, all the time, all the timeWhat covered forced lenglas, protecting provisions, capturing weapons and ammunition, and generally increasing their strength. In mid -May, only Cuautla and the capital Cuernavaca were in federal hands.northern Madero would fix an agreement with Diaz that would leave the true revolutionaries out of a member. It was vital that Zapata took Cuautla.
On May 13, he launched 4,000 men, full of enthusiasm, but with no siege experience, against 400 Crack troops from the fifth cavalry regiment of the Federal Army - the so -called "fifth gold."Zapata's national fame and guaranteed that he was not just another southern commander forgotten when peace arrived. Ocular witnesses spoke of 'six of the most terrible days of battle in the entire revolution'. The combat was from home to house and street,With the street, with manual struggle, bayonet against the machete and men firing to each other from the burn track through hugs on the walls. In many occasions, they raised the hasty defenses of the earth and the brick suddenly, leavingThe scared but murderers, looking in the face. In all the streets, the goal was the same: capture the high field of murder from which a withered fire could be directed to the other side.They used rifle barrels and asses to hit the enemy's brain. In all places, the smoke and blood of Chalnel House came up.
No prisoners were taken, no quarters were given, both sides fought like savages. A detachment of federal troops tried to turn a railroad carriage into an impregnable pillbox, complete with machine guns, but the Zapatistas scuttled the carriage with gasoline, accepted and they reacted with glee or indifference to the agonized screams of the incinerated soldiers. The city would rise if he marched. Finally, on May 19, the few battered survivors of the once-proud Fifth Regiment pulled out of Cuautla, leaving the smoking ruins of a virtual place in Zapata's hands. for on May 21 Madero signed the Treaty of Ciudad Juarez with Diaz.
It was no other than Diaz who witnessed that Cuautla was the last nail in his coffin, that he might have kept the line in Chihuahua if Moreos had not been on fire.Zapatista.Felipe Neri, one of Zapata's best captains, a sort of peak in his Napoleon, suffered a bizarre injury while capturing the strongly defended convent of San Diego. A hand grenade rocked the church wall recovered and exploded to his feet, hurting -seriously and leaving -deaf for a lifetime. It is said that the damage to his audience made Neri particularly severe in his treatment of prisoners; those he did not perform, he liked to align and then arrest his earsas a brand of Cain.
While Zapata was reaching in five months one of the fastest climbs to the fame of all history, Villa and Orozco were defending a little out of Ciudad Juarez, when Madero made a concession after the granting to Diaz. While the Armistício extended, with disappointed guerrillasAbandoning and Madero seeming to do everything to her to leave Don Porfirio out of the hook, Villa and Orozco finally put the collective foot. In the stormy conferences on April 3 and I can tell Madero bluntly that Diaz's resignation was a pre -conditionAbsolute for any permanent peace. Standing Madero defeated: He drew an `fourteen points' ultimatum, then regretted his hard line and then regretted regretting. Finally, he said the Diaz that he demanded his resignation and the deputy-President Ramon Corral.
Diaz very late realized the severity of his position and began to make serious concessions. The stress of having to reconcile on a national scale began to affect the former dictator: everyone who saw him commented that he suddenly aged, seemed weak, inert, and mindWeak, demonstrating clear signs of decline of mental vitality and failure to health. Beginned at the height of Ciudad Juarez's crisis, he was suffering from an ulcerated jaw, but still the old peasant was in evidence. He fired all his office and didVacancy promises on the return of land to the expropriated. In May 7, the day the truce expired, he issued an ambiguous manifesto, stating that he would renounce 'when anarchy no longer threatened' that the Federal Garrison of CiudadJuarez had little ammunition and the rebels had cut off the water supply, he tried Bambooozzle Madero with scary stories about a certain US intervention if he attacked.
Surprisingly, Madero took this prevarication seriously and confessed to his suggestions that he was full of heart search, but Orozco and Villa had enough of Madero's hesitation; in his opinion, the only beneficiary of the Armistício was Diaz, whom theyThey suspected secretly hasty reinforcements to the north. Taking the subject in their own hands, they launched a Juarez attack, forcing Madero's hand and telling him that the resumption of hostilities was a spontaneous outbreak they could not control.Stop the fight and asked the federal commander, General Juan Navarro, to hold his fire. Navarro did it, but Orozco and Villa ignored him, Madero and the federal white flags. Fierce Lutas began then. A desperate Madero sent Castulo Herrera to VillaraTo insist on this fighting stop, but Villa despisedly ignored the man he already considered a coward. Orozco and Villa practiced all kinds of ingenuities to avoid seeing Madero and having to refuse a direct order from him. When Madero finally found his military commander,Orozco said the fight has been advanced so far, could not be stopped.
Taking care that no bullet went back to the border to El Paso, Orozco and Villa attacked Juarez at an angle, Orozco arriving from the north and Villa do Sul. Between the fighters was a considerable contingent of foreign mercenaries and adventurers, particularly experts in expertsmachine guns and dynamite. The names that are repeated in the abundant sources for the battle are Boer Ben Viljo, who fought with the British in the 1899-1902 South African war.W. Lewis, a Canadian machine gun, Lou Carpentier, a French artillery technician; Oscar Creighton of New York, a man of Dynamite; and Tom Mix, later to be famous as the Hollywood Westerner star of the silent era.
Ciudad Juarez was another bloody revolutionary battle, again with a wild hand -to -hand combat. Federals had organized an in -depth defense, with an external ring of trenches and an internal ring of interconnected buildings protected by barricated streets.A gap in their defenses, possibly due to lack of numbers on the east side. There, an irrigation channel ran parallel to a river, and the undefined terrain between them was stacked with the dredged channel sludge, providing excellent coverage.They went to the suburbs on this route. To avoid the fire murmur from federal machine guns, the revolutionaries used dynamite pumps, axles and target boats to collide with adobe walls, making their way metodically suburbs to the city center without being underArtillery fire.
The attackers fought in relays, 'bewitching' each other, withdrawing to eat and sleep before returning to the fight; thus, they were always fresh, while the hard-pressed feds were always tired. Carpentier's cannon, in a well-aimed shot, managed to destroy the Federals' water tower, in its second fusillade, shortly before it malfunctioned and played no further role. By nightfall on 9 May, most of the city, except the bullring, main church and army barracks, was in rebel hands. Earlier in the day, the revolutionaries raised a captured mortar and began systematically pounding the barracks into submission. Federal resistance subsided, and soon the Maderistas were close enough to throw grenades over the wall. By noon, Navarro's situation was desperate: he only maintained a few buildings in the center and was without water. Their superior firepower in the form of machine guns and Mausers was being reduced by the hour by hand grenade attacks. At 2:30 am that afternoon, he raised the white flag for surrender. The Federals lost 180 killed and 250 wounded, against an unknown, probably higher, number of revolutionary casualties.
The surrender of Navarro precipitated another confrontation between Madero and his commanders. For Villa and Orozco, Navarro was already a man marked after his behavior in Cerro Prieto in December, when he had closed all rebel prisoners to death in challenge, both from,Geneva Convention and San Luis Potosi's plan; Villa and Orozco had spared the feds captured. Okay, he was certainly a man to be removed at once and shot at the shot, but Madero promised to save his life.One to save life, even from a brutal reply, Madero did not do as much justice with mercy as the injustice requested with inadequate compassion. In addition, he did not want to alienate the army by executing one of its generals. A true revolutionary would have accepted the logic ofSituation and not only dispatched Navarro, but told the army that it was over. For this only action, Madero clearly revealed himself as no revolutionary, only a reformist within the regime.
Madero's weakness was too much for Orozco.At 10:30 am on May 1, he broke into Madero's office, Villa next to him, to demand that Navarro be delivered immediately to a martial court;While he was in this, Madero could consider paying his own troops instead of thinking about ways to pamper the enemy.Orozco was also annoyed by another subject, as I learned that Madero was thinking of naming a certain Venustiano Carranza as Minister of War after the revolution, when the position should be clearly from Orozco.When Madero refused all these demands, Orozco pulled a pistol and pointed to Madero's chest.A Madero advisor then drew his gun and pointed to Orozco.Given this literal exemplification of the Mexican impasse, Villa left and shouted an order for his elite team to come to the double.
What happened next is confused, but Madero somehow got rid of Orozco, ran out, jumped over a car and started airing the troops.According to a version of the story, he rudely pushed Villa, who spit a obscene curse word for him.Madero's eloquence did his work and the soldiers began to applaud him.By this time, fearing a shooting that destroyed everything for what he had worked in recent days, Orozco admitted the defeat and squeezed Madero's hand.Villa's reactions were typical.At first furious with Madero, five minutes later he was in tears, begging his forgiveness.Allegedly, Villa said, 'I committed a black crime and my heart is between two stones';The words sound like a bad mood villa.Madero, knowing Villa's volatility, assured that Navarro crossed the border immediately and then formally announced that Carranza would be his new war secretary;But he cunningly sweetened the pill by agreeing to fully pay Orozco and Villa troops that same day.
In another version of the story, it was Villa who drew the gun in Madero, who declared: `` I am your boss; if you dare to kill me, throw me.'This would explain why Madero was able to break free and escape from the office, for those feelings of Napoleon-on-the-To-Genoble would certainly not have cut ice with Orozco.Navarro, shooting at Felix Mestas, a 6th -year -old officer, with his own revolver. Incursively, all this crisis, straight from a melodrama, who must have logically unite Villa and Orozco against Madero, has shifted them.weak man - stubbornness - But Villa forgave him, in part because he had no political ambitions, and partly because of his psychological complex of "Madero" .orozco, a man of frightening ambition, never forgiven the contempt of Madero and leftMeditating the elevation of Carranza.
It may even be that darker portions were underway that day. A theory, which Villa later believed, was that Orozco was secretly in Diaz's salary. There are some circumstantial evidence to support this, because it is known that Orozco met Don's agentsPorfirio four times in IO and I can. A version of the events of the day in I May is that Orozco had invented an ingenious plan of sweeping Madero and Villa da Pencha.To come across Navarro's forgiveness. So when he and Villa broke into Madero's office, the plan was that Madero would be shot dead, and that Villa would appear as the killer and the leader of a plot.Orozco, kept Diaz hanging and played on both sides in the middle. In the scene of best case, Madero would be murdered, Villa executed as a killer and diaz forced to office, leaving Orozco as power on earth and the obvious option as the next president ofMexico. Certainly Orozco's subsequent behavior is consistent with this thesis.
The fall of Ciudad Juarez, however reluctantly Madero achieved it, was a big filler for his movement and boosted his credibility enormously. US journalists crossed the border to give him the big build, commenting particularly on the efficient way his men policed. the city. Madero named Juarez his provisional capital and appointed an interim cabinet, but it still took Diaz another ten days to concede defeat and resign. His intransigence was, if anything, helped by Madero's absurdly anemic response to his victory. he drafted insisted on Diaz's departure but left his system largely intact. of existing officers. He insisted on the fourteen Maderista governments and the withdrawal of federal troops from northern Mexico, but said nothing about the south, in theory leaving the army free to turn its guns on Zapata and the revolutionaries of central Mexico.
Finally Diaz saw that his only option was to go to exile;LimaTunt warned him that the continuation of the civil war would make the United States intervention a certainty.The two nullified the army's absurd Sabre-Rattlers, such as Huerta, whose boasts of custom they knew how to be ignorant and vain fanparonice, and on May 21 was signed the treaty of Ciudad Juarez.Diaz agreed to leave for Europe and Francisco Leon de la Barra assumed as provisional president, with the mission of organizing the fall elections.The end of the porphyrian represented a commitment on both sides, as both the old regime and middle -class liberal timberryists were seriously concerned with the reol's released revolutionary genius.The rhythm of the revolution was now like a tornado with new leaders and new groupings emerging in each state.If their political composition was blurred, their social message was clear: they wanted a real socioeconomic change, not just a political transfer of power.
Despite deadly enemies, Diaz and Madero shared a deadly terror of "anarchy of the masses" and were particularly apprehensive with Zapata, the so -called "southern Attila", whose bloody triumph in Cuautla seemed the foreshadowing of a new caste war, in whichLeader Moreos would unite Yucatan's Mayans and the Indians of the Center of Mexico in a genocide campaign against the white man.From the elite point of view, the challenge from Madero to Diaz was reckless - and that is why most of Madero's family didn't like his venture.Men like Bernardo Reyes retreated instead of bringing diaz to the limit because they thought of the consequences.As soon as Mexicans saw the fallacy of "there is no alternative to Don Porfirio," aspirations would emerge that could not be contained, and the end of the path could be a convulsive social revolution.If you didn't have to put up with Diaz, you didn't have to put up with the farmers either.Madero never realized that he was just Mirabeau in an unstoppable process, and that after him they would have to come the robespier, the men of the ending and the bonapartes.
Almost all the other revolutionary leaders opposed the agreement they made with Diaz in the treaty of Ciudad Juarez.The, rightly, they saw no need for such generous accommodations, since Madero had the hand of the whip.Field, but also cities like Durango, Chilpancingo and Cuernavaca who were in rebellious hands. Until Fire Carranza warned that he was "giving reactionaries a dead revolution that will have to be fought again."Ciudad Juarez, prophesied (or so he said later) that Madero would eventually murdered and begged him to let the revolution continue until he had taken all the politicians from the highest tree stablishment. He was particularly disappointed that Madero would not purregThe army and nothing has been said about the retribution against Creel and the Terrazas. When Madero put his doubts aside, Villa offered his resignation.
Madero was happy to accept him, but offered Villa 25,000 pesos in compensation payment. When Villa protested (and honestly) that he had not fought for money, Madero insisted that he would take IO, ooo pesos as a personal favor for him.What Villa really wanted was a great title that would recognize his heroic role in the fight, but the code of male and respect left Villa without a choice but to agree with the money gift; he promised himself that he would now buyIndescribable butcher shop and would be established - but first he had a private score to solve. Giuseppe Garibaldi was bragging that he and a handful of American volunteers had actually taken Ciudad Juarez on their own.Hotel Sheldon in El Paso, where he found him in company with three US Secret Service men. This happened that Washington had heard of Villa's threats against Garibaldi and took steps to avoid an international incident. Gustavo Madero, who was with Villa,He tried to take it out of the hotel without incidents, but Villa uttered vocable threats. The mayor of El Paso ordered Villa to leave his bailiwick, and suffered the humiliation of being left from the city by the secret military, who deposited him in the middle of the international bridge andHe warned him not to return.
The first stage of the Mexican Revolution was now complete. Militarily, some threatening lessons had been learned, especially that well -sold cities were not invulnerable to attack. Trains, aircraft, wireless and even barbed wire had not yet had the impact thatThey would have later - although the theory of barbed wire in war was well understood after his employment by the Italians in occupying Eritreia in 1885 and, especially, by the British war of Boer, who used it to bind strongly in his block systemBut above all, the 1gjo -11 period showed the deadly efficacy of dynamite and machine guns; perhaps the proximity of the US was relevant, for the four most important figures in the history of the machine gun - Richard Gatling, John Moses Browning, Hiram Maxim andColonel Isaac Newton Lewis - were all Americans.
The base of the machine gun was a series of parallel barrels, six in some models, ten in others, which were turned around a fixed axis by a crank and usually automatically fed a drum mounted above the barrels; the first models fired toRounds of a minute, after up to 1, ooo.A Gatling Gun was used significantly for the first time in battle in Tel-Elkebir in 1882, when it is said that six gatlings manned by thirty British sailors would have been responsible for the 12 years of Arabi Pasha, ooo Dead Egyptian. However, gatling was not a pistol of itself the type that continued to fire while the trigger was pressed.precisely controlled.Maxim elaborated a method that allowed him to use the retreat automatically to eject the first round, pull another round in position and then trigger the second round. The retreat of this second round repeated the cycle, which continued while the trigger was pressed,The fire rate is adjustable up to 6oo rounds per minute.
Browning used the energy of escaping muzzle gases to operate his gun, and then developed the improved recoil mechanism. Lewis had a gas-operated gun, charged with a flat battery magazine, and this became the preferred method of combat in aerial dogfights. machine guns of World War I. Machine guns featured prominently in the gruesome war battles of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 - although they were not mass-produced until World War I - and therefore were a treasured item in the arsenal of the opposing forces in the Mexican Revolution.
Its impact might well have been decisive, but for the "tied" weapon of the Dynamite bomb, the favorite device of guerrilla revolutionaries. Although Hollywood films are anachronically dynamite in use in Juarez wars with the French, the development of this highExclusive explosive was a feature of the late 186s. One of the amazing stories of the history of technology was the discovery that by adding nitric acid, cotton wool could become an explosive cotton and that an emollient cosmetic liquid, glycerin, could becomeNitroglycerin, a heavy, oily-looking liquid that explodes with tremendous violence. It is more destructive than accommodation and can be exploded by a fuse containing fulminant powder, fired at a distance by electricity.Chutton six times), became the favorite blasting agent for the miners. It was first used in liquid form as "explosion oil", but, due to the dangers of dealing with it, was later mixed with a substance inPowder (by itself without action and just a vehicle to contain nitroglycerin), and this became known as dynamite. The art of detonation became more subtle: if anyone wanted to explode an object to the pieces, a used 'high explosive'or dynamite; if anyone wanted to explode, say, large granite blocks to make the building stone or a coal sewing to produce pieces of coal, a used 'low explosive' or gunpowder.
There were many developments of dynamite in the nineteenth century, especially the use of potassium chlorate rather than nitrate as oxygen supply material.The great name of the history of dynamite is Alfred Nobel.Although surrounding had discovered nitroglycerin in laboratory experiments, several serious accidents in the late 1860s seemed to put a question mark against the "oil explosion."Nitroglycerin was considered so dangerous that Britain prohibited its import in liquid state;It had to be pre-processed in dynamite.The discovery came when Nobel has discovered a method of detonation, allowing nitroglycerin to be absorbed by an inert porous material, a silicaceous earth from which a part would absorb its weight in nitroglycerin three times.Later, other substances were used to absorb the liquid, and in the end there were two types of dynamite: one with inert and one with absorbents themselves, such as coal, nitrate, chlorate and even gunpowder, alcola and nitro-mixtures.But the first significant use of pump dynamite was in the Mexican revolution.
If the impact of military technology on the revolution was palpable, the social meaning of the revolution was less clear. In a backward, it is easy to see Villa and Zapata as the two most important figures. Zapata represented the agrarian peasantry - the residents, the shares and the smallFarmers who suffered from the greed of Hacendado, Ranchero or Cacique and who wanted their lands stolen back. The agrarian complaints were predominantly the biggest issue of the revolution, hardly surprisingly, since four fifths of the population lived in the field. For every 1,000 peasants,There were 12 artisans, small farmers, forty workers from the factory, thirty miners, ten farmers and two humcated.
The conquest of Zapata was to give a concrete form to peasant aspirations that remained asleep and even partially unconscious. That was why his fame had already transcended the boundaries of the state.of the Hacendates. In the rebels of Sinaloa, he legitimized his rebellion by reference to Zapata's ideas and entered battle crying `Viva Zapata ' - an eloquent testimony of a man in which they had never palms.Banderas surrendered to no one in their admiration for Zapata. Even in distant chiapas, during a quickly suppressed local revolt, the Indians who fought the rural ones used 'Viva Zapata' as their Warcry.- Hate fed by the perception that they opposed a intelligent revolutionary who had built a continuous movement that would not collapse overnight as the traditional peasant jacqueries. Those who felt confident that they could cooperate Madero likedTo contrast the "respectable" revolution conducted by Madero in the north with the "brigandage" of Zapatism in the south.
Zapatism necessarily implied class conflict, but northern centaurs, such as Orozco and Villa, led more fluid movements, opposed the diaz because of unemployment, economic difficulties, taxation, ley escape, recruitment and press gangs.They fought for local independence against the centralizing trends of Mexico City, these rebels could transcend class issues, to the point that some skeptics refer to them as "non -revolutionary rebels."For the question of the earth itself, but only against the particular way that it had been divided by a corrupt contingent dressing room in the form of Creel and the Terrazas. In the north, it was possible for Madero to recruit former invilists and men of Orozco as rural;Obviously, this would have been unthinkable in Morelos.
The groups headed by Zapata and Villa were the forefront of the revolution, but there were other social elements that played a subsidiary role.Although urban masses played a small role in the events of 1910-i I, the fear that they could always be present in Diaz's mind.Alan Knight established that, as urban rebels played a role, the driving force was provided by artisans, a disgruntled group in the last years of Porfiriatus, as they had lost to large -scale industrial production.In the 1910 census there were 67,000 carpenters, 44,000 shoemakers, 23,000 hatters, 23,000 leiros and 18,000 hatters.These artisans were at the forefront of the city's riots who played an important role in the demoralization of the proprietary classes and helped erode the traditional principles of hierarchy and deference.As soon as the news of Ciudad Juarez's treaty came, cities such as Celaya, Leon and San Miguel de Allende were torn by riots.Prisons have been opened, looted stores, files and government records destroyed.In general, older industrial and administrative cities in the center of Mexico, where the economy was declining and impoverished workers were the hardest hit by riots.When the timberists intervened alongside the proprietary classes and repressed the riots with vigor, they lost more caste to the workers, appearing simply as old porphyirian wine in new bottles.
Durango was another state to suffer after the Treaty of Ciudad Juarez. The very city of Durango, which had been strongly defended by the federal, surrendered peacefully and the delivery was soft, but in Torreon there was a widespread withdrawal of the property of Chinese immigrants and 250Chinese were killed in a vicious pogrom that had decay, disassembly, death in the tail and death of the horse while naked before drunk shot squads. They were the Chinese and the Spaniards, rarely the Americans, who were targeted for xenophobiaMexican.The Chinese had made the mistake of marking as "the Jews of Mexico", entering money, borrow and pledge; as "enemies of the class," they were considered a fair game for the multitude.
There was once a notion, connected by the Annales French School of History, that miners were a significant element in the Mexican revolution. Certainly there were 90,000 miners, dispersed throughout Mexico, especially in the north, where Sonora was known for its copper, Coahuila for their coal and Durango, Hidalgo and Chihuahua (with 4,000 different mines) for their silver. However, Mexican miners did not form the same kind of coherent group as British coal miners, it is said, at the same time. transient Indians, temporary vagabonds, migrant dwellers, part-time opportunists. Being a miner meant little in terms of social or political profile, and there was no doubting the formation of a major revolutionary orfoco like that of the Bolivian tinners in the 1950s. the economic downturn in the mines may have radicalized miners and provided a ``watershed of rebellion'', even though the hard core of Mexican miners were highly paid and non-resonant; it was the transients, first to be laid off, who joined Villa and Orozco in the Sierras. Evidence suggests that the miners' only real loyalty was to the foreign landlords who paid them well, not to Diaz or Madero or Orozco.
The Mexican revolution was not yet, and never would be, a full-blown civil war. Certain social groups played no role in the early stages, most notably the urban working classes, the peons residing on the large estates of central and northern Mexico, and the debt unfortunates. in the tropical southeast. This is not surprising, as the Mexican revolution was never to be a national phenomenon. It was never a nation in arms, even at its height in 1915 there were no more than 100,000 men under arms. largely confined to northern and central areas, especially Chihuahua, Durango, Estado de México and Morelos. This geographic limitation was particularly noticeable in 1910-11. have been vociferous in their opposition to Diaz on 1908-10.
The most remarkable absent state in 1910-II was sound. Maybe the main reason was that the fights of Madero, Villa and Zapata seemed irrelevant here.And there was also a feeling that a rapid transfer of power in Mexico City to deal with more radical complaints was the consummation in a devoured way to be desired.of the Zapatistas in Morelos. Yaquis, peaceful since 1908, began the rebellion again when Madero increased their pattern, but only for their own reasons; they joined the mathests based on that their lands would be restored and their exiled comrades returned from Yucatan and QuintanaRoo.Madero reluctantly accepted Yaquis as allies and, in June 1911, I, I, Ooo Yaqui Warriors in the field. However, Madero had no intention of joining the aspirations of Yaqui.Things had to change so that everything could remain the same, Madero was about to disappoint all groups in Mexico, except for what he had overthrown ostensibly.
Madero E Zapata
Diaz formally resigned on May 25, 1911 and boarded a train to Veracruz and from there to France (whose troops he had defeated in Puebla almost fifty years earlier) - but not before his machine gunmen enjoyed a final massacre of protesters onMexico City in Mexico City at Zocalo On Noo 24th. Students and workers converged to Zocalo that night in a humor of triumphalism, but Diaz had parked a dozen machine guns on the national palace roof and several Marine companies on the Cathedral roof, in addition to a regiment kept in a south side of the square. Of course, he intended to leave the Mexican history as bloody as he entered it. Between 9am and the IO of the P.M.a multitude of 75,000 blocked Zocalo and when the accusations of thePolice did not disperse them, the troops opened, first the Marines in the Cathedral, then the machine guns. Protesters seemed messy to cut and run, even when their comrades fell around them in dozens.From rain sent everyone running for coverage before a terrible massacre could occur. Even, more than 200 people were dead and I, ooo we were injured.
After this brutality, it was a debatable question if Diaz would leave Mexico alive. General Victoria Huerta took the old dictator to Veracruz in train, with the Diaz train in the center protected by two trains of troops - a necessary precaution, as it turned out,Since the train was attacked by rebels. In Veracruz, Diaz spent five days as guest of Lord CowDray company before boarding the German ship Ypiranga on the 31st.If he can control it. Infate, as the observation '' so far from God 'of Diaz, this joke must be attributed to the rows of the apocryphal, but will accurately summarize the Madero dilemma.
On June 3, Madero departed from Coahuila for a four -day triumphant trip to the capital.His frantic reception at each station and stop makes him seem not so much a liberator in the tradition of Bolivar, but a liberator in the messianic sense.People struggled and accotalized to play the 'promised', as if he had the power of healing.Recognized, greeted and applauded with bells, vivid and fireworks from the border to Mexico City, when he arrived on June 7 for the ecstatic greeting of 10,000 people - one fifth of the capital's population aligned the route for its entrance to its entranceAfternoon - Madero was essentially living in the paradise of the fools.
At dawn on the day of their arrival, Mexico City was convulsed with one of the greatest earthquakes in national history. Lasting fifteen minutes, it destroyed hundreds of homes, the main train station, the San Cosme army barracks, the Church of Santo Domingo, and paralyzed the gas and electricity supply. Coinciding with Madero's arrival, the earthquake was interpreted in various ways, according to political belief, as God's punishment for the people for expelling Diaz or as his warning that the The man who arrived was chosen. The sobering facts were that 207 people died. The Mexican revolution was already proving to be out of line with human life. zocalo and those killed by the earthquake, almost me, people who were not near a battlefield suffered violent deaths.
Surprisingly, the horrors of the earthquake were quickly subsumed in the rejoicing when Madero arrived. There was many anecdotes illustrating the divine status that the little man appreciated for a while. The American journalist John Reed asked a soldier why he wore Madero colors on his uniform."I don't know," said the man. "My captain told me he's a great saint." Another man, found shouting, "Viva Madero. Viva Democracy" was asked what democracy was and answered: `` I don'tI know, I think this should be the beautiful lady on the side of Doctor Madero. In June 7, 1911, reason yielded to emotion. In retrospect, the earthquake, read predominantly as a good omen - a symbol of manthat shook Diaz - should have been read to the other side.
Madero had already made two mistakes that would be fatal: demobilized the revolutionary armies of the northern, demoralizing his own supporters and reducing his own status, while stood in the hands of the regular army; and by allowing Leon de la Barra, Minister of RelationsDiaz's external, remain an interim president until the October presidential elections, he made a rod on his back. With Diaz supporters in the majority in Congress and La Barra as executive -chief, Madero unnecessarily faced four months of 'porphurismPorfirio ', during which he was constantly assumed by hostile intrigues. La Barra did little secret of his intention to make Madero's policies unfeasible at all points, and his first goal was to boost a wedge between Madero and Zapata, who was notSignatory nor consulted, the notorious treaty of Ciudad Juarez.
If Madero had been a true revolutionary, Zapata could reasonably expect to become the next governor of Morelos, but soon it was clear that he could advance under Madero just abandoning his land reform credentials, the core of his identity.-Zapatists jealous were disputing the position in brunettes. Figueroas threw their glove sending their men to occupy Cuernavaca and Jojutla, while Zapata was involved in the bloody fight for Cuautla. They then tried to marginalize Zapata, building a covenant with the Leyva family of two faces, who had not participated in the recent armed struggle. When Patricio Leyva made openings to Zapata as if it were the same, Zapata wrote back angrily: `You are not a channel of authority for me, because I accept orders only from the provisional president of the Republic,Francisco Madero ... I only tell you that if you don't turn into cuernavaca for me, I take you.
Within weeks, it was obvious to Zapata that nothing in brunettes would change: the planters would not be stripped of their power, Zapata himself was expressly ordered by Madero agent Robles Dominguez, so as not to take any action against Haciendas and on May 26Madero himself announced that clause 3 of the plan of San Luis Potosi, related to agrarian reform, could not be implemented "in full."Brunette Power - The same people who were on weapons against him weeks before - confirmed in their privileges and positions. The world seemed to go upside down: it was almost like the Zapatistas who were the enemies of the revolution and deserved punishment.In a few days, there were reports that the planters had returned to their old practice of surrounding the land of the village.
Faced with this incredible reversal of fortunes, Zapata seemed to be momentarily paralyzed with indecision, as if he was no longer sure of his purchase in reality. He deviated to Cuernavaca and Wired Robles Dominguez for Madero permission to appoint a temporary governor.Answer - hardly surprisingly, as the planters had already been born Madero and obtained their own stooge indicated for the position. Zapat could have used their 4,00 men armed to impose their will, but did not do it;When the planters seized treacherously Tepepa and made him throw it. Remaining to remain in Cuernavaca as the planters set up his governor of puppets, he moved away disconsolate, meditating on the betrayal of Madero..He had not yet reached the terrible perception that, so stupidly losing the royal power, Madero had lost the ability to deliver land reform even if he wanted to.
Zapata decided to prepare himself revisiting his roots. The first call was in Genovevo de la 0, the most prominent of the independent chiefs of Zapatista, which he had not yet known. The meeting was a great success, and there was an immediate relationship.Meeting, Zapata went to Mexico City on June 8 for her first meeting with Madero. In a conference at the Madero family mansion at Berlin Street, with the presence of Carranza and two other advisers from Madero, the president beganbegging Zapata to continue with the figueroas. Zapata replied suddenly that she had no reason not to continue with them, because her only interest was agrarian reform, nor the high political ambition. Madero replied that agrarian reform was a question for later, one, oneSince Zapatista's armies were dissolved. Zapata asked what guaranteed that an unveiled federal army would obey Madero in brunettes as soon as all revolutionaries were disarmed.
When Madero reproved him kindly for not having the spirit of reconciliation, Zapata cut off the refined atmosphere of a loud lounge in Mexico City with some blunt conversation. He got up slowly, took the rifle and went to Madero.Of gold in his vest, he said: `` Look, Senor Madero, if I enjoy the fact that I am armed and take off his watch and keep it, and after a while we met, both armed in the same way, you would have theRight to demand that I return it?'Madero nodded. "Well, then," Zapata said, "That's exactly the situation in brunettes." This was a particularly uncomfortable conversation by Madero; it was the second time in two months that he was threatened by a revolutionary, but that wasA man different from Villa and would probably not explode in a flood of tears and begging forgiveness. Madero was worried enough to offer to visit Morelos and accepted an invitation from Zapata on June 12.
The visit turned out to be a fiasco. Once once, the more politically sophisticated brunette planters than Zapata, limping Madero and kidnapped their program to the point where Zapata de Nogo refused to participate in the Bom -Vindas banquet to Madero.esteLast, a mere shuttlecock that was being defeated by special interests, did not see how he was being manipulated, but he observed the absence of Zapata and interpreted it as intransigence.He heard his apparent reasonableness and returned to Mexico City convinced that Zapata was an incentive and that his followers were an uncontrollable canoneille - a conclusion reinforced by the vision of the ruins bombarded Cuautla.
Meanwhile, Zapata continued to press Madero by letter for warranties on land reform and the future of her men. Materer predictably stopped from the agrarian issue, but insisted on the immediate disarmament of all 400, which would serve under Zapata as commander of the Federal Police;Moreover, if the Zapatists climb again on their complaints, it would be Zapata's duty to suppress them in the main force. Zapata was angry with this order that he should become a political eunuch, without leverage in Moreos; he read the requirements ofMadero, correctly, as a demand for unconditional surrender. However, he was determined to exhaust all peaceful avenues. In mid -June, he returned to Cuernavaca and began to gather some of his units; he took 3,500 weapons and paid 47,500 weights.in payment of demobilization.
Having demonstrated good faith, he called for formal confirmation as commander of the Federal Police, but the brunette farmers pressured Madero to terminate the offer.Even while this subject was in Limbo, with Madero hesitating as usual, a kind of resolution was made when Zapata asked the interim puppet offering, Juan Carreon, Fuzis soo for his police.When Carreon refused, Zapata broke into Arsenal and took them anyway.Immediately the howls over a 'modern Attyl' climbed again from Mexico City's Yellow Press.A 'fear campaign' of the media featuring 'hordes' and terrible atrocities lit atvic fears of a new caste war, pijama Indians with machetes, peiote stalls, looking for the white man in murderous raids.This toxic black magic worked his poisonous spell.Madero, now under pressure from the elite's opinion to deal decisively with Zapata, summoned him to Mexico City to respond to the accusations of sedition and treason of farmers.
Zapata still remained conciliatory. At a meeting with Madero in the capital on June 20, he accepted with a heavy heart a new agreement, whereby he would no longer be chief of police, but simply retired into private life with fifty bodyguards. .Within a month, he went from being favored as the next Govenor of Morelos to being a nobody, a retired revolutionary.
The euphoria of the planters did not last long. They found that one thing was to make Madero humiliate Zapata, something else to make their followers accept this as the way things should be. Residents had proved the intoxicating preparation of hacienda freedom andFrom the military victory, and this was a genius who could not be put back in the bottle. A spontaneous movement `Zapata for Governor 'increased; when the planters tried to use the force against the villages, they found that they had a serious bandyritry problem in theirHands. Taking his cunning scam created, the EXTAT unraveling before their eyes, the planters panicked. They approached Zapata, offering them to support him as governor if he left his demands for land reform.
They had seriously interpreted their man. A normal political boss or bandits could have been done this way, but not Zapata. He secretly began to reappear his demobilized men, clandestinely assisted by the new interior minister Emilio Vasquez, who never liked toMadero `Everything is' treated with Diaz and who has now tried to subvert politics, clandestinely allowing weapons and ammunition to enter the Zapatistas. The tensions increased another point on July 2, after a bloody slaughter of federal zapatists in the city of Puebla, after a dispute over the jurisdiction of the prison. Zapata's instinct was immediately marching to Puebla, but Madero called him not to intervene. Even Stoic, Zapata obeyed, but it was an open question how long he could remain quiescent in an atmosphere ofFear and suspicion.
In August, from La Barra, determined to destroy Zapata before his interim mandate expired, he appointed a hardline porphyirist Alberto Garcia Granados as interior minister, knowing that he despised Madero and was anxious to crush the revolutionaries of brunettes.Echoing the mantra of all Hawkish autocrats - 'we don't make agreements with terrorists' - the minister ordered Zapata to demobilize all his units immediately or he would use the army against this 'nest of bandits and robbers'.Madero, desperate to avoid war in Moreos, often invited Zapata to the capital for negotiations, but Zapata was fed up with Madero's prevarication and delayed him every time.Although he publicly supported Madero and made it clear in writing, he told his followers that Madero was so weak that the manipulants he would not hesitate to convene a conference of all revolutionary leaders and then massacre them all in one place.
Under extreme pressure, Zapata ended up sending her brother Eufemio to check with Madero. It was agreed that there would be elections in Moreos on August 13 and that the Zapatistas would finally demobilize. However, any chance of Zapata retiring in private life was torpedoed by de laBarra, who issued an order for the immediate suppression of the Zapatistas and sent two forces to appreciate it: Federal troops to Cuernavaca and Jonacatepec, and the men from Ambrosio Figueroa to Jojutla; for a good measure, he added that Zapata and his representatives would beBarred from other negotiations in Mexico City. Like a deliberate slap on Zapata's face, de la Barra appointed his enemy Ambrosio Figueroa as governor and military commander in Morelos. Madero not only agreed to it, but said to Figueroa:Place for us, since we can no longer stand it.'Any thought that Zapata could retire in the field and be another Cincinnatus was brutally banned by this flagrant provocation, and especially for news that Mexico's most hated man, General Victorian Huerta, was commanding the troops on the way to Cuernavaca.Zapata wrote to Madero to ask for an explanation or order to interrupt Huerta; Madero did not respond and also not. Attending the total war, Governor Carreon has hurriedly postponed the state elections.
Huerta's orders were to force the immediate demobilization of all Zapatists and shoot anyone who resisted, but he interpreted it as a license to destroy anything that considered a legitimate military target, imposing the martial law and seeking and destroying Zapata.However, Huerta was also cutting the interests of all other parts into brunettes.The farmers found that they had a Frankenstein monster in their hands, as he was not interested in them and his land grabbing schemes.He wanted to impose a regime in the state that would be ahead of his friend Bernardo Reyes, who ran against Madero in the October presidential elections.Francisco Figueroa, a more shrewd political operator than his brother, saw that the new dismissal would not be in the interest of his family and warned Ambrosio that cooperating with Huerta would be ruinous;He must therefore reject the government offer.The conflict between Huerta and the Figueroas was not long before: Huerta stated that Carreon was a weakness and should be replaced, but Ambrosio refused.Huerta retaliated suspending the state's constitution and imposing martial law, using as a pretext a recent attack on his strength near Cuernavaca through the gang of Genovevo de la O.
Madero, imported by the brunette planters, the figueroas and even a zapata protesting with loyal, now intervened to try to restore the order of an increasingly chaotic situation. This first task was to sound the intentions of Zapata. Zapata told him that he would demobilizeImmediately, since the martial law was raised, Huerta's forces have not gone beyond Cuernavaca and Raul Madero was appointed military commander in Moreos, but added that other problems would have to be dealt with: the removal of all state diaries, supervisionFrom the state elections by their own finger -chosen scrutinators and a guarantee of agrarian reform.Allowing a "bandit" to say. He got his war minister to call Huerta with orders to advance from Cuernavaca to Yautepec if Zapata does not disarm that day. Huerta replied that he would advance as soon as he had 1,500 infantry, 6oo and 500 shells75 mm to your cannon.
Madero was completely deceived by De la Barra.On the morning of 16 August, he happily departed from Cuernavaca to the capital to obtain the stamp of La Barra in the agreement he had negotiated with Zapata, not knowing that an hour after his departure Huerta put his men in march to Yautepec.When he learned of the truth, in a letter from his mother, who urged him to be hard with De La Barra, he was furious and willing to confront.However, La Barra himself had reconsider: it was dangerous for him to be openly challenging Madero and supporting Huerta, who was known for supporting Bernardo Reyes in the presidential elections.In addition, he had on his table a memorandum of protest from all municipal authorities of Moreos, stating that Huerta's troops were a violation of state sovereignty and should be removed.He therefore sent to Huerta an order to suspend all military operations.Huerta made himself a silly and pretended not to understand the thread, so La Barra was forced to repeat it.
Madero returned to Cuautla for a final round of negotiations with Zapata. Once he was gone, from La Barra rethought his position and sent to Huerta an ambiguous order written to suspend all 'offensive operations', while Madero was in the state;He left Huerta free to design a situation in which he could open fire in self -defense. 'After checking with Zapata, Madero, on August 25, sent a bite of La Barra, demanding respect for the rights of residents: ``They want to get attention and hear. Only because they make a protest, no one can try to shut up with bayonets. Conversations with Zapata were a success, even if Madero had to endure a lecture on how to let the revolution fire in the wooden andNot making land reform a priority. In the first meeting at Cuautla's railway station, they greeted themselves cordially and Madero called Zapata from their true and honest general.more honorable and more honorable, 'stating that he could see through all the calves of his enemies.
A Euphoric Madero returned to the capital.He met and got along with all the main leaders of the village, they enthusiastically accepted the idea of his brother Raul as military governor, and Zapata agreed to demobilize without mentioning agrarian reform.All they demanded in return was the withdrawal of Huerta and his army for Mexico City.The prospects of permanent peace seemed optimistic, but in Mexico City the intrigues of de la Barra were still unshakable.At this point, he had put in the head that Madero was playing with him in his own two -faced game: having probed the extent of the support of De La Barra to Bernardo Reyes, Madero had made a secret agreement with Zapata, according to which theDemobilization would be false;So if a defeated Reyes revolted after the election, Zapata would be ready to raise the standard for Madero.
His head full of paranoid imaginations, from La Barra sent another cable to Huerta, saying him to restore the order "in the areas that Zapata did not control" .Huerta resumed his advance in Yautepec.White flag, but Huerta, claiming "self -defense" against a man and a flag, shot him. When he heard about this last act of sabotage, a Madero Studied Backed de la Barra in the presidential office, where there was an angry fight., and the appearance of demonstrations of the town of La Barra ordered another 48 -hour truce in Moreos. This time he proposed a general meeting in Cuautla, the demobilization of Zapatista to be supervised by police units of Veracruz and Hidalgo.PelaFirst, Huerta, stopped outside Yautepec, seemed to be obeying orders; in fact, he needed the 48 -hour break to prepare his artillery.
Another conference was followed between Madero and Zapata in Cuautla, and Zapatistas began to deliver in his arms. However, when the 48 -hour truce expired, Huerta advanced and occupied Yautepec.Zapata was in an impossible position: he had toResist this or losing all credibility and being supplanted by other revolutionary leaders. Declating that his goal was to "reduce Zapata to the last end until he hangs him or playing him abroad," Huerta advanced toward Cuautla;His avant -garde was reported approaching, even when the city's zapatistas were lying their arms. Zapata read this as a betrayal of Madero and was inclined to agree when their brother Euphemio suggested that they shoot that little Madero. '
Madero was reduced to reducing other missions for Mexico City, insisting that his will, not from La Barra, should be done in Moreos. He left for the capital, promising Zapata that everything would be well. In his arrival, he thought impossibleLocalizing La Barra, who avoided him and refused to talk to him by phone. This was the chance of Madero reporting from La Barra publicly and exposing all his betrayal and double exchange, but the merely confused man in particular of his members.Surprisingly, since his own credibility was at stake, he did not chase from La Barra, but weakly left for Yucatan on the campaign trail. This was the last straw for Zapata. He concluded, reasonably enough, that Madero was playing false toall the time. He never forgiven him and failed to believe him at any level.
Any chance to avoid conflicts in Morelos disappeared when Ambrosio Figueroa occupied Jojutla and executed sixty Zapatistas there. In response, Zapata issued a manifesto on August 27, explaining to the people of Morelos that the outbreak of hostilities was the result of a flagrant aggression by the governmentfederal. Solicated by his brother Raul, Madero tried in vain to mediate, but at a cabinet meeting on August 29, from La Barra, animated by the way Madero turned tail and fled to Yucatan, ordered the active search and prisonFrom Zapata ", who foiagora an outlaw in all, except the name. Zapata responded with challenge, saying de la Barra that any blood shed from now on would be head.
Having occupied Cuautla, Huerta sent a command squad to try to snatch Zapata in Hacienda de Chinameca, but the operation was very damaged.Chinameca. The commander of Figueroa decided to attack the Hacienda guards, who opened fire. Immediately introduced what was underway, left the main compound and escaped through the lands of Hacienda through a sugarcane field maze.Eighty kilometers between him and his persecutors on an arduous 72 -hour arduous walk that saw him emerge in a mountainous city of Puebla at a long way to the south. The angry Huerta asked the plenipotentiary powers to end a nest of bandits' and received - - received - and received - and received - and received - and received -them.
It was not only the figures who resent from Huerta. Brunette planters were also grinding their teeth, as the repressive methods of Huerta were talking hosts of hesitates and not politicians in zapatism and thus making their own position more precarious.This, Zapata was raising a considerable strength at the borders of Puebla/ Guerrero. In a new manifesto, he asked for free elections, denounced the political illegitimacy of the governors of breens, Puebla, Guerrero and Oaxaca, demanded the postponement of the autumn presidential elections beyond, beyondof political amnesty and agrarian reform. La Barra tried to overthrow the impact of this statement announcing that he agreed with the political amnesty in general, but not for the 'rebel criminals' - that is, Zapata.
Huerta then advanced south east of Puebla and Zapata drew him out, stretching his lines of communication. In October, following a false retreat in southern Puebla, Zapata launched an attack on Huerta's flank with 300 veterans. Little known, the guerrillas reappeared in eastern Morelos, where disaffected residents flocked to join them, swelling numbers to 1,500. After threatening Cuautla, Zapata's mobile army moved into the state of Mexico, gathering ever-increasing numbers. recruits. From October 22 to 23, the Zapatistas invaded the villages in the federal district, just 15 kilometers from the Zocalo itself. he's more of a man, he's a symbol'.
Zapata's sensational mobile attack through four states coincided with the election of Madero as president. Any except Madero would have insisted on taking power immediately Diaz, but his exaggerated concern for constitutional subtleties meant that he spent five months like a lame duck,Refusing to purge the old porned guard and allow him to consolidate his power. In this crucial period of five months, he lost the support of Zapata and Orozco forever. Setting the decline popularity of Madero, Bernardo Reyes returned from exile and contestedThe election, posing like a new Diaz, a strong man who would guarantee order and prosperity. However, since Reyes realized that he could not beat Madero, he renounced the presidential race and settled in Texas to plan revolts.And his supporters, but he escaped, passed the border, tried to increase a revolt in the desert, failed and eventually surrendered to rurals on Christmas Day of 191 I. If someone except Madero had been president, Reystria was executed by betrayal,But he was taken to a military prison in Mexico City, where he lived in some style.
Madero didn't have much to win in the October elections. Magon brothers remained in the US, meaninglessly (if precisely) denouncing Madero as an opportunist bourgeois, but the Magonists had no electoral influence; as the Madero supporters pointed out, they were hardlyThe material from which revolutionary heroes were made, and their only achievement in jogi-II was to capture the city of Mexicali in Baja California, the state that had the distinction of experimenting with the least violence in the Mexicanorevolution. In the end, the main electoral opposition toMadero came from Catholics, but they could only make a slight progress against their little man with the player's hat. In a free and fair presidential election, probably the first in Mexico's history, despite the predictable screams of 'missing' opposition and '' and 'Repairing ', Madero guaranteed 98 % of the votes and his mate, Pino Suarez, obtained 53 % as vice president.
That beating electoral mandate did not improve Madero's performance as a politician. Instead of dealing steadfastly with his many enemies, he published (pseudonymously) a spiritualist handbook, discussing politics purely in terms of high-escalation concepts drawn from his beloved Mahabharata. it was the kind that some philosopher, trying to find a Hegelian unity through the fusion of opposites, might have selected, not a credible working group selected by an actual politician. Far from believing in the art of the possible, Madero never seemed to hit a realistic mark; He flinched from reality or tried to outright outsmart it. He allowed freedom of the press, but was rewarded with lampoons and insults. He was criticized for every conceivable fault: for being short, curt, and without gravitas; with Zapata; for being a mason, vegetarian and spiritualist; Even for his love of dancing and getting on a plane. The newspapers bit the hand of the man who freed them from Diaz's censorship, but Madero, at least at first, refused to muzzle them with another Ley Mordaza.
In addition to these superficial expressions of spite and Bile, there were authentic criticisms that Madero was genuinely vulnerable. He alienated the people who fought for him, as they walked to those who fought against him, hated them and would never be reconciled to him.Classic of pleasing anyone and falling between two banks. He did not please the hacendates, army officers, bureaucrats and political chiefs, and he disappointed bitterly peasants, sharecroppers, vaqueros, artisans, proletarians and debt.And the expropriated, Madero invariably opted for the first, even if only to reassure them that he was "sound" on private properties and wealth. They say the only thing that enraged him more than any other was to find that many revolutionaries had expropriatedLands and data to the owners who said, 'Don Pancho Madero will pay everything.'
Madero found it impossible to resolve any of the legacy problems per diaz. In agrarian reform, he was particularly empty, as he announced that the state would not expropriated land - but would return real estate to the hacendated or compensate them - but would look for the market for a solution when everyone knewthat the market could not deliver land reform, since Diaz had already sculpted all public lands and donated them to a song. The logical conclusion for the Zapatistas and others went to work for the fall of Madero - something that law was already trying to perform.In the debt, Peonage Madero was worse than useless. Although its abolition was official government policy, its weak provincial governors could not make their writings against the entrenched elites of plantations.He refused to cooperate with the softest reforms of a timber, Madero, without the stomach for a fight, simply shrugged and looked elsewhere. From anyway, agrarian reform always conflict with the social order and, in the order ofMadero's book, he always came first. That was why he found it easy to impose order on the deep south: in Yucatan, Chiapas, Tabasco and Oaxaca Life returned to normal as in Diaz days, with planting owners firmly in power.
The presidency of Madero was in many ways the continuation of porphiriato by other means. Inefectedly disinterested in agrarian reform, he did not leave his mark, even in the areas where he was interested, such as education and finance. Economic reform was discarded because state governments wereIn debt through the cost of maintenance of garrisons. Always caught between two fires in all arenas where he entered, Madero had to navigate between the provincial demands by funds and a deflationary and reduced and deflationary congress.Mexican economy in the Madero period, but the president's failure cannot be established for economic causes. He had no desire and Elan for taking any significant opposition. He hated drunkenness and bullfighting, but did not dare to tamper with masses of the masses.
Madero was equally irresponsible when it came to military matters. He found it utterly impossible to integrate revolutionary and regular Army units and structures, both because recent enmities and hostilities were too strong and because the revolutionaries regarded the old guard as false maderistas, johnny-come-latelies who joined Madero only when he had sure win. Guerrilla leaders were particularly opposed to being merged into military hierarchies, where they were expected to take orders from people who had not fought, and young warriors resented the fact that Madero gave most of the plums to the middle-aged. In the end, Madero couldn't get enough recruits into the Army and was forced to introduce mandatory military service and pressure gangs, Diaz's leads in all but name.
Above all, Madero has never been able to extinguish the ancient culture of reflex violence and casual atrocity he had inherited from Diaz. Ley escape continued to flourish; the army continued to expose the rebels 'corpses as a warning';A journalist executed simply for writing an article in praise to Zapata; in Puebla, federal troops burned more than Loo Maderalists, even after Madero was elected president.
However, Madero's victory in the 1911 elections meant at least the end of La Barra and, in Moreos, of Huerta.Zapata's great October campaign meant that he could retire from the fight with honor if the terms of peace were to come, and at first it seemed like.Madero issued a public letter in his home state, Coahuila, on the eve of the vote, saying that when he was president there would be a peaceful deal for the brunette uprising.Gustavo Madero, who has always noticed the value of the Zapatista movement as a counterweight to the would -be scammers such as Bernardo Reyes, returned to contact Zapata, bringing the new president's fraternal greetings.Madero agent Robles Dominguez went to the south with an attractive agreement that he would take the big brunette figures, even from his Jojutla stronghold, and transfer the state in its entirety to Zapata.
In this interregnum very brief in the fall of 1911, before bad -once again took control, Zapata was able to devote a few precious weeks to her private life and bring the honeymoon that had been so violently interrupted in August, when Huerta exploded onMoreos.Fo August 1911, Zapata married, this time with the full legal panoply. The bride was Josefa Espejo, one of the daughters of a prosperous cattle trafficker Ayala who died in 1909. Before the old man died, Zapata seems to haveCalled into Josefa's hand and was refused, with the land in which he had no solidaimobiliária wealth.They would be considered an impediment to marriage in the society of Morelos; the male code endorsed a `boy will be the attitude of the boys in relation to sexuality.
Marriage in Morelos was an institution inserted mainly with the aim of fixing property, land and title deeds in heirs; It fixed the roles of the powerful in society, making it clear who were the main lights of a community and who its legitimate children: in in a word, it was a solemn contract concerned with money, bequest, and succession. Despite the Catholic ceremony, the teachings of the church carried little weight: marriage was certainly not about the 'achievement of mutual concupiscence' nor was it about the procreation of children; Even less was concerned with 'love'. Zapata already fathered children by at least one woman and would not have remotely imagined that the marriage committed him to sexual fidelity; nor did any Mexican woman expect monogamous constancy. there were certain courtship and engagement rituals that had to go through and that were taken seriously.
Before marriage, the girl from the good family, who was always a virgin, would meet her future husband only with a larger chaperone. "inappropriate" statements of passion. `Birds of a feather gather', `A monkey in other clothes is still a monkey', 'the eyes are the windows to the soul', 'beauty lies in the eye of the beholder',' death is always preferable to dishonour', It may be some of the exchanges in the dialectic rather less than in the attic. The lover would then have musicians serenade his lady at night, returning in a drunken state around 5 am to sing Las Mananitas or the morning song.
Zapata married Josefa in a Catholic Church, as she would be expected in brunettes. We know little of her, and the photographic evidence of Mexican women of this period are useless, as most instantaneous shows that they seem particularly sad and painful, as if they wishedthat thousands of miles were. Significantly from a macho society is the formal marriage photography that shows Zapata sitting while his wife is standing. The anecdotal reports of Zapata's marriage are useless, as they can't even agree with whatEmiliano was wearing: Some say he went to the wedding ceremony at a black, embroidered black outfit, others he married in the capital business capital that he appears in the photograph.
Domestic matters did not stop Zapata for long, because a new and unexpected crisis came in November.Madero, always a hopeless politician, involuntarily tried the duplicity just to find that all his tangled web was entangled above all.He issued a strong statement, intended to appease the hawks in Congress, saying that he would deal with Zapata without concessions.His official letter, handed over to Robles Dominguez, had a tough wording: «Make Zapata know that the only thing I can accept is that it immediately and unconditionally surrendered and that all its soldiers immediately testify the weapons.In this case, I will forgive your soldiers for the crime of rebellion and he will receive passports so that it can temporarily establish out of state.Inform him that his rebellious attitude is hurting my government a lot and that I cannot tolerate that he continues under any circumstances, that if he really wants to serve me, obeying me is the only way to do so.Let him know that he need not fear anything for his life to testify his weapons immediately. '
In particular, he offered Zapata a more favorable agreement, which should be communicated orally by Robles Dominguez, along with the guarantee that the communication of shaking Saber was purely for public consumption. The plan spoke badly, because the army commanderIn Cuernavaca would not let Robles Dominguez enter Morelos. While that, Zapata read Madero's public text, saw the military preparations being made and took the obvious conclusion. He wrote back to Madero: `` You can start telling the days,Because in a month I will be in Mexico City with 20,000 men and will be pleased to come to Chapultepec ... and hang it in one of the highest forest trees.Puebla, once again scanning volunteers as she advanced.
Zapata continued to understand the betrayal of Madero. This was the worst crime of everyone in his book. He said: `` I can forgive those who kill or steal because maybe they do it for greed. But I never forgive a traitor.November, in Ayoxustla, a small mountainous town in southeastern Puebla, Zapata issued the manifesto in which he would fight for the next seven years. The famous plan of Ayala repudiated Madero totally, spoke of his betrayal and tyranny and recognized Pascual Orozco as the legitimateExecutive -Chief of Mexico. The reason for the betrayal was still higher in his mind, for the word "betrayal" occurs five times in the manifesto.
Ayala's plan made Zapata the perfect Ismael: 'I am resolved to fight against everything and everyone'. Working together by Zapata and Otilio Montano, the plan began with the premise that peaceful change was an illusion. intimate that their ancestors who called for justice always suffered one of three fates: `shot while escaping' (the Ley Fuga); being drafted into the military; or banishment to Yucatan or Quintana Roo. One of his words had particular relevance: `` You should never ask, holding a hat in your hand, for justice from the rule of tyrants, but just get a gun'.
The plan contained detailed proposals for agrarian reform. First, there must be a refund of lands seized by hacendated or chiefs; then, there must be expropriation of one third of all large properties, assuming a peaceful transfer of assets; if there were resistance armed by the ownersOf land, the remaining two thirds would be expropriated to pay for war compensation and widow pensions.Proposal to expropriate all the hacings for politics - only illegally restored land restoration, pulled to a dream of a community of small landowners.
Alarmed at this "extremism", Madero sent another mission in December. This one passed, but when the envoys met Zapata at the Morelos/Puebla border, all they offered was the preposterous "promise" that Zapata personally could leave the country. country in complete safety for the exile; nothing was said about Morelos's problems and there was not even an offer of amnesty for his men. could agree on nothing: for Madero, the revolution was over when he took power, but for Zapata it would only end when there was real and lasting land reform. Zapata could see only Madero's betrayal, and Madero could see only the stubbornness of the head. pork from Zapata.
Zapata was convinced that Madero's downfall was just a matter of time; until then he would continue to fight and hope to make a deal with the new government. He formed a junta of Zapatista chiefs committed to the Plan of Ayala, although not all Morelo warlords were under his direct orders; Genovevo de la 0 still preferred to operate independently. In mid-January there were Zapatista uprisings in the states of Tlaxcala, Puebla, Mexico, Guerrero and Michoacan. In Morelos the situation was complicated. Zapata took the southeast as his personal fiefdom, leaving fellow junta member Jose Trinidad Ruiz to control the northeast and use it as a launching point for attacks on the state of Mexico. The usual pattern presented itself: Federal troops controlled the cities and large towns, but the Zapatista guerrillas, though still short of weapons and money, were spreading freely across the countryside.
Mexico City tried to portray Zapatism as a movement thrown on its last legs, but events at the end of 19 January 12 showed how powerful was a force. A seesaw battle occurred in northern brunettes between the federal and the federalGenovevo de la 0, with the advantage changing first, then the other. La 0 came close to capturing Cuernavaca, then the feds reacted with a cruel against in the village of Santa Maria, in LA, on 26January.When this offensive terrain interrupted its goal, from La 0 against it, and for a week there were a series of terrible slugging battles, each lasting at least four hours a day.Of riots, the plumes sent by exploding artillery shells and could hear the noise and stuttering distant from the machine guns.
Madero once again tried the path of conciliation and sent his brother Gustavo south to try to fix things.The circumstances, not the feeling, were behind the change, for at that time Pascual Orozco had launched a great rebellion in the north.At first, luck favored Madero, as Ambrosio Figueroa abruptly resigned as governor of Moreos in January, finally admitting that he could not impose his guerrero henchmen on the state.As a new governor, Madero appointed Francisco Naranjo, a northerner of Nuevo Leon with a political radical reputation;He was a respected figure and friend of Diaz Soto y Gama, a left -wing intellectual who would later be a member of Zapata's 'Think Tank'.Naranjo said that on his arrival: `I found that Moreos was lacking three things - first plows, second books and third assets.And had estates, taverns and leftover bosses. '
However, Naranjo's problem was that he was really Madero Writ Small, faced by the same dilemmas and caught between the same two fires: his plans for land reform founded on the intransigence of the planters, and their plans of law and order were contestedby Zapatistas.de La 0 rejected Naranjo's radical credentials and issued a public challenge to him stating that he would explode any train entering brunettes. February 6, he resumed his attack on Cuernavaca, who almost fell to him in the monthPrevious, and then the feds increased the conflict by burning the village of Santa Maria, among those who died in the flames was the daughter of La O.This was the kind of irrational atrocity that delayed the hopes of reconciliation in brunettes for years.In the village in great strength on February 9, the federals first plunged all houses and buildings with kerosene and set fire to them. They then aggravated their vandalism, firing artillery shells against the surrounding forest, turning them into a hell as well.Night, with bright embers and a gray coating everywhere, Santa Maria looked like a second Pompeii overloaded by Vesuvius.
Desperate over this atrocity that he had not authorized, Naranjo appealed to Madero, but the president ignored the importance of his message or rejected him by sending to Morelos a tough, fanatical and hard-line former Indian combatant, General Juvêncio Robles, whose motto was that the only good rebel was the dead. Robles was so fanatical that he thought even the Morelos farmers were Zapatistas. 'All Morelos, as I understand it,' he declared, 'is a Zapatista, and there is not a single inhabitant who does not believe in the false doctrines of the bandit Emiliano Zapata.' His first action was to arrest Zapata's sister, mother-in-law and sisters-in-law and take them to Cuernavaca as hostages. Troops of his began shooting and arresting people at Robles' will or whim.
Robles studied the methods of "pacification" used by the British in the BOER War and the US Armed Forces in the Philippines - especially "resetting" residents in concentration camps. After the whole populations were taken to the fields, he sent flying columns flyingFor the field, killing everything they found, with the argument that all nonrexes should already be in the fields. Robles then burned the villages, so that the guerrillas could not go back to buy food or use the houses like Redubts.On February 15, the federal troops found the village of Nexpa occupied only by women, children and old men decrepit. In the use of these people's ululations and lamentations, they ripped the place, the signs of black smoke telling the guerrillas that they would not find refugeIn Nexpa. Other burnt villages in the same way included San Rafael, Tican, Los Hornos, Villa de Ayala, Coajomulus and Ocotepec. The men of Robles brutalized and intimidated everything they met, including discared people residents on large properties and even managers ofHacienda.
Roble's career as a heavenly alarmed people he should defend.The farmers tried to find a middle ground, persuading General Leyva to go to Cuernavaca with an offering of mediation, claiming that he had an influence on de la o, and petitioning to Robles not to burn villages that they could personally attest.The burning campaign was totally counterproductive because it created new recruits for Zapata and made the Zapatists feel that they had nothing to lose on the field and nothing to gain negotiating with Madero.In addition, they were encouraged by the news of the growing severity of Orozco's uprising in the north, which forced the president to remove the troops from breens.
In March, Zapata coordinated a major offensive. Your agents were active as distant as Oaxaca, where 3,000 nominally zapatist guerrillas were led by Jesus Salgado. Zapata and ideologically committed to his program, although not yet linked to the leader by the formal alliance,Salgado found it impossible to control his followers as Zapata did in brunettes, and the peasant revolt of Oaxaca tended to shade the bandit. However, in the heart of Zapata, everything went well.Again, there were deadly friction battles with the federal, this time around Huitzilac. While the guerrilla bands were written in the federal garrison in Tepoztlan, the chief of Zapatista Lorenzo Vasquez dei wasted the hacings of the center of breens.Launched a series of devastating attacks in the south and west of Puebla. Robles was stunned, became unbalanced and exalted by so many simultaneous attacks, and his spirits sinks even more in the news of Orozco's victory over the federal in Chihuahua on March 23, 19 12 12. In April, Robles and his men were forced to abandon the field to the Zapatist Paraos field and were arrested again in major cities. While that, Madero cut the ground under the liberals of the state, announcing that there would be no land reform in Moreos untilThe army had total state control.
Zapata's perennial problem was that he could explode trains, occupy cities and even defeat the feds in battle, but he had no strength for a knock on knock.He took Jonacatepec, the day after his men finally break the garrison resistance in Tepoztlan. In April 6th, he and the main bosses made simultaneous attacks on tlaquiltenango, tlaltizapan and jojutla, managing them, but not to cling toto them. Zapata's permanent headache was that his ammunition always ended in front of the enemy. Federal reprisals were brutal: when they returned to Jojutla, they performed fifty zapatist sympathizers.
The fight remained almost continuously throughout the month; there was a particularly bloodthirsty meeting around Huitzilac, which was destroyed by bombing. In the end of April, La 0, he closely invested Cuernavaca and set up his artillery for a bombing.They contemplated the surrender, but the expected attack never arrived; it was the old story of the scarcity of ammunition. In early May, Zapatista's offensive was unavoidable, or more correctly for ammunition. Stocks were so low that they had to reverse to theGuerrilla activity, trying to frantically replenish his story for theft, theft and black market. Zapata sent an urgent message to Orozco in Chihuahua, asking him to send ammunition on the Pacific de Guerrero coast (the Chica coast), but Orozco was struggling forCause of a US arms embargo and there was nothing plenty of.
Forced to return to guerrilla tactics, Zapata in late May sent some of his bosses in an extended northern and east of Morelos attack while he himself publicly threatened to advance to Mexico City, in fact moving to the eastern Guerrero.De la 0 moved to the state of Mexico;To his great disgust, the trains between Mexico City and Cuernavaca began to work on time again.Nothing could disguise Zapatist's failure, and in June they received four more blows: many rebels returned home to plant the harvest in their villages;Black market ammunition supplies dried when a renegade army captain, the main driver, was arrested;The Zapatista Intelligence Network in Mexico City was penetrated and broken;And in the north the Orozco rebellion began to falter.The only promising development was the marginalization of Robles, when the moderates seized power in Moreos after the success of the Naranjoleiyva faction in municipal elections.Having refused to control Robles earlier, Madero was forced to divert him from brunettes to a command in Puebla.
The heavy rains of June and July forced the campaign to stop, but on July 20 Zapata announced his presence tightly.Making the closest ticket to the capital, de la 0 attacked a train at Parres station, on the border between the state of Mexico and the Federal District.There were more than one hundred civilians and forty soldiers from the fifty -three escort were killed.While Madero summoned an emergency cabinet meeting in Mexico City, Zapata himself was close to taking Jojutla and Yautepec.Frustrated with his governor for being "mild with Zapata", the new deputies of the Cuernavaca state legislature fired him and appointed a provisional figurative governor, but it was clear to all that the new power in the country was Patricio Leyva, returned from the dead politicians.Madero recognized the new dismissal in the state by dismissing Robles from all military functions in the south.
The new military commander was a man destined to play a key role in the Mexican Revolution, General Felipe Angeles. Angeles had some sympathy for Zapata and was in a good position to pursue a policy of conciliation now that Leyva and the moderates were his civilian colleagues and co-workers, but his position was made more difficult by Zapata's uncompromising response. On 2 August, the Zapatistas attacked another train, this time in Ticuman, between Yautepec and Jojutla; this time, thirty civilians and thirty-six escort soldiers were killed. Madero urgently telegraphed to Angeles to find a solution as soon as possible, but left it open whether it would be through negotiation or military repression. Angeles opted for the olive branch. He released Zapata's parents-in-law from prison and offered amnesty, encouraging the guerrillas to return to their villages, ranches and farms.
The new direction of Angeles was a remarkable success and climbed his head.It was bragged that all he needed was of intelligence, that his predecessors had been blind idiots who could only think in terms of military occupation and repression.Huerta and Robles were furious with the insult and angry asked Angeles to go to the martial court, but Madero was pleased with the way things were working.Moreos seemed to be turning against Zapata, and he and La 0 were forced to leave the state, Zapata to attack in Puebla, from La 0 in the state of Mexico.In vain, Zapata tried to put into practice a craft strategy, trying to create a snowball effect that would take him to Mexico City;His efforts soon ended in harsh struggles around Tetecala and Jonacatepec.If moderates in the state of Morelos Legislature had continued with their reform program, they could have left Zapata and there as isolated and marginalized figures with nowhere to go;This was the period of greatest danger to the entire Zapatista movement.
Be it over the excessive confidence that the rebels were losing, or by resenting that, despite their moderation, Zapata and La 0 still remained loose, moderate Morelos deputies suddenly changed course, began to complain that the law andThe order was the problem in the state, and asked Madero hard measures.At the same time, the promised reform program loosened and then completely failed.The decisive point was December 1912, when Patricio Leyva became governor and instantly vetoed the projects on communal property.The filing of these reforms, in which the villagers bet, was a terrible shock and looked just one in a long line of government betrayals.The people of Morelos turned to Zapata: He has always been right and never faltered, never faltered.
Zapata returned in favor, his movement, leading his heart to a new, although short -lived, rebellion in Veracruz, in support of Felix Diaz, who made Madero pull the troops of brunettes.That he had learned something from General Robles, the cromwell of Morelos. This new idea was to get the hacings to pay for the costs of their campaigns; if they refused to pay, he simply burned his sugarcane fields.Year, this destination had been presented to recalcitrant owners in the hacings of Altihuayan, Chinameca, Tenango, Training, Santa Ines, San Jose and San Gabriel, causing the losses of the estimated groves in two million weights.Money started to flow.The additional advantage of the new policy was that Zapata no longer needed to risk alienating the villages, asking for backgrounds. In addition, destroying the sugarcane fields, he gained recruits, as unemployed pawns had nowhere to go, but for theZapatist army.
The planters were now in an impossible situation: if they paid Zapata his "tax", they could be accused of collaborating with the enemy and arrested for treason; if they didn't, Zapata would burn their crops. They begged and pleaded with Angeles to take decisive action. Forced out of conciliatory mode by both Leyva's new hard line and the revival of Zapatismo, Angeles began burning villages and ordering executions, though his regime was never brutal on the scale of Huerta or Robles. Their military position was increasingly precarious, to the point where no army group less than Boo strong dared venture outside the cities. By early 1913, Zapata's luck had revived spectacularly. De la O, who a few months earlier had no more than 100 men, now had 1000 and the same was true proportionally of the entire Zapatista movement. One thing was clear. Madero could defeat Zapata if, and only if, that was the only military threat he had to deal with. As the events of 1911-12 in other parts of Mexico showed, Zapata was, in some ways, the least of his worries.
Villa and Madero
After he left Madero's service, Villa went into the meat business, taking on his brothers Hipolito and Antonio as partners. freezers in the US. His estate included 200 horses, zoo cattle, 1 1 5 mules, plus fields of corn and beans; He deposited only 1,700 pesos in the bank. and 'black legend' aficionados say he participated in organized crime. There is no evidence for this. Robbery of Banco Minero. Above all, he was angry that his veterans did not receive their leave money or the land grants promised during the revolution, and he had an intemperate interview with Gonzalez about the matter. Continued pressure secured some payments. in money from Mexico City, but, as Villa wrote to remind Madero, he himself had to support the families of three of his men killed in the revolution, as the government refused to do so.
For most of 1911, however, Villa was adopted with his private life and love cases. This was the year he married Luz Corral, a woman he had met in November from jogo. She was a simple girl whoHe lived with his mother in extra circumstances in the old village of San Andres. As all families, the Corrais were asked for a "voluntary contribution" of the revolutionaries' War Chest when they raised against Diaz.Villa and explained his overwhelming poverty. Villa was nice, went to the house to see for himself and agreed that the 'tax' should be a nominal amount of coffee, corn and tobacco. While it was there, he saw light and liked what he saw; He came the next day and asked for the light to marry him. Being to be the wife of a guerrilla leader and creating life in overwhelming poverty, it was not a dispute, so she agreed.The same benign view of this development, but not daring to openly oppose Villa, suggested that Luz made him a shirt. She knew her daughter's nonexistent caliber as a seamstress and hoped that Villa stayed disillusioned when he saw the domestic incompetence of light.She barely knew her man: unlike Zapata, Villa was careless of what he wore and certainly would not have allowed a shirt to become between him and his sexual desire.
The naive Luz Corral seems at first to imagine that she would marry Villa in the same way that Josefa Espejo married Zapata in Morelos. The ceremony, in a Catholic church, may have confused her, but even so, she certainly had her doubts when Villa, asked by the priest if he wanted to confess before the ceremony, replied that it would take too long. There must be doubt as to whether Villa was ever married in any full legal sense, and the marriage to Luz Corral had no more validity than Villa's previous marriage to Petra Espinoza in Parral. Furthermore, Villa already had maybe a dozen women across Mexico to whom he had promised marriage or with whom he had gone through some kind of ceremony. Villa took the pragmatic line that relationships with women were all about satisfying carnal appetites and that if women were stupid enough to want a meaningless marriage ceremony, he would not let them down. However, Villa was aware that the law formally prohibited polygamy, so although he would 'marry' dozens of women in the presence of priests or civil servants, once the liaison was consummated, he would have his men destroy all relevant marriage records and copies. In Norse mythology, goats killed in Valhalla by warriors for their feasts were always alive again the next morning. Similarly, Villa left each honeymoon single.
Both Zapata and Villa were indeed polygamists in series. This would not have caused the shock in Mexico of the turn of the century, which does at our politically correct age, but then the entire male population of Mexico would have been considered "misogynist" by the standardsof the 21st century..villa believed in ritual dating, compliments or piropos, gallantry and chivalrous behavior. Although he kidnapped women, he never raped them, but waited for them to give their love freely; of course, due to the circumstances in whichThey found, many of Villa's women acted under coercion. The opposite of Eufemio Zapata, he was rarely casually brutal to his women.Private Villa was as volatile as in public, terrible when in anger, but tender and loving when in a good mood.
Throughout 1911, Villa watched with growing impatience while all of what he had fought in Chihuahua was thrown away.Victorious in the revolution, his men returned home in peacetime to find that nothing had changed: the farmers and oligarchs were still in control.For a year they patiently waited for Madero to fulfill their promises.Abraham Gonzalez, the new governor of Chihuahua, wanted to genuinely a real change, but always frustrated.First, he had to endure the long period of waiting for the transfer of power that so tormented Madero;He was then informed that Madero had replaced Chihuahuan Vasquez Gomez as his runner -up in Yucatan's vice -presidency by Pino Suarez - a coup for the state's pride;Finally, when he was already in the governor's chair, he was intrigued by the Creelterrazas dressing room, which still kept all his old power, and sabotaged for Madero's lack of support.
Gonzalez, a great corpulent middle -class man who looked like the embodiment of bourgeois affluation, justified that the village of confidence felt in him. He built a genuinely trans political movement in Chihuahua - the only one in Mexico - but ended up because Madero did notmanaged to support him.Gonzalez abolished the company's stores and the politicians of jefes, renovated taxes and wanted to put a law that prohibits the peonage of debt in the statute book.The remainder to the hungry middle classes - brought him directly collision with the Terrazas. They tried everything to get around Gonzalez's reformer zeal: bribe, black propaganda to prepare Americans across Rio Grande, intrigues for Orozco to rebel.Gonzalez was firm: he had the Trump card over the terraces in the form of a permanent threat of reopening the file in the Minero Bank robbery. However, what the Terrazas could not do Madero did, with a series of error interventions.
First, still involved in his project to reconcile the former porphirist elite - who would never be reconciled with Madero, no matter what he did - he ordered Gonzalez not to reopen the Banco Minero case.Madero had removed Gonzalez.com Master weapon, Gonzalez retaliated by releasing the text of the Madero letter about the case of Minero Bank to the press. The next step in Madero was stupidity, makeupism or pure selfishness. He announced thatGonzalez's services were indispensable as his interior minister and he should come to Mexico City. Although Gonzalez remain governor as `in sabbatical ', he lost the caste in Chihuahua, as the absent governors were, by an inevitable association ofIdeas, Mark's excellence by Porfiriat.
Especially after Gonzalez left for Mexico City, Villa found his position in the state increasingly uncomfortable. Every day he listened to the complaints of his veterans and sympathized: why should they go back to the status quo ante Diaz and then be hounded by the rurals simply for taking from the farms what was owed them anyway, and for the trifle of rustling cattle. The problem was that Madero had not given Villa any power, so when he defended his men he tended to get involved in noisy and potentially violent clashes with local authorities, especially in Parral, where military commander José de Luz Soto , a veteran of the French wars, hated him like poison. A crisis arose when two of Villa's men, accused of banditry, died in a firefight while resisting arrest by Soto's troops. Villa and Soto appealed to Gonzalez, who initially sided with Villa. Soto then evidently appealed to the General Staff and Huerta in the capital, as the next thing a highly threatening letter from Soto caused Gonzalez to change his mind. Villa then appealed over the head of Gonzalez straight to Madero. The president responded with an emollient but non-committal letter, so an angry Villa went public, voicing his grievances to the press. He attacked Soto, without naming him, as a corrupt old man full of hypocrisy and ambition and condemned those who protected him - an obvious mockery of Madero.
By the end of 1911, northern Mexico was a powder keg. In the summer, Sonora was once again consumed by Yaqui warfare. Fighting for an agrarian program much like Zapata's, the Yaquis rose once more and waged a brilliant guerrilla campaign. Defeated once, the Yaquis went on the warpath again when Orozco rose in Chihuahua in 1912, and by 1913 had Sonora in the grip of the most serious Indian rebellion yet. As in Morelos, Madero's initial instincts for conciliation were subverted by radical landlords and military commanders, who refused to give an inch to the Yaquis and waged a war of extermination. Durango was also highly unstable in late 1911. Another quasi-Zapatista group, inspired by Morelos and operating in a similar fashion until the seasonal dispersal of the harvest, opened up another guerrilla front and was just as difficult to root out as its southern counterparts.
However, it was the increase in Pascual Orozco in Chihuahua that lit the fuse that would eventually detonate the presidency of Madero. During months, the revolutionary veterans hoped that Orozco, widely considered a more significant figure in the state than Abraham Gonzalez, would adopt thefield against Madero. This was also in Zapata's mind when he paid tribute to `` the illustrious general Pascual Orozco 'at Ayala's plan in November 1911. Gradually, in the north, a service developed around Orozco as a ``expected 'messianic; women gave him on a guru; mountains and rivers were named after him, and it was said that there was even a commemorative spoon of Orozco sorted somewhere. However, Orozco continued with caution;He rebelled and called him to support, he called in vain.
Orozco's caution disappointed his disciples, and at first they turned to other leaders. The first rebels to raise the standard were the followers of Francisco Gomez Vasquez, the Madero man had humiliated him as his deputy mate of plate.-Presidency.The Vazquistas Initially were no more than one fleas, but there was a danger that their example could be contagious. So, in February 1912, a group of unhappy rurals, about to be gathered, shot in the air and called`Viva Zapata '.orozco was in the warning that if he did not act soon, his cloak as liberator would pass to others.Juarez.abraham Gonzalez ran north of Mexico City, with 300,000 pesos to buy the Malletents and tried to form an army to restore the order in Juarez. The northern revolt won in ferocity, but Orozco did not commit.Determined to be on the winning side, as one of his critics said: "He is to Pascual Orozco, first, last and always." Finally, he received the wave of the Terrazas: they would play his movement if he removed the `` Communist ''Gonzalez.
The questions and reasons for the Orozco uprising were confused and complex.Mexico social historians tend to adopt a broad approach, seeing the simultaneous opposition of Orozco and Zapata to Madero as the conflict of urban sectors, middle -class, educated, national, progressive, based on universal suffrage and rational legal authority, ifHe opposed rural groups, commoners, illiterate, parish, nostalgic and retrograde based on traditional and charismatic authority.Even more tempting is to see the movements of Zapata and Orozco as the inevitable “second stage” of all true revolutions, when the bourgeois winners of the first stage (the overthrow of the Old Regime) confront the lower classes whose aspirations they involuntarily awakened.Such a clear scheme has some validity in Zapata's case, but it is totally inappropriate as an explanation of Orozco's uprising.
The northern uprising of March 1912 was, above all, the cynical maneuver of different personalities and power groups for control of Chihuahua. At the simplest level, it was a three-way struggle between conservatives (such as the Terrazas) representing the oligarchy and the old Diaz system, González and Madero representing the middle classes and the dispossessed looking down on Orozco. In order to defeat Madero and Gonzalez, the Terrazas first had to make common cause with Orozco; clearly their intention was to defeat Madero first and then attack Orozco. The oligarchs, in short, were playing the old game of divide and rule: use the wretches of the land of Orozco against the huddled masses of Madero and, through Orozco, control the entire revolt from behind the scenes. The Terrazas and their ilk found themselves in a 'no lose' situation: whoever won, hundreds of rebellious peasants would have been killed and they would have emerged as the tertius gaudens.
Orozco's trans-class alliance from the left and right, with its army of cowboys, small farmers, residents, Indians, border men and bank bandits by the oligarchy represented the attempted terraces of using a 'strong man' to do whatThey couldn't do it, but what were the real reasons for Orozco? Both he and Vasquez Gomez denounced Madero for not implementing San Luis's plan, but this was a mere ideological sauce. Some say money was the main reason for Orozco,that he expected a reward from Madero of 250,000 pesos and a staff, and had been approached with 10th, oo0 pesos and the nugatory role of the Military Commander in Chihuahua. Ascertainly, Orozco's propaganda bodies repeatedly claimed that the Maderos were financiallyCorrupt, drawing special attention to the 375,000 weight loans from the Franco-Spanish consortium that Gustavo Madero resigned from a 'emergency' fund, since his brother was in the presidential palace. Orozco, unlike Villa, was interested in cashand the Terrazas were the right people for a man of this man to deal with.
Orozco ended up, or was he manipulating the oligarchy? It is true that he said to his supporters in circumstances to lie a finger in the territory or ownership of Terrazas, but then he could barely bite the hand that feeded him. The real answer is that Orozco isHe never exhausted, for the simple reason he never bought it.He has always been an ambitious political adventurer, using any weapons and social classes that came to hand. During the siege of Ciudad Juarez, he had meetings behind Thecenes with Diaz agents, and it is likely that he would have supposed to anyWhether the devil is helped to its definitive ambition: occupying the presidential chair. As a final turnaround, there are those who keep revolutionary leaders among the orozquisters had no illusions about Orozco and were in turn using it.
When Orozco finally appeared in open rebellion, Gonzalez faced a dilemma. He badly needed Pancho Villa's help, but if he made him his strong right-hand man, Villa might defect to Orozco, his former boss. Villa no command would be an insult and could drive him into Orozco's arms. men entered the mountains of western Chihuahua. Soon their numbers grew to 50o and, because of insisting on tight discipline, they were very popular wherever they went; cry that would soon echo around Mexico: Viva Villa!
Villa's support to Gonzalez and Madero intrigued some historians, who see their interests aligning him more naturally with Orozco.Alan Knight talks about a "naive personalist ethics" and speaks of "Vendetta Orozco-villa, a violent subplot in the northern revolution drama."It is true that Villa never liked Orozco and resented his personality worship;In addition, an alliance with him was out of the question now that Creel and the Terraza supported him.There was also the pragmatic consideration that if it remained neutral, it would probably be hated and despised on both sides and a universal target.But above all, despite his doubts about his political programs, Villa was still psychologically enslaved by Gonzalez and Madero because of the comprehensive way they treated him in 1910.
Gonzalez ordered Villa to seize the city of Chihuahua, but Orozco was too fast for him and arrived there first. Villa withdrew to the Valle of Zaragoza and was left out until the end of March. In this phase, Orozco looked unbeatable. He had oneArmy bigger than Zapata in Morelos, had financial support from the oligarchy and was well armed and equipped, able to import weapons and materials from the entire US border. Its weakness - and it was to prove fatal - it was that he didn't like mass supportthat the Zapatists enjoyed. However, in these early weeks Orozco was euphoric and confident, and there were already wild conversations of a march in Mexico City.
Another blow to Madero was the US saber rattling. Taft, in effect, now did to Madero what he had done to Diaz earlier, demoralizing the non-commitments in Mexico by ordering another massive mobilization on the Mexican border; this time he sent no fewer than 34,000 men to the Rio Grande.
At first, Orozco was as good as it boasted. A federal army of 6,000 men advanced north from Torreon under the command of Madero's Secretary of Defense, José González Salas. On the afternoon of March 23, in Rellano - the southern tip of the desolate Bolson de Mapimi desert region, formerly famous as a stronghold for Apache invaders - the Federals were surprised by the Orozquistas. Emilio Campa, a former Maderista who joined Orozco, introduced the second great military innovation of the Revolution (the dynamite bomb was the first), by pioneering the use of the 'loco loco' or mkquina loca. Packing a locomotive with dynamite, he launched it like a missile straight at the Federal vanguard; he killed sixty men at once and caused chaos, confusion and finally panic. The Orozquistas, fighting under their notorious red flag, which gave them their usual nickname, the Colorados, then closed in for the kill. In the rout that followed there were many ugly scenes. A federal. battalion mutinied and killed its two officers; other mutineers killed the chief of staff. González Salas, seeing the ruin of all his hopes, committed suicide. On paper, the defeat wasn't too bad - total Federal casualties were around 300 - but the devastating effect on morale made many think Madero was doomed.
Orozco now controlled all Chihuahua except the city of Parral, to which Villa fled after the disaster in Rellano. Orozco immediately established his own government in Chihuahua and issued titles worth 1.2 million to fund the campaign.He suppressed the newspapers of a stringent and issued his own scandal leaves, which shed contested Madero at all levels, from his short stature to his urban ways and the simple fact that he lived in a city. Orozco shared Zapata's vision ofthat the field was the repository of virtue and the city of addiction. He even allowed the Terrazas to sell the favorite oligarchic line, which assumed the Catholic idea that spiritualism involved contact with the forces of darkness; the oligarchic brightness about this was thatA spiritualist who proposes the agrarian reform 'must be in contact with the devil.
On March 25, Orozco promulgated his manifesto, which asked for the resignation of Madero and Pino Suarez. More radical aspects of the plan, which attracted a Zapata endorsement in the South, were the request for higher wages for workers, restrictions on child labor, the nationalization of all railroads, the abolition of the company's stores and the demand for land reform. Some days later, Orozco has greatly stated that no opposition to him remained in Chihuahua 'except Villa de Francisco, wherely me congratulates'.Sey he took parral, he intended to march in Mexico City. An obstacle remained: the US arms embargo approved for the congress on March 13. Although the Hears press exhorted President Taft to support the strong man who couldFilling the void left by diaz, Taft had no choice but to cut all arms supplies except for the government legally made up of Madero; if he had not done it, Madero would have been justified in relation to him as a hostile act.The Orozco movement later demonstrated signs of anti-Americanism; Orozco himself had no intrinsic anti-gringo feelings, but always became unpleasant when frustrated.
At Parral, Villa Soto's old enemy left for Orozco, but loyalties in the garrison were divided, and not everyone felt like heeding the dictates of the military commander. When fierce fighting broke out among the soldiers, Villa, who was hovering nearby, saw his opportunity, entered the city with only sixty men and tipped the balance against Soto. Contrary to expectations, Villa did not execute Soto, but sent him to Madero in Mexico City under armed guard. impressing foreign businessmen and residents with the iron discipline he exercised over his men. He confiscated all weapons and ammunition and forced the wealthiest citizens to borrow 150,000 pesos from him. their long residency in the city, which they were, holding them captive until they paid, but giving receipts for everything except the Banco Minero, whose funds he considered the Terrazas to have been stolen anyhow.
When Orozco's 2,500 army advanced on Parral, Villa had a difficult choice to make: he should remain and fight much superior forces or withdraw and return to the guerrilla war.He decided to fight.The first confrontation occurred on April 2, when a thousand orozquisters with a cannon and two machine guns tried to settle in the out -of -parral hills, where they could subdue the city.However, as they pulled the cannon hits up, Villa revealed his first secret weapon in the form of American mercenary Tom Fountain, a right shot in charge of a machine gun.Fountain's shot was so accurate that he hit all the mules and men who dragged the cannon.Energy, the orozquisters fled hill down, abandoning the cannon;This defeat shook the morals of the rest of the troops and, after intense fighting on the periphery, withdrew around 6 pm.How the darkness came.
Villa continued his stubborn resistance for three days with only 300 men. In the afternoon of April 4, strongly less, Villa couldn't stand it anymore, so he ordered a retreat under the night's roof. A remarkable number of Vilists managed to escape,Although surrounded by 2,500 of the enemy, and his order and discipline contrasts sharply with what was to come. When the orozquisters came in parral after dusk, they surrendered to a looting orgy.Crazy soldiers invaded the beverage stores and were drunk. Then they began to fire the other stores, killing all who resisted, entering houses at ease, taken the occupants, stealing jewelry and other objects.Banco Minero, drunk soldier terrified the middle -class families running through their homes with the safety capturing their rifles. When the troops finally retired, satiating with drink and estate, a second wave of piles overloaded the city when the crowd ofCity entered the riot, plundering and raping. Drunken pillagers launched dynamite bombs on all doors that would not give in to an inexpensive "open seside" command.
Orozco admitted that he had lost control of his troops on the night of April 4, and the news of Parral's sack had done untold damage to his cause. slaughterhouse manager and his brother for being vile. Angered that Parral was wholeheartedly behind Villa, Orozco was determined to teach him a lesson, but he went too far to order the execution of Tom Fountain, the American soldier of Fortune, who couldn't get away from Villa. Hidden in a pharmacy for three days and, starving when the owner found him there, Fountain might have hoped his US citizenship would have given Orozco pause. shot and executed on the spot without trial.
Villa's valiant action at Parral had delayed Orozco for three vital days and allowed Madero to reinforce Torreon. The president sent Villa a letter of congratulations, but again showed a shaky understanding of his psychology, offering him money. Villa would always be loyal to him, Madero gave him a colonel position but insisted that he and his men would have to serve under the regular commander of the army. Iron Man', Victoriano Huerta. Villa's men begged him not to accept Madero's offer, but Villa still hadn't measured up to Huerta, the monster he agreed to serve. Huerta seemed to loathe and despise all other beings. humans, especially those who were not members of the military or the oligarchy. He particularly hated Abraham Gonzalez for being middle class and, like Villa, this semi-literate thug, as Huerta saw him, needed to be knocked down a peg or two.
Villa was now closely with the most repulsive figure in the entire Mexican revolution. Cutting Sixty, in the uncertain date of birth (perhaps even in 1845), Huerta was the son of a mixed peasant and an Indian father of Huichol de Nayarit (some said that thatThis was the track of his mix of stoicism and cruelty). He entered the army at the age of fourteen, became the protected of General Donato Guerra and, under his sponsorship, formed at the Military Academy.He campaigned throughout Mexico: in Tepic in 1879; Guerrero in 1893 (where he put a rebellion under Canumo Neri); in sound against Yaquis in 19oo; again in Guerrero 19th; and finally on Yucatan, where he finally finished rebellionOf the Mayans in the War of Caste. Acting in the use of strength to solve all problems, Huerta was a cruel and bloodthirsty authoritarian who sought gangs, deportations, complaints and summary executions. A Bernardo Reyes longtime defender,He urged his patron to try a blow to blow in 1904. In 1907, Huerta looked like a stuck, took a long license to do civil engineering work in Monterrey and, in 1909, was in an army pension.complemented by the teaching of the middle period.
It was Diaz, an authoritarian companion, who brought him back from obscurity in April 1911, asking him to pacify Guerrero, and it was Huerta who accompanied Diaz to Veracruz after the dictator resigned.De la Barra gave him the task against Zapata that made his synonym for savagery in Morelos, and Huerta never forgiven Madero for firing him from this command.However, Huerta was always lucky.Five months later, one of his cronies, Garcia Pena, became a war minister and persuaded a reluctant Madero to give him command against Orozco.Stilling, bullet head, and short -sighted, Huerta was distinct with his hair cutting and sunglasses.Almost never seen without a scowl on his face, Huerta was one of those people who seem to be in an almost apophytic state of exasperation.As a drinker, he was legendary for his brandy consumption;One WAG said his only friends were two Europeans called Martell and Hennessy.Mrs. Rosa King, who met him in Cuernavaca, told an incident when Huerta should lead her troops against Zapata, but instead spent all day in a bar while her men shake outside under the torrential rain.Villa confirmed that Huerta would start drinking at seven in the morning and continue throughout the morning, afternoon and night, so she was never totally sober.
It would not take a great vision to predict that the meeting of Villa and Huerta was a personality confrontation waiting to happen. The martinet against the man of Caprices, the drunk against the Teetotaler, the snob against the humanist, the calculation machine fed up against theDynamo Superimmocial, the book dish against the inspiring and improvised leader: Such a collision could have only one final. It did not help that Villa revered Madero while Huerta hated him. The relationship had a bad start when a tired and dusty village reported to headquartersFrom huerta.huerta and his officers, all of full dress uniforms, they looked at the beginner and down through the brush and noses up. Villa later remembered: `` These men looked at me from top to bottom asIf I were a lost mexrel with a bad smell. '
After establishing his thirst in Torreon, Huerta planned a slow friction campaign. As the morale was low and his troops decimated by Typhus, he refused to be rushed and reorganized his army at ease, elaborating the logistics of the campaign near in one wayHeavy and mathematics. Although he was promised a free hand, he was more annoyed by a constant fuse of anxious telegrams from Madero - who had been very shaken by the defeat in Rellano and even imposed the press censorship in his panic - and byHuerta's hatred of his brothers, and the contempt for Madero was hardly a secret: when a timber sent him a shipment of Madero Lapela buttons, Huerta threw them into a trash.
However, as Zapata and Villa admitted, the man had some military talent. The dispositions were intelligent, dug around Torreon - which Orozco would have to take to advance in Mexico City - he left the enemy only three options, sinceSierra Madre barred the west -scale movement to the west: improvisation as he stayed in Chihuahua.; An east gear for Coahuila; or a frontal attack to Torreon.orozco, seeing the danger, followed Coahuila's option, but the poor did not meetWith it and the miners and the urban middle classes, fearing radical policies and withdrawal practices of the dreaded colorados, declared by Madero. Orozco defeated the so -called Military Star on the rise of Coahuila, Pablo Gonzalez - which would eventually gain the unwanted reputation of "The general who has never won a victory " - on several occasions, but could never master the state.
Beginning to run low on ammunition and badly needing another victory to maintain revolutionary momentum and prevent desertions, Orozco was finally tempted south. On May 12, at Conejos, he clashed with Huerta and became very agitated. retreated, tearing up the railroad tracks as they went to Huerta's advance, but on May 22 Huerta overhauled them near the site of Orozco's great victory two months earlier. Huerta;Orozco fled the scene, leaving behind 6oo casualties (including the dead menagerie) and a large number of horses and guns. Pursued by Huerta and plagued by desertions, Orozco turned in the distance for one last ditch into Bachimba Canyon, forty kilometers from the city of Chihuahua, and desperately tried a variation on the Mkquina Loca trick that had won him over at the first battle of Rellano. He drew his army to invite Huerta to attack and, seven miles south of his position, extracted the line with 100 pounds of dynamite, hoping to annihilate the Federals as they steamed north in troop trains. However, the explosion was a failure, destroying only one coal cart, and the landed Federals soon routed the main force from Colorado.
Huerta entered the city of Chihuahua on July 8, restored Abraham Gonzalez and recaptured Ciudad Juarez in mid -August.Leaving his subordinates to clean, he returned to Mexico City to welcome a hero.Madero, furious because Huerta did not give or could not explain a hole in the campaign accounts, was forced to promote him to division general, when in fact he should have accused him of embezzlement.
The Orozco movement had not yet ended;Although Orozco himself fled the border to the United States, he still had hope to direct a viable guerrilla movement, and to this end he ordered his men to make the long march to sound.Three thousand colorados faced the passages in the mountains of Sierra Madre and landed sound, just to find that they were no more welcome there than in Coahuila.After a few unpleasant skirmishes with the local peasantry, the orozquisters gave up and left the state.In the fall of 1912, they were expelled from everywhere, but not before a young cavalry commander called Alvaro Obergon to leave his mark against them.
The Orozquistas dispersed into guerrilla bands, filled with bitterness, spreading stories that their leader was holding orgies in his private train while his men were dying in battle and skipped 500,000 pesos onto a bank in El Paso. having swept the hero into the presidential palace acquired in Acrimonia, but for a time it had been touched and gone, and Mexico City and Madero himself trembled. Villa, who played such an important role in thwarting Orozco, learned many lessons from this campaign that would prove invaluable the following year, but the true meaning of Orozco's rise was the way it put Madero in Thrall in the Army. Faced with the threat in the north, the president had to secure a loan of 20 million pesos and double the Military pay. Formerly a stern critic of gangs in the press, Madero was bound to Conive, with the use of Huerta.
In general, the result of Orozco's rebellion was what was called "the militarization of politics and the politicization of the army." Once once, there are those who detect the spirit of Machiavelli abroad. Huerta's fiercest critics say they say theyEven before defeating Orozco, he was dreaming of expelling Madero and becoming the new Diaz, and that the failure to wage war against the defeated orrozquisters was because Huerta thought they could be useful pieces to bring the advice later.Some anti-huerta commentators even claim that he was already secretly in communication with the exiled Orozco for this purpose.
That would make sense of a sensational event that occurred in the middle of the campaign against Huerta. The predictable non-section of minds between Huerta and Villa soon turned into something much more serious. Huerta's officers laughing at his 'Honorary General' title behind his back and deeply resented it. So Villa's position as a charismatic chief responsible for his people clashed with Huerta's insistence that everyone in his camp, even the In May, Villa's favorite lieutenant, Tomas Urbina, raided the Anglo-American company of Tlahualilo and demanded money with threats. The US ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson, who had a With his irrational hatred for Madero, he made a vigorous protest to Huerta, who promised to execute Urbina. Upon hearing the threat, Villa and all the irregular commanders said that they would withdraw from the campaign if Urbina was shot. Villa was intense, and he vowed to get revenge once Orozco was beaten up.
Smaller conflicts between the two men on horses, with Villa being insubordinate to the eyes of Huerta, led to unacceptable tension. Since Orozco was beaten in Rellano, Villa sent a cable to Huerta on June 3, announcing that his ownForça, which now appointed the division del Norte, would no longer be under the orders of Huerta, with immediate effect. Villa was within his rights: according to the agreement he signed in 1910-I, the irregular needed only as a campaign while there wasA battle perspective, and here was the completely defeated Orozco. Huerta, however, considered the cable an express act of desertion and sent Colonel Guillermo Rubio Navarrete to exterminate the villains.. When he appeared in the vilists by surprise and found Villa and his men sleeping, he surrounded the camp with troops and returned to Huerta to confirm the orders.
The next morning, finding his compound surrounded by the feds, Villa began to have a place in what was underway and decided to make insurance by sending a cable to Madero.Infortunately, to send the telegram, he had to go to the Army headquarters, whereHe was arrested; Huerta then ordered him to perform as a deserter, without the martial court. Ruby Navarrete performed his second action that saves lives alerting Emilio and Raid Madero for what was happening.Suspension of execution until all the matter could be investigated. While that, Villa was taken to the backyard, where the shooting squad was ready. The platoon sergeant in charge of the details made a cross on the wall with a pit and asked Villa tostaying at her.
At this point, Villa broke, cried unfortunate and begged for his life. The fact is indisputable, but the reasons are not.Raul Madero had been crazy in Mexico City, trying to stop until the answer arrived.Villa was enraged that he was seen kneeling and sticking, and then rationalized his guilt and shame for his own satisfaction: `I could not continue for the tears that suffocated me. In the time, I barely knew if I was crying from mortification or fear, as I saidmy enemies. I leave for the world to evaluate if my tears in these supreme moments were due to cowardice or desperation to see that I would be killed without why. The cynics will draw the obvious conclusion, but in the case of Villa, tears of frustration do notThey are implausible, given their psychology - frustration for not receiving the reasons and having fallen so stupidly in the Huerta trap.
For the third time, Rubio Navarrete intervened to save Villa's life. He interrupted the firing squad when he was in the very act of presenting weapons and took Villa back to headquarters. raged at Rubio Navarette and threatened him with execution as well. The colonel calmly replied that he had never seen any signs of hostility or armed resistance from the villa as one would expect from a deserter. had in his pocket a corporal from Madero, forbidding the execution, which he pretended to have arrived too late. He therefore sent Villa to Mexico City, incorporated Villista's units into his army, and wrote Madero a long screen auto -justification, accusing the villa of theft and rebellion. Huerta's letter was a Farrago of lies: he claimed to have "high regard" for Villa and alleged that Villa offered him armed resistance.
All this verbal foam was an elaborate charade, as Huerta had already made plans to dispose of Villa under the old Ley Escape Dodge. Huerta sent orders to Torreon's garrison commander, Justinian Gomez, to intercept the escort of Villa and execute it..Gomez, uncertain from his land, consulted his senior officer, General Geronimo Trevino, who undoubtedly received a copy of the original Cape from Madero, contradicting the order of Huerta.From the garrison in San Luis Potosi, he also did not accept responsibility, contacted Mexico City and was instructed to send Villa to the capital, alive and unharmed.
Once in Mexico City, Villa was imprisoned in the Federal District Penitentiary, where he began a seven -month fight for freedom. The principle, he set his hopes in the restoration of Abraham Gonzalez, and Gonzalez cannot be criticized by the strenuous efforts he madeIn the name of Villa. In his representations for Madero, Gonzalez reiterated four points: Villa remained faithful at a crucial stage in the rebellion, even after Orozco offered him great sums to turn his coat; his three -day defense of Parral had given Huerta to HuertaThe vital respiratory space to form around Torreon; any confiscation village held in Parral was totally in accordance with revolutionary practice; anyway, Orozco destroyed the four Villa's butcher stores and arrested Villa's two brothers.However, Madero remained deaf for both Gonzalez's appeals and Villa's direct appeals. He refused to intervene, grant Villa a audience or respond to his letters, except briefly and coldly.For all petitioners who would not intervene on a matter where the military had jurisdiction.
Madero's attitude is intriguing. He was ungrateful, since Villa's loyalty was the hinge in which the successful result (to Madero) of the Orozco rebellion articulated. Its harsh attitude towards the villa is surprisingly with mistaken mercy.that he showed General Navarro in Ciudad Juarez the previous year, which implied challenging the letter of the law. A obvious conclusion would be that he didn't like Villa, because he found him a loose cannon without principles, or because he still housed a grudge overThe arms play incident in Ciudad Juarez. A more likely explanation, however, was that he was now so deeply slave to the military that he was very risky to nullify Huerta again. In addition, he was under huge pressure from Henry Lane Wilson,The US Crazy Ambassador. Wilson's insane hatred extended and was exceeded by his hatred for Villa. He tried to intimidate Madero in the execution of Villa and was furious that his victim escaped with his life. When the state department scoldedWilson for seeking private revenge on Villa and the Tlahualilo case, not acting in conjunction with the British (who had the part of the company's lion), Wilson had the impudence of saying that he did not act in the glove with his colleague because the British ambassadorIt was too lazy.
As Villa languished in prison, he became increasingly despondent. The news he heard from Chihuahua seemed preposterous and he had to remember to be reminded that he was on the winning side and Orozco the defeat. Huerta, with the help of his reactionary uncle de Madero, Rafael Hernandez, was pushing to have Abraham Gonzalez removed in favor of a Terrazas scenario. After so many unsatisfactory ad hoc alliances with unreliable revolutionaries like Orozco, the Creel-Terrazas clique finally found its solid rock in Huerta Madero drew the line to expel the Gonzalez faithful, but he ignored his authority by colluding with Huerta's outrageous actions, including granting an amnesty to the Orozquistas so generous that their fortunes were restored far and wide. The height of absurdity was reached when Madero Annestied Luis Terrazas, the Orozco paymaster, who had relocated to the US during the actual fighting. The army, under Huerta's direction, later turned the screws on Gonzalez, persecuting his followers and making common cause with yesterday's enemies. .
Soon it became clear to Villa that Huerta would never allow him to go freely, to be the possible focus for another increase in Chihuahua. Deed of political solutions for his situation, Villa tried a double track strategy: focusing on building a powerful defenseLegal to Army accusations, while making increasingly exaggerated proposals to Madero. He asked to be released from military jurisdiction; Madero refused. He asked to be sent to exile in Spain; once again Madero refused. Finally, he offered himselfTo combat Zapata in Moreos; this time, Madero did not find the offer worthy of an answer. Villa and Zapata's confrontation on the battlefield remains one of those powerful powerful powerful, but the suggestion was not intrinsically absurd: after all, Zapata said publicly publiclyits support for the increase in Orozco.
In his legal battle with the army, Villa had the help of some good lawyers, provided by the friendly Gustavo Madero.Logo it was clear that the army had nothing conclusive to fix it, but would seek to exhaust the possibilities inherent in an accusation beforemoving to another, dragging out the procedures endlessly and keeping the Villa in prison. The desertion inquiry line proved to be useless to military lawyers, and his cause was not helped by the army bureaucracy.With long questionnaires, hoping to find `` gun tuxedo ', which would condemn Villa, but Huerta was very arrogant, lazy or drunk to answer. It is possible that he knew how well how the case was against the villa,And he feared that a public exhibition would harm his own credibility; Meanwhile, the position of the Limbo de Villa adapted very well to him. Probably, he was already planning the fall of Madero and thought he could take care of the monkey after discarding the grinderorgans.
The main weakness of Huerta's initial accusation was his statement that the rules of engagement in 1912 were different from those in 1911, as it was only in terms of the 'new' rules that the villa could have desert. However, there he faced the difficulty therethat the new rules had not been promulgated, and is one of the oldest legal principles that no law can command obedience if it has not been promulgated.Huerta were obvious nonsense, prosecution lawyers shifted their attention to the most promising robbery area, focusing on the examination of entrepreneurs in Parral. Stopping the barrel, they soon had the bank manager of Banco Minero and all who were beatenOr threatened during villalist occupation, stumbling in Mexico City to make their testimonials. When the defense made a choir of these fragile claims, the accusation in despair began to drag through provincial files to find some evidence that Villa was sought by othersCrimes, but once again there was empty hands.
Villa's lawyers also found a defense that the prosecution knew it could not shake. Backing his case in the fact that Villa was under the orders of the governor of Chihuahua when he occupied parral, not from Huerta or the Army, the defense was able toShowing that the army had no jurisdiction. If Huerta would rise from the village to the `` Honorary '' employee, the army could be on firmer, but once again Hurto was very lazy or drunk. Villa's lawyers ran ringsaround the army, innocently asking Villa's salary as a general. War department refused, with the argument that they had no record of Francisco Villa as a general. The defense attacked: if Villa were not a general, but only a colonelFrom the militia of the state of Chihuahua, by definition, the army had no jurisdiction.
As the army could not enforce any of his accusations and became increasingly clear that Villa was detained for purely political reasons, the director of the Federal Penitentiary gradually loosened the conditions of his arrest.Originally kept in the lonely, Villa gained the right to be with other prisoners, where his reputation and money earned him friends.He established a particular relationship with Juan Banderas, the revolutionary leader of Sinaloa and two Zapatist intellectuals, Giraldo Magana and Abraham Martinez, former secretary and chief of staff of Zapata.The two Zapatists certainly trained Villa through the understanding of Ayala's plan.It is also alleged that Martinez taught Villa to read and write, but it may hardly be so, as Villa has written to Madero, though with primitive spelling, since the beginning of his captivity.We can believe, however, that Magana and Martinez have improved their literacy skills, as we learned that Villa read a story of Mexico, Don Quixote and the three musketeers.
In early October 1912, Villa's conditions improved to the point that he is allowed to have a typewriter in his cell and even make 'marital visits';This time, his object of affection was a girl named Rosita Palacios, which Villa maliciously describes as "a great comfort in those lonely days."Meanwhile, he and Magana started working to plan a prison escape.Villa bribed the guards to get information about the prison layout, the shift system and the number of jailers on duty at any time, and shaped and perfected a duplicate key taking a wax impression of the original.However, the escape bid was a fiasco.Villa and Magana found their supposed exit route blocked by guards who should not be there, according to the information that Villa paid, and the two men withdrew disconsolates for their cells.Magana lost all confidence in Villa and told him that it would be better if he took his next break alone.
Zapatistas enjoy the unusual luxury of a meal at the Sanborn's restaurant, Mexico City, December 1914
The meeting at the Presidential Palace in Mexico City in December 1914. On both occasions, Zapata looks suspicious of the camera, as if she contains a hidden weapon
American forces occupying Veracruz, 1914
Dramatic Irony: Villa with his two most relentless enemies, Alvaro Obergon (left) and General John `Blackjack 'Pershing (right), at happier times before the storm
villa in a good mood
Zapata also of Happy Humor (for him)
Felix Diaz: A stone in the shoe of all Mexico leaders for an entire decade
Orozco, just before death in the hands of Texas Rangers
`The Barbed One': Venustiano Carranza, President, Autocrat and Franco de Controle
In the battle of Celaya, the Obregon of an arm was king
Women of the Revolution: Ready to action
Zapata's last authentic image
Villa putting a brave face in adversity
At that time, Villa had heard that Felix Diaz, the dictator's nephew, had launched an unsuccessful rebellion and that Madero had fired Huerta. In October 24, he wrote Madero to congratulate him for these two events and request a transfer to military arrestIn Santiago Tlatelolco, where Bernardo Reyes and other important political prisoners were presented. This time, Madero responded to Villa in a more friendly way and agreed with the transfer. Three factors seemed to have weighed with Madero.Group of conservative lawyers, acting mysteriously by Villa. In reality, these were agents of Felix Diaz, who expected Villa from the spring of Tlatelolco prison less aware of security, so that he could lead a deviation from Madero in Chihuahua.of motivation, but always tended to sit and become aware when he pressed for right -wing representatives.
Anyway, until the end of October Madero felt more confident than at any time in his presidency. He defeated Orozco, beat Felix Diaz and Huerta Huerta.Villa no longer looked like a much consequence figure and Madero had no more to fearAlienate the army if he released him. In addition to this, he was influenced by the many pro-villa interventions of his brother Gustavo, who still feared Huerta and thought that Villa was valuable as a counterweight.Days either sent his secretary. In the late October, Madero could even be willing to free Villa as a final contempt for Huerta, if his other brother Raul warned him that the Terrazas would have a dark view of it and could again raise Chihuahua in revolt.
In Tlatelolco, Villa was much criticized by imprisoned felicistas (supporters of Felix Diaz) and by the followers of Bernardo Reyes, but he was now determined to escape and found a willing accomplice in Carlos Juaregui, a magistrate's clerk in the prison administration. A low-paid, sex-hungry, venal, lower-middle-class nonentity, Juaregui was soon arrested by Villa for the generous gifts of cash and clothes - suits, hats, shoes, ties - he received from him. Juaregui fell under Villa's spell so much that he proved to be an enthusiastic, reliable and even resourceful assistant. When Juaregui outlined a detailed escape plan, the planning seemed so meticulous that Villa at first suspected that he was being set up for a betrayal by the leyfuga police. Juaregui's scheme was to cut through the bars of Villa's cell while a band played mariachi music in the yard below, muffling the sound.
On Christmas Day 1912, wearing the town suit, hat, sunglasses and two pistols with which Juaregui had supplied it, Villa simply came out of prison, walking the courtyard with her assistant as if two lawyers in the city, newly-Visitus customers and absorbed in discussing the details of a case. Villa partially hid his face with a cravat, but there was no need, because the guards were all drunk or wrapped in Christmas revelry. They then found the escape car exactly whereJuaregui had said he would be and left - a little to Villa's disgust, because he wanted to make the escape consecrated for the romantic time on horseback. Beads, they drove to the city of Toluca in the next state, and took a train to PortoFrom the Pacific of Manzanillo, where they took Mazatlan. At this point, tone and crying were created throughout Mexico. In the ship to Mazatlan Villa came close to being recognized by a former Master of Payments in the Dial Norte, whichHe knew. Alamado with this narrow escape, Villa stayed in his cabin, briefly raised the chase and left in a boat specially chartered before customs employees boarded the ship in Mazatlan.Paso in Texas, traveling through Hermosillo and Nogales.
Greeding as a hero for the American press, Villa considered his options. Improve now very bitter about Madero, he wrote a letter asking him to receive the position of military commander in Chihuahua. When he received no response, Villa wrote a second letter moreRigid, on January 20, 1913, warning that his patience was running out. He also asked Abraham Gonzalez to come and discuss his future with him.Villa.Gonzalez's continuous personal commitment advised Madero to Amnesty Villa and give him an important post in Chihuahua, pointing out that Villa could otherwise play his lot with political law.Permanent between Villa and Madero, some asking Villa to increase the pattern of revolt, while others asked Madero to publicly despise Villa.
Gonzalez, always a staunch ally of Villa, offered him his old post as honorary general on full pay, but Villa insisted on obtaining Madero's official release first. Once again, Gonzalez warned Madero of the danger that a non-amnestied Villa could raise an insurrection in the north. Madero, influenced by this and by Villa's letter of January 20, finally saw the light, granted Villa an amnesty and, to show his good faith, also freed Tomas Urbina, in a way the first cause of all the problems between Villa and Huerta. The Northern Centaur was about to move south of the border when dramatic news arrived that Madero and Gonzalez had been murdered. Villa, it seemed, had gotten out of prison just in time—six more weeks and he would surely have been executed, for Madero's murderer, it turned out, was the Mexican monster himself, Victoriano Huerta.
Madero's law of Madero, balancing between the right (in the form of Reyes, Huerta and Felix Diaz) and on the left (Zapata, Orozco, Banderas, Contreras, Navarro), finally collapsed in the fall of 1912.Way, it has never been part of an act of equilibrium, since he always favored the left. Madero did not raise a finger in favor of agrarian and shameless reform, with the brutal suppression of rural revolts by the army. He surrendered to the manual station on atrocitiesWhen the peasants were being placed bloody in their place, but without land reform, the repression had to be used. There was no intermediate way and, when expressing aversion by the devastating and burning of the villages, Madero was being the typical liberal - wishing the purposes withoutWishing the means. Dado that Madero offered nothing to the villages, Indians and pedestrians, of what other form, besides the bullet and the bayonet, did he think the insurrections in the field could be suppressed?
On the other hand, Madero let the right have his head. Most of the ancient Poifi'RISTAs kept their places and privileges, and Madero seemed not indecent to make the most elementary administrative changes. He turned his eyes to all old abuse of the years..Coning into private armies, vigilantes and personal retainers of porphyirist chiefs simply meant that the proportion of the population in arms increased constantly. Militarization would have been increased by the infinity of rebels, revolutionaries, city gangs, city crowds and particular armies, eventhat the Army Meeting Roll had not increased from 20,000 in Itigo to a surprising 70,000 in 1912. The rise of the army meant that Madderotinha continuously walks to the armed forces, postponing their pomp and illusions of greatness and supporting the brutal whims of men asHuerta. Any revolutionary political leader or even halfway would have tried to build revolutionary forces as a counterweight to the army, but Madero wondered that he did not need to take precautions, because it was the will of personified people.While people applaud me 'was just one of their many fat statements.
A true politician would have realized that in fact the people were not with him.In June 1912, the elections for the 26th National Congress gave the party of Madero a small majority in the House of Representatives, but not in the Senate.Even though this result would not have happened if Madero had not deprived the Catholic PCN party chairs for blatant fraud.Madero was already in the serious electoral threat of Catholics, although Catholicism itself - divided between a "new" Reforming Church based on the Papal Rerum Novarum (and somewhat more progressive than tendering) and an "old" church of conservatism ignorant -It was by no means a monolithic force.Fraud and low attendance rates - less than 1% outside Mexico City - they seemed to suggest that the Madero program of "free and reelection elections" had no meaning or perceived as such.
That the elections were much freer than the days of Diaz, and that in areas untouched by revolutionary violence, they were reasonably fair, they do not cut ice with a cynical and introduced electorate. They saw enough clearly, even though Madero not,That abstract political ideology and political concepts did not make sense in Mexico; what matters were bread and butterfly of the economy, especially land reform. 'Findiness' can mean something to an educated lawyer in Mexico City, but for the peasantThe only significant freedom was the economy that he had been deprived by the hacendated, with the impression of Madero. The problem about "without reelection" as a slogan was that he was taken as a panacea for a number of problems, economic and social, whileMadero meant that, as a technical issue to do with presidential succession. In 1912, the primary feeling between the masses was that if the elections changed something, the elite would abolish them.
Madero still had his supporters, but they were closely between the middle class and the urban working class. Theoretical revolutionaries looking at the proletariat as a avant -garde class would always be disappointed with him. The urban working classes generally did wellFrom Madero, who recognized the unions and the right to attack, and the attacks that occurred were opportunistic, taking advantage of government setbacks on other fronts.Of members and opposite political violence, the working class strongly supported the status quo. The working class in Mexico was probably too weak to be a revolutionary force, even if it wanted to be, but the rural revolution also made it obsessed with problems as a shortage ofFood, making it hostile to the rebels.
Given that Madero in Mexico was the obverse of Kerensky in Russia five years later, as he was a "bourgeois" leader but making as many concessions to the right as Kerensky did to the left, the question arises: why the forces of reaction and conservatism were no longer happy with it? It seems, as has already been said, that it was about liking the music but hating the conductor. In part because the inappropriate label “revolutionary” hung over Madero; partly because the hunter-shooter male oligarchs despised the president's intellectual and aesthetic tastes and predilections, and he despised theirs. They disliked the ideological tone of its liberalism and its vague talk of a "middle way". Most of all, however, the right hated Madero for displacing Diaz and ending the "good old days" when they could gain automatic deference and obedience from the lower classes. They wanted a strong man and they couldn't see Madero in the role: he was suspected three times, as Northerner, Civilian and Liberal. They could never really forgive him for preparing to negotiate with Zapata. Since Madero was within their reach, the army commanders especially shifted onto him the impotent rage they felt against 'upstarts' like Villa and Zapata.
The devotees of the law and the order were also frustrated with the constant tip of revolts and ancestry during the Madero years. Although the fall seemed to seemly well entrenched in power after the defeat of Orozco, the bands of Orozquist guerrillas were proving difficult to be difficult toEradicating, and in the fortunes of Moreos Zapata revived.Hevia also a new rebellion in Durango and Sinala that was starting to advance. We were significant in itself, but their cumulative effect was starting to exhaust and demoralize the regime, to encourage blowsright and make Madero vulnerable to the forces of reaction.
Madero's most bitter enemies took advantage of their chance to create political capital. Henry Lane Wilson has exhorted Washington to rescue US citizens from the 'chaos', about to swallow the Pacific Durango coast.Buford to the coast of Sinaloa to pick up the desperate American desperate, but found only eighteen people. As London Times commented: `The only refugees collected so far seem to be people wanting to travel free to San Diego.In Ciudad Juarez on September 15, Victoriano Huerta was heard if I boast: `` If I wanted, I could make an agreement with Pascual Orozco and would go to Mexico City with 27,000 men and take the presidency from far from demander.'When this was reported to the War Minister Angel Garcia Pena, he stripped Huerta of his command.
That there was little in terms of politics by dividing Madero and his right-wing enemies were very clear when Felix Diaz finally rebelled in October 1912. The exile dictator's nephew, in his forties, a former brigadier and chief of police of Oaxaca, Diazde manyWays, it was the evil genius of the Madero years. Diaz was the name for which so many installments and conspiracies always took back, and all the risks in Veracruz and Oaxaca were instigated by him in one way or another.1912, he finally appeared in the field by his own right: the Veracruz garrison immediately went to him and he took the city without significant opposition. The inevitable manifesto that he issued the Madero family, but treated entirely in personalities; there was no word aboutsociety or the economy. As it observes Alan Knight: `Felix Diaz pronouncement - in style, pompous and even location - was in the ancient tradition of the nineteenth century of Santa Anna.'
Diaz's revolt reached conservative figures in the army, who were impressed by his putative role as a strongman. However, the army did not declare for him, mainly because he remained inactive around Veracruz. Soon he found himself bottled up by a besieging army. under General Joaquin Beltran, who proved himself immune to bribery or bribery. On October 23, Beltran ordered his men to advance through the undefined rail yards, and by mid-morning, the Federals held the harbor, having suffered negligible casualties; de Diaz lost fifty killed and wounded.
The Diaz himself was captured and all the resistance ceased. Humilated by this catastrophic defeat, Diaz and his subordinates began to rationalize their own inadequacies: it was "explained" that the feds had advanced through the Marechaling courtyard carrying a white flag,Or that Beltran accepted an AOO, ooo-peso bribery of his troops to the rebels and then crossed him. The right-wing elements in Mexico City, who hoped that the increase in Diaz could be the Grace blow to Madero, became furiousBecause the president has suppressed the revolt so easily, in contrast to the abortive attempts to suppress Zapata or the prolonged campaign against it. Setal rights in a hit lost the point and failed to compare with the rural movements of Zapata and Orozco, but those of DiazThey were an independent urban rebellion, easy for a loyal army to lower.
A military court considered Diaz and twenty -six of his guilty treasures and condemned him to be shot at dawn on October 26.Madero now had to decide whether to confirm the death sentence. He decided to let the court follow his course:His mercy with Bernardo Reyes had been useless, so perhaps he finally had to show that he was a master in his own home.-lo, more Madero was determined in the execution. So the oligarchy found a new method of taking care of itself.his commission when he rebelled. Diaz was arrested, first in a fortress in the port of Veracruz and later, in January 1913, at the Tlatelolco military prison himself, where Villa had been held. In one more of those absurd absurditieswhere the Mexican revolution abounded, the democratic system, against which Diaz got up, invented to save it. Always an advocate of legal kindness, Madero agreed, but predictably did not gain applause for the clearing of his enemies, while he was despised by hisallies.
Harled on the right and left and with few friends in the middle, in January 1913, Madero finally received significant support when Venustiano Carranza summoned a meeting of northern governors on his property in Cienega del Toro.All five governors who attended Coahuila, Chihuahua, Sonora, San Luis and Aguascalientes were disappointed with Madero for intruding on state matters and trying to abolish their state militias;They also thought he had been very mild with the Zapatist rebels.However, they agreed that there was the danger of a right -wing blow and that Madero's position needed to be reinforced.Unfortunately, the northern governors arrived too late.Extremist factions had already obtained access to Diaz and Reyes in Tlatelolco prison and planned the next revolt.All the credibility of the right meant that the next uprising should be decisive;To avoid civil war, it should also be a scam of surgical precision.
To unite the various right -wing factions, a mentor of Machiavellian duplicity and consummate depravity was needed.Such an individual has now introduced himself in the form of Henry Lane Wilson, the United States Ambassador, a 55 -year -old career diplomat, with funds and protruding eyebrows;Like his friend Huerta, he was also a notorious drunk.Wilson had come to Mexico as ambassador in 1910, after serving in Belgium and Chile, the perfect envoy of Dollar Diplomacy, fully created by US commercial interests.However, there was more.Throughout the history of diplomacy, who met his portion of eccentrics, Wilson must be classified as the crazy of the crazy ones.He was obsessed with what he called "The American Colony" - the large number of American citizens living in Mexico - and nourished an insane hatred by Madero that could only be explained properly by an abnormal psychologist.A smarter or energetic president than Howard Taft would have remembered Wilson as he wrote one of his insane dispatches - such as the request, in March 1912, of a thousand rifles and one million cartridges to be sent to the embassy in the cityFrom Mexico, so that he could defend "the American colony."
Lane Wilson took the secret satisfaction of Rising Orozco and Diaz revolt, but for his irritated stunted both had failed. He was now in a race against time if he ever reached the desire of his heart to overthrow Madero, because in November 1912Woodrow Wilson was elected as the 28th President of the United States. Madero had made bitter representations to the Lane Wilson State Department, and so far Taft realized that his ambassador in Mexico City was an appropriate argument for treatment.by Lane Wilson instantly, but Taft's pride was on the way; he did not want to admit that all his policy regarding Mexico had rested in the chatters of a confrontation.He did not take office until March, so Woodrow Wilson, desperately eager to fire his namesake in Mexico City, could do nothing either.
Realizing that her days were numbered anyway, Lane Wilson came with rare enthusiasm in planning the fall of Madero.An elaborate conspiracy was designed, involving 22 army generals, but at first Huerta refused to compromise openly.Such a wide plot could not be kept secret, and on February 4, 1913, an Army official handed Gustavo Madero a list of names, including generals Aureliano Blanquet and Joaquin Beltran;Against the name of Huerta had been placed a question mark.Gustavo Madero ran to the presidential palace in Chapultepec to show the list to his brother.Incredibly, Madero assumed the line that this was a scam: if there was any conspiracy, he argued, Huerta would be at the center of everything and not just mentioned as a 'possible', and as Blanchet and Beltran, now, these were menwho fought for him against, respectively, Orozco and Felix Diaz.
This was the biggest act of Madero, but not yet its end of madness. Conspirators had agreed to the division of spoils, since Madero was overthrown. Generals would free Bernardo Reyes and Felix Diaz from prison, Reyes would take officeFrom provisional president until Diaz could be elected president constitutionally, and a variety of posts would be delivered to the generals. The real reason why a question mark had been placed against Huerta's name was that he was playing hard to get: he hadThe position of commander was promised by army chief, but the dishonest alcoholic thought he could aim even more. Originally planned for March, the coup was presented to Lane Wilson's insistence on February 9.
At dawn that Sunday morning, General Manuel Mondragon, former Porfirio Army Chief Diaz, whom Madero, tolled, made it possible to return from exile, marched 700 men outside the Tacubaya barracks and set off to release Reyes and Diaz.of blood, which should continue for ten days and give the name of La Decena Tragica (ten days who embarrassed the nation), began almost immediately. In the arrest of Santiago Tlatelolco, the commander general refused the order to deliver Reyes and was killedShots. The reyes released now were now, according to the plan, to proceed to the National Palace, to go to the nation and to declare the new president. However, when the cheerful and confident Reyes entered Zocalo, he was received by aFused, and Zocalo quickly became a battlefield in which viewers and disgust were caught in the carnage; between 400 people killed in ten minutes, Reyes himself. In confusion, Felix Diaz pushed his troops hit to ArsenalFrom the old town in scales, a miles away and a half away, where he stopped to reflect on what had gone wrong.
Alerted in the small hours by the artillery bang being transported from Tacubaya, Gustavo Madero ran to the National Palace and gathered the garrison there with an exciting speech. Gustavo had a glass eye and was nicknamed Ojo ('Still Eye'), butEveryone agreed that he had the heart of a lion. Conquied by his oratory, the garrison obeyed the orders of leal General Lauro Villar, who arrived soon to take control. They set up machine guns on the palace roof, and they were the ones that caused oneso frightening destruction when Reyes arrived. The rebel troops - mainly cadets - sent to occupy the national palace seemed to reach their goal, and the messages were sent to Reyes according to.Waiting for a walk, he entered a strongly defended fortress, with elite shooters on roofs, machine guns and mortars in all gates.
Madero now hurried down from Chapultepec with a small escort. On Paseo de la Reforma, near Alameda Park, Huerta found him and offered his services; this "coincidence" has always looked rather suspicious. Surviving an assassination attempt by a sniper shooting from a scaffold in the incomplete Palace of Fine Arts (a spectator was killed in his place), Madero rode between the piles of the dead and dying in the Zócalo and entered the National Palace, to find high casualties. loyalists and General Villar seriously wounded. Some see Villar's departure from the fray as the strange contingency that altered the entire course of La Decena Trkgica. At a difficult time, persuaded by Minister of War Garcia Pena, Madero gave command of loyal troops to Huerta. This was dangerous madness. Huerta swore allegiance and embraced the president with a Judas kiss, knowing that the fly had just entered his spider's web.
Felix Diaz and 1.50o rebels now engaged Huerta and the Army in central Mexico, and for two days there was a stalemate, with both sides waiting for reinforcements. Madero went to Cuernavaca and returned with Felipe Angeles and another me, ooo troops. , Huerta executed one of his colleagues, the obese cavalry commander, General Gregorio Ruiz. Huerta thus hoped to prove his loyalty to Madero beyond question, but there are those who say that iron entered the soul of the Mexican revolution at that moment. there were atrocities, but from now on treason, murder and crimes against humanity became the norm rather than the exception.
In February, government forces launched a sustained attack on Ciudadela. A heavy artillery barrage was followed by an infantry attack in which there were 500 casualties, including civilians. For four days, there was a brutal war of attrition, in which troops de Madero dislodged the rebels from all their outer strongholds, but failed to take the 'inner ring' in Ciudadela itself. Shopping malls were scenes of smoke, posh residential areas echoed to the hurried machine-gun stutter, and the capital's once distinguished heart was like a gigantic garbage tip of human corpses defying the best efforts of makeshift ambulances. After the initial loss of life, the civilians kept off the streets, taking advantage of bunkers as they struggled to make their way to safer suburbs, often with mattresses on their backs - either as bulletproof protection or in hopes of sleeping on a friendly The floor is uncertain.
Soon food grew scarce, prices became hyperinflationary, and many urban myths arose about roast cat and dog dinners. Public health problems were partially solved by desperate expedients, such as the bodies burned on the Balbena plains, but that called for extra resources. which were soon depleted. Many corpses were simply doused in gasoline and incinerated on the spot, creating a dantean spectacle of horror, while the limbs and noise makers caused a gruesome sensory impact on onlookers. There was more chaos when a wayward shell blew a hole in the walls of Belem prison. In the ensuing mass breakout, many prisoners were shot dead; The wildest rumors spread: that the city's mob had risen and were consigning property and people to the flames, or that the Zapatistas were in the city and the feared Genovevo de la 0 was going through the suburbs, beheading enemies and collecting scalps.
Henry Lane Wilson watched it all with horrified horror. You can not have the necessary effect, so it was time to move on to the next stage of your plan and force Huerta out of your perch. Wilson started flooding Washington withFully false reports that people were going to Diaz in the hundreds and that he was the only hope for peace and stability. He assumed his colleagues, the European ministers, to present a "joint complaint" to Madero, making exaggerated claims aboutLoss and damage to foreign ownership and, on February 12, together with the Spanish and German ministers, sought an interview with Madero; the absurd British minister, Sir Francis Stronge, was willing to give up all his authority to Hectoring Wilson, since heHe could get fresh eggs to feed his pet parrots.
Wilson behaved in the arrogant, intelligent, and totally inadequate way (to a sent) that he always did with Madero, ripping and furious.Gathering all his patience, Madero allowed him to cross the lines to negotiate with Diaz, not knowing that Wilson's sole purpose when he finds Diaz was to plan the next conspiracy stage.Wilson's next action was an impertinent proposal to "separate the combatants".When Madero accurately replied that Wilson was surpassing his appropriate diplomatic limits, Wilson threatened a US armed intervention and said this was President Taft's official policy.An indignant mother telegled to Taft in protest, and the confusing president replied that she didn't know what Madero was talking about.
A result of Wilson's intolerable intrusion was a wave of anti -American protests; however, his distorted actions would have his black spell. In alarm in the spectrum of the Marines who cross Rio Grande, a delegation of Mexican senators asked Madero's resignation and toappointment of a provisional president who would interrupt the civil war on the streets of Mexico. It was what Huerta was expecting. Senators' action gave him the legality sheet that he needed for his planned blow.Military impasse, nearby observers observed something very strange about the siege of science: the blockade was so loosely applied that Diaz and the rebels were able to slip and obtain supplies of food, drink and ammunition; the rebels on their part made no attempt todestroying the main federal targets. All this was part of a cynical agreement between Huerta and Diaz, secretly intermediated by Lane Wilson. Huerta further diminished the power of Madero sending units known to be loyal to Madero in Suicide Missions, ordering front charges in nestsof rebel machine gun.
Once again, it was the energetic Gustavo Madero who found the evidence of Huerta's duplicity. Huerta raged, ranted and swore up and down that he wasn't in any plot; he promised on his scapular that he was loyal, agreeing that his soul should be consigned to the eternal fires of hell if he was lying. , equivocating in the best traditions of the Delphic Oracle, that if Madero would only trust him, he would end the rebellion within twenty-four hours. Incredibly, Madero believed him, gave him back his pistol and his freedom and granted the requested twenty-four hours This was one of the most flagrantly self-destructive actions in all of history. What possessed Madero to behave in such a way? Mexico's literary icon, José Vasconcelos, later speculated that, on the eve of defeat, all `saints' are victims of a kind of paralysis, and that unwittingly Madero was acting like the Christian martyr, turning the other cheek and allowing God's will to be done. be sought in the domain of psychological pathology rather than power politics.
Within twenty -four hours, Huerta actually took the rebellion to the end, but almost in the direction of Madero had understood. After noon of February 18, General Aurelio Blanquet arrived at the National Palace with a squad of men to arrest Madero.The president refused indignant to be his prisoner, and when Blanquet pulled his pistol in the president, the guard of Madero opened fire, killing two of the men of Blanquet before being shot dead. Dunant the shooting, Madero escaped hisOffice, but was intercepted on the stairs.Blanquet continued with arrest. Madero slapped his face and called him a traitor. "Yes, I'm a traitor," Blanquet replied happily. While that, about thirty minutes before these eventsLane Wilson effectively proved his collusion, linking Washington that the army had taken control of the situation in Mexico.
The Huerta Serpentine, however, invited Gustavo Madero to a downtown restaurant as a reconciliation gesture.There are two versions of what happened next.One of them is that Huerta excused the table, gave a call to confirm the success of the blow and then disappeared, leaving his men to arrest Gustavo Madero.The second version is more melodramatic: a messenger arrived, handed Huerta a ticket confirming the prison and saying that it was necessary in barricades.Huerta pretended to have to go straight there and needed a revolver, so he loaned Gustavo Madero's.For the first time Madero was not on red alert and stupidly handed over his gun.Exultant, Huerta pointed him into the heart and told him he was stuck.
Whatever the exact details of the events at the Gambrinus restaurant may be, it is certain that Gustavo Madero was taken to the Ciudadela, where Cecilio Ocon, a right-wing businessman from right-wing Mexico who was in the conspiracy from the beginning, acted as `judge' in a kangaroo court. Charged with treason, Gustavo Madero indignantly repudiated the accusation, invoked his privileges as a member of Congress, and denied the rebels' authority to try him. so we respect their privileges". Felix Diaz took Gustavo Madero to another part of Ciudadela, but on the way Gustavo was brutally attacked by rebel soldiers. Gustavo, maddened, attacked his tormentors, when a soldier named Melgarejo pierced his only eye with a sword, blinding him instantly. This outrage was met with wild laughter from the crowd and, as Gustavo squared off, groping, staggering, clutching the socket and spilling blood, the `chorus' of barbarian soldiers taunted him.
Ocon then arrived to take his prisoner out to face the shot squad. Gustavo walked away and Ocon tried to grasp him by the coat lapel, but, however blind he was, Gustavo was still too strong for him.Then he resolved the argument drawing his pistol and pumping more than twenty rounds to the hit Gustavo Madero, who fell life on the ground. This atrocity was too much for some rebel soldiers. One of them, Adolfo Basto, General Intendant of the National Palace, committed theError to curse revenge, so he took him in place of Gustavo and executed by the shot squad.
Meanwhile, the treacherous Huerta was revealing himself to be a monster of perfidy, reneging on his word, renouncing sacred oaths and even duplicating his own allies. to Felix Diaz, but Huerta suddenly announced that he intended to be president. bestowed the presidential mantle on Huerta and warned Diaz that if he resisted the ``will of the people', he would be fighting the US and Huerta. It was further agreed that, as Diaz had his way with Gustavo Madero, Francisco Madero and Vice -President Pino Suarez would be at Huerta's disposal.
Huerta did not want to stain his reputation murdering an acting president, so first he had to make Madero resign.After Huerta once again took a powerful oath on his scapular that no evil would happen to Madero and Pino Suarez, Foreign Minister Pedro Lascurran, offered to make Madero hand the executive branch to him.Madero, still not knowing anything about the murder of his brother Gustavo, eager to avoid bloodshed and confident that he would be treated with the same indulgence with which he had treated Bernardo Reyes and Felix Diaz, wrote his renunciation, as well as Pino Suarez.Lascurrain was the next in succession according to the Constitution and achieved the dubious distinction of being the shortest life president in Mexican history.He "ruled" for forty -five minutes, then passed the presidency to Huerta.
Madero had been promised exile, safe passage to Veracruz and then a trip on board to Cuba, but the suspicions were already emerging that Huerta did not keep his word, especially when he heard that the train to take them to Veracruz had been "canceled".The only person with power and influence to save Madero now was Lane Wilson, who probably hated him even more than Huerta. He had been expressly ordered by the State Department to ensure that Madero left the country safely, but Wilson was leavingAnyway and estimated that Washington had no credible sanctions to use against him. Therefore, he refused to summon the diplomatic corps to present a warning to Huerta not to harm his prisoners.
Already fearing the worst, Madero's wife went to see Wilson on the afternoon of February 20 to beg him to intervene.Wilson received her with glacial arrogance and said he could not intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation.He added: `I'll be frank with you, Madame.The fall of her husband is due to the fact that he never wanted to consult me. 'Desperate, Sara Perez de Madero asked then what would happen to Pino Suarez.Wilson was even rude: `Pino Suarez is a very bad man.I cannot give any guarantee of your safety.He is to blame for most of her husband's problems.Wilson revealed his true colors by toasting the new regime with his drunk companion Huerta in a reception at the US embassy the following night.
Francisco Madero's last day on Earth was on February 21, 1913. That afternoon, Huerta's henchmen raised the hope of their wretched captives, installing three mattressed camps with mattresses shared by Madero and Pino Suarez in the National Palace in the National Palace, that those who believed they would believe in this prison for a while. At this point, Madero had heard of his brother's death and was depressed and suffered. He was less concerned about his own security, as he had written a friend on Loth:'Will they have the stupidity of killing us? Do you know, they would gain nothing, because we would be bigger in death than today. He soon had their answer. So the lights went out at the usual time of until afternoon.A Greater Francisco Cardenas arrived with another officer and told the prisoners that they were being transferred to the Federal District Penitentiary for its greatest security. Designed by Madero, Cardinas was a stubborn porphyirian of the fanatical track.
After some time packing the belongings, Cárdenas and his group took the prisoners outside the national palace to a car that awaited them and drove them in.It was around 1 pm.The car with Madero and Pino Suarez was accompanied by a second car, full of Rurales.The two vehicles fired along a winding road to the penitentiary, passed the main entrance and skidded until it stopped at the far end of the buildings.Cárdenas ordered the prisoners to get out of the car, and as soon as Madero left, he performed it with a single shot in the neck of a .38 pistol.Pino Suarez received a more formal death, being placed against the penitentiary wall and shot there.Both cars were wrapped in bullets to help the apparent fiction that the two men had been killed in the crossfire when the timamers tried to rescue them.
No clear documentary evidence was found to connect Huerta to the murder, but everyone, without exception, knew that he had ordered.Huerta's supporters, on the rare occasions when they admitted that Madero had been murdered beside him, left a trail of overshadowing, emphasizing the complex chain of command that linked Cárdians to Ocon and Blanquet and, through them, Huerta;But only a fool would imagine that Cardinas would have acted as acted without orders or tacit consent of Huerta.Foreign press reacted to Huerta and its official communications with horrified disbelief, and almost Woodrow Wilson's first action, taking the US presidency, was to dismiss its hateful namesake in Mexico City.Huerta had his moment of triumph, but soon realized that he had made a serious mistake.Not only did he alienate international opinion, but he had also created the first martyr of the revolution, a man in whose unconquisable legions would emerge to fight Huerta and the army to death.
A revolt against Huerta
Huerta's regime barely enjoyed a moment of rest, because even when the War with Zapata continued in the south, came a potentially more formidable challenge in the North; 1913 marked the emergence of Venustiano Carranza, governor of Coahuila, as a national figure.Together with Villa, Zapata and Alvaro Obregon, he composed the `` Big Four 'of the Mexican Revolution. A aristocrat and landowner, the high, bearded and reddish carranza, rarely seen without their dark glasses, was an autocratic manner in his own wayUnder -crash -totally huerta and monumental, this 6 -foot and 4 -inch giant (which always seemed to those who were totally seven feet tall) was voiced by John Reed, who also called him `` oneVast inert body, a statue ', Olafayette of the Mexican Revolution. However, Carranza himself always had another model in mind. If Felix Diaz was a saint Anna of recent days, Carranza aspired to be the second Benito Juarez.
Venustiano Carranza was born on December 29, 1859, according to the son and eleventh son of Jesus Carranza Neira, veteran of the Indian wars and Juarista liberal during the Maximilian and the French reform war and the fight.A driver of mule and farmer, Jesus Carranza was the mentor of intelligence behind the Juiliá Juilarians' forces and, in 1866, granted Juarez a loan without interest to support his crusade.When Juarez was triumphant from the French war, Jesus, now a patriarch with fifteen children, obtained a huge donation of land in Coahuila that was the basis of his personal fortune.Educated at the Fuente Atheneum School in Saltillo and later (1874) at the National Preparatory Escuela, since an early age the young Venustian idolized Juarez.He originally intended to be a doctor, but was prevented by vision problems, so he returned to Coahuila to raise cattle.In 1882 he married Virginia Salinas and generated two daughters;Decades later, he would marry again and would have four children.
He entered politics at age 28, being elected in 1887 for the position of municipal president of Cuatro Cienegas. In 1893, he drew the attention of Porfirio Diaz participating, along with his brother Emilio, in an armed protest of 300 coahuilan farmers atImposed 'reelection' of one of the governors of Diaz.Diaz, suspecting that the hidden hand behind Coahuilan's ranchers was Evaristo Madero - grandfather of the future president - handed the problem to his henchman Bernardo Reyes.com as intermediary, Carranza met Diaz andHe explained the question, namely, that the replacement of an unpopular governor was widely perceived in Coahuila as an affront to local traditions of autonomy. Diazes took the point and sacrificed his governor of dolls, explaining Reyes: `We will not risk the risk ofLose from them [the Coahuilans], because the earlier or later civil war is obliged to break in this state ... and we must cultivate the little we have between them.'
The case united Carranza and Reyes.Under the aegis of the older man, Carranza again held the position of municipal president of Cuatro Cienegas in 1894-8, and Reyes proposed him Diaz as national senator in 1904. Although he was a Diaz and Scientific critic, Carranza showed no interestin supporting Madero's proposal.New political party in 1909. What placed him against Diaz was his own interest.Despite the universal desire in the state - acting governor Miguel Cardinas, Reyes and Evaristo Madero - that Carranza was the new governor of Coahuila, Diaz used her sponsorship to impose her own puppet.At this point Carranza joined Francisco Madero, although there was never a warmth or affinity between the two men.While the armed struggle against Diaz was in his early stages and Madero still in the US, Madero met Carranza in San Antonio, Texas (January 1911), and appointed him provisional governor and commander-in-chief in Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas.However, when Madero crossed Rio Grande in February 1911, the circumspect Carranza crossed in the opposite direction and was out of the fight in San Antonio, until it was clear that Madero would win.
He then reappeared in Mexico, playing the role of the Anti-Diaz Hawk. Madero did him one more favor by naming Carranza his Minister of War, even though his performance to date has been lackluster, slow and cumbersome; Madero was still a supporter of Reyes and was simply waiting to see how events would turn out. With no military experience, Carranza was still allowed to conduct negotiations with Diaz in Ciudad Juarez in May 1911, which ended the Porfiriato. Madero prophetically warned that simply accepting Diaz's resignation without dismantling his system was a serious mistake, as it would recognize the legitimacy of the porfiriato and leave Diaz's cronies in place, ready to attack the revolution.
In the hope of becoming the interior minister of Madero, a disappointed carranza returned home, acted as provisional governor of Coahuila for two months from June 1911 and then resigned to the Vedict of the electorate."Small is beautiful", encouraging municipal autonomy and democracy of the foundation; he was able to improve the state's educational facilities, but faced the wall of foreign mining interests when he tried to improve working conditions in the mines., increased the conviction that Coahuila's problems could actually be treated only at the national level.
The rise of ambition brought him into conflict with Madero, who correctly felt that Carranza'a's approach to politics was patriarchal and paternalistic. Carranza accused Madero of having made all the mistakes he predicted in Ciudad Juarez and of not caring about autonomy. local;Madero reacted by describing Carranza as ``vengeful, spiteful and authoritarian ... a phlegmatic old man who asks permission from one foot to drag the other'. wanted state forces under federal control, but Carranza advocated local autonomy. What he really wanted was for Madero to pay for his state troops while he, Carranza, had full authority over them; However, he was hit with scandal when it was alleged that he had been "payroll padding" and charging the federal government for non-existent troops. Carranza went all the way to Mexico City to fight his corner, but Madero won this battle : General Pablo Gonzalez was an imbecile as the military commander in Coahuila.
Carranza had some political talent - established close relationships with the governors of San Luis Potosi, Aguascalients and Chihuahua - but it was above all that sad spectacle, the politics teacher.A walking encyclopedia in Mexico's history, Carranza had never gotten rid of his youthful obsession by Juarez.José Vasconcelos said from Carranza that 'Juarez was for him all human greatness, above and beyond universal geniuses.'Carranza knew nothing directly about foreign countries, but had traveled around the world in her books.He always preferred Europe to the United States, and within Europe its favorite history was French, with France, seen by rose and conservative lenses, its model and inspiration in politics and culture.
Carranza felt that Madero had made two mistakes: he had drifted to the right and Diaz supporters, whereas "a revolution that makes concessions commits suicide"; and he failed to act decisively against Henry Lane Wilson and Washington. to resent the Yankee Colossus' frequent interventions south of the border, its economic imperialism, and particularly the gigantic land scene of California, Arizona, and New Mexico that limited Mexico's humiliation in the war of 1846-8. In Mexican history, Carranza saw the fall of Madero in February 1913 as a "parallel" to the overthrow of Comonfort in 1858. Clearly, what was needed was a new Juarez - and who better suited than Carranza himself?
In the first weeks of the Huerta regime, he acted with extreme caution.One of the great myths of the Mexican revolution is that the three northern states of Sonora, Chihuahua and Coahuila exploded in spontaneous revolt after Huerta murdered Madero.What really happened was that the Taurus mischief in a Huerta porcelain store gave them no choice.Always extremely cautious, always with the instincts of an sideboard, Carranza sent a delegation to Mexico City to guarantee Huerta her loyalty (this is a well -documented incident that Carranza's hagiographs have tried to rewrite or eliminate from records).Carranza was prepared to curve her head to the tyrant, but Huerta was determined to impose her own army cronies as governors in all states and give no guarantee of local autonomy.Faced with Huerta's intransigence, Carranza saw no future for himself, so he rebelled.It's totally uncommonial to say, as Carranza's apologists do, that the embassy he sent to Huerta was simply a cynical device to gain time.
Always an advocate of the protocol and constitutional subtleties - at least in this he looked like Madero - Carranza was careful to obtain a rebellion mandate from the Coahuila legislature.On March 4, 1913, a group of army officers chose him as the first 'constitutionalist' army chief, and the presidency of Huerta was declared illegal, unconstitutional and piracy - but coahuilans took this step with great reluctance.It was the same sound story: Madero's death and Huerta's inability to compromise forced a reluctant elite to rebel.Even so, it was only in mid -March, with Huerta's armies advancing to take the state, which sound leaders took the mask.
Carranza issued her manifesto as Guadalupe's plan. This distinguished to be the least ideological from all Mexican pronunciations: nothing that has been said about agrarian issues or land reform; the plan was a purely political appeal to the overthrow of Huerta,After which, implicit, everything was in dispute. Interested only in a political transfer of power, and aware that the commitment to land reform would only harde the opposition to it, Carranza was able to produce a document that was ideologically impaired than the oneSan Luis Potosi's anodine plan from Madero. In a way, Carranza's program was just a kick -off of the `i's and crossing the 'ts in watery, but there was a resistance and cruelty in the statements of Carranza that were very different from the speech in theMadero style.More important, Carranza declared war on the knife: there would be no commitments or agreements, her goal was to extir Huerta and all her works, root and branch.
For this reason, Carranza established himself as an alternative government. He issued five million paper pesos on paper and announced measures to deal with taxes, exports and expropriations in the territories that his army intended to conquer. The most controversial, he revived the decree ofJuarez of January 25, 1862, who stated that all enemy prisoners should be executed as rebels against the properly constituted government. This unique action began a cycle of atrocities that, at the end of the revolution, had entered the control.Carranza's motivation was to imitate his beloved Juarez, but in part the decree was a precise manifestation of an autocratic personality, which believed that any opposition to his deserved will.
It's part of the allure of Carranza that a one-dimensional, wary, cautious Martinet should still have had the imagination to bluff his way to the position, never seriously challenged afterward, of supreme head of the revolution. He started with certain advantages. he was much older than the other revolutionaries, so he looked mature and full of gravitas. His height and bearing were on his side, as was the patriarchal beard that he stroked as the archetypal old man. He was also ahead of his time in his consciousness of image and public relations, and to that end he dressed the part of a ``Father of the Nation'', in a gray wide-rimmed Northern-style felt hat, shotgun, knickers, pants, and leather brim , wide hoop pitch, coat, riding pants and leather boots. The idea was to promote the image of a man of action, but, avoiding metrical army insignia, to distance himself from 'the man on horseback' who already had his avatar in the form from Huerta.
Carranza aspired to Juarez's charisma and Diaz's power and was determined to succeed where Madero had failed.However, he was not Juarez, although he adopted the same personality as granite and had the same irreducible stubbornness.He also lacked Diaz's tuned political instincts, but dominated the Fabian tactics, knew the virtues of the protelation and procrastination, and cultivated a deliberate slowness in the ways, allowing him to prevail in public.A rustic and patriarchal inflexibility, linked to painful body rhythms, suggested the cycles of nature and the inexorable elaboration of the destination.As he walked away and diverting people, he made it impossible for them to have confrontations face to face with him.In his own mind, he saw himself as a bridge between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, channeling the violent currents of the revolution in ordained conduct.He wanted the law to be supreme, while a man like Villa wanted the myth of action, in Sorel's way.
Above all, then, Carranza was an actor. Through trickery, he established himself as the only credible national alternative to Huerta. As Alan Knight observed: 'Other revolutionary caudillos may excel in military power or popular appeal, but none could press a stronger claim to national leadership.' In short, Carranza gambled, took the long view, and behaved arrogantly as if every other revolutionary leader had agreed to his title as the first head of the Constitutionalist Army. He expected the Villas, Obregons, Zapatas and others to go along with his plans, but in return he had nothing to offer: no money, no resources, just pious platitudes. The bet paid off. As with so many other leaders in history, Carranza - basically a nonentity, lacking genius, heroism or idealism - was carried away by others in his own absurdly high self-evaluation.
In the first rounds of the military dispute with Huerta, it was Madero's assassin who won all the points. Carranza at first tried to avoid battle, but was defeated by the Federals in an engagement at Anhelo. He then attacked Saltillo, but the Federals built their defenses well and Carranza's attack was poorly planned; after fifty-five hours of costly fighting, he was forced to withdraw. For several months he lay inactive at Monclova, unmolested as the Federals slowly moved reinforcements north. At this stage of the revolt, Huerta considered Zapata a greater threat than Carranza, possibly because he himself had failed against Zapata and then swept away all before him in the northern campaign against Orozco.
Gradually, however, the slow federal friction featured Carranza, and it was forced by the state line and a long tortuous sound retreat.US soil feet now that it was the 'real' president of Mexico. Another consideration in his mind was that Juarez had walked north in 1863 in his "long March" without leaving the Mexican territory, and he wanted to imitate explorationFrom his hero. To get this, Carranza made an absurdly indirect journey of black piedras to Hermon, via Torreon, Durango, south of Chihuahua, the west of Sierra Madre and the north of Sinalo.- It was written by its propagandists as an exciting feat of high adventure, full of proper ingredients of 'heroic': crossing the continental division on horseback with too many men, ascending mountain passages in Monoçuva, then descending to the valley for an emotional meeting withThe revolutionary and sound and sound leaders. Fat Carranza and Icere, once described as "incarnate mediocrity," needed "exploration" like this to establish their reputation and credibility as a revolutionary leader.
He established his government in Sonora and remained there until March 1914. Why Sonora? At least three reasons seem salient. Most obviously, the revolutionary army there numbered 3,000, compared to just over 1,000 in Coahuila. Sonora was also placed as a hideout for a rebel leader, as there was no direct rail link between the state and Mexico City. The west coast rail line had a gap in Jalisco, between Tepic and San Marcos, so rapid Federal troop movements were not feasible; on the other hand, rebels could smuggle US weapons across the border. Sonora also suited Carranza sociologically and ideologically. Socially stable, politically homogeneous, with high levels of literacy and foreign investment, a booming middle class, and a mixed-race population that eagerly embraced capitalism, it was a microcosm of the kind of Mexico Carranza wanted to see after the Revolution, a progressive culture that could dominate the former colonial, Indian and Catholic Mexico of the central highlands. Above all, land reform was not a problem. As Alvaro Obregon, Carranza's great ally in Sonora, pointed out: 'Here we are not agrarian, thank God. We are all doing what we do out of patriotism and to avenge Mr. Madero's death.'
However, there was no way to disguise the fact that, for the most part of 1913 Carranza avoided a military confrontation with Huerta and remained defensive.Although sound later was considered the nursery of revolutionary politicians - producing how Obregon, Adolfo de la Huerta, Benjamin Hill, Salvador Alvarado, Juan Cabral and Plutarco Elias Galles - in the early stages of the fight against Huerta, Carranza had to slowly build.After all, the governor of the state, José Maria Maytarena, fled to Tucson, Arizona "for health" after the murder of Madero, so as not to compromise, and although Carranza had divided Mexico into seven military zones, there were operationsIn only three of them in 1913, and only one to any large point.All the real resistance to Huerta that year was achieved elsewhere by rebels who were not a frowns.The avant-garde of anti-huerta opposition was in Chihuahua, a state that Huerta wondered to have tamed, and the protagonist was once again Pancho Villa.
Ladies in Chihuahua were desperate for leadership, as Abraham Gonzalez had already joined Madero on the list of murdered.Immediately after getting rid of Madero, Huerta ordered Gonzalez to be arrested and taken to Mexico City.On the way, his train was stopped and he was taken and shot;To ensure, his lifeless body was then mutilated under the train wheels.Huerta announced that Gonzalez had been killed while his supporters tried to rescue him.Coming immediately after the equally transparent "explanation" for Madero's death, this was universally considered an insult to public intelligence;The brutal and drunk Huerta didn't even bother to invent a plausible story.The loyal chihuahuas now not only had two martyrs (Madero and Gonzalez) to regret, but they didn't see themselves also.The decision to rebel was imposed on them, otherwise they certainly considered themselves massacred, either by the Huerta army or the colorados of Orozco.
Across the border in Texas, Pancho Villa was a miserable exile. The wife of her El Paso hotelier remembered him as a man of uncertain temperament, with a passion for ice cream and brittle peanuts, who kept a box of pigeons inHer hotel room. Suddenly came the news of La Decena Trkgica and Huerta's coup. Villa was impressed by the news of Madero's murder. All her differences with him, all the president's betrayals when Villa was in prison,Everything has been forgotten now and Madero was remembered as' Maderito ' - `Dear Little Madero'. Villa now had two scores to settle with Huerta: revenge for Madero's death and personal revenge for the attempted shooting and seven months in prison.
With some vacant thoughts to build an alliance, Villa left for Tucson to interview Coward Maytarena.While waiting to talk to him, Villa found a bravest sound representative Adolfo de la Huerta, a true revolutionary, who begged him to be the sound and raise the banner there.When Maytarena finally spoke to Villa and learned of this soundtrack conversation, he was alarmed with his own position and gave Villa 1,000 pesos, in the strict understanding that he would return to Chihuahua, not the sound, to start an insurrection.The naive villa, unconscious of all subcurrents, actually felt in debt to Maytarena.With the money he paid what he owed in El Paso and bought nine horses and nine rifles.On the night of March 6, 1913, he crossed Rio Grande with eight comrades (including Juaregui).To start a rebellion, they had some load mules, two pounds of sugar, two coffee and one salt and 500 cartridges each.
In San Andres Villa made contact with his brothers Antonio and Hipolito, along with villalist veterans such as Maclovio Herrera, Toribio Ortega, Rosalio Hernandez and, most importantly, Tomas Urbina.At first they did not do well.Chihuahua revolted, but only a handful of men joined Villa, and the other guerrilla leaders refused to accept him as the Supreme Commander.For a while, the state was tormented by spontaneous and fiscal warlords.One of the first leaders was a former teacher named Manuel Chao, whose first feat was an attack on the federal garrison in the city of Santa Barbara.At the height of the battle, the city's inhabitants suddenly turned against the federal, throwing them from their homes and thus taking them between two shots;The garrison surrendered soon after.Chao tried the same stratagem in Parral, in collusion with the main bourgeois of the city, but the plan went wrong when federal reinforcements arrived at the crucial moment.Forced to evacuate, the men of Chao dispersed in the countryside, fighting like guerrillas, occupying farms and destroying train tracks.In early April 1913, other guerrilla groups emerged, mainly one led by Villa's former compadre, Tomas Urbina, who drove attacks south of Chihuahua from his base in Durango.
Villa realized that the campaign this time would be harder and more bloody than in 1911. Then the revolutionaries fought for a mere change of leader, now they fought for a change of regime, which meant Warre Ultrance.In 1911, the oligarchs of Chihuahua did not fight for Diaz and Madero's campaign was well funded.This time, guerrilla gangs would fight with few resources against the combined power of the Huerta army, the Militia of the Terrazas and the Colorados de Orozco.Great gestures were out of place, Villa knew, so he started to grow slowly.Leaving Chao and Urbina with his spheres of influence, he established his base in the northwest of Chihuahua, where he had many old contacts among the Maderal veterans and where he was close enough from the United States border to obtain new weapon supplies.
Villa argued that the way to get recruits and turn his campaign into a high -level case was by spectacular attacks on Haciendas of Terrazas and dramatic land redistributions. Madero called him Robin Hood;It was Hacienda de El Carmen, notoria locally because his manager practiced Droit du Seigneur in Nubile Peon Girls and had his own debt pending system. Villa attacked the farm, executed the manager and his assistant, opened the barn and distributed food to pawnsasking them to rebel instead of accepting this treatment again. He did the same thing in the hacings of San Lorenzo and Las Animas, gaining popularity and recruits.
There was a kind of irony in the way Villa, with his harem of 'wives', was ahead as the champion of the oppressed women, but this position paid dividends of popularity. In the village of Satevo, a young woman came to him and denounced the parish priestfor raping and father of a son; the priest then aggravated his offense by refusing to recognize the child and claiming that Pancho Villa was the father. Villa forced the priest to confess and ordered his execution.For the life of his priest. Villa agreed, as long as the priest has complete confession of his sins of the pulpit, that the shaken cleric was very pleased to make. The incident increased the villa's reputation as a dispenser of justice.
Villa's actions in March and April showed that he was a master in gaining hearts and minds. To confiscate and redistribute land and provide extra food residents, he executed all bandits and colorados and made a great demonstration of protecting US property.He sent a local bandit, 'El Móho', to the Shooting Squad after he shot an American. In fact, his pro-American was so evident that it caused grumbling among the most politicians of his followers, for whom ``Yanqueu Octopus '' was both a deadly and huerta enemy. To affirm his authority on this point, Villa directed a zapatist guerrillas called Maximo Castillo, across the US border. The Americans responded by selling weapons and ammunition to themVillains; a bold attack on a silver train had given Villa the means for a mass purchase in April. The US arms embargo never worked, partly because Villa used women and children as smuggling agents, but mainly becauseAmericans across the border ignored him: some were friendly to Villa, others simply refused to allow Washington to interfere with normal business, and others again raised the realistic line that there was simply a border with Mexico to patrol effectively.
In late May, Villa had 700 well -armed and highly disciplined troops under his command. Impressed with his conquest, one of the main gentlemen, Toribio Ortega, agreed to serve as Villa's second level and brought his 500 guerrillas.One of the rare genuinely honorable revolutionaries, a man with a reputation for compassion, integrity, and financial honesty. His example was persuasive. Gradually, more and more warlords made the same decision, seeing Villa the only credible defender of Chihuahua against Huerta.chaoAnd Urbina lost the caste hopelessly in June and July, a shameful bag of Durango's shameful manner when their troops ran for three successive defeats (in Ciudad Camargo, Mapula and Santa Rosalia) when Orozco Led there, ooo-capTorreon's man dash for the city of Chihuahua in the style of Nathan Forrest in the American Civil War. In August, the army's offensive, the Terrazan militias and the colorados threatened to overload Chihuahua.Prevail against such probabilities. To survive, the revolutionaries had to make all their bets on the Villa Pancho.
Even so, Villa continued with caution, not trying to tasks beyond his forces, but making sure of increasing morals and discipline through skillfully planned attacks.In June he briefly occupied the city of Big Casas and in August defeated a force of 1,300 Rurales under the command of Felix Terrazas.Finally, in September, he felt strong enough for a big attack on Huerta.On September 26, the Chihuahua guerrilla leaders held a "summit conference" in Jimenez.They decided that the city of Torreon, a nodal point in the Mexican rail system and the funnel through which Huerta sent troops north of Mexico City, should be the target - but who should be General Most?Chao and Urbina had claims, just like Villa.
Urbin effectively discarded because he was unable to control his men. Revolutionaries could not pay another durango -style fiasco, when the city was dismantled by a drunk, loot and undisciplined, the middle class and the Americans were already nervous enough.Chao had the advantage of being Carranza's choice, but only because the "first boss" was already jealous of Villa. According to the legend, Villa and Chao established their respective allegations when the two men confronted the 'high wayFrom midfielder -Dia'.Villa ordered Chao to move away, Chao took his gun, but was disappeared by Villa: a reflex blurred to the hip, a draw, and Chao looked down the barrel of Villa Pistol: Thus, legendanyway. The sober truth is that Chao was not acceptable to most Chihuahuans. He was a stranger (born in Tampepus), an intellectual teacher without charisma. Villa was the man of work, and the revolutionaries knew it.Of some of the bad mood of Tomas Urbina, who thought he should have the position, the warlords unanimously elected Villa as the supreme chief of the northern reorganized division.
The feds met the attack with confidence. Having confined them to the main cities, Villa was now doing exactly what they wanted: fighting them on their own terms: 2,000 regular troops plus another 1,000 Colorados and militiamen, all well armed and equipped, were entrenched, waiting. , as they thought, for the villistas to commit suicide. They reasoned that although Villa had 6-8,000 men, he lacked experience commanding large numbers; and had not the so-called First Chief Carranza already failed to take Torreon? With another federal army advancing from the north to catch the rebels in a pincer movement, the defenders expected an abortive siege, followed by an ambush and slaughter of the crestfallen revolutionaries as they marched north. The one factor that the federal commander, General Francisco Murguia, had not taken into account was that most of his men were recruits recruited from the "deep south" of Mexico, fighting in an unknown land against men imbued with revolutionary élan.
Murguia had placed artillery in the hills tops commanding the accesses to Torreon, with the intention of breaking up the revolutionary strikers.Villa got around this obstacle by sending command forces at night to take each hill at a time.With the artillery in his hands, he was ready to turn the game.He sent his avant -garde to the suburbs and murguia replied foolishly sending a small force of about 500 soldiers to expel the rebels.This was immediately eaten.Realizing that his van had been defeated and his artillery captured at the heights, Murguia succumbed to Panic and decided to escape.To cover his escape, he sent a subordinate general to resume the hills;This robbery seemed to be advancing at first, but when the commander had reinforcements he found, he found out, to his astonishment, that Murguia had already fled the chicken coop.Murguia was later submitted to the martial court and convicted of cowardice.
Villa's victory at Torreon made him an indisputably important figure. The weapons and materiel he captured were enough to equip his army for months: he seized a thousand rifles, boo grenades, half a million rounds and six machine guns, plus a huge railroad-mounted three-inch cannon called the El Nino. (The Child), who became the mascot of the Northern Division. As he now also possessed forty railway locomotives and a large amount of rolling stock, captured in the junction yards, Villa also had a mechanized and mobile army. To complete their triumph, the Federal force supposedly advancing from the north to catch him in pincers managed to attack their own infantry with 'friendly fire' and then failed to take the town of Camargo, held by a small number of Villistas.
Villa was determined that the infamous Durango withdrawal by Urbina was not repeated in Torreon.Some of his vanguard, entering at night, looted and looted, but Villa quickly restored the order at dawn.His men were prepared to receive a tough discipline of him, for he was a commander inspired by a genius for the night fight, who had just achieved what everyone thought was impossible;There was the additional bonus that he was not an oligarch, but "one of us," a man of the people.The villalist discipline surprised and enchanted the city's city and residents.The United States consul in Torreon reported that less than 5% of the expected financial losses with withdrawals were actually sustained.From other Americans came similar applause;At this time, Villa's actions in the US were in the highest.However, local entrepreneurs were less enthusiastic as Villa charged forced loans from three million fees of bankers and other plutocrats in Torreon.Banks tried to deceive him by filling in checks on American banks, but Villa's intellectual consultants warned him that these checks would not be honored in the United States.An explicit threat of death was needed to make bankers vomit.
The dark side of Villa spoke in the execution of prisoners, reinforcing the spiral of brutality that would stain the campaigns against Huerta.This was a rare occurrence in 1911, but it was not a collision of regimes.Both sides this time were in a relentless struggle for survival: Huerta's usual brutality had already been matched by Carranza's "Juarez" decree that he appeared on weapons against the "constitution" was an express act of betrayal, punishable bydeath.Villa did not hesitate to order hundreds of men to the shredding platoon and enjoyed performing their executions openly, in the light of day, instead of sneaking down at night, as most commanders did.However, he reserved for himself the prerogative of mercy.On one occasion, Tomas Urbina wanted to perform a group of musicians who had been pressured to serve as federal bandits, but Villa insisted that music could never be too much and recruited men to his own army.
After Torreon Villa no longer needed to operate as a guerrilla, but could face Huerta in open battle. For a time, Huerta considered that Villa's victory was a fluke, that the northern centaur was simply a lucky individual, as his prison breaks. the previous year seemed to suggest. Furthermore, he was counting on factionalism among the rebels to do his work for him; after all, even Madero could not keep his motley alliance of motley elements together, and it was likely that once the rebels suffered their first defeat, that the entire crumbling revolutionary coalition would collapse.
Huerta's hopes, at first, seemed to be accomplished, blurred with victory, Villa very confident ordered a frontal attack on the city of Chihuahua. While her most cautious counselors like Juan Medina warned him, that was a mistake.There was murguia, the city was well supplied with superior artillery and most of the advocates were colorados, from Orozco. After three days of wasted accusations, Villa interrupted the attack. He was now in a difficult position, because unless he kept the impulse, her own men could start thinking, with Huerta, that Torreon was a chance. It was vital to take another blow. As a commander, Villa always disappointed when he held good letters, but was at his best when he cornered his back to the wall or when discarded.This he has now proved to recover from the defeat in Chihuahua to an incredible exploration in Ciudad Juarez when he managed to perform the story of Trojan's horse history.
An attack on Ciudad Juarez was the only significant option left to him, but it was a hard nut to crack. Much better defended than in 1911, Juarez always carried the danger that any military operations would provoke US intervention, especially if There was also the roving federal army - the one that didn't take it to the rear in Torreon - still at large in Chihuahua, no one knew exactly where. but Villa had an ace in the hole he never owned before - locomotives and stock he had captured in Torreon. His ingenious mind immediately saw a way forward.
While some of their men were overwhelming on the city of Chihuahua, as if to renew the attack, Villa's main force intercepted two coal trains at Terrazas Station, emptied the load and carried his own elite body.Vista, Villa entered the steam towards Ciudad Juarez. In every station in the race, North Villa took the prisoner of the telegraph operators and asked for instructions from the headquarters, putting himself at risk and pretending to be the federal officer in charge of the train.Each interruption of history was the same: he was returning north to the base, while the southern line was blocked by 'The Bandit Villa'.o' All Clear 'repeated was answered by the reiterated' return to base '.Morning of the night of November 15, 1913, while most of the city's federal troops slept or in bars, brothels and casinos, Villa and their men entered the steam of Juarez.Signal was given to Rocket Flare's cavalry and, in one hour, all strategic points of the city - barracks, arms deposit, running track, casinos and even the international bridge - were in the hands of Villa.
This amazing feat made Villa worldwide famous.He gained more applause for his treatment to federal commander General Francisco Castro, who was authorized from unharmed to the US.Aware that Castro was the same man who had interceded for his life with Huerta in 1912, Villa had already given strict orders so that the enemy general was not injured.However, even after such a victory (a sign of triumph in more than one way), he could not rest on the laurels.Huerta still thought that Villa was just a player whose luck would end sooner or later, so he sent a new army to the north to resume Torreon.The orders were also sent to the garrison of the city of Chihuahua to make a sorted and leave for the offensive;7,000 men under Orozco's command went north.Villa now had to decide whether to ride and would defend Ciudad Juarez or move south and attack the enemy before they could attack him.
Villa decided to go to the south, following the railway line. Sheer was double: he had no food, ammunition and other resources to support a prolonged siege in Ciudad Juarez, and he didn't want to give Huerta a chance to throw the American letter firingOn the border and bringing the Marines. He decided to position himself in Tierra Blanca, a rail crossing about thirty kilometers south. He knew this was a bet. He was slightly inferior in numbers for the enemy, and at leastI, of his 5,500 staff, was armed with no more than knives and machetes - and many were young women and boys - while the feds had incredible superiority in artillery; villalists had little more in terms of heavy fire power than twoCountry weapons Monndogon 75mm. From some way, there was no doubt to achieve a moral or psychological advantage over Huerta's fighters, because most of them were colorados, from Orozco, who, knowing the certain destination that awaited them if defeated, would fight withThe last man.
The fight began on the night of November 23, but it was on the morning of November 24 that the terrible two -day involvement of Tierra Blanca really began. For all the laws of the war, Orozco and the federals should have easily won the battle.They had superiority in all areas, especially artillery and ammunition, while Villa had no reserves, not a major strategy and even real tactics; later, it happened that he had not coordinated the movements of his various commanders.FEDERALS devastated the villains, who had no firepower to respond. For a long time, the villa was on the edge of defeat on the defensive, trying to save scarce ammunition, its left dangerously exposed to enemy cavalry trying to work around the flank,Being the right devastated by the fire of the machine gun. Its infantry fueled generously with mausers and machine guns, the federals advanced boldly.
However, federal commander Jose Salazar paid the price of overconfidence. He should have diminished a covered artillery bombing, then launched a total attack, which would certainly have taken the day, but he sent his infantry very early, and they wereCaught by an accusation timed by one of Villa with 300 cavalry commanders. Meeting, the feds retreated to their initial positions, thus delivering the initiative to Villa. During the rest of the day, Salazar and Orozco rested on defensive and at night formed ina tighter internal perimeter.
Before the 25th dawn, Villa ordered a general advance and a cavalry flank movement while sending one of his newest helpers, Rodolfo Fierro, to the south behind the enemy to blow up the railway.The advance of the villalist infantry faded that morning before the gun-nest thrunteries, but at noon Villa's cavalry appeared in the enemies flanks, forcing them to evacuate their positions and retreat to the trains of troops.That was exactly what Villa expected.Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion of the enemy rear.Fierro had circumvented behind them and now sent an uncontrolled locomotive by colliding with the deviations behind the feds.Former exponent of Mkquina Loca, Fierro had filled the engine with dynamite and percussion sports, generating a thunderous explosion that left the enemy panic.While the demoralized federals tried to cut and escape, Villa finally put their artillery into play, increasing the casualties.Terrible slaughter scenes followed when the white flags were ignored and colorado hecatombes were massacred where they were.All captured, including officers, were executed.That night Villa gave a big party to celebrate.
With this victory, Villa became indicted master of the state of Chihuahua. The cost of 300 casualties (federal losses were at least me, ooo), he acquired four more locomotives, eight field weapons, seven machine guns, horses,Rifles and 4,000 rounds of ammunition. He controlled Ciudad Juarez and the border traffic, and besides the federal market hurriedly abandoned the city of Chihuahua, panicked for the American border, along with Creel and the Terrazas - but not beforeHanging all the political tree prisoners of Álamo. The city's oligarchs had begged and begged him to stay, offered him huge sums of money and reminded him of the likely arrival of a help column, but the market has had enough, especiallyBecause he could no longer control the orozquisters, who turned to Parabanditry and was intimidating the oligarchs. The terrified train of Creel-Terrazas-Merd fled the desert on foot, in cars and on horseback, spreading the vacant ground as they followed with discarded baggage,Supplies and ammunition. In December, Villa entered the city of Chihuahua, where he received the tumultuous ovation of the crowd of the State Palace.
Tierra Blanca was an impressive triumph of morals over material, élan over technology, morals over material, but for closer observers there were some worrying indicators for the future. Villa won the battle by luck rather than talent, and he made every mistake in the textbook. He did not direct the battle firmly enough, but he left too much initiative in the hands of individual commanders; he weakened his front by sending reinforcements from one sector to another; he had no concept of reserves and threw all his men on the attack; and he had no idea how to handle his artillery or how to minimize the impact of the enemy's. These flaws would be fully exposed in the future, but for the time being they were overlooked as Villa was Chihuahua's master.
Villa's triumphs were seen by Carranza in Sonora, with growing scene and worry. Here was this peasant bumpkin, as Carranza saw him, succeeding Chihuahua, where she failed, refusing to recognize her overall authority and overcome more and more converted.The US did not even recognize the "constitutionalists" as belligerents of good faith. It was essential for Carranza to create or discover his own military hero. Heer favorite general was Pablo Gonzalez, possibly the most incompetent commander in the history of the revolution.Dismissed Gonzalez did not progress in the Northeast against the target cities of Monterrey and Nuevo Laredo, but Coahuila's leaders refused to accept Carranza's designation as chief commander in the Northeast. The local leader, Lucio Blanco, despised so gonzalez that, in October 1913, the two revolutionary factions in Coahuila almost hit and began their own civil war.Blanco, a leftist and therefore hated by Carranza, who hated all men on the left, ended up leaving the state not to receiveGonzalez orders.
Carranza, therefore, constantly advanced in Alvaro Obergon's career, his only truly capable commander, trying to build him as a counterweight to Villa.Obregon, 33, had a remarkably complicated career.Born in 1880, the last of eight children, was raised in refined poverty by his mother, Sales Cenobia, and three sisters in the city of Huatabampo.His father, Francisco Obergon, who died when Alvaro was three months old, had been a rich landowner, but most of his property was confiscated by Juarez in 1867 as punishment for Francisco's support to Maximiliano.The following year, a disastrous flood devastated the part of the property that had been left.The children of Obergon turned to Pedagogy: Alvaro's brother Joseph, and three of his sisters were teachers.
As a child, Alvaro Obregon learned all the tasks of a farm and spent a lot of time with the Mayo Indians, who had a reputation for reckless courage.He attended the primary school in Huatabampo and was a studious child, but the financial need forced him to interrupt his studies after elementary school.Obergon was one of those notable individuals who could handle anything and, in their early years, a stick was revealed to all work with innate talent as an entrepreneur.At the age of thirteen she learned photography and carpentry, began to cultivate tobacco, became a specialized mechanic and learned alone to read music before forming a family orchestra she ruled.His formation was not in liberal humanities, but in the harsh school of opportunism and cruelty.
At the turn of the century, Obergon was mechanical -mechanical of the Tres Hermanos sugar factory, owned by his maternal uncles, the Salda brothers, who were prosperous in the Mayo River region. In 1903, he married Urrea and ifMade a tenant farmer, alternating this with life as a door shoe seller. In 19th6, he was able to buy a small farm that dubbed 'the poor man's mansion' and built a prosperous chickpea business., the tragedy occurred. He had generated a child every year since marriage, but that year his wife and two of the four children died. Three sisters received the two surviving children, leaving the widower Alvaro over time in his hands, whichHe gave a good purpose by inventing a chickpea harvesting.
Wealthy enough in 1910 to be able to travel to Mexico City for the Diaz Centenary celebrations, Obregon had a reputation in Sonora for being a genius. His excellent mechanical ability was combined with a great natural intelligence and an obvious creative streak. possessed a phenomenal memory: it was said that he could remember the order of an entire piece of cards, arranged at random, after seeing the cards just once, and he became a feared poker player, so formidable that people actually He was asked not to play. Affable, light-hearted and easygoing, Obregon enjoyed wit and humor and fancied himself as a Joker. When he first rose to fame, he aspired to be the Will Rogers of Mexico as much as its Woodrow Wilson. from his childhood. One of his words was: 'I had so many brothers and sisters that when we ate Gruyere cheese only the holes were left for me'.
Obregon is one of the few leaders of the Mexican Revolution, for whom there is sufficient evidence of his inner life that we can risk a guess in demons poking him. Freudians would undoubtedly say he was directed to death. Some loss of childhood, perhaps deathof his father, he brought to him. When he was a signs of autism and did not speak a word until he was five.Five years as a monkey, the child suddenly found voice and spat with you: `Vieja Loca '(' Crazy Old '). There is another significant event when he was fifteen. He was working on his brother Alejandro's farm a few kilometers fromHouse, and the two shared the same room. During the night, Alvaro shouted as if in agony and woke up his brother. He said he just had a vivid dream that his mother died. Next morning, a man galloping to saythat his mother had died, at the exact time that Alvaro had his dream. Other evidence of something buried in the unconscious - something to do with death - appear in poetry of the type Poe he wrote.
In jogo -i, Obergon did not join the revolt against Diaz. He feared losing his wealth and, in any way, was sympathetic to the aged dictator - a fact with which revolutionary sounds often censored him.to the chest to leave criticism of others and had this to say about Rgio-II: `The Maderal Party was divided into two sections; one of them was composed of individuals responsive to Call of Duty, who left their homes and cut all the bonds ofFamily and interest in assuming a rifle ... and the other of the men who stood out to the whispers of fear, who did not find arms, that children that can become orphaned and who were linked by thousands of other ties that neither duty cannotsuppress when the spectrum of fear grabs the hearts of men. It was for the second of these classes that I unfortunately belonged.
In 1912 he joined Madero's fight against Pascual Orozco.He recruited 300 men and formed the 4th irregular sound battalion under the command of General Sangines.He proved to be a born captain, his mind full of baits, ambushes, and chess game maneuvers;Some even claim that he was the first person to defend that each soldier should dig his own trench instead of using a collective trench.Obergon had already converted death costumes into a daily reality, and his family letters are full of references (unconscious desires?) To death in battle.Promoted to Colonel after defeating Orozistas in San Joaquin, resigned in December 1912 and returned to his farm.When Huerta took over the presidency after murdering Madero, he immediately offered his services to the Sonora Government.
Obregon left a mission to capture Huerta's border border cities as Villa crossed Rio Grande in his great adventure; capturing border cities would allow the sound rebels to charge customs and smuggling tasks., Obergon took Nogales in March and then moved to Naco, defended by General Pedro Ojeda, a man in the mold of Huerta, who boasted as always executed all the prisoners of war he took.His defenses boast: 'I will cut my head before surrendering or crossing to the United States.
Obregon then quickly took Cananea, Moctezuma and Alamos, leaving (of the main cities) only Guaymas in Huerta's hands. The rebels raised forced loans and used expropriated property as collateral for other lines of credit. The American miners and the Southern Pacific Railroad were content to pay taxes to the Sonoran rebels, who had no radical agenda and simply presented themselves as more efficient managers of a capitalist economy than the Huertistas. By the summer of 1913, Obregon had emerged as a military figure in Sonora, and it was in this capacity that he welcomed the fugitive Carranza to the state. He now commanded an army of 6,000 men, including 2,000 Yaquis; Obregon proved to be an expert in maintaining the ring between the Sonoran capitalists and the Yaquis with their radical agrarian goals.
Huerta entrusted the reconquest of the northwest to General Luis Medina Barron, another figure of Huerta-like ferocity, who knew the Sonora terrain intimately. In the face of their advance, the rebels withdrew from the siege of Guaymas, and a confident Barron boasted of continue on and take Hermosillo. In a three-day battle at Hacienda Santa Rosa, Obregon proved his caliber by severely defeating Barron, who withdrew after losing half his army. recently fled across the border. Obregon appeared to retreat, luring Ojeda, then fell on him at Santa Maria in late June. , in addition to capturing a huge stock of weapons, ammunition and mnateriel.Obregon was already perfecting his technique of manipulating the enemy to fight on the ground of his own choice - the Wellington Touch.Ojeda skulked in Guaymas, safe only with the covering fire of two Federal gunboats.
After firmly investing the federal in Guaymas, Obergon refused to waste time on front attacks. He had already shown himself a military master, removing the enemy from his base, extending his lines of communication, taking him in skills and usually demoralizing himBefore battle.He planned his battles with graphics, equations and geometric figures. In Santa Rosa, in May 1913, he calculated his movements to a delicacy as he surrounded the federal, elaborating trigonometrically how to cut the escape from the garrison.
Many sound generals, such as Benjamin Hill, who fought for Madero, resented the meteoric rise of Obergon and considered him a Johnnycom recently.Even so, when Carranza confirmed him as Northwest Chief Commander on September 20, 1913, Hill and the others had no choice but to obey his orders.Carranza's appointment contained her own absurdities, for Obergon was now the military supreme, in theory, not only in sound, Sinaloa and Baja California, but also in Chihuahua.There Villa made the whole fight, but Carranza did not find it well to consult him about the command or even if he accepted the authority of the 'constitutionalists'.
Anyway, as summer passed, Obergon was increasingly approached with political problems. He had to pacify Yaquis and, most importantly, deciding which attitude to take to Carranza. Yaquis were the simplest task of the two., which had been created among the Indians and knew how to talk to them in their own language, which buttons to press, and which taboos to be avoided was particularly successful in recruiting Yaquis, who became their crack troops.Single commander to recruit them, but alone had an instinctive understanding of their psychology and how to motivate them. Its duplicity arises in the solemn promise that he would restore Yaquis on his land if they campaigned for him as tigers.He was successful, Obergon forgot his promise, and it was bitterly ironic that he was the one who in the late 1920s finally destroyed them as a culture and a combat force.
Carranza was a more delicate problem. It was particularly annoyed Obregon that Carranza had come to sound as a virtual refugee and, arrogantly, assumed powers and titles that no one had given her.And the sound politicians had consumed with him in this fraud for entirely selfish reasons, jealous of Governor Juan Maytarena. It was true that Maytarena had not tried and won few new friends for her cowardly flight to the US, but now he was back, to find out that Carranza usurped most of her functions and was like a gigantic constitutionalist cuckoo in the sound. Of course Maytarena returned to find herself marginalized, and Obergon was angry with Carranza not to appoint her supreme military commander of the constitutionalists, but only commander in theNortheast, equal to revenues with incompetents like Pablo Gonzalez in the Northeast, looks like Maytarena and Obergon should logically do the common cause.
Obregon continued his military success. In November, he conquered the city of Culiacan, demonstrating three qualities as a captain: mastery of terrain, distribution of men and time, and artillery placement. He was also learning political skills. During a five-month break from the fighting in Sonora during the winter of 1913-14, he became a master of intrigue, using the time to discredit Felipe Angeles, his only military and intellectual rival among the Carrancistas. Angeles joined Carranza after a bitter dispute with death under Huerta. When Angeles returned from Cuernavaca with i,ooo men to support Madero during La Decena Tragica, Huerta was furious that Angeles nearly ruined his intrigue for his loyalty. As a reward, he was arrested and placed in the same cell as Madero and Pino Suarez just before Major Cárdenas came to get them. Angeles was lucky to escape the same fate; perhaps only his rank in the Army saved him.
Obergon was already becoming a qualified political manipulator. He liked to play in the gallery, affect the buffet, pretend to be kind, disorganized and self-applied.Seriously: this had not pointed directly to him, but caused the wound to ricochetar on a stone. However, in reality, this "just" persona hid a frightening ambition, as this mask usually does.In his soul, where Villa had fire. He was a man who disseminated, disguised, was secret, touched his letters near his chest, was opaque and with poker face, and generally hid his true feelings, deep thoughts and intentionsFinal.Villa was an open book, but Obergon was the most enigmatic character in the whole revolution.
The year 1913 saw the rise to the national prominence of Villa, Carranza and Obergon. However, there was a fourth national figure in the countryside, which had the credentials of all the feature films of all, because he was a revolutionary general since the early days of1911. For Zapata, with his previous experience from Huerta, the head dictator of Balaaered a greater challenge than Madero had never done. When he heard the news of February coup, Zapata immediately wrote Genovevo de la 0 to alert it toNot accepting any offer of lectures from the new government: `Careful ... and attack the enemy wherever it is shown. 'To leave his crystal clear position, Zapata made a formal announcement of his eternal hostility to Huerta and Felix Diaz in two separate pronounspublished in the second and fourth of March 1913.
One effect of Huerta's rise to power was to increase partisanship in Morelos, as the state was now divided into three parts, between Zapatistas, Maderistas, and those who decided to make peace with Huerta. Orozco's example in this regard was powerful, and many guerrilla leaders sought accommodation with Huerta, citing Orozco's and Zapata's praise of him in the Plan de Ayala; Zapata was particularly disheartened when the fourth echelon of the Zapatista junta, Jesus Morales, went over to the side of the enemy. Huerta showed how he intended to proceed in Morelos by reappointing the hated Juvencio Morales as military commander there. The exultant dictator told his drinking buddy, Lane Wilson, "The best way to deal with these rebels is with an eighteen-cent rope to hang them with."
Zapata made it clear that it would be a knife war by attacking Mexico City train to Cuernavaca and killing seventy -five soldiers.Huerta responded by declaring the martial law and announcing that he should carry 20,000 brunette pawns to Quintana Roo.Zapata then wrote a blunt letter to Huerta and Orozco, accusing them of "mercenary trafficking ... to murder the revolution."Orozco and Huerta made the mistake of sending peace commissioners to brunettes to probe the rebels.Zapata grabbed them, gave them a spectacular judgment and executed them, making it clear that there would be no agreement.General Robles was eager to go south to avenge this "atrocity," but in March-Abil Huerta was concerned about the North and advised Robles to wait until he could provide him with his necessary labor.A kind of "fake war" uncomfortable hovered over branches in these months, allowing farmers to reap products that would later tax.
Huerta soon evidenced his short path with constitutional subtleties. When Robles arrived in Moreos and announced that it intended to be governor and military commander, the state assembly reported that this was unconstitutional.in Mexico City.He then warned the planters that he would use any measures needed to destroy Zapata; if the planters were caught in the cross fire, this was simply the unfortunate collateral damage of the war.Liberals in a stroke and make people Zapatista or Huertista, alcoholic Hawkish was operating his own excluded Middle Law.
Zapata would have been delighted to have formed the kind of military coalition that Villa forged in the north, but his perennial problem was that disadvantages in geography and social structure meant that he could rarely send large armies. He was restricted to operating with guerrilla units of no more than fifty men each. While a combined operation, involving the armies of Sonora, Chihuahua and Coahuila, was finally pulled off by northern revolutionaries in 1914, such a grand slam remained a dream for the Zapatistas. Zapata tried to burn down all of southern Mexico, albeit with limited success. In Mérida, Yucatan, 180 transported Zapatistas engaged in a furious firefight with the authorities for two hours before being subdued and the survivors executed, and elsewhere in Yucatan, as well as in Oaxaca and Veracruz, there were many sporadic Viva Zapata uprisings, but Tabasco and Chiapas, where the plantocracy was strongest, saw little action. In general, Zapata continued to operate in well-known furrows: in Morelos, in the state of Mexico, in the Federal District, in Puebla, Guerrero and in the south of Michoacán.
His work of employees was, however, better than in the past. Therefore part of the credit so it was for his new head of operations, Manuel Palafox, a student, seller and accountant of Exornigina.Vinte and six, with lack of height,With precarious and marked appearance, Palafox was a boundless energy addict that turned the Zapatista movement into a simplified operation. He knew the northern policy and legal procedures and therefore more than only useful; he acted asProsecutor -Chief in the Kangaroo Court that condemned Huerta's envoys to death. The only strike against Palafox - and in a macho society was serious - that he was a homosexual of promiscuous appetites. Zapata was known for his contempt for gays,Well summarized by the observation he made in 1912 the Otilio Montano, when the co-author of Ayala's plan suggested that they use disguise at a time when they were being hard by the enemy. Zapata refused to wear sunglasses or shaving his mustache,saying he was not 'a fairy, bullfighter or friar'.
The day after Robles' "election" as governor of Morelos, Zapata showed his contempt by attacking Jonacatepec and taking him after thirty-thirty hours of fighting. Five hundred federals died or were arrested, producing 330 mausers, two machine guns, caches of ammunition and 310 horses. Zapata spared the commander, Higinio Aguilar, and his officers on condition that they not fight the Zapatistas again. For mixed reasons of greed and gratitude, Aguilar joined Zapata and proved extremely useful, not only in training recruits, but by brokering gun purchases from every corrupt federal official he knew. prestige, such as the National Theater and the Bank of London and Mexico, needed to be suspended.
On April 23, Zapata launched an offensive on a large scale.First he invested in Cuautla, then on May 1st exploded a train on the Mexico/Morelos border, killing more than 10 soldiers.With his scouts advancing toward Cuernavaca, Huerta decided it was time to retaliate before the Zapatists did a common cause with the rebels in the north.Huerta exhibited in the south the type of energy that was remaining remaining in the North and many of his own office criticized him for this scale of priority;Zapata, they argued, was a mere nosy and not Papabile, but Carranza was, and her movement, with her intelligentia and incipient bureaucracy, was the true threat.
Disregarding the advice, Huerta sent his 'flagella of God' to Morelos. Reading Zapata in Cuautla, the federals approached three separate columns to surround him, but the Zapatists easily dishredled and melted in Guerrero and Puebla.in 9In May, reinforced with a force of 5,000 men, Robles began a reign of terror, devastating villages, `` volunteers '' and performing summary executions. He ordered all residents to focus on major cities and decree that anyone who remained in thePueblos, who he intended to stir and destroy, would be executed as a rebel. Once the terrified residents gathered in the designated cities, Robles packaged all the hateful for the service against Villa in the north. In June, he deported more than 1, oooRobles and Huerta would have approved the later notorious maximum: "It was necessary to destroy the village to save it." They intended to create a desert and call it peace.
From Cuautla Robles sent a telegram announcing a 'triumph', which seemed to consist of his bombing of abandoned Zapatista headquarters.He claimed (falsely) discovered a huge hiding place of weapons, but actually found the bodies of the envoys of Huerta that Zapata had executed.The only result of Robles's absurd ostentation was that Huerta believed in his word and withdrew the troops for operations in the north.The fallacy of Roble policy was well summarized by John Womack: "He was strong enough just to devastate, not to ensure control."Many villagers, knowing that their homes would be destroyed, fled to the mountains or joined Zapata.Previously neutral cities like Tepoztlan passed on to him and new recruits arrived.The most extravagant was a battalion of 'Amazonas' brunettes - an armed group of women of IXTLA puenade led by a formidable former tortilla former manufacturer named La China.
Burn planters saw the ruin of all their hopes. They faced the loss of their workforce for both rebels and drafts, and meanwhile Robles do not yet protect them against Zapata's forced loans., Robles transported another 2,000 of the healthy and then another 1,300 in July, leaving women, children and elderly men in the concentration camps. In months, Huerta's strong man completely destroyed the state's social fabric.To agree at the end of June that they could maintain 30 % of their workforce; to fill the gaps left by the winnowing of his army, he promised to bring 30,000 Japanese immigrants. However, nothing interrupted the insane devastation by Robles;Anywhere was the real `Attila do Sul. 'Imply with the burning and rapes were irrational destruction and barefoot theft. Entire to pigs, chickens and horse and cattle farms were confiscated, the most edible animals being massacredand eaten on site.
Faced with this attack, Zapata retreated, ready to counterattack when Robles thought everything was quiet.For the mountains, the tough guerrilla flocks were wandered, supporting amazing deprivations, hurting thirst, suffering from pneumonia and malaria, rarely eating meat and yet never properly cooked, without at least one tortilla for days, without alcohol, tobacco or medicine, sleeping outsideOutdoors, but never giving up.Zapata's concern was not so much with the indomitable morals of his men, but with the fear of anarchy and chaos.He had to guarantee that the disparate rebel groups were coordinated, not fighting with each other, and, above all, did not alienate the villagers through withdrawals.The edges of the Zapatista Movement were already wearing out and tending to become banditry.Gangs of non -socialized boys, aged ten to twelve years, followed the trail of guerrillas, shooting, killing and looting even more carefully than adults.The irony was that the outer edge of Zapatism was beginning to decay even when the inner core, previously an almost anarchist movement of rural revolt, began to assume some of the characteristics of a political party, complete with intellectuals such as Palafox, secretaries, organizers, technicianspoliticians and problem solving.
Inevitably, Zapata's intellectuals began to pay more attention to the movement's ideology. As many aspects of Ayala's plan were out of date - Orozco, for example, mentioned as a revolutionary comrade in arms, he was now routinely denounced as a traitor and usurper - a plan In addition, on May 30, 1913, Zapata announced the establishment of a six-man revolutionary junta. He was chairman of the junta, commander in chief, and first head of the Revolution; , Otilio Montano, Felipe Neri, Amador Salazar and the leader's brother Eufemio, with Palafox acting as secretary. This marked the beginning of an attempt to formalize, through rules and regulations, matters that were previously carried out spontaneously or informally, particularly those related payable, provisions, loans and subsidies. In October 1913, the revolutionary army itself was placed on a professional basis, complete with hierarchies, police and NCOs. obey the orders of another's officers. Here was Zapata trying to break down the old ways of caudillism, kinship, and clan mentality in favor of a genuinely revolutionary organization.
The game of cat and mouse with Robles continued.robles thought that had marked a great success capturing Huautla, a mining settlement, where Zapata had his thirst soon, but Zapata had already moved;The earth looked like the madness of a madman trying to take the wind. Zapat was lacking luck. Huerta's blow left the brothers Figueroa in an uncertain member what to do next, but prevented by the pride to join Zapata.Lost for answers, they ended up taking weapons against Huerta by themselves, but almost immediately, in June 1913, the old enemy of Zapata, Ambrosio Figueroa, was captured by the federal and executed.
In August 1913, Robles began an offensive three times against Zapata, who simply moved from burn to Guerrero and Puebla; with the disappearance of the figueroas, their influence in these states was greater than ever.In Qi August to find Zapata missing, and the bodies of the veteran of Pascual Orozco and two other peacekeepsman - foolish men who had not yet learned the lesson of any commitment - still lying where they were executed.Finished, and his stupid pride was at first. In fact, Zapata was not just off, but stronger than ever. In all southern Mexico, he sent his men to invade, end up with advanced federal posts and tear the tracksof the railroad.Houve Zapatista attacks on successful and almost simultaneous in Moreos, State of Mexico, Federal District, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Guerrero, Michoacan and even Yucatan.He could wait was to occupy the big cities.
At this point, Huerta was under strong pressure in northern Mexico and could no longer pay expensive flaws like Robles. He remembered Robles and replaced him with a moderate General Adolfo Jimenez, who would still exercise the governor's joint term and military commander.Jimenez sought no more than keeping brunettes running at stasis, while Huerta concentrated in the north. The result was the impasse and a respiratory space. Zapata had time for high policy issues and made two decisions: moving her base of brunette operationsTo the north of Guerrero and interrupt the elections that Huerta asked for October. In a meeting of the board in southern Moreos, just before the change of headquarters, two other subjects were decided: that the Zapatista movement would seek the US recognition as legitimate belligerentsAnd would actively negotiate an alliance with the Pancho villa. But it was surely seemed that the paths of the two greatest revolutionary heroes were converging.
Vila em His Zenith
The winter of 1913-14 saw Villa Master of the State of Chihuahua and the ACME of its fame and influence. The legend of the village of Pancho effectively from this moment and its immense popularity can be seen as a compound of the personal charisma ofMan, his bravery, cunning, intelligence and military success, the satisfaction he gave to a culture based on machismo and the appeal he made to the oppressed sectors of society. An example of a textbook of a Latin American Caudillo personalist, Villa commandedThe sharpest loyalty and its magnetism attracted the bravest and best of Ranch, Mine and Village, quickly transforming bandits and guerrilla groups into highly qualified light cavalry.Quality of your men - resistant, mobile, motivated and rich in morals - to create a legendary bond between leader and LED.
Always impatient with abstractions, Villa was personalistic at all levels. He encouraged his own legend, especially the unique mix of Robin Hood and Don Juan, who lost nothing in the narration. In a story, he killed a judge in court, in another, he was a colonel in a team meeting and, in another Englishman, he was an Englishman he had killed before the surprise look of other gringos.Huerta's face when the general threatened him with execution. Mexican peasants loved all the high stories: they liked the fact that he was one of them that he was stuck with a grudge match with the oligarchs and therefore not notHe would abandon them. Both for Villa and his followers, loyalty was the -chave concept. He was loyal to other people and expected the same; he had a reminder of Elefantina for hot, as well as previous favors and obtained a terrible revenge on them toWho he brought grudge.He liked to lead head -on, diving in the ranks if his troops hesitates, a family figure in khaki and shadow. To start, all the acts of Villa's bold and bravata were successfully attended, but unfortunately these triumphsPrimitives led him to believe in his own propaganda and consider themselves truly invincible.
In these years of his hegemony, dozens of observers, both Mexican and foreigners, observed Villa and tried to take his measure. Some hated him obsessively, others admired him excessively. Syndes critics liked to live in the fingers, their habit of wrinkling their face whenHe concentrated, his thin voice and refered and his hyperothenalism. Villa and tears were nearby comrades: sometimes they were tears of joy, sometimes emotion, often anger and occasionally frustration. The American journalist John Reed, who knew him at that moment,He reported that he cried on the funeral of Abraham Gonzalez and would become Lachrymose if the martyred Maders, Francisco and Gustavo were mentioned. Sometimes Villa dissolved in tears of intellectual frustration or with the realization of his own mental inadequacy; the man who feared nothingAnd lived with weapons as naturally as other people with their shows, sometimes seen trembling superstitically when he was in the presence of books.
Both friends and enemies noticed their notable eyes, who usually compared to those of a wild carnivorous.José Vasconcelos spoke of 'a wild animal that instead of claws had machine guns and cannons'.One of Villa's secretaries, Martin Guzman, said he was like a jaguar: 'His eyes were always restless, mobile as if they were dominated by terror ... constantly anxious ... an wild animal on his burden, but an animal thatdefends itself, not one that attacks. 'Most observers tracked this to their childhood as a bad guy, always on the run, always alert, always with a raised ear.That was why he never slept in the same place twice, moved place at night, and dozed off irregularly when he slept.Frequently, too, when he couldn't sleep, he went out to see if he could get some sentry sleeping at his posts;If he did it, he executed them right there with his pistol.He never walked any distance, always rode;It was not just a centaur, but a kind of trigger man, for many witnesses said the same thing: it was hard to know where his penetrating gaze ended and the pipe of his weapon began, as they seemed to merge in space.
It is curious how independent observers seemed to reach the same similes and metaphors when describing Villa. What the only animal he was not compared to was a bull, perhaps because he loved bullfighting and loved to measure against the horns of a Toro.to walk to a bull in the arena, slap, then bear to be persecuted and thrown for half an hour before calling his comrades to grasp the beast and take it.VI, natural in the sense of being closer to a wild animal. He says almost nothing and seems so quiet that it is almost different ... if he is not smiling, he is looking kind. All except his eyes, which are never real estateand full of energy and brutality. They are as intelligent as hell and as merciless. The movements of his feet are strange - he always walked in horseback - but those in his hands and arms are extraordinarily simple, graceful and direct.a wolf. He is a terrible man.'
Villa never smoked or drank, but he loved to sing, dance and play the storyteller and the storyteller.Like Zapata, he had no interest in money or material things, but unlike him was devoid of personal vanity, usually wearing old suits and a cardigan with a shadow or marrow helmet on his head.Its traveling headquarters was a red wagon with chintz curtains, folding wooden bunk beds, and photos of dancers nailed to a dirty gray wall.He seemed prematurely aged, as the difficulties of a life on the trail had charged their price;Throughout the revolution he suffered from the usual and chronic evil of the former Bando: rheumatism.Bored with politicians and intimidated by intellectuals, Villa always preferred the rude company of his cowboys, although he never trusted anyone.His famous bonfire visits, when he used to play from Henry V or Napoleon spying, then revealing himself to his men and asking to share his food, was only a populist touch of gallery;He also wanted to make sure he couldn't be poisoned.
Above all, Villa was a warrior, proud of his martial prowess. He could barely understand a life without a fight. When he asked John Reed about "the war" in the United States and was informed that there was no, he was stunned:"Without war? How do you spend time, then? 'Although he liked jokes, he could be run over and humor when his own status was involved. Reed has seen him being presented with a gold medal for his artillery body toPersonal heroism in the countryside.Villa came forward to receive the medal in the seemingly humble way of 'just people', dressed in an old khaki uniform with several absent buttons, without hat, without hat, her hair sloppy, but when he saw theMedal, he expressed disappointment: `` `` `` `` `` `` `` `` `is a man for all the heroism you are talking about.
To compensate for his uncertainty, Villa had a phenomenal memory and, apparently, to compensate for his lack of education, he made a virtue by trying to solve all problems by the main force. Without time for theory, ideology or rhetorical, and a propensityTo do a problem in the heart of a problem, Villa predictably tried to solve financial problems simply by impressing more money. It was impatience was the Achilles heel in military terms.He had an understanding of Obergon's strategy, but he had talent for logistics and commissioner, so that his team always contains first -class preternal and rail specialists. Always a strange mix of cruelty and compassion, violence and imagination, revenge and stoicism,In addition to despair and hope, he was not from afar as thirsty as most other revolutionary leaders. He threw the prisoners if they were federal or colorado officials, but they spared the box office recruits as they would join him;He was different from Carranza, who always insisted that the international conventions of Hague and Geneva did not apply to "rebels" in a civil war.
As temporary governor of Chihuahua in 1913-14, and later the effective ruler of the state for two years, Villa did a remarkable job. He quickly restored law and order, and his code was so draconian that it would execute a soldier for stealing a pair of boots. He provided pensions, free food, and cheap meat to his followers and their families. He reduced the cost of food and other basics, organized distribution and rationing, punished all abuses by death, and put his army to work on projects of infrastructure - repairing railroads, telephone and telegraph lines, electrification projects, streetcars, water supply and even slaughterhouses. He also sent his men south to harvest the cotton crop in Durango, although he never tried to place Durango under his rule. Politics in that state were very complex, with loyalties divided in three ways: there were the official villains, led by Eugenio Aguirre Benavides; there was the personal fiefdom of Tomas Urbina; and then there were the powerful Arrieta brothers, loyal acolytes of Carranza .
Villa has always been a fanatic for education, while dazzled by the teachers and embarrassed with their own lack of learning.He also had genuine compassion for the children and decreed that all hundreds of street boys were found homes and schools.With his mania of education and homeless children, he hired teachers from Jalisco, greatly expanded the educational budget, greatly increased the salaries of teachers, built more than new school zoos and stipulated that there should be a primary school for each farm.He also set up a military college with vacancies for 5,000 students.Even more than land reform, he saw education as the Panacea of Mexico.He told John Reed that he had three priorities: his troops, children and the poor.His idea of utopia was an armed citizenship, all attending school, with Mexico as a huge military gym.He imagined the entire country divided into military colonies, run in a vaguely socialist style, in which men would work three days and spend another three days in military training.It was the Swiss model of a weapon nation, ready to face any invasion.His modest ambition was to live with his companions in one of these military colonies, cultivating corn and cattle and spending his time doing saddles and brakes.
Chihuahua in 1913-14, however, was still threatened by Huerta, so Villa had to set aside his dreams of a Mexican Shangri. At once, he focused on economic strength, exporting meat to Cuba, the US andThen to Europe of war, expropriating the properties and selling the cattle of the fled oligarchs, while charging tasks in the exports of cattle by Ranches who had remained. Most of the local elite owners, managers and entrepreneurs - had gone, but those whoThey remained severe treatment, especially the Spanish hated, who were expelled from scholarship and luggage. Villa, however, always be careful to respect the property and people from other foreigners, without wanting to cause US intervention.In convincing foreign ownership mines to resume production, he interrupted because of the war with Huerta. Penalizing carrots and Stick, he made the extravagant promises of the owners of Minas Gerais, while threatening the expropriation if they did not resume production. Even after Villa.In an extravagant gesture of gringo trucks, it banned unions among the miners, foreign owners largely did not respond and decided to call Villa's Bluff.
Two aspects of the Villa's economic landlord deserve special attention: his attitude towards the supply of money and his supposed socialism. A simple economic simple, Villa has not seen reason so that he could not simply print the money he needed and, to some extent, to some extent,US banks in El Paso plotted it, accepting their currency eighteen and nine cents in dollar, under Villa's assurance. Villa's attack on market orthodoxy was harder to deal with, especially when he gave the poor from Chihuahua fifteenDollars each on Christmas Day 1913 and then fixed the price of staples: the meat would be sold to seven cents per pound, milk to five centsa liter and four cents bread per bread. Mexican traders tried to avoid Villa's price price, pricing their products in a two -level system, a price quoted against Mexican silver money, the other against Villa., and people continued to accumulate silver and "real" bank accounts, Villa stated that all this money not exchanged for their currency in a week would no longer be a legal contest and their holders treated as counterfections. This tough measure went into panicwith disgusting accumulators.
A primitive welfare state, food subsidies, controlled low prices, market hostility, and land grabbing sounded like radicalism in anyone's language, and Reed called Villa's system "the socialism of a dictator." vilism was a far cry from socialism. It is true that there were some socialist elements in Villa's thinking, even if he was not fully aware of all the implications and that the Villa organ Vida Nueva often attacked Carranza for saying that private property was inviolable - that depends, was the villista's response -But Villa was more interested in rewarding its veterans with land subsidies than in redistributing expropriated haciendas to peasants. As for expropriation without compensation, this was not done for ideological reasons, but simply because the hacendados had avoided the taxes for decades undervaluing their land for taxable purposes; the total back taxes owed, therefore, amounted to more than the current market value of the properties, and the confiscations were therefore kidnappings and not expropriations.
There were many other reasons why Villa's policies could not be called socialists.The Northern Pastoral Economy was totally different from the brunette plantation economy and, therefore, was not subject to the same type of land division;On the one hand, the scarcity of water has made huge economies of scale.In any case, the production of large properties provided Villa his "nerves of war", so it was unlikely that he gave a shot in his own foot.His approach was simple: where the ancient oligarchs had fled, Villa gave their hacins to their generals or put supervisors advice;Where they supported him, he left his lands untouched.Anyway, land reform has never been the most urgent issue in Chihuahua than in Moreos.In Chihuahua, the central characteristic of social conflict were villages versus chiefs or political jefes rather than villages versus farms;The struggle was not class against class, but regionalism against the central government.Alan Knight's trial seems solid: "Villa's 'socialism' was an invention of Brooklyn Eagle."
However, the biggest reason for skepticism about Villa's supposed socialism is that, in his two-year hegemony in Chihuahua, there was never anything that could be pinned down to an `ism' - except in the obvious sense that villainy means all things. the things actually done by the villa and its supporters. war. To begin with, there was no consensus on land reform, there is no agreement, for example, whether land should be distributed free of charge or sold on the open market to rich peasants. Silvestre Terrazas found his job as commissioner of expropriated properties, a bed of nails, especially since every time he suggested that a particular village community should be given back their ancient lands stolen by a hacienda, the villa confided that he really wanted to give his troops as the core of his Shangri-La military colony system .
The demands of the revolutionary and the needs of the war were also in conflict. The simultaneous search of weapons and butter could continue since Villa took the days of Halcyon, when there were vast flocks of cattle and cotton harvests to export.Democratic could not be allowed while Villa's veterans were in front, because in their absence their enemies could easily "steal" the elections. Agrarian reform was also interrupted during war time, not only because the villa brushed over whichIt was his real intentions, but because he had a personal disgust against the distribution of land to someone who doesn't actively fight; it seemed unfair to him who cowards, self-attorneys and black marketers could stay home and buy land while his heroes foughtAgainst Huerta. Also, the growing body of Villa Intellectual Consultants advised him that his pet project - three -day agricultural work and three -day military training - was unfeasible and would lead to the collapse of agriculture and wide hunger.This problem stating that he would allow wild Terrazas to distribute land at his discretion, but that former luis terrazas Estates had to be reserved as military colonies for their soldiers.
Since state -repressed demand for the state was satisfied, Chihuahua's economy had problems. Forced contributions and the sale of confiscated properties packed the worst aspects of scarcity and inflation caused by the scarcity of non -operational mines revenue andby the number of decline cattle, which was shot down to feed the armies or exported to the United States. Inflation was exacerbated by the huge amount of money printed by the villalist coin house.From 1914 for us, twenty cents in June. The rationing was not really an option, as Villa did not have an efficient bureaucracy to manage it. Frust with the problems that seemed beyond it, Villa attacked the mercantile class, accusing them ofaccumulation and economic sabotage. He placed the wild Terrazas in charge of a secret police agency to sniff these "people of the people." The police trains, listening to conversations, intercepted letters, conducted surveillance operations and usually took the political pulse, butThey found few saboteurs to execute. From any form, the crime was, at a very low level, during the villa's subsidiary: the criminals were caught and executed after a summary judgment or were summoned to the Army.
It will be appreciated that Chihuahua under Villa was a far cry from being a socialist society. Handing out pieces of land from Terrazas to his soldiers was not an example of Villa's "socialism" but an absolute pragmatic necessity; not even Villa could get men to follow him without reward. With Villismo's impartiality between the army and the dispossessed, its lack of a clear ideology, and its eclectic "middle ground" approach to problems, the analogy that most comes to mind is Peron's Argentina. A comparison with Zapata's Morelos is immediately clear. Zapata's redistribution of land led to subsistence agriculture, not commercialization of cash crops; Villa, on the contrary, enjoying the proximity of the USA, exported and redistributed the profits away from the peasantry. Villa bureaucrats were under strict orders to prohibit the kind of communal land tenure that was second nature to Morelos Indians. In Morelos, under Zapata, the state can be said to be wasting away; under Villa, in Chihuahua, it was stronger than ever, intervening at all points of economic and social life. The one area where Villa maintained revolutionary purity was the low level of corruption in his regime. With the exception of Villa himself and Urbina, no Villista chief acquired the kind of wealth that Obregon did in Sonora. Villa had no equivalent for the greedy "proconsuls" that Carranza sent to the four corners of Mexico to try to fulfill the mandate of the "First Chief." Where Carrancista "proconsuls" were greedy outsiders bleeding arid lands in which they had no stake or personal roots, the Villa chiefs operated on a purely local level, with the entire Villista nexus no more than a grand coalition of local revolutionary bands.
The radical element in Vilismo may have been overwhelmed by the commentators more impressed with attitudes than socioeconomic reality. Although the PEON, tenant and sharecropper lot would improve under Villa, which changed above all the mindset of ordinary men and womenHe now seemed to the world, with the rich and the poor enjoying unpublished privileges, with one of them as ruler of Chihuahua, the expropriated and miserable of Earth no longer perceived obedience, deference and rigid hierarchy as a nature leisa.One of the first casualties of the new attitudes was the Catholic priesthood. Sob Diaz, the parish priest was widely perceived as a leech - six weights for a wedding ceremony and the rest of proportional - and a lecher, who took advantage of the confessional to enjoyDe Droit du Seigneur: `The girls here are very in love, a priest told John Reed. However, under Villa in 1913-14, anticlericalism was the order of the day. In the priests of Durango, were beaten and arrested and the churchesThey deleted, and in the clerics of Chihuahua were sent to the Shooting Squad. Private, they were priests who had village lands or supported the local elites of the pre-village era; especially hated Spanish priests and nuns, who were expelled in mass.De Villa, however, was always pragmatic and not ideological; he was no more a jacobin than a socialist.
Despite the accusations of socialism, the middle class of Chihuahua was powerfully relieved by Villa's moderation and conciliation and the railroad imposed on his men.Villa also offered amnesty to employees and bureaucrats who had served under Huerta and Orozco, promising not reprisals.His moderation was also assisted by the state-of-the-art stannomous posture, a channel through which all accusations of 'counterrevolutionary' behavior were processed.Terrazas received many letters addressed to Villa, containing inflammatory material and fuel that could have led the volatile centaur to order massacres;Terrazas largely maintained this correspondence of his boss.
The only area in which Villa would not transign to gain the good opinion of the national bourgeoisie or foreign observers was in his revenge against Creel and the Terrazas.Villa sent his men to the British consulate, violating diplomatic immunity to drag Luis Terrazas Júnior, son of the clan's patriarch.Villa knew that the Terrazas did not have time to take all the gold from the Minero bench and suspected that the young Louis Terrazas knew where he was hiding.Terrazas was subjected to torture until the hiding place was revealed: it was found that gold bars worth $ 600,000 were hidden inside a spine in the bank.Villa did not reward Terrazas for this information, releasing it;Instead, he kept him as a bargaining chip to prevent the terraces from blocking the sale of his cattle and other assets in the United States.This stratagem was only partially successful, for Louis Terrazas Father seemed prepared to let his son die instead of bending his head to Villa.Until 1915, Washington constantly pressured Villa to free the young Terrazas, but he ignored all the proposals.Finally, after nearly two years in prison, Terrazas managed to escape, but died soon after, possibly as a result of the stress repressed of his trial.
It must not be thought that Villa spent the winter of 1913-14 purely on economic, administrative and civil matters. Villa's army had already become so large and so complex that it took great administrative talent to maintain it as a viable, coherent force. Villa was still not as advanced as Zapata in being able to optimize his fissiparous military following into a centralized force. Like Napoleon, he had subordinate commanders and technicians who owed everything to him, and he had others who had independent careers before him and who still retained a considerable measure of autonomy. To keep them all loyal, Villa had to resort to something like Napoleon's Marshalate.
Of the commanders who operated semi-independently, the eminent figure was Tomas Urbina, a charismatic leader with a reputation, only in the house of Villa. A arrogant and drunk roue of sinister-looking appearance, described as `a large and medium man with dark skin andFrom mahogany, with a sparse black beard that could not hide the wide and expressionless mouth, open nostrils and the small eyes of animals', Urbinareally was what Villa was often accused of being - a bandit disguised as revolutionary.who turned against Orozco in 1912, ended up in prison and narrowly escaped by the intercession of Emilio Madero. As Villa, he was from Durango, and his particular sphere of influence was the border of Durango/Chihuahua, but thereresemblance ended. Head was not even as intelligent as villa, and, unlike him, did not bother to conquer his illiteracy. A unfortunate, stubborn, vain, miserly, obsessed with money, corrupt at all levels, unable to controlYour troops, not just a looting commander, but a looter, a bamboozenado urebin for many years before the great caudil.
The fact that he was indistinguishable from his men in mentality or intellect may actually have heightened his charismatic appeal in the short term. General and wealthy. Another told Reed that Urbina had a magical aura: 'He's very brave. Bullets bounce off him like rain from a sombrero. When Reed interviewed Urbina, the chief said frankly that he had only one interest in the revolution: become fabulously rich and replace the Terrazas as chief Hacendado in Chihuahua. Initially based at Las Nieves Hacienda, where he considered him the worst of the porfiriato's corrupt oligarchs, for two years Urbina got away with murder, literally and metaphorically, because with him Villa had one of his famous blind spots and would not hear a word spoken against him.
In June 1913, Villa sent Urbina south to try to coordinate the various rebel movements in Durango. After gathering 4,000 men, Urbina decided to launch a night attack in the city of Durango.Foreigners tried to intermediate a negotiated agreement, but the feds fired on a truce flag and then unexplored, withdrawn, pleading with the lack of ammunition. In June 19, the Urbin grasshops swept the city and started two days of chaos and anarchy.The looted stores, files burned, emptied arrests and riot the quarter of business; all utilities - gas, electricity and water - were cut; women were stripped naked and ran through the streets;The Virgin de Durango cloak given to the wife of one of the rebel commanders. Although many doubt the authenticity of the story that fifty virgins, the daughters of the best families in Durango, were raped and then committed suicide, is unquestionably the case that the murderand rape were common during the two -day bag of the city. The carnage was particularly high when the city's multitude joined the prey, looking for federalists and their families, real or alleged, to slaughter.Durango was a ghost town, having suffered ten million weights in damage.
Urbin stupidity to allow this pile, atrocity and sacrilege holocaust to be flagrant. Durango bag created a sensation throughout Mexico, and even though the stories of rape and mass murder have not lost anything in the narrative, Olioof real and fictional atrocities generated a climate of fear throughout the urban mexico that really strengthened Huerta's hand. Urbina increased the revolution to another point, adding a jacobin taking to the civil war and making it likely seem that the rebels were swinging on the left withA revenge. True, of course, it was that Urbin simply could not control his army-a heterogeneous collection of genuine revolutionaries, former Bandits, former Mineiros, Cowboys, Cotton and Simple Adventurers.Finally, he posted sentries on the streets and ordered that all withdrawal be returned.
Urbina kept all the recovered withdrawal to him and continued a career of self -promotion through the robbery that would take him in 1915 to the announcement that he had retired from public life.On Cannillo's expropriated farm, he hid notes and gold in the value of half a million pesos, product of his durango exploration.He blews the state with forced loans, rescues required from his leading citizens (including the archbishop) and an exit rate of 500 per capita weights for everyone who wanted to leave the territory.For a month, Durango experienced the type of tyranny and unknown arbitrary exaction since the conquerors.His match north in late July was received with relief, but he had left behind a legacy of hatred and bitterness and decisively took the Arrieta brothers to the Carranza camp.
Fortunately for Villa, most of his semi-independent ``marshals' were not of the Urbina seal. Particularly loyal and reliable was the trio of Toribio Ortega, Calixto Contreras and Orestes Pereyra. Chihuahua, given the status of Ney by John Reed, who praised him as the "bravest of the brave", but, given the complete lack of interest in money, perhaps closer to the brand was Robespierre, the 'sea-green of the sea incorruptible'. Calixto Contreras began his career as Zapata, as spokesman for a village in conflict with a hacienda. - A Wimbledon-based Anglo-Irishman who emigrated to Mexico in 1905, accompanied Villa on his campaigns and is preferred as an observer by some revolution buffs to John Reed - portraying Contracts as an impotent buffoon, invariably responding to the official protests of the The theBehavior of your men with a tired response from the boys.
Orestes Pereyra was an ex -therives who had taken arms against Diaz before Madero's deadline in November 1910. Veteran of the 1912 campaign against Orozco, he was also among the former to rise when Huerta brutally seized power.From guerrilla, who had made his name creating the peasants who lived around the Anglo -American owned Tlahualilo Hacienda, commanded the most heterogeneous collection of revolutionaries after Urbin - Free Peasants, Miners, Temporary Workers.Loose, but Ortega had the most united group of all. The trio of Ortega, Pereyra and Contreras supported Villa in the good times and the bad and predictably found the fate of almost all the leaders of the Mexican revolution: Ortega died of fever while othersTwo succumbed to Carranza's shooting squads in 1915.
More interesting than the legalists among the 'marshals' were the intellectual generals. One of them was Jose Isabel Robles, a former school teacher and orozquist.Orozco When he supported Huerta. The 23 -year -old, the younger army of Villa, Robles liked to read Plutarch and Caesar's comments during the campaign. The other remarkable intellectual general was a real thorn on Villa.An extreme left anarchist ranch, who despised Villa's respect for foreign properties and was particularly annoyed by the privilege of Mormon colonies in Chihuahua. Political differences soon forced Castillo to operate as an independent combat force, at risk of Huerta and Villa and VillaVillist forces Castillo's guerrillas in an ambush that cost Castillo half of his men, but he continued the fight, supported by strong local support and his reputation as a genuine Robin Hood.
Castillo has already captured Villa's `` wife ', Luz Luz, treated her with an elaborate courtesy and escorted her to the US border.Through the villa that the northern Zapata found their fall. Casctle specializes in stealing trains in which Americans were traveling; he would steal the Yanquês, but would not hurt them. The most cynical operators decided to try the same trick, passing themselves thatCastillo's men, and among them was a notorious leader of low -life bandits named Gutierrez. In a place called Cumbre, a group of bandits set on fire just before the train entered, streamlining the entrance and exit, holding the locomotiveIn the darkness and leaving a train of people to suffocate to death. Gutierrez disguised his dark action by pretending to be Castillo's work. Although this exploitation would seem totally out of character, the mud and Castillo's career went into terminal decline.He lost all popular support, his abandoned men, and was forced to flee the border to the hated United States.
The other category of commanders consisted of those men who owed Villa everything or who were the equivalent of Ronin Samurai: freelance expert military technicians appointed by him to high rank. Villista, Rodolfo Fierro, a murderous former clockman, psychopathic even by the homicidal standards of the revolution.Patrick O'Hea wrote of Fierro: 'I only know that this man, with his wandering gaze and his cold hand, is evil itself. ' There is something of a mystery to Fierro's status as Villa's ``favorite son'', for Villa did not even meet the man before 1913. Some speculate that it was Fierro's courage and ruthlessness, and his complete loyalty, that most attracted and that villa enjoyed the touch of the gallery. At the end of the Battle of Tierra Blanca, a charge of Federals tried to evade capture by moving away from the battlefield. dead; the train then slowed and the feds were captured.
The tall, heavily built, and moustachioed Fierro would kill anyone at Villa's beckoning and was expert at "anticipating" their wishes. In The Eagle and the Serpent Martin Luis Guzman describes the famous scene when Fierro killed the Colorado prisoners. each time, the prisoners were given their freedom if they could run within three feet of a pen and climb a wall before Fierro pulled them out. All the more ominous, as he spoke in a soft voice, never flustered or threatened and used light, harmless body language. , Fierro prepared for this butchery job, making sure a relay of fresh pistols was delivered to him. In the resulting 'turkey shot' he never stopped firing for two hours and killed all but one of the 200 prisoners. The survivor escaped over the wall in Twilight; Fierro explained that he felt a cramp in his trigger finger and let his attention wander as he massaged the sore muscle.
Killing nothing meant anything to Fierro.John Reed wrote: `During the two weeks I was in Chihuahua, Fierro killed fifteen harmless cold -blooded citizens. But there was always a curious relationship between him and Villa. He was the best friend ofVilla; and Villa loved him as a son and always forgiven him. Once he killed a complete stranger in the city of Chihuahua to gain a bet on whether a dying man falls or back; Fierro said striker and proved right.Edward O'Reilly witnessed that Fierro also enjoyed shooting in injured villains, to save the task of taking care of them. In another occasion, Patrick O'hea, then British consul in Torreon, was stopped on the street by a drunk fierro who told him that he told him thathe would shoot him. Fierro pointed his pistol to the consul and squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened; there was a security capture in the weapon of a kind with which he was not familiar. Some of his comrades approached the drunk gunman and explained that,,,If he shook on the gringo, there would be international repercussions. Fierce walked away after advising O'Hhea smiling the next time he was looking at the barrel of a gun.
The only man Fierro postponed was Villa himself, and with him he behaved as humbly as a lamb. Villa once caught him beating a soldier in Ciudad Juarez for not using his cap at the right angle.slap on the face of Fierro; the killer, who would have executed any other man in the world for such indignation, literally took him on the chin.He enraged Fierro, whom he had in charge of the railroads. Fierro stood up, his head bent - but when Villa was gone and the train approached, Fierro shot the dead driver for having 'caused' his humiliation., Villa would not take action against Fierro, no matter how scary the outrageous reports to him. So, one day, a drunk fierro killed a railway man who accidentally brushed against him..To placate these workers, vital to military success, Villa removed his work as a rail superintendent and created a false investigation.fear of fierro reprisals. The so -called "judgment" divided into overshadow, as the village intended; he just wanted to reconcile the railroads, and as soon as the dust calmed down, he brought back fierro to another position in which he had Carto Blanche.
Fierro was deeply involved in the notorious case of Benton, who made Villa an object of intense interest to the British government.William Benton was a British citizen and the owner of Los Remedios Hacienda. He had a bad employer reputation that was involved in aProlonged land dispute with the village of Santa Maria de Cuevas. In 1910, Benton seized the land of the village, surrounded, denied access by residents and fined them to invasion when they were found on Earth.to him of being fruity of cattle and called the rurals under the smallest pretext. Benton was also a magician and reactionary, who usually let his mouth flee with him. Villa hated him and in 1912, citing Benton's narrow ties with the dressing room ofCreel-Terrazas, expressly exempt him from his policy of not taxing foreigners. Benton refused to pay the tax, so that the Villa expropriated horses, arms and ammunition instead.Diaz, Villa warned him in late 1913 that he would be well advised from the US.
Although attached to his policy of not expropriating foreign assets, Villa was determined to force Benton to return the illicit lands that had taken from the village of Santa Maria de Cuevas.The villagers returned to the pastures disputed, and shortly thereafter, Benton found that part of his cattle had disappeared.It has never been discovered if those responsible were villagers or men of Villa, but the consequence was that on February 17, 1914 an intemperating Benton invaded Villa's house in Ciudad Juarez, demanding immediate compensation.What happened next was contested.Some say Benton stuck his hand in his pocket to catch a scarf to wipe his sweaty forehead and that the gesture was confused by Fierro, who killed him out.Allegedly Fierro just smiled and said, 'Just a misunderstanding.'Others, more persuasively, say Benton offended Villa the direct insult and that Villa killed him in cold blood.Whatever happened, the result was that Benton was dead and Villa had an international incident in his hands.
The British press took the shooting as a cause celebre; Questions were asked in Parliament; The British government requested US intervention and mediation in northern Mexico. Having just lifted the arms embargo on anti-Huerta fighters, the President Woodrow Wilson immediately came under pressure to reimpose. The British were convinced that Wilson had to take tough measures; it was only at his insistence that they abandoned their earlier endorsement of Huerta, and only then, with the strict understanding that Wilson would oblige the revolutionaries to respect European persons and property. The international dimension was immensely complicated by the US insistence that the Monroe Doctrine prevails in the Americas and also as a result of Roosevelt's corollary of 1905, which declared that in any dispute between Europe and America Latin America, the US would be the only agency to enforce European claims.
Villa entered a nest of wasps and was totally unprepared for the international furor who followed the murder of Benton.At first, he told American investigators that Benton had been formally submitted to the martial court and executed after due process.When asked to introduce Benton's body to prove the cause of death, he refused, thus revealing to the world as he was lied blatantly.Villa's violent and irrational behavior was a gift from God to the Huerta propaganda machine, and by involving the rebels with foreign powers, it annoyed Carranza twice: he damaged his cause and showed that he had no control over Villa.At first Carranza seemed to have played Villa's game by insisting that all foreign envoys negotiated with him as the first head of the revolution;Villa was very willing to deliver this hot potato.It was later found that by getting rid of danger and accepting a Faustian pact, involuntarily, even if only implicitly, Carranza acknowledged as his Susiran.
In international diplomacy, Carranza was in his element. He knew that Villa's story was a false one, but saw capital to be made in taking up the case. appointed a Mexican Commission of Inquiry, refusing, however, to entertain the idea of an international commission or a body of foreign forensic experts. Predictably, Carranza's commission found that Villa's story was a fabric of lies, but Carranza he bluffed his way out by claiming that Benton's thirty-year stay in Mexico made him a Mexican citizen, subject to Mexican law; All in all, he refused to accept us mediation and insisted that he, and only he, deal directly with Britain. Fabian de Carranza's strategy in the end defeated his opponents, and Carranza himself won high praise from the case. brilliant hand of Machiavellian poker, using emotive taboos like the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary to their own advantage. He gambled that the US would not suspend arms sales - they didn't - and he gambled that the British, fearing going down with the USA when a European war was imminent, would refuse to deal directly with it.
Fierro, Fierro has always been associated with the minds of people in the case of Benton. Perception gained ground, between the home educated opinion and also the foreigner, while Carranza's "constitutional" movement was credible to deal with foreign governments, the villaIt has always adopted the short vision (in this case, that Benton was just a sonophabitch gringo) Esfepre was surrounding killers like Fierro or other 'untouchable' homicide named Manuel Baca Valles, a specific bite of corral light. This was the context in which adhesion was the contextVolunteer to the Felipe Angeles movement was especially valuable, and Villa students like to locate Angeles as the Angel of Light located on the right side of Villa, with Fierro as the satanic angel of death to his left.
Felipe Angeles, former federal general, scholar, thoughtful, ideologist, mathematician and artillery expert, was certainly a big prank for the villalist movement.Born in the state of Hidalgo in 1868, he made several trips to France on military missions and was a man of cosmopolitan sophistication.In France, when Madero lifted his banner, he returned a standardist and was sent to subdue Zapata in Moreos.Although believing that Madero was the only alternative to chaos, Angeles began to sympathize with Zapata and his movement.Because of his strong timber credentials, Huerta arrested him during the 19th and 13th February coup and would have executed him if he did not fear dividing the army.Instead, he used with him the same tactics he used in Villa, keeping him in prison on forged accusations while spurious investigations dragged on.However, it turned out that Lane Wilson was an Angeles fan, and he was the only man whom Huerta didn't dare to say no.Consequently, Angeles was released and, to save Huerta's face, sent to France on another military mission.
On his return, Angeles teamed up with Carranza but was unable to come to terms with him and shifted his allegiances to Villa. The revolutionary movement in Chihuahua and Villa personally gained significantly because of tension between the men of 1910 and those of 1913. A ` `Class of 1913', like Obregon, felt that the 'old guard' of revolutionaries were trading on past glories, while the men of 1910 felt they had risked their lives just to see the rewards and payoffs go to a lot of Johnny-Come -Latelies in Sonora. Under these circumstances, those (few) personally alienated by Carranza or excluded by the possessive jealousies of the `class of '13' turned reflexively to Villa, whose Maderista credentials were impeccable. his bets on Villa. Jose Vasconcelos supposedly commented: ``We're going to win now all right. We have a man', to which Alan Knight alliteratively replies: "It was the recurrent dream of the impotent revolutionary intellectual: to play Plato to a powerful popular caudillo, but flexible. 'This may very well be an accurate analysis of Angeles, who probably had ambitions to be president of Mexico, with Villa as the power behind the throne, but based in Chihuahua, allowing the Free Rein Angeles to implement radical reforms in the capital.
Villa admired and revered Angeles, thinking him to be the perfect man, a combination soldier and scholar. He knew Angeles' benevolence towards the Zapatistas and couldn't get enough of his reminiscences of Madero and Pino Suarez. Angeles for books and music, his passion for justice and his compassion; he even named one of Angeles' sons so he could actually call Angeles Compadre. For Angeles, Villa was Mexico's best hope. de Villa were ex-Maderistas, more concerned with education and political reforms than land and work, basically men who wished to return to the liberalism of Juarez. Angeles probably saw Villa as a Tabula Rasa, on which he could imprint his ideology. The problem was that Villa had no taste for abstract thinking; As Reed wryly observed, "You had to be a philosopher to explain anything to Villa." However, Angeles enjoyed a hidden advantage. a Madero stand-in, and tended to gravitate to Angeles for that reason; but as a divided self groomed by Fierro, he sometimes lost patience with him as a mere theorist.
In addition to these military figures, there were important civil figures in Villa's entourage.Probably the most important was Silvestre Terrazas, a supporter since the early days and secretary general of the Chihuahua State Government from December 1913 to December 1915. His position of preeminence at first seemed threatened when Manuel Chao took office as governor,But Chao, in turn, was soon replaced by Fidel Avila, a Hacienda without instructional foreman, and this allowed Terrazas to recover most of his ancient influence.Terrazas has always introduced herself as a civilian who moderated Villa's excesses and civilized him, although he probably knew more about the repression of his boss (and forgiven her) than pretended.His reason for joining Villa has always been the love for the autonomy of Chihuahua, Patria Chica patriotism which was such an important part of the Mexican revolution.He showed little interest in land reform, but liked the fact that Villa put Chihuahua on the map as, in fact, the main state of Mexico.
The extension in which the wild Terrazas did and did not have the ear of Villa is illustrated by the leader's partial way that allowed him to contain the excesses of military commanders. In theory, the villa was committed to selling all the expropriated properties and redistributing the land orUsing it as a core of military colonies. In practice, its main commanders occupied the most palatial houses of the oligarchy in the city of Chihuahua and adopted the permanent residence, often burning or destroying precious libraries of rare books or invaluable musical instruments in the process.Terrazas appealed to Villa to interrupt this irrational barbarism, so Villa operated a tripartite policy, hoping to satisfy everyone involved. In the case of his special favorites, he simply turned his eyes on their depredations; he issued a decree reserving to himselfRight to decide what was confiscated and what was not; and he allowed wild Terrazas to operate a special archive police squad, acting on behalf of Villa, in order to replace all other authorities, with the power to enter expropriated homesor busy and bring to state file books, musical instruments, paintings and other artifacts considered having educational or artistic value.
The variety of important middle-class military figures was completed by Manuel Chao, Maclovio Herrera and Eugenio Aguirre Benavides.In Chihuahua he was "really" his backstage, he intrigued Carranza against Villa's interests. The same happened to Maclovio Herrera, but Villa admired him more than chao, since he was a man of reckless courage that hadOverdue the laurels by the desperate but successful cavalry grimace in Tierra Blanca. More loyal to Villa was Eugenio Aguirre Benavides, Commander of the Villa Zaragoza Brigade., and the benavides have always been faithful made faithful and did not like Carranza for this reason. Eugenius benefited from Villa's high consideration by Luis and the family of Aguirre Benavides, who were close friends of Raul Madero. The heir of Madero Mantle, Raul,He worked in close collaboration with Eugenio as a second in charge of the prestigious Zaragoza Brigade.
If Silvestre Terrazas was his administrative genius, Villa liked to delegate personal finances and businesses in general to Lazarus of Garza, an obscure entrepreneur who trusted important purchases of weapons and diplomatic missions in the US, or his own brother Hipólito, who controlledThe Game Concession in Ciudad Juarez.Since Hipólito was literate, Villa also gave him great sums for the purchase of weapons in the United States, but Hipólito was as insignificant before Pancho Villa as Eufemio Zapata was with his brother.Elegant and beautiful boy, in love with fast cars and fast women, the corrupt hedonist and greedy Hippolytus had none of his brother's qualities: without him would have been a pathetic playboy Manque.Totally venomally and morally distorted, Hippolytus went beyond deceiving and spilling his own brother to deflect money intended to buy weapons and material;Loving Mammon with monotheistic fervor, Hipólito took love to money to insane levels that transcended until the greed of Tomas Urbina.
Villa's attitude toward his middle -class intellectuals has always been ambivalent. He found them useful as the respectable face of vilismo, masking the realities of Fierro and Urbin; as bureaucrats with useful skills; as intermediates with other factions and especially with the intermediatesYanquis; and as specialized writer of plans and manifestos. However, he had a visceral aversion to lawyers and bureaucrats and tolerated them only as a necessary evil. The only educated men who could stay under their guard were teachers while attending their obsession.Perennial for education. It was difficult for intellectuals, even men of the world like Felipe Angeles, dealing with an unpredictable and impulsive loose cannon like Villa. Airpost of policy in the hull, Villa would endorse an Angeles proposal one day, then the next dayHeard a completely contrary idea of Fierro or some other brutal favorite. A thing is absolutely certain: Villa was always his own man. The absurd idea, sometimes floated, that Villa was a pawn in the hands of manipulative intellectuals, is ridiculously inaccurate.
As a warrior, Villa was above all interested in the army. He was a napoleonic achievement for an ex -band of bandits to weld thousands of men of fighting a coherent force that would accept their orders.Ex-Abraham Gonzalez Protected, Juan Medina, who became his chief of staff. Midina was a 1903 Diaz campaign veteran against Yaquis, but was so disgusted by the treatment of the Indians he resigned from the army and became a smallentrepreneur in Chihuahua. One of the problems of Medina was that he was dealing with such heterogeneous material. The men entered the villa for a multiplicity of reasons: to defend local autonomy; recover the land of the village; to obtain land subsidies;for the previous bad treatment of hacendated; because of unemployment; as an alternative to regular work; or simply for easy choices of items, money, drink and women. There are former feeders who joined as an alternative to be shot;Hacendated as the four Wall brothers who joined the same reason (but became convinced vilists); and a multitude of mercenaries, adventurers or soldiers of the fortune who made the long journey of the four corners of Mexico in the attraction of Villa's name.
Foreign mercenaries, although valuable to historians (since most of them wrote detailed memories), were a headache for Villa.There were two main difficulties.If he executed one of them, or even if they were killed in battle, there was an immediate problem with a foreign government.Most importantly, there was no way to check your credentials.Foreigners without experience in battle used the same blow repeatedly: by enlisting the initial registration fee or as a license to loot and then disappearing as soon as there was a difficult fight to be fought.Nevertheless, among the iron pyrians there was some pure gold.Three that made a particular impression were Sam Drebben, Horst von der Goltz and Ivar Thord-Gray.Drebben, known as 'The Fighter Jew', was a Latin American war veteran, having served with the Marines in Cuba in the 1898 Hispanic-American war in Nicaragua and South America itself.Ivar Thord-Gray had been a mercenary in India, China and the Bôeres War.Von der Goltz was a curious case of 'talking horse' who became a true winner: without the military experience that he bragged as he enlisted, he was remarkably fast in acceptance and soon became an indispensable part of the artillery bodyVilla.
Perhaps the main problem Villa and Juan Medina had to solve was how to ensure the loyalty of army units to the commander in chief rather than to individual generals. Because each unit came from a specific locality with a local warlord as leader, it became it proved especially difficult to professionalize the northern army and break down these regional solidarities. Villa dealt with recalcitrant generals in a variety of ways. the good things came from him and not from these leaders. All the important functions - artillery, horses, supply of arms and ammunition, the Medical Corps - were reserved as areas where he had direct daily control. -backs of ``immortals'', whom he could use against particularly insubordinate commanders.
Villa controlled all arms, ammunition and uniforms, as well as the US supply lines; he ensured that these lines operated regardless of Carranza's supply network. He also issued his own coin. In the beginning of 1914, this was promptly acceptedNorth Rio Grande, as Americans were convinced of Villa and Carranza would win the fight against Huerta, in this case the villa coin would be rescued to Par.Villa also made sure that everyone in the artillery body were personally loyal to him; The companions of subordinate generals or warlords were not recruited. The real problem of artillery was that the villa was forced to use people whose loyalty could be suspected for other reasons, either because they were foreign mercenaries or former feeders; before1914, Juan Medina and Felipe Angeles were the only members of the body of federal officers who served as good. However, Villa was lucky, by mercenaries von der Goltz and Thord-Gray distinguished and became the pillar of the artillery body.
Villa also created the equivalent of a Praetorian guard in the form of the Dorados - a personally loyal elite body, acting as guard, deputies or a battle reserve, such as the old guard of Napoleon. The donors were originally consisted of three units.Of thirty -two men each, but eventually evolved to a unit of 400 people. Villa packed the body with their relatives - in the (often mistaken) belief that kinship would make them loyal - but was always looking for men of bravery exceptionalthat he could recruit. A famous story of a recruit concerns a man whose horse was shot under him when the villalist's cavalry retreated during a battle. When the feds advanced, killing all the prisoners and injured, this man stripped his horseHe hid under the skin and then emerged when the villalist's cavalry advanced again.
Although Villa allowed his subsidiary commanders, especially Urbina, a lot of license, with the limit he was prepared to act decisively against them for acts of insubordination. Members of the Dorados, or assassins like Fierro and Manuel Banda, whose job it was to shoot men guilty or suspected of cowardice, would be sent out as hit men or to arrange a summary execution. The drunken general Domingo Yuriar, who refused an order by Villa in contempt, found himself taken before the firing squad before he was released. however, there were limits to Villa's power. He wanted to execute Manuel Chao for disobeying an order, but Chao retained a commission directly from Carranza; .Naturally, Carranza, who disliked Villa and was jealous of him, secretly encouraged acts of insubordination by Villa commanders.
However, overwhelmingly, the main reason why Villa could overcome fractured or recalcitrant commanders was their own charisma and prestige. He consciously promoted a personality worship and a village mindset in their men.Same themes: Villa was a lion, a man who believed in true values and ideals, he was on the poor side and could never be bought by the oligarchs, he was a Robin Hood who was delivering agrarian reform when the fight was over.As a father to his people, always solicitous for his good and, as proof that his impressive medical staff was. Several Mexican and Americans took care of the injured in a surgical hospital of the mobile army, including a special train of forty cars, equippedwith the latest equipment; the seriously injured were sent back to hospitals in Parral or Chihuahua City.
The propaganda was effective, mainly because new recruits in 1914 were attracted by Villa's own success and personality, not Urbina's or the lesser generals. The northern division was a fighting machine that all could be proud of. American observers admitted that the villains' fighting spirit, stoicism, and toughness were beyond anything even the US Marines could match. Villa's cavalry was unrivaled, in part because Centaur himself knew so much about breeding. of horses and selected only the best mounts from the best farms in Chihuahua and Coahuila. Above all there was the mobility of the northern division, which surpassed anything Carranza or Huerta could manage. for nothing more than guns, ammunition, a canteen, and a single blanket. The Villa's use of trains impressed all observers: it took ten days to transport 7,500 men from Torreon to Chihuahua, while it took Huerta two months to make the same journey. on the contrary.
One of the reasons morale was so high was that Villa allowed his men to take wives, mistresses and girlfriends on campaign with them. There was a long tradition in Mexico of women accompanying armies, and not just because they could cook, forage. and nursing. More pragmatically, since most armies consisted of recruits who varied the press, the only way to prevent a near-percent desertion rate was to allow the troops to take their women. in contrast to previous armies, it was the large number of female followers. Much to the dismay of Villa and Medina and their plans for "professionalization", females seemed to outnumber males in revolutionary armies. of villains, women and children could be seen on the rooftops or in the cowcatchers. A bonfire at night was a babel of women roasting tortillas on mosque boughs, giving birth or conceiving high. A veritable convoy of musicians, prostitutes, hideouts and beggars, not to mention American journalists, photographers and film crews accompanied the army.
The women also caught in arms and fought like loads.Villa vehemently disapproved, but there was not much that he could do about it.His attitude towards women was the traditional "children, church and cooking" of Mexican venerable machismo.John Reed had a very revealing conversation with Villa about this, which began when the reporter asked the general if women could vote in a future Mexican government."I don't think so," Villa said, but when Reed told him they were doing it in the US, he shrugged: `Well, if they do it up there, I don't see why they shouldn't do it down there.here.'Villa seemed to have a lot of fun with the idea and returned to her: “Women seem things to protect, to love.They have no severity of mind.They cannot consider anything right or wrong.They are full of pity and softness.Now a woman would not give an order to execute a traitor. 'When Reed insisted that women could be as hard as men, Villa asked his current "wife," described by Reed as "a slender young girl like a cat," which she would do with the traitors he had just captured.She replied that she did not fit her to comment, that Villa knew better, but when he insisted that she gave a direct answer, she recommended the execution.Villa looked at Reed and laughed.`There is something in what you say, 'he meditated.
Villa's private life continued as polygamos, tangled and chaotic as always. Although he did not jump huge sums of money for his own use, unlike his brother Hipolito or Tomas Urbina, he was forced to highlight increasingly big sums forTo satisfy your growing army of 'wives'', lovers, concubines and their children. Mexican machismo, Luz Corral, the 'number one wife', did not expect the villa to be faithful; her own creed was that while a husband was, as a husband wasRespected a wife indoors, what he did outside was not her account. Even thus, she was surprised by the avalanche of other women who forced her attention.
When she returned from El Paso to Chihuahua in 1913, she discovered that Villa was the father of three children from three different women.Luz was willing to welcome these abandoned children and made Agustín, son of a woman named Assunção Villaescusa, a special pet.Luz also discovered that one of Villa, Reynalda's daughters, was living with his sister Martina and got a place in her home for her as well.Faced with New Menage, Villa accepted the situation as if it were the most natural thing in the world.Realizing how tolerant corral light was, he increasingly revealed about his private life.He brought another daughter, Micaela, to live with them after discovering that his mother, Petra Espinosa, was fooling him with one of his officers.
While light was recognized as the unmarked number one wife, she was quite pleased with Villa's Polyginia. However, her tolerance of Mida and Worm snapped when she realized that there was another number one wife of the same status called Juana Torres, withAnyone who she found Villa collected on her return. Colorly, the full story was released: as Juana Torres had been a cashier in Torreon when Villa took the city, as he fantasized for her, courted and won her and set up in a house in townFrom Chihuahua. Now, she finally realized why Villa kept her in El Paso for weeks after he took Chihuahua, all the time pretending that he was building a new house for her.
For several months, the two women fought a frantic battle for Villa's affections, while he alternated his domicile between the two houses. It was clear that only light Corral had real feelings of love for the hero.Working on the glove with his mother and sister, he helped at 40,000 pesos from Villa's private funds. Villa found the money missing and immediately guessed who had taken him, although he had no evidence. He arrested his mother and sister while looking for the evidencewho incriminated by Juana. She stupidly wrote her mother and sister an irritated table, spilling contempt on Villa as a barbaric and bandit, an illiterate OAF that was in any use as a lover and took her by force. Naturally, the letter was brought to Villa., who read and fell into one of his fury fury. Villa's apologists say he dealt with the incident in a comprehensive way, allowing Aguirre Benavides to defend Juana Torres and showing the understanding of his fragility.It seems more true. Villa summoned Juana and brave the letter intercepted in front of her face. She was pale with fear, but her trial is not over.Terrified, La Torres staggered by the letter after what Villa banned her and her family of Chihuahua for a lifetime.
Perhaps Villa learned something from this incident until 1915, there was no other rival for Corral Luz as a debut wife. Naturally, there was the excess of one night lovers and booths, with the village surrendering to their usual practice of "getting married"With the reluctant or virginals. He was not a man who did not accept an answer and, although he did not rapid women, he deceived them for fake wedding ceremonies or blackmailed them to threaten his family or relative.He was never a rapist, but even if he had been, there would be no repercussions. When John Reed asked him about rape, he looked at him healthyly and said, 'Tell me, you already met a husband, father, or brother of any womanWhat did I violate? Or even a lover? Villa was known to be madly jealous with their women and he was jealous even of men who were his lovers before they knew it. Momently in love with a young woman in Torreon, he was furious to learnthat she had been Dario Silva's lover, one of the magnificent eight who crossed Rio Grande with him in March 1913. Being one of the originals who did not use Silva; Villa publicly humiliated him in front of his official brothers and forced Silva to waitat the table over them all.
Villa's reality used to be sordid, but in early 1914 the legend changed level.On January 3, Villa signed with US Mutual Film Corporation a $ 25,000 contract for a film about the northern division.Villa agreed to wage all his future battles during the day, ban all cameramen who were not the mutual and, if necessary, simulate combat.Although Villa went beyond the simulation letter when reenacting battles, this was not a contractual requirement.Thousands of documentary meters were filmed, interspersed with fiction rolls in which young Raoul Walsh, who would later become a remarkable director of Hollywood, played the young Villa in a romantic mixture of falsehood and melodrama.Walsh later remembered that Villa was an indifferent actor who could not get the way of the movies: when asked by the director to slowly through the camera, Villa Esporeava and whipping his horse so that he passed the cameraman who protested at all speed.However, the filming team got Villa to adhe her dawn executions for 7am so that they could enjoy the best light.Finally, on May 9, 1914, The Life of General Villa, with Pancho playing himself in several scenes, debuted at Lyric Theater in New York;In a typical Hollywood Happy Final, Villa became President of Mexico.He was now a world legend.The hard struggle in 1914 would show if he was worthy of his icon status.
The end of Huerta
Although Huerta's path to power was brutal, if he was smarter, he could certainly have reconciled all the opposition factions, except Zapata. Most Niaeirists agreed with the fall of Madero and embraced the new regime, although mainlythrough fear. The privileged classes thought they had their iron man, their chromwell, although admittedly the ordinary man saw Huertism as simply a return to the bad days of the porphiriat.to failure, he failed through his own stupidity. The events of 1913-14 are a classic of self-destructive behavior of a man who wanted to govern as an not referred autocrat and would not compromise anyone in his attempt at personal despotism.What Diaz, though feared and despised, was never hated in the visceral way that Huerta was.He offered the rebels - and that many accepted - were a purely cynical temporary measure; Zapata saw this clearly, even if his subordinate commanders did not.
Huerta's biggest problem was that Woodrow Wilson would not recognize him. Open of the inaccurate portraits of Wilson's Mexican politics as narrow mind calvinism or gross dollar diplomacy, it was really surprisingly subtle and subtle. Wilson knew a lot about Mexican affairs, to the pointPreferring to deal with this aspect of foreign policy, deliberately marginalizing his unstable secretary William Jennings Bryan. Wilson's position was quite simple: he would recognize Huerta's regime if Huerta performed elections and promoting the values of liberal democracy.Played its cards correctly, US recognition would have followed as quickly as by Britain and the European powers. However, this was the only demand that Huerta would not grant, in part because he would not tolerate the true separation of powers, withA means in his executive action for Congress, in part because he was sure that any genuinely free election would be won by the man who elected after the February 1913 coup: Felix Diaz.
This time, Huerta could not use Lane Wilson to discredit those who did not like.Lane Wilson was a manco duck from the moment his presidential named after.In any case, Woodrow Wilson was suspicious of the council he received from professional diplomats, which he (correctly) perceived as having his own agendas.He therefore preferred to work through special envoys and secret agents, especially his speech editor William Hayard Hale and John Lind, the former governor of Minnesota;He showed his contempt for his diplomatic corps by not replacing Lane Wilson and leaving a business in control of the US embassy in Mexico City.Both Hale and Lind advised Wilson to work to overthrow Huerta - advice that matched Wilson's own instincts.Lind traveled to Mexico City via Veracruz and proposed recognition on the condition that presidential elections were held in which Huerta would not compete.After several unsatisfactory meetings with Huerta and his new Foreign Minister Federico Gamboa, Lind was informed that Woodrow Wilson's proposals were an unacceptable interference in the affairs of a sovereign nation.Gamboa then insulted Lind in person, giving him a sarcastic note, which implied that Wilson's proposals were based on an abysmal ignorance of the Mexican Constitution.That was small talk, and Lind never forgiven or forgotten.
At first, Wilson ordered a policy of strict neutrality between Huerta and the northern rebels, but his patience used lean, as Huerta showed total contempt for all democratic forms and constitutional kindness. He made it clear that he had no time for the cabinet government, despised politicians and wanted to be a simple autocratic caudillo. He crushed the free press of Madero's time, closing the newspapers or censoring them. He appointed generals to assume control of state governments and insisted that all civil governors had to double asMilitary Commanders. The militarization of Mexican society became palpable, with the schools and railroads used almost exclusively for the interests of the army. This militarization not only alienated Washington, but also the old -style porphyists who originally received the seizure of power of powerHuerta. They clearly saw that Huerta was indeed a second Cromwell, who, when confronted with a choice between Congress or even the Hacenda class and the army, would be the beloved army every time.
However, Rubicon's true crossing by Huerta came when he ordered the murder of Senator Belisario Dominguez. In September 23, 1913, Dominguez denounced Huerta in Congress and had his particular speech and circulated when Diaz suppressed him in the Official Gazette of the Debates.Do Days later, Dominguez was arrested at home by the secret police, and a few days after that, his body full of bullets was found in a ditch. This precipitated a crisis between Congress and the Executive. Congress approved a motion demanding an investigationTo reach the background of the murder of Dominguez.Huerta sent troops to the Legislature and demanded that the resolution be withdrawn in the pain of the Dissolution of the Senate. When he met refusal, Huerta did his threat well and imprisoned seventy -four deputies.Even more so the discontent of Washington and Wilson turned to the fury when the new British minister Sir Lionel Carden, who already had a reputation for being an anti -American, provoked his credentials the day after the deputies.
Huerta ordered a list of new elections in October. He got his meek Congress for the merely expedient to make voters impossible for him to elect someone beyond Huertists. The result was a predictable scam with levels of participation as low as 5 %. The presidential election wasEven more of a Pantomima turn: as Huerta was constitutionally prevented from presenting himself as a candidate, he allowed Federico Gamboa to run away as a candidate for Huertista, while telling the US that they would charge that, if Gamboa, he would have, he would havefired.Felix Diaz was the main hopeful opposition (there were two other Makeweight candidates) and would have won any kind of fair dispute, but Huerta had thought of a new farce.Name as a "recording" candidate and then declared barefoot that he could not disappoint the obvious desire of the people. The decision was launched to the Tame Congress, which did what he ordered and declared the "null and seed" elections;Elections, defined nine months in the future, Huerta should continue as a provisional president. Felix Diaz saw writing on the wall and fled the capital to the Sanctuary of a US war ship arrived in Veracruz.
After this scam, Woodrow Wilson decided that Huerta be forced to leave.The maximum influence was exerted on the British, and Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Gray sent his private secretary to Washington to ensure Wilson that London would accept any reliable American initiative to bring peace to Mexico.Wilson demanded the resignation of Sir Lionel Carden as proof of British good faith;Whitehall entered the line and kicked Carden upstairs as ambassador in Brazil to save the face.On February 3, 1914, Wilson signaled an abrupt change in his Mexican policy by suspending the embargo on the supply of arms to the constitutionalist rebels.Until then, Villa and Carranza depended on clandestine purchases, as gun manufacturers in Britain, Germany, France and Spain enriched with the lucrative trade with Huerta;Washington was particularly shocked by a remittance of ten million cartridges from Japan to Mexico City.
Huerta would already have enough problems simply with the fight with the US, but also faced internal problems arising from the growing militarization of Mexico and a series of economic and financial crises.In the spring of 1914, Huerta had expanded the army to a force of 250,000 (4 percent of the entire male population), although the number of staff was much less because of payroll filling and other forms of creative accounting.Since there were no volunteers, these numbers were formed by recruited recruits, who gave bad soldiers and often deserted as soon as they reached the front.Huerta tried to encourage men to enlist by using rude anti -American propaganda - one of the favorite reasons was that the "traitorous province" was a "twentieth -century Texas" and Carranza an American agent - but no one took his bromides seriously.In desperation, he tried to enlist private armies recruited by subcontractors, but did not work either.
The paradox of the Huerta regime was that the more he expanded the army and the more militarized the civil administration, the less powerful his combat forces became.Having removed many rebels from the cause of the revolution, he found that he could not integrate them into the civil life-transforming swords in Arados-Nem persuad them to play a significant role in campaigns against Villa, Zapata and Carranza.The biggest blow was the desertion of the Rurales who, almost all, deserted, rebelled or were eliminated, leaving the burden of maintaining normal peace over the press.Huerta's appeal to the rich classes to help him militarily fell into a Roto bag;They preferred the US attachment perspective to release their own funds to pay the troops.Thus, all attempts to form militias or volunteer regiments ended in fiasco.Some foreign companies hired "white guards," but soon found that it was cheaper to bribe the local threat, whether federal or rebellious, than paying for expensive private armies.
There is no doubt that the Mexican oligarchy has been uniquely cowardly and cowardly, worried only about its own privileges and reluctant to spend a weight to defend them.Some analysts see a catastrophic decline in morals and willpower in a single generation by the rich and owners.Where nineteenth -century oligarchs were prepared to set up and get into battle against bandits or apache, their early twentieth -century successors became spoiled suburban.Some say the elite was in shock as a result of years of revolution and the night disappearance of the old modalities of deference and hierarchy, which the peasants called the bluff and revealed the members of the elite as paper tigers.Others say this 'crisis of legitimacy' hid another, peculiar to Huerta.Almost no one except some Huertist cronies considered the regime legitimate and, in fact, how could anyone pay more than just from the mouth out?Huerta was bankrupt of ideas and believed only for strength as the solution to all problems.Madero mixed reform and repression, but with Huerta there was only repression.Huerta despised Madero for not using enough repression, but the real reason for Madero's fall was not the fact that he was very tyrannical, but of not being radical enough.Huerta was like a pilot who tries to correct a spin making his plane spin even stronger.
In this context, the perennial financial problems with which Huerta fought could be seen as a mere trifle.He faced increasing spending, especially with the expanded army, in a moment of falling revenues caused by both the fall in trade and investment and the loss of territory to the rebels.Import tax revenue, seal taxes and foreign loans have decreased.While the stagnant economies of the South and Southeast remained almost unchanged, the previously vibrant sectors in the North were getting disastrously.The biggest recession was in mining.The mines closed because their food railroads were out of operation and because the dynamite supplies were confiscated for military purposes.In 1914, silver production was one third of the giant io level, covers half, 50% gold and incredible lead 5%.The sawmills and textile factories closed, as cotton could not pass;Tampic oil supplies hanging from a wire that can be cut at any time;The country's main dynamite factory in Gomez Palacio was now in the hands of the rebels.
The inevitable repercussions of economic recession were felt in the financial markets.Huerta faced hyperinflation as products were scarce, prices fired and weight fell alarmingly over the dollar.The weight exchange rate was two for the US dollar in early 1913;A year later, the dollar was three.From the summer of 1913, Mexico was out of the gold standard.Without confidence in a depreciated paper, employers were forced to pay on certificates.Desperate by funds, Huerta found that US non -recognition made it almost impossible to obtain loans, even in Europe, and even when loans were granted, they were consumed in the existing debt service.Desperate, Huerta finally suspended the payment of the national debt, causing the use of the securities, increasing the general economic uncertainty and reducing the likelihood that foreign investors would inject money into Mexico.
As an economic illiterate in his own way as Villa, Huerta has increased domestic taxes in every respect, further destroying trust in business. In addition to walking in existing taxes, he introduced a multitude of new ones and forced companies to loan under threatof terrible consequences not specified. Thus, Huerta effectively destroyed his claim to be the champion of the property classes, but even the self -destructive act of expelling social props in which his regime rested did not help him.Caixa and unable to pay their contractors or civil servants. In the final nonsense, Huerta allowed the arrears to accumulate in the salary of their soldiers, precipitating a riot in Benhe, Baja, California, in January 1914.
Sensing Huerta's inherent weakness, Zapata made careful preparations in early 1914 for a campaign that would bring him to the gates of Mexico City. His strategy was to capture Chilpancingo, the capital of the state of Guerrero. other chiefs would attack in their areas and arrest the feds along the Morelosguerrero-Puebla border; With four simultaneous attacks, Huerta would not know which was the real offensive and what the purposes. Having paralyzed the Federals with the prestige of such an unexpected victory, he intended to continue to take Iguala and Acapulco, before swinging all forces in southern and central Mexico into an all-out assault on Mexico City.
On March 12, 1914, Zapata set up his headquarters in Tixtla, confident in Vitória, as he now had 5,000 experienced fighters to play against the 1,400 federal defenders in Chilpancingo. There was no chance of federal reinforcements, as Jojutla Garrison MutineiaThe day when he arrived in Tixtla, destabilizing the entire sector of the South. After investing closely, Zapata circulated March 26 in the calendar as the day he would give the knockout blow. However, three days earlier some of his bosses jumpedThe weapon and a premature attack handed the city to Zapatistas with surprising ease, in part because the rebel prisoners left prison just as the attack was being pressured. General Luis Carton, the man who was closely associated with the atrocities ofRobles tried to escape to Acapulco, but was caught and brought back to Chilpancining, where, after a martial court, Zapata made him executed on April 6.
Exulting with success, Zapata sent her strength in all directions.Acapulco, Iguala, Taxco and Buenavista de Cuellar fell quickly to their armies, and Zapata felt confident enough to send reinforcements to revolutionary groups in Michoacan and Mexico State.When Michoacan's envoys came to see him, they asked proof of their revolutionary sincerity;Suspicious of bandits and ambitious politicians passing through revolutionaries, they asked what he struggled.Zapata asked José Robles to bring the box with the titles owned by Anenecuilco.By pointing out the documents, Zapata said: “That's why I fight.Not the titles themselves, but this record of constancy and honesty - that's why I'm fighting. '
Zapata moved to Moreos, cleaning the federal garrisons in Jojutla, Cuautla and Jonacatepec, most of whom she deserted to him with her weapons. While that, he sent her to open another front in the state of Mexico, and his brother EupemioIn the same mission in Puebla. At this point, he had cleaned all the federals of Moreos, except the garrison in Cuernavaca, which he was too weak to subjugate.Headache: 3-4.000 men besieging a city for five days needed at least 200,000 rounds of ammunition, and the Zapatists did not have it. Many were the occasions when he envied the villa, US proximity, and his surpluses ofcattle and cotton to buy cartridges and weapons. While that, it was reduced to ineffective negotiations for a loan, either from the US government or the American entrepreneurs.who was officially neutral as between Huerta, Villa and Carranza (but at this stage clearly favored the village), strangely refused to take Zapata.Nacional was irrelevant to his needs and aspirations. It was Palafox who emphasized the importance of the American connection, arguing that if he was successful in the countryside, Zapata would have to play a national role anyway.
Woodrow Wilson, however, helped Zapata involuntarily, as on April 21 Huerta suddenly had to remove all federal forces from southern Mexico to face a new threat: Mexico looked on the brink of a total war with the United States.John Lind, the opposite of Lane Wilson, as numbly hostile to Huerta as Lane Wilson was Madero, continued to flood Wilson with schemes, proposals, and direct demands for Huerta's overthrow.Terrorized that Huerta could actually overcome the imminent war with the constitutionalists, Lind eventually got tired of lobbying with Woodrow Wilson at a distance and returned to Washington in early April 1914 to personally inform the president during which Wilson received the pretext ofthat needed for intervention in Mexico.
By this time, Constitutionalist armies from the northeast had advanced as far as the oil port of Tampico, where the US maintained a strong naval presence to protect its investments in the oil fields. rebels, possibly through simple incompetence, the feds arrested a landing party from an American warship. Although the local Mexican commander apologized, the problem was that the trapped crew was from a ship flying the US flag and was on 'US territory' - the ship's whaling boat intercepted - when they were apprehended. Admiral Henry Mayo, commanding the Fifth Division of the Atlantic Fleet at Tampico, decided to teach the ``Greasers'' a lesson. officer in full military uniform to demand a public written apology, the arrest of the culprits, and the firing of a 21-gun salute to the U.S. flag. Historians have speculated that Mayo, frustrated by the boredom of cruising on Mexico Station, he simply wanted to take action - any action.
As the demand was considered high, the local Mexican commander sent her to Mexico City and, when executed in one of his drinks, Huerta refused to obey the close burning, Wilson welcomed the pretext to remove Huerta tostrength;Huerta thought he could transform anti -sprot chauvinism into a national crusade.Hardened attitudes on both sides.The outcome did not occur, as expected, in Tampic, but later on the coast, in Veracruz.On April 18, Wilson issued orders for the interception of the German ship Ypriranga, who carried weapons to Huerta de Europe to Veracruz, and to prevent all new deliveries, seizing the customs there.Upon receiving the order, Admiral Frank Fletcher, commander of the fourth division of the Atlantic fleet, not expecting resistance, decided to perform the operation without waiting for Mayo to come down as a topic.However, General Joaquin Maas, with I, ooo Men - mainly cadets of the Veracruz Naval School - resisted.
The fight began on April 21;At first, the Americans, attacked by precise shots of rankers and a battalion of strongly armed convicts released ad hoc, made their task a bad time.On April 22, 3,500 Marines were on land, but still facing strong opposition.The American War Ships Chester and Prairie then opened fire with their three -inch cannons and exploded the defenders out of their hiding places.At night, Veracruz was in the hands of Americans, costing nineteen Americans killed and forty -seven injured, against mexican casualties of over 200 dead and 300 injured.In a few days, the occupation forces grew to 6,000: they spent time cleaning resistance pockets and expelling challenging snipers.
Many Americans thought that Veracruz was the prelude to a general annexation of Mexico, that the Mexican Revolution would end, like his French colleague, with the invading armies. Hearst Press performed his predictable and jingan campaign, opening prejudice against smaller breedssouth of Rio Grande. However, Wilson, who gained overwhelming support from both Congress homes for the occupation of Veracruz, was now flooded with protest letters, mainly by the business community, when the possibility of wider involvement in Mexico appeared. Those who asked Wilson not to be sucked into Mexican Maelstrom emphasized the absence of attracting American interests there and resenting that North White America could end up ruling and funding another set of `blacks'. There was no need for such an exaggerated reactionWilson's goals have always been limited to getting rid of Huerta. Veracruz's action helped him instead of the constitutionalists to Washington once again sealed the border, cutting the gun supply to the rebels.
Wilson received a break from the force of the Mexican opposition in Veracruz, the violent anti -gringo riots and the stoning of the American embassy in Mexico City and Carranza's vigilant denunciation of American intervention. However, although Huerta tried to prepare anti -feeling -Yanqui, his propaganda campaign was destroyed by public apathy menus. In the extent that there was an anti -American feeling in Mexico, he was directed to diplomatic and consular employees, not to representatives of American business or other economic interest; few residents received bothas a scratch. Rebel commanders refused federal offerings to come together against the ordinary enemy. While Carranza and Zapata were annoyed by the American action, Villa was complacent, both grateful for the deviation and anxious for polishing their image in the US.From the US, they stayed in Veracruz in a kind of hygiene campaign. They made all prostitutes undergo medical examinations and eliminated pimps; they cleaned the streets and the market daily with seawater, set up public urinals, regulated sewage and drainage and implemented oneCampaign to end the mosquito. It is said that for a short time, Veracruz was so clean that the vultures could no longer trust their usual choices and flew out elsewhere in Seach de Carrion and trash.
Huerta took advantage of the occasion of Veracruz's US occupation to make sustained openings to Zapata: he proposed an amnesty if the Zapatists accepted his authority and fight against the American invaders.Zapata told her intimate circle that the American occupation made her blood boil, but he would never collaborate with Huerta;If Americans invaded their Chica Patria, he would face them alone.Reluctant, Huerta tried to circumvent Zapata's flank making the same proposals to her subordinate commanders;Zapata told his bosses that all these openings of Huerta should be reported to the headquarters and repeated that the only terms he would accept from Huerta would be unconditional surrender.
Frustrated with his inability to throw the anti-gringo letter, and also with all attempts to open a breach among the northern and southern revolutionaries, Huerta tried to ensure that Zapata was warmly received at Mexico City gates, promoting a campaign ofVicious propaganda in the newspapers, portraying the Zapatistas as genocidal war criminals crazy, drugged with Peiote.Huerta -like organs claimed that Zapata and her men crucified prisoners on telegraph posts and cacti, who demarcated the victims about anthills and greased them with honey, or sewed them inside wet skin and let them suffocate while the dry skins asSun.A peculiar atrocity, attributed to Zapata himself, was to demarcate a man at the top of a fast growing maguey cactus.The idea was that at night the stem with the plant's thorn tip would grow thirty centimeters or more, piercing centimeters to the meat of a victim who dies in terrible agony.Needless to say that all these stories of atrocities are apocryphal.Zapatistas shouted their prisoners without mercy, as did the federal, villalists and frowns, but villalists were the wildest, as they were mutilated, tearing eyes, cutting ears, tongues and noses, cutting genitals.Huertists were equally barbaric, exchanging atrocity for atrocity, war crime for war crime.Nevertheless, he was Huerta, with his control of Mexico City Media, who won the propaganda war, in the process leading foreign residents and observers to a panic and parano foam.
Huerta's attempts to define a group of revolutionaries against another - Zapata against Carranza, Carranza against Villa - were much less successful. Zapata was convinced since the early days when Carranza, against agrarian reform, was, at best, anotherMadero - An idea that Felipe Angeles was selling to his own purposes to Villa. One of the first direct contacts between Villa and Zapata came in the fall of 1913, when Villa wrote a friendly letter to say that he was totally in favor of agrarian reform inChihuahua.Zapata responded with a cautious missive, but as a statesman, making an offer attempt at alliance, expressing his confidence in Villa, since he hugged Ayala's plan, but above all, warning him against Carranza.Villa that, if and when the two captured Mexico City, there would have to be purges by wholesale; Madero's mistake in 1911-13 could not be repeated.
Zapata's advice seemed well grounded, to Villa's first personal contact with Carranza left him with a bitter taste in his mouth. In January 17, the two had checked amicably by telegraph, with villa accommodating and defender and tightly, taking it asHis right given by God, instead of an exaggerated gesture of cordiality, responding sponsoring and condescending. So, in March, Carranza changed his Sonora headquarters to Ciudad Juarez and the first face -to -face meeting took place. This was not a success.as if it were a missionary among the Bangala in the darker Africa. He reacted with meticulous stiffness when Villa gave him traditional abraz or the bear.He told his advisers that Carranza was not "without tamper." In particular, to his intimate, he was stronger: Carranza was a sonophabitch, a Hy "that of bitch. Later, he recalled:` `I hugged him energetically,But with the first words, he spoke my blood became ice.I couldn't open my heart to him.For him, I was a rival not a friend.He never looked at me in the eye and throughout our conversation emphasized our difference in origin ... He gave me a lecture on decrees and laws, which I couldn't understand.There was nothing in common between that man and me.
Villa began in 1914 with a cleaning operation to expel the Terrazas and their federal protectors of Ojinaga. During a month, the army of General Mercado lived a tactizo existence in the craters and bombs of alleged bombs of the Faculdas of Ojinaga, reflecting oneNaked subsistence in a diet of dried meat and corn peels, complemented by everything they could buy on the border. In the American side of the Frontier Presidio, he joined the prolonged list of Boomtown beneficiaries: El Paso, Douglas, Larnedo.Carranza's Panfilo Panfilo was unable to dislodge the feds with a flying column, Villa moved north with the main army and directed enemy 5, Ooo-Forte to US territory, where they found a type of refuge in FortBliss Refugee Camp.when Huerta learned of the loss of another army, he swore he would shoot the Market General to return from Mexico.Many in the US, managing a camp cartoon with the caption: `If you are tired of revolt, try our resting healing.
It was in mid-March that Villa opened his long-awaited campaign against Huerta in the south. He went down with an army of 16,000 men, all in trains, including a hospital train capable of handling 1,400 wounded at any one time. All communications between Chihuahua City and the rest of the world were suspended, and all trains and motorized transport were impounded so that the feds could not be tipped off. He was supremely confident, with the much-admired Felipe Angeles at his side, Madero's friend, brilliant intellect, master of ballistics and mechanized warfare, and keen reader of human nature. Villa's first target was Torreon, the nodal point of the rail and road network in northern Mexico.
After he recovered Torreon from the rebels, Huerta tried to make it an impregnable fortress that would dominate all approaches to the northern capital. The garrison was IO, Ooo Strong - a huge number, even for an army in the countryDefensive positions. Huerta had good reasons to believe in his commander General José Velasco when he stated that this is impregnable, and so far Huerta and his generals have convinced themselves or regain that Villa was simply lucky in 1913 and was against second fee commanders.
Villa, however, addressed the next battle with inadequacy. This huge anaconda of a mechanized army serpented through the desert and stopped in Yermo, in an arid and trees -free plain, where only Cactus grew.West, the peaks of the Mother Mother were clearly visible. For three days, the powerful northern division was stopped in Yermo, uncertain where her great leader was found; it happened that Villa was awake all night at a compadre marriage and came ahead all nightDisturbed and with dark eyes. Having found that his twenty -eight cannons were in good condition, he ordered a breakthrough at the federal striker in Bermejillo, forty -three kilometers south and 25 kilometers north of the final target, Torreon.
The villa cavalry surprised the feds in Bermejillo, a city of Adobe houses, expelling them in a short time and then killing more than IOO in a five-hour fight on the road to the south.Benavides in Tlahualilo was also in blood meetings. With the external perimeter of Torreon's defenses, the villa continued, but found it harder and harder to make the raids the enemy fought on the internal lines.Gomez Palacio, 13 kilometers north of Torreon, and especially around Cerro de Pila, the rocky hill that dominated the city. To start, the pioneering gangs of Villa and the maintenance gangs had to make good kilometers of destroyed rails,What prevented artillery, hospital and supplies trains from keeping in touch with the combatants. So the villalist's avant -garde surrendered to his habitable idiocy to make a premature accusation against prepared positions without waiting for support for artillery;were knocked down.
If the feds had advanced right now, with the survivors of panic villains of the front attack by colliding with their own men as they fled, throwing out rifles and valuable ammunition, they could have marked a great victory. However, they stayed in their trenches,fearing a trap. Villa was finally able to restore the order and soon Angles reported that the railway line was prepared and its artillery within reach. It was a battle of friction that directs the pile outside Gomez Palacio, which Villa claimed to beThe hardest struggle he has been in.Smoke clouds and the folding feder floating from the city soon told Angeles that his bombing artillery was having the necessary effect, but that was a knife war in every way; the casualties were refined by the barbaric federal practice of poisoning the whole offreshwater, including the irrigation ditches in the fields.
In this Battle Villa, he clearly showed that his previous successes were not by chance. He compensated for the technical superiority of the enemy artillery by carefully staged night attacks; in the night darkness, the edge, given the feds by its most accurate artillery, was removed by snikers ofVillalist crawling to get the top scorers closely. The feds wasted ammunition by shaking in the shadows at night when they had no clear targets, while Villa's elite gunmen had a line of troops full of shooting. The losses in these night attacks were finally disastrousFor federal morale, as they were hit incessantly by artillery during the day and at dusk they have to deal with an invisible sinister enemy.
The key to Gomez Palacio was Cerro de Pila. Having softened the defenders with an all-day non-stop bombardment, on the night of 25 March Villa sent the cream of his troops in assault waves against the hill. The Federals fought like dervishes and repulsed six blunt attacks, inflicting heavy casualties. Finally, on the seventh wave, they relented. Horrific scenes of hand-to-hand fighting took place in the darkness as the attackers pierced the gaps with bayonets, guessing where enemy bodies might be located; he reached through gaps to knock rifle barrels out of the hands of startled federals; or hurled dynamite bombs at machine gun nests. However, the saga was not yet over. Incredibly, after such feats of heroism, the triumphant Villistas were trapped, as their commanders were unable to rush the expected reinforcements. Soon de Torreon's Federals counterattacked and after another two hours of savage carnage, Villa's men fled the hill, some crying in frustration that all their valor had been for naught.
In Mexico City, Huerta Press spoke with the resumption of Cerro de Pila as if it were a victory on the Cannae or Austterlitz scale. They did not mention the dark sequence. On the next day, the villains again bombarded the hill, Angeles personally spotted toArtillery after leading to new positions to compensate for defective shells sent by the city of Chihuahua. So, at night, Villa asked in his men again. The expected murder dam did not materialize; the defenders left the hill, abandoning -A and Gomez Palacio for Villa. It was one thing closely. After five days of battle, the Volists finally won because their nerves remained better, but it had been touch and left: often, crazy by thirst and hungry lupine, moralof villalist seemed to have gone into free fall. So the villa's personal magnetism had worked his magic. He was everywhere, inspiring and exhorting his men, and even on an occasion, forcing them to return and face Gomez Palacio when they wereFleeing in panic.
Having lost almost me, the dead and more than 3,000 injured, Villa tried to secure a negotiated surrender of General Velasco in Torreon, but Velasco refused. Now the fight was concentrated in the hills around the city. The first village had to defeat oneRelief Force of 2,000 federals that suddenly approached from the northeast to their stunning; he rage, he demanded knowing why Pablo Gonzalez of Carranza had not taken the most elementary precautions to prevent this from happening.De Torreon began. Villa played everything in Velasco. Angeles took her artillery and exploded on the burn track; villain Dynamiters dragged virtually into the mouth of the enemy cannon to deliver their deadly accusations; nitroglycerin amateur aficionados could be seen carrying PausDynamite wrapped in leather, chewing huge cigars they used to light the fuse.
On March 30, Velasco tried to break Hieronymus Bosch's circle of horror by requesting a 48-hour truce, so that he could bury the dead and care for the wounded. Villa consulted with Angeles, who told him that federal morale was at a critical point and the requested truce was a delaying tactic to allow reinforcements to arrive. Villa therefore rejected the offer, although he was concerned about his own casualty level. The Angeles judgment was vindicated. Velasco had lost all his best officers and was secretly desperate that none of his counterattacks had come to fruition. Sensing that his opponent was about to cut and run, Villa did not block the city's exits, but left an escape route along the railroad to Saltillo. On 1 April, to save face, Velasco withstood another fierce bombardment of Angeles, but the next day, taking advantage of a blinding dust storm that produced zero visibility, he made an orderly retreat to the east. Above the dust, Villa saw clouds of smoke: was the enemy simply burning his dead or destroying his weapons stores? He soon got his answer. On April 3, his men advanced unopposed over piles of the dead and entered the devastated and deserted city.
Torreon was Villa's most signposted victory so far. John Reed has described him as the greatest captain of Mexican history: `` his fight method is surprisingly as Napoleon's ... Villa is the revolution. If he died, I havecertainty that constitutionalists would not advance beyond Torreon in one year. The human cost had been extraordinarily high, not only at low combatants (one in five for the villains and even higher levels for the federal).Like Chalnel Houses, full of the corpses and the feculture of decay. The trees were charred and stunted, and no bird sang in their branches without branches. All house was a billet for many bullets and all public monument was marked with shells and damageincendins.
Villa found the inhabitants of Torreon eating rats and looking for partially digested grains in the horse manure who could reprocess as tortillas.He ordered mountains of food and wine lakes to be brought to the city to such a prodigal victory party that he would have attracted the prostitutes of the border cities of the United States.The only group Villa was not sorry for was the Spanish hated.After confiscating all his properties and possessions, he gathered 700 Gachupines and cornered them in the coffers of the Laguna Bank, where they werengalized them.After telling them that they were the despised descendants of Cortes who had stolen and murdered their own people, the Aztecs, Villa said that everyone deserved the execution, but to show their generosity, would simply expel them from the Mexican ground.They were expelled from the city under the bayonet tip and transported in wagons without food and water to the US border, 500 miles north.
Huerta somehow found a new army of 6,000, but this force was quickly imbued by the defeatism of the men they were sent to reinforce.The feds made their last resistance in San Pedro de Las Colonias, sixty kilometers northeast of Torreón.With the euphoria of a man in a sequence of victories, the villa, in a numerical disadvantage, attacked as if he had all the aces.Once again, Villa's initial raids were rejected by the 1000 strong defenders, and for two days the feds remained trapped behind cotton bales barricades, but then self -destructed.A furious fight burst between Velasco and General Joaquin Maas, commanding the reinforcements, about who had the superior command.In a resentment attack, Velasco gave up on April 15, leaving Maas delivered to his destination.Maas hesitated to face Villa alone and also withdrew, abandoning most of his troops and most of his weapons and equipment.San Pedro was destroyed and most abandoned men simply joined Villa, helping to stop the bleeding of the recent campaign.
Although the northern division was exhausted and has to rest for a month after its martial work, the way to Mexico City has now opened. Villa's overwhelming victories ended the feds as a credible struggle force in the north.De Torreon and San Pedro had the effect of destroying a federal army 15,000 strong. The survivors spread to the east, many starving and headquartered in the desert, some limping in Saltillo.Villa had shown their ability to use the artillery, dominate theLogistics and combat a prolonged campaign against a well -entered enemy. Until now, he was easily the most capable constitutionalist general, and now commanded a 16 -year -old elite force, which, by common consent, was easily man by a superior man.
Villa's stunning victory at Torreon, followed soon after by the movie of his life, made him an immensely popular figure in the US. Woodrow Wilson, determined to get rid of Huerta and disillusioned with Carranza after his anti-American outbursts, increasingly saw Villa as the horse to put his money on. Not yet exposed to Villa's dark side, Wilson was a little naively inclined to see the northern centaur as a frontier hero in the mold of Kit Carson or Davy Crockett. He was particularly impressed by two things: Villa seemed to lack personal ambition and said he wanted the supposedly pro-American Felipe Angeles as president; and he supported the US occupation of Veracruz. Villa saw clearly that the attempt to foment anti-gringo sentiments in Mexico was simply a cynical ploy. de Huerta, and declared stoutly of Veracruz: 'It is the bull of Huerta that is being called.' him to a war with friends.
If Villa had presidential ambitions, Wilson's favor could have been decisive. As well, at this stage, Wilson had not measured Carranza's anti -Americanism and its depth and virulence.Britain and France in the 186th years and defeated France in battle. Carranza particularly thought of the affront to the national sovereignty of the "manifest destination" of the US invasion of 1846-8 and about the crimes of Lane Wilson.From Carranza's history was partial, as he never recognized the role of Presidents Lincoln and Johnson in the defeat of Juarez Maximilian. There was something pathological in Carranza's aversion to the gringo. He suspected all the Americans, even the so-called "good Yankees"He made a point of adjusting Wilson's nose about Benton's case, hit the drum about Veracruz's occupation and clearly kept Woodrow Wilson's envoy waiting for ten days when he sounded in November 1913.
Carranza clear her predilections clearly refusing to reach the northern colossus and taxing US companies in Mexico.Meanwhile, Villa, with the income of the properties expropriated in his pocket, did not need to raise money that way.Its image in the US was even more polished by the US consul in the middle period George Carorsrs, who sent praise to Wilson, even more persuasive because Carots had already been violently Anti-Villa.Villa, with his cunning on the human being, soon realized the caroters Achilles heel, or rather the multiplicity of heels.The 38 -year -old, catapulted for an unusual status when Wilson named him special agent in Mexico, was an avatar of all addictions - a con artist, womanizer, player and blackmailer.It was easy for Villa to transform him: he simply gave him a profusion of easy business, profitable contracts, sweeteners and bribes, in understanding that Carots would faithfully report to Washington.All American companies that wanted concessions in Chihuahua had to go through Carots.
Villa soon managed to add another pair of corrupt gringos to his payroll. Washington, he kept the services of the Venal Sherbourne G. Hopkins, who would work for anyone as long as the salary was good enough, and was not aboveWork to oppose simultaneously and sell the secrets from each other to the other. Hopkins, however, preferred to work for Carranza, so he sent his agent Felix Somerfeld to Mexico to be with Villa. This was a case of hiring VolponeMosca, for Somerfeld, who controlled an exclusive concession to import dynamite to Mexico, was if something even more venal and two guys than hopkins. Living three ultra-clinic men like their American agents did not improve Villa's opinion about Yanquis andIn the end, he adversely affected his own reputation in the US. Where Carranza found more and more credible sent to Gravitas, Villa was represented by a trio of faults whose interest was money, money and more money.
Probably, the only really solid and genuine relationship with an American was his relationship with General Hugh Scott, commanding US forces on the Mexican border. Scott liked Villa personally, he liked non -intellectual noble savages, he thought Villa was theHorseman that Mexico needed and, unusual for an American, had a real respect for the qualities of the third worlds - a respect acquired afterwards of Apaches, Cubans (1898) and Philippines (1899-1902).Greater contrast could be imagined than between the reflective Scott and the absurd William Randolph Hearst, whose yellow jingle press has practically created these wars out of nowhere and has now fulminated against Villa.On the right side of the American press, even those newspapers that sympathize with him always seemed to take a condescending tone.
Villa enjoyed a certain prestige in radical and left-liberal intellectual circles in the US. John Reed was a major influence in creating this climate of opinion, and his leadership was followed by other prominent leftists, notably Mary `Mother' Jones, the famous organizer of the United Mine Workers of America, who had a long-standing interest in how Mexico miners lived. When she was arrested in 1914, Villa wrote to Woodrow Wilson, offering to trade young Luis Terrazas for her. Yet the American left's attitude toward Villa was by no means monolithic. Journalist Lincoln Steffens, who shared John Reed's enthusiasm for the Russian Revolution ("I saw the future and it works"), disagreed with him on Mexico, where he felt the Revolution decidedly did not work. Another bigoted anti-Villa leftist was John Kenneth Turner, author of Barbarous Mexico, although his attitude was in part resented because his protégé Ricardo Flores Magon failed to get his brand of revolution off the ground.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was the attitude towards the revolution of the bestselling author and socialist millionaire Jack London, who wrote in Collier's Weekly that the pedestrians followed Zapata, Villa and Carranza not because they cared about land and freedom, butwith looting and bloodshed.particularly delicious event for a people who delight in the bloody shows of the Bull Square '.Soon the former internationalist was in full swing, enchanting American oil tankers and Wall Street financiers with the new direction in their political thinking: “The older brother can police, organize and administer Mexico.The so -called Mexico leaders cannot.And the life and happiness of some millions of pawns, as well as the many millions that will still be born, are at stake.The policeman prevents a man from hitting his wife.The human officer prevents a man from hitting his horse.Can't a powerful and self -enlightened nation from preventing a handful of inefficient and incapable rulers from turning a confusion and a desert into a just land where all natural resources are for a high and happy civilization? '
Perhaps the only American whose relationship with Villa has attracted more attention to being Ambrose Bierce, officially described as having "missing" while trying to make contact with Villa.He was last seen shortly before the Battle of Ojinaga in January 1914, allegedly fighting for Villa, although it is unclear in what capacity of a 71 -year -old writer could have fought for the revolution.Scholars debate whether he was simply killed in battle and buried in a common ditch or anticipated Benton crossing Villa and being executed.Certainly his last communication, for a relative, sounds a lot as a desire for death: 'If you know that I was placed against a Mexican stone wall and reduced to rags, please know that I think it is a good way to leave.this life.Overcomes old age, disease or fall of the basement stairs.Being gringo in Mexico ... Ah, this is euthanasia.
The combination of Villa's spectacular victory in Torreon and his enormous popularity in the US simply heightened Carranza's resentment and jealousy towards him. Although Carranza was a remote figure in Sonora, coexistence between him and Villa was possible because of their virtual independence from each other. When Carranza moved his base of operations to Ciudad Juarez in March 1914, the honeymoon came to an end. Carranza moved to Chihuahua in an obvious attempt to dominate Villa after all of his behind-the-scenes machinations failed. Without a power base in Chihuahua, he first tried to build up his protégés Manuel Chao and Maclovio Herrera as counterweights, then, when that ruse failed, he tried to humiliate Villa by placing him under Obregon's command; Villa simply ignored this directive.
Carranza never liked Villa. A man who bore resentments, cooled on past insults, and had an elephantine memory for any time his self-importance had been slighted, he never forgave Villa for joining Orozco and rebelling against Madero. when he named him (Carranza) Minister of War in 1911. Even without that scar on his memory, Carranza could never have given it to Villa. he himself was never prepared to postpone the diaz.) Furthermore, the clash of personalities was of an almost textbook type: on the one hand, the cold, distant, heavy-handed, cautious Machiavellian; on the other hand, the emotional workaholic , impulsive, mercurial and energetic.
In January 1914, with Villa Master of Chihuahua, Carranza once again tried to arrest his wings. He had three immediate reasons: he needed to put his hands on Chihuahua's recipes; he feared that the promised agrarian reforms of Villa Antagonize the elite;And above all, he feared the example of an independent village: other military commanders in other states can get the same notion and leave the first boss as a mere bow figure. However, all his movements were marked. When he orderedThat Villa Archive the agrarian reform, Villa refused with short duration. When he sent his most reliable counselors to try to win the wild Terraza, he came nowhere. When he sent his "Secretary of Foreign Relations", Francisco EscuderoOn a mission to Villa, Escudero hit her by insulting Villa in a banquet; Villa took over and said he was already dead, but that he came as representative of the first boss.
At first Carranza expected great things when Chao became the governor of Chihuahua in January 1914, but Chao soon found that he had no real, circumscribed power, as it was not possible by the military leaders of Silvestre and other Intellectual Adventors of Villa as leadersMilitary obeying simpler.To be emphasized that it has always been Carranza who made all the difficulties, forever Carranza, who was proactive and Villa reactivo. While the first boss remained sound, Villa always acted with great tact and diplomacy and wrote to him with respect and heat, but AFrom March it was quickly apparent that Carranza wanted to control the northern division, to supplant the Eemitic village orders directly to subordinate generals and to monopolize the US gun supply line.
The starting point came about Manuel Chao. When Villa, on the eve of the Battle of Torreon, ordered Chao to join him with his contingent, Chao replied that he was within his prerogative as governor to refuse and did it. Villa invaded Ciudad Juarez,He arrested Chao and ordered him to execute the execution. He then worked in one of his fearsome fury and complained of Chao about sabotage. When he calmed down, the governor managed to convince him that he had not sought it.It may have been peacefully resolved, but Carranza deliberately chose to be as provocative as Woodrow Wilson was being on Tampecia right now.They were present in force, and Villa could easily have done to him what Huerta did to Madero; even so, it is noteworthy that Carranza had a room full of advisers with charged pistols present in the interview.
The result was predictable. Villa again lost patience and complained and enraged himself in Carranza. The first glacial boss remained as adamant and immovable as when he dealt with Washington.Face was thrown at the three men by wild terraza. Kuriously, Chao seems to have been deeply impressed by the attitude finally evidenced by Villa before Carranza made his provocative intervention.The final break between Carranza and Villa, Chao was on the side of the centaur.
Villa was as good as his word. He fired an editor of Chihuahua for criticizing Carranza and allowed himself to be agitated to deliver control of the northern rail network. However, Carranza was not deceived by the formulas of the revolutionary brotherhood.that never seemed essential to prevent Villa from being the first to enter Mexico City. There was not only the acquisition of the Federal Arsenal to consider, but access to the rich provinces of Southeast Mexico and the overall credibility involved in being the first inCapital.Acima of everything, Carranza was determined to be the next president, and he predicted that, in an open contest, the old guard of porphyists and Huertists would be able to make an agreement with Villa to confirm Felipe Angeles as president.He sent instructions to Obergon, who had been an annoying imitation for Fabius Cuncentor for months to prepare for a race for Mexico City against Villa.
Obergon spent winter in meticulous preparation, increasing his strength, improving the drill and dominating railway logistics.He controlled all the sound, except Guaymas's well -defended port, which he was very cautious to attack, and his only contact with the enemy was in attack and escape skirmishes, usually involving low -digit casualties.Obergon's approach to war was intellectual, while Villa's was instinctive.He really studied strategy, as Villa never did, devouring volumes about the Bôeres War and the Russian-Japanese conflict of 1904-5, learning all about barbed wire, fortifications and trench war.Its goal was to professionalize the Northwest army, but it caused the same reaction as the old sweats as Villa's similar reforms had engendered.His officers hated Obergon's academic approach to war and clung to all ancient and inefficient ways - pursuing women when they should be posting sentries.Such was the indiscipline between his troops that one of the sergeants of Obergon, sent on a recruitment mission, was promoted to the general when he had gathered 300 men and began to issue notes of 50 and to-peso printed on toilet paper.Obergon arrested him in the middle of a party and gave him the treatment ley escape.
Obergon had his own reasons to answer Carranza's call and defeat Villa in Mexico City.Now that Carranza had moved to Chihuahua, he was the number one man and intended to keep things like that.Meanwhile, Villa supported the ambitions of José Maytarena, who wanted to return to the post of governor after six months of 'sabbatical' in the United States.Obregon and his faction rightly considered Maytarena had fled when things were difficult and now she wanted to go back to harvest the awards won by others.Carranza strongly supported Obregon in this struggle for power with Maytarena, aware that she would need Obergon when she arrived the inevitable confrontation with Villa.However, Maytarena was a powerful political machine, with significant support between the middle classes and the Yaquis.To counterbalance Carranza's support to Obergon, Maytarena lobbyed Villa's support.Initially, Villa was not enthusiastic, remembering the cowardly way Maytarena hid in Arizona, but Felipe Angeles convinced him.Angeles and Maytarena were already so hostile to Carranza that they founded a newspaper in Spanish in El Paso, dedicated to attacking the first boss for dodging agrarian reform.
Obregon considered that the best way to defeat Maytarena in Sonora was to make a national figure and be on the winning side when the heirs of the legacy of Huerta fight over the spoils. In April 914, he, therefore, began to proceed with caution forPacific coast, widely assisted by the gun embargo survey by Woodrow Wilson two months earlier. The protruding feature of his campaign was ingenuity, not extravagance. He ignored the ports of Guaymas and Mazatlan, delegating his reduction to favorite generals.In May, he found his southern advance threatened the maritime flank of federal cannons General Guerrero, headquartered in Guaymas. The principle, Obergon tried cunning, bribing one of the three federal cannons to desert. When this renegade was sunk by the other two, ObregonHe sent an agent to the US to buy a substitute, but the man disappeared with the money and was never seen again. Rick -thinking Obergon bought a biplane that attacked federal ranks in which some historians claimed (probably inaccurately) as the first example ofWar on the air.Alberto Salinas, an Obergon army pilot, attacked the cannons eleven kilometers in the sea, plunging from an altitude of 3,000 feet, while a second plane bombed Mazatlan.
In response to Urgent Carranza cables, exhorting -accelerating the advance, Obergon passed Mazatlan (this fell in July, when the combined, British and German marines evacuated the federal), having first involved the Huerta garrison in a crash for the crashof yaquitambores of war. Cutting the Guadalajara-Colima road, he cut the life line of the two ports of the Pacific of Mazatlan and Tepic. In Tepic Obergon, once again exhibited his preference for the stratagem by frontal aggression.Storm of dust, he sent his avant-garde ahead to tell the enemies that his 5-year force (in reality, only 2,000) was about to go down over the city. The Tepic 2, ooo-Forte immediately evacuated, leaving tobrings a huge weapon cache.
In early July, Obergon sent part of his strength to connect south of Guadalajara, while with the rest he defeated the feds in Orendain. For the end, Obergon had a worthy victory to qualify with Villa's.In the field, and the survivors left 5,000 rifles, sixteen artillery, eighteen trains and forty locomotives. Now it was certain that he would beat Villa in the Mexico City race.
The Biographer of Obergon, however, is more likely to be fascinated by the subject's state of mind than his military brilliance, for the unconscious impulse of his letters was that he joined the revolution not for ideological reasons, but for the opportunity to exorcisePersonal Demons. The long campaign, Obregon seemed dead: deliberately not carrying gunfolds, making dangerous rivers crossings when he could easily have expected a few hours to cross in calmer waters, smiling almost with pleasure when grenades fell a few metersfrom a distance.As letters to Carranza and others were full of a morbid fascination with death and blood. Huertists, he said, "Let's satisfy his taste for blood until they crashed" and "a people cannot shed a lot of blood in defense ofhis freedoms. "He alarmed Carranza using Vendetta's language, and particularly by the statement that the main reason for the revolution should be revenge for Madero's death. Carranza thought it was evident that the main reason was to park his own volume in the presidential chair.
Obergon, however, in his arrogant and selfish memories never acknowledged that Carranza had participated that he arrived at Mexico City before Villa. Sabotage is not a very strong word to describe the Chicana of Carranza after Torreon: the nextLogical Step from South Villa was Zacatecas, but Carranza deflected him to the Northeast to Coahuila. The great campaign of Whirlwind de Villa, in which he tore the heart of the Federal Army, had unlocked the north, leaving Pablo Gonzalez to clean in the Northeast.Even a general general as Gonzalez should have concluded the task without difficulty. Certainly, he moved against Monterrey, who the federal evacuated, then advanced in Tampic, from where the enemy retired to Puebla;as mature plums. The next clear goal for Gonzalez was Saltillo, but Carranza suddenly ordered the Villa do Norte division to capture him.
Carranza stated that Gonzalez was not strong enough to take Saltillo, but it was very clear that his true goal was to stop the advance to the south of Villa and weaken his strength, because he was forced to support huge casualties against a federal army 15,000.Villa, at first, he protested that Saltylo was so obviously at the Gonzalez BailiWick that he should be left to deal with it, but Carranza insisted. Remaining, Villa did not bother to wait for Gonzalez's reinforcements, which he suspected deliberately late, butHe launched another of his Blitzkrieg cavalry attacks, entering his knights, then launching them in the enemy position in Paredon, north of Saltillo., taking 2,500 prisoners and sweeping 3,000 rifles and ten cannons. The federal retreats spread to Panic between the Saltillo garrison and, instead of facing the Villa again, destroyed the city and fled to San Luis Potosi.
Villa entered the triumphant in Saltillo, then surrendered Coahuila to Carranza who, as a state of the state, established her new capital there.Villa then asked the Northern Railway Network control to be handed over to him so that he could attack the South in Zacatecas.Alarmed by the fact that even after deviating him so blatantly at Coahuila, the fearless Villa could still win the Mexican City race, Carranza tried a new protection tactic.He formed a new army, composed of northerners with Villa's jealous or resentful, nicknamed him as a 'center army' and gave the command to Panfilo Narete, a former villalist.After insulting Villa implicitly by giving the same post to Nontesto Nétera, Carranza ordered the center of the Center to advance in Zacatecas.
Natera failed terribly in her initial attempt and Carranza was now facing a dilemma.He needed the ever -victorious northern division to take Zacatecas, but couldn't stand the idea of another Villa's victory.He therefore ordered Villa to highlight 5,000 of his men and designate them to the command of Natera.Villa refused indignantly and sent wild Terrazas to Salthillo to explain Carranza that she was not prepared to allow her elite troops to be used as a cannon bushing by an ignorant military as Natera.Terrazas came across the predictable wall of carranza bricks of impenetrable impassibility and returned to Villa without gaining the termination of the order.Villa exploded with anger and talked about climbing Saltillo and hanging Carranza on time.When Felipe Angeles dissuaded him from this idea, he was content to shoot a angry telegram that said, 'Who told you to stick your nose into my territory?'
At this point, Villa was beginning to understand the depths of Carranza's duplicity. He was furious that, after he, Villa, made so many concessions against his best trial, Carranza gave her nothing in return. He checked with Angeles and Silvestre TerrazasAbout how they could improve the table in Carranza. They considered to be a demonstration by which the army would expressly refuse to receive orders from anyone except Villa, but before any such scheme could be implemented, Carranza alienated their generals by behavior ofHigh and autocratic. He responded to Villa's intended cable, refusing to make concessions, Villa launched his command, and Carranza, presumably suffocating his words of Doninha, replied that he accepted the resignation `with regret. '
Felipe Angeles called a meeting of senior commanders. They all agreed that if Villa no longer ordered him, the northern division would disintegrate and Huerta would receive a tenth -hour life line. Even though they were discussing the next step, the news arrivedthat Carranza had accepted the resignation of Villa. Quote without words of anger, Angeles and the generals came back, asking Carranza to reconside. The autocrat in Saltillo refused to make him.North as an independent command, cutting the Carranza completely. Villa agreed, and a cable was sent to Carranza to notify it on the new situation.
Still unable to accept that the army would not bend to its will, Carranza, called six finger chosen generals, choosing those who are most likely to make their offer. For their dismay, they also refused to break with Villa and refused togo to Salthillo to discuss the issue. All eleven of the northern division generals co-sinished an exciting telegram composed by Felipe Angeles, who had their own attractive reasons to detest and hate Carranza. They informed Carranza that with or without their approval,, they were marking south to Zacatecas immediately, challenged their good faith and declared that they could see through their KnaVision schemes to deal with Villa.com their absurd sense of self-importance, Carranza could not have enjoyed reading the cable: 'We consider your measure a violation of the laws of politics and war and the duty of patriotism ... we did not accept your decision ... Nessaiba well that you were looking for the opportunity to stop General Villa ... because of his ambition to removeFrom the revolutionary scenario, the men who can think without their orders, who do not flatter and praise him.
Villa won a complete victory and, for the first time, the haughty Carranza had to eat humble pie. The rift between the two was irreparable, but to deal with Grdce's blow to Huerta, paper over the cracks was needed. at Torreon Villa, he recognized Carranza as the first chief, and Villa was confirmed as unquestioned commander of all the armies comprising the northern division; he was given the rail network, adequate supplies of coal and ammunition, and virtual military carte Blanche. that, with the fall of Mexico City, a convention to discuss the political program of the Revolution, land reform and the date of new elections would be held; This marked a significant concession to the army in relation to Guadalupe de Carranza's plan. , with typical duplicity, Carranza accepted the principle of a convention without committing to its composition or the content of any reforms to be discussed there.
Villa was now free to lead 20,000 men against the Zacatecas railway junction, the gateway to Mexico City. For this battle or dying, the feds had selected their position well, cynically prepared to see a beautiful Minas Gerais town blownin pieces. To the left and right of the strong central defensive positions, where 12,000 defenders were excavated, were two hills, El Grillo and La Bufa, that any attacker would have to climb as a prelude to assault the city; attacking the infantry had to work slowlyIn the steep slope, where they could be slaughtered as a game, as had happened to the men of Netra in their abortive attack. Defenders were reasonably confident: this time Villa would have to deal with experienced colorados and other elite units, non -raw recruits.The federal strategy was simply to sit and absorb the attacks, exhausting village while throwing wave after wave of robbery troops in the impugnable positions. Huerta was waiting for him in a tweezer movement, using the armies taken from Coahuila for a flank attack, but the US occupation of Veracruz had ended this dream.
After checking with Angeles, Villa decided on a double track strategy: surrounding and assaulting the city on all sides while using the upper artillery of the northern division to maintain an uninterrupted dam on both hills, leaving the federal gunners not a single secondTo think; meanwhile, his best infantry would be reaching the top. Angeles insisted on the meticulous planning of contingency: there would be a large garrison of villalist parked in the city of Guadalupe to store the road to AguasCalientes, if Orozco tried to reinforce the feds in this way.June 22, Villa appeared before his men, riding a `` witty horse '', exhorting them to make one last push for victory. So, in the morning, the first units came in when his army attacked Zacatecas of allsides.
The Council of Angeles proved to be first-class and the villalist's strategy was successful against El Grillo's hill, where a great artillery bombing threw so much dust and debris in the air that masked the approach of crack units climbing the heights;Villa's commands took the summit around IMS. In La Bufa, the resistance was more stubborn, probably because of the presence of federal commander Medina Barron, but the fall of El Grillo had an indirect moral effect. This was considered impregnableAnd its capture after only three hours scattered throughout Panic, especially in Zacatecas itself. From the heights, federal soldiers could be seen below, running like ants in a disturbed nest, but without the same feeling of communal purpose.If taken, the feds hit courage and morals, throwing away their uniforms, weapons and cartridge belts.
Medina Barron ordered her remaining troops to withdraw through the Zacatecal-culianient road, knowing that in Torreon Villa had left his enemy an escape route.Over the road, they found the path barred by the 7,000 vilists in Guadalupe. The result was a massacre, with thousands of men consumed by the terrible fire.With two police officers mounted on a single horse, they tried to force the way beyond Guadalupe. With zacatecas under a bullet wave, they found a storm of fire in Guadalupe. Witnesses spoke of the hills between the two cities literally running red with blood,the roads scattered from corpses. Some have escaped the shots just to dive like lemming in slits formed by axes of disuse in the mountains around the city.
Those who chose to stay and fight in Zacatecas did not do better.From 1 pm until 4 pm that day the city was hell, a hell on the earth, without a truce given or expected.Some federal officers have tried to disguise their status by pulling their uniforms and decorations, but were detected anyway and sent to the shooting platoon.However, the real carnage began when there was a deafening explosion, when a federal colonel exploded Arsenal, preferring to kill himself and hundreds of villalists surrender.As a result of this act of irrational sabotage, an entire block of buildings was in ruins and hundreds of bodies mingled with the rubble: some who survived the explosion but were cruelly mutilated, moaned in agony;Others have not suffered direct damage, but died anyway, being buried in the wreckage.Furious with the loss of their comrades, the villalists in the hill tops launched a bullet shooting.An estimate was that a storm of 20,000 rifles began simultaneously around 5 pm.There was a brief calm, so the victorious villaists began mass executions of prisoners.The captives were taken to the cemetery and the officers separate from the officers;Those who carried the hated Federal Commission were then executed by the special murder squadrons of Villa.The sun was already setting and the foolish killing was still happening when Angeles arrived and ordered the weapons to silence.
Zacatecas was the bloodiest battle of the entire campaign against Huerta.Six thousand federals were killed (including 3,000 on the road to Guadalupe), but the real bodies count was probably higher, as only 3,000 wounded enemies were officially recorded.From the entire garrison of 12,000 advocates, less than 300 arrived at the watercolients.In addition, more than 1,000 villaists died, 2,000 were injured and a large number of killed, mutilated or injured civilians.The death toll would have been higher if Angeles had not intervened.Some say he had a nephew serving with the federals that he was trying to save, but he was more likely that he was trying to keep his labor, as federal officers captured invariably agreed to serve in the northern division.So great was the killing and so penetrating the stench and contamination of the decaying corpses that the typhus erupted and reaped the lives of dozens of winners.Once again Angeles thought of the solution: he ordered all the gasoline corpses soaked and incinerate them.
The combination of US intervention in Veracruz and catastrophic defeat in Zacatecas ended Huerta. Whether in Cuernavaca, Zacatecas or Tampico, the story was the same: mass desertions followed by federal generals returning to Mexico City, coming like Johnny to deal with the Burns' poem with the news of his own defeat. The class of officers were desperate and in an impossible position; They had to sink or swim with Huerta, to avoid execution they should have changed sides at a much earlier stage. Huerta simply made a bad situation worse by enacting a scorched earth policy, destroying public buildings and property; the feds in Rout were more like full-time arsonists than professional soldiers, and vandalism was particularly marked in Monterrey, Piedras Negras, and Nuevo Laredo. Until Hacendado's class and the Rancheros turned against Huerta as the feds continued their mindless depredations on the retreat;
The wealthy, property and middle classes now wanted Huerta sacked as soon as possible. They were prepared to look abroad - to Panama, the US or even the Vatican City - for suitable mediators to broker a negotiated peace. Argentina , Brazil and Chile - the ABC powers of Latin America - offered their services, and Huerta reluctantly agreed. He sent delegates to the peace conference near Niagara Falls, New York state, hoping to conclude a quick peace before He wanted the Constitutionalists to come to Mexico City, but Woodrow Wilson was determined to drive him out. When the ABC powers proposed that there be an armistice first, then proper negotiations for peace, Wilson refused to accept the deal. clear enough that it meant committing the US to deprive the rebels of the fruits of their victory. In any case, Carranza refused to accept ABC's powers as mediators, so his proposal was stillborn. As best the Niagara conference could to do was resolve the Huerta/Wilson dispute over Tampico and Veracruz by scheduling a timeline for the withdrawal of the Marines.
As Huerta now faced an inevitable way out, the tensions between Carranza and Villa increased. IMEDIATED AFTER VICTORY IN ZACATECAS, Ingrade Carranza embarked on all coal remittances to the northern division. As Carranza controlled coaahuila coal mines, Villa, VillaHe could not feed his trains for the final trip in Mexico. At the same time, the villa was hit by a scarcity of ammunition consequently on the US arms embargo after Veracruz. Novemingly, Villa was stabbed on his back, especially since he sawCarranza's anti -Americanism as the root cause of problems with Washington. He was intrigued and wounded by Wilson's attitude. From that he, Pancho Villa, has always been a friend of the Americans and didn't even denounce Veracruz's intervention, why the weapon embargo wasBeing extended to him? Anyway, the gringos were favoring the Carranza, as they inexplicably allowed to import guns through Carranza Held -Tampico while sealing the border with Chihuahua.Villa should not know that this bizarre policy was part of a "dividing tacticand rule Wilson's, concerned that no faction in Mexico grew very powerful.
What Wilson really wanted was Huerta's disappearance followed by an Armistice and a form of communal government, possibly a president with limited powers (neither Villa nor Carranza) supervised by a curator troika, one of which would be an acceptable conservative figure for Washington..Carranza, however, wanted none of this: he insisted on the unconditional surrender of the Federal Army to him and only to him.Huerta tried to make time offering baits to Zapatistas, at this point actively occupying the villages in the mountains outside Mexico City, having isolated and circumvent the Cuernavaca garrison.Huerta offered generous terms to Zapata to separate him from the constitutionalist cause, but he did not know his man.Zapata dismissed the offer of an alliance that would allow him to triumphantly in the capital.
Carranza continued his Machiavellian project of weakening Villa even as he delivered the coup de grâce in Huerta. Emissaries from the First Chief and Villa met at Torreon on 5 and 6 July and negotiated the restoration of coal supplies and the recognition of Carranza as future chief executive. Only one concrete proposal was accepted: that a constitutional convention meet in Mexico City, once Huerta was deposed, to decide the future course of the Revolution; there would be a civilian acting president, and military leaders could choose one delegate to the convention for every thousand soldiers they command. The two sides agreed to disagree over Sonora's political future, but they drew up detailed plans for abolishing the old federal army, reducing the power of the Catholic Church and giving benefits to industrial workers.
Carranza was simply gaining time and playing her unfair game ever.He had agreed that the emissaries should go to Trareon negotiations, but only under the understanding that they were not sent official and that he would not be linked to any agreement that did not please him.Lots of useless conversation could have been avoided if Carranza had put all the cards on the table.His goals were the same as usual: himself, not a convention, to decide Mexico's future;He and only he to pronounce on land reform, which meant no land reform;and a total refusal to return the coal to the North Army.
Finally, seeing his hopeless position, Huerta resigned on July 5.He then went to his favorite Bengelo, turned a parade of his favorite brandy and said to the viewers: This will be my last glass here. I drink to thenew president of Mexico.He then sought a refuge at the German Battlecruiser Dresden, which took him to Jamaica; hence he and his family started to exile in Barcelona. The new president was his Stooge Francisco Carbajal, who tried to deceive Carranza with a transfer of transfer of transferTransfer power of the type with which Diaz had calm Madero. When this offer was predictably rejected, Carbajal launched sensors to Villa, proposing to deliver the federal army to him, provided that the lives of all officers were spared and they could serve under PhilipAngeles.
This was a tempting offer, as the northern division was temporarily paralyzed by Carranza's coal embargo. Villa spent long hours with Angeles and others trying to decide what to do next. They should withdraw to Chihuahua and convert it into a fortressImpugugoneable? No, advised Angeles: That would leave Carranza in possession of all the rest of Mexico and make it too powerful. More promising was a formal alliance with Zapata or a quick sound campaign, while Obergon was in the south. In the end, Villa ifHe showed incapable of Carranza's Machiavellian. He told his officers that accepting Carbajal's terms would be a betrayal of the revolution. From anyway, to accept the surrender of the Federal Army, he would have to fight for Obergon and enter a hostile city of Mexico, when there was no clear indication of what would be Zapata's reaction.
Zapata was still more interested in ideological purity than alliance building. On July 12, he republished the Plan of Ayala, declaring that it was his aim to enshrine it in the new constitution that would be drawn up after the fall of Huerta. He then took the town of Milpa Alta, a suburb of Mexico City, after a fierce two-day battle. Tied with Carranza and Villa, Carbajal thought he saw a glimmer of chance with Zapata. He offered to accept Ayala's Plan as part of an overall deal, but Zapata replied that with 20,000 men he was now strong enough to take Mexico City on his own and needed no deals. Carbajal turned to Obregon as his last chance. Fortunately for him, Obregon was a pragmatist who lacked Carranza's inflexible character. He saw a chance to sabotage Zapata and he took it.
Having guaranteed an agreement with Obergon, whereby the Federal Army would defend the capital against the Zapatistas until it arrived, Carbajal and the rest of the Huerta faction fled the country on August 12. Promoted to Major-General by Carranza, Obergon swept the city ofMexico, coming to Teoloyucan in August, where he signed the documents that end the government of Huertista. The Governor of the Federal District, left as the only authority in the capital, went out to find Obergon around and signed the instruments of unconditional surrender.General among a tired population of war, well expressed in words previously spoken by an old peasant to John Reed: `First, it was the Madearists, then the Orozistas and now - what did you call them? - The constitutionalists.I have a lot of time to live, but this war - it seems that all it does is let us starve.
On August 16, Obergon triumphantly entry. Thousand Vanguard Men accompanied him, creating a sensation for his mixed appearance.30/30 Winchester Rifles and Bandlers. The side of them were Yaquis, still wearing the clothes where they had enlisted in sound cotton pants and embroidered shirts, marching boots, ten gallons hats.The fearsome arsenal of arches and arrows, arnhas and queues, the bourgeois of Mexico City suddenly felt a shiver of apprehension. They now wondered if they had done the right bargain, having surrendered in the hands of the `` barbarians '' on the basisIn which Obregon, 'The New Cortes', was preferable to Zapata,' The Attila do Sul'. They would soon learn that their background were well founded.
The AguasCalientes Convention
In Mexico City, with strength in the heels of Obergon, now came Carranza. Managing his entry into the capital, in order to approach Ape Juarez on January II, 1861 after his final defeat of conservatives, on August 20, 1914 CarranzaHe began his journey in Tlalnepantla, seven miles from the National Palace, so that he could cross as a possible part of the capital and receives the applause of a huge crowd. This aspect of the construction of images worked well: 300,000 people aligned the route, against IOO, ooo who had greeted Madero in 1911. However, the honeymoon did not last long. Carranza made a speech alerting Mexico City that he could not expect favors. He immediately confirmed the decree of Obergon by placing the city under the martial lawAnd announced difficult measures to deal with crime. The long-term of 1914-15, theft was at epidemic levels in the capital, often the work of the notorious gray gang, specializing in police officers to gain access to rich housesIn search of a fake search, making his escape after the robberies in distinct gray carriers.
Both Carranza and Obergon thought that the citizens of Mexico City were superprivileged, had been protected from the rigors of war, and had not had their influence on the revolution - Obregon noted that the capital needed a good and long dose of military government to put in itsPlace, before the elections allow the cowardly congressmen to return to the act.However, while Carranza was concerned about teaching the lesson that the cozy arrangements Madero had done with the old guard was a thing of the past, Obergon's attitude was harder and deeper.Carranza did not like to hear Obergon to talk about revenge as true patriotism, for for him patriotism meant recognition of the need - which he interpreted as a meaning of the nation's fate as Juarez had excited and, therefore, implied his own personal government.It seemed to him that Obergon was dangerously close to a vision of the revolution as a self -justified and self -sustaining thing - a death waltz with only four men: Obregon, Carranza, Villa and Zapata.
Obergon was never someone who was very impressed with the postures of the first boss.Three days after reaching the capital, he went to the French cemetery to pay tribute to Madero.Accompanying him were many of the 'remarkable' who had made a thick view when Huerta murdered Madero.With his love for the histrionic, Obergon handed his pistol to Maria Arias - a woman who had reported publicly in 1913 - and said: 'I give my pistol to Maria Arias, the only man found in Mexico City at the time of The Huerta blow.Some historians found Obergon's hostility to Mexico's hostility and speculated that he punished the capital by his own fault for not having joined the Revolution with Madero in Jigio.
Certainly, their first measurements were hard and uncompromising.In the mistaken view that the Catholic Church had supported Huerta - in fact, Huerta had attacked her cruelly - Obergon imposed a fine of half a million pesos, expelled the vicar -general and sixty -seven other priests of the city and deleted himself to humiliate theChurch subjecting the priests to medical examinations, which revealed that many of them suffered from venereal disease.He then attacked all entrepreneurs who had supported Huerta, even if only tacitly, charging exorbitant taxes on capital, real estate, mortgages, carriages, cars and even water, sewers and sidewalks.Those who traded basic products such as corn, beans, oil, lard, tallow and coal received 48 hours to return 10% of their wealth or face the total confiscation.When Obergon imposed special taxes on foreigners, they protested, thinking that Carranza would not seek confrontation with their governments, but Obergon personally armed with a protest meeting at the Hidalgo Theater and interrupted, intimidating protesters with a display of military power,That is, a triple row of soldiers with weapons pointed directly to the hearts of the protesters.To purge his 'stretch', Obregon imposed a 'moral tax' - forcing foreigners to sweep to the streets.
While Obergon and Carranza made it clear to Mexico City that Halcyon's days ended, they turned to face the main political imperative: the conflict coming from Villa. Only War's life and caution about Washington's possible response prevented a prevented oneIMMEDIATE HOSTILITIES. In addition, Carranza argued that public opinion had to be brought gently, otherwise people would see the war between two factions not divided by ideology as simply a war for the personal ambitions of Villa and Carranza.that he talked before there was more bloodshed. While that, the main objective was to prevent an alliance between Villa and Zapata.
So far, in all contacts between the two great popular leaders, Zapata had done most of the running. The first envoy he sent north in the autumn of 1913 was Gildardo Magana, who was with Villa in prison in Mexico City. in 1912 and taught him the rudiments of the Ayala plan. Taking one of those tortuous itineraries that all Mexicans during the revolution seemed to always take, he traveled to Nuevo Leon via Veracruz, Havana, New Orleans and Matamoros. In command was Lucio Blanco, a man of liberal sympathies who had frequently expressed support for land reform and whose secretary (Francisco Mugica) was Magana's childhood friend. he showed sympathy for land reform and spoke with pride to his ``left'' commanders, such as Calixto Contreras and Orestes Pereyra, in Durango. Villa began corresponding with Zapata and, from March 1914, Villista's envoys to Morelos were received with particular marks of favour.
Carranza's advisers could see the dangers of a villa-zapata alliance, especially if planning for Felipe Angeles, but for a long time the first boss was deaf to his advice. Although he appreciated the power of the villa, he lowered Zapata as'Rabble 'along with Orozistas or Emilio Vasquez followers in 1912. Carrancists were reduced to put their feelings on their boss. They were exaggerated, deceived by Zapata's apparent reluctance to enter a formal alliance with Villa.They understood that Zapata was hyper-chauly, that he demanded that Villa gave him abundant evidence of sincerity before putting his name in an agreement. Suspass of all other leaders of leading temporary, ruined and evanescent movements.And the revolutions will go, "he said," but I will continue with my way. "While Pragmatic Villa could accept this approach, dogmatic Martinet Carranza failed.
As Obregon and Carranza approached Mexico City, the wave of peace approaching Zapata increased. A Zapatista agent even interviewed Carranza before his trip to the capital, suggesting a face-to-face meeting at a location selected by Zapata. Lucio Blanco and a few other Carrancista generals lobbied hard for an entente with Zapata and sent their own secret agents to negotiate with him. One of them brought a Colt .44 revolver as a personal gift from Blanco to Zapata, and another suggested a Zapata-Blanco conference. The obstacle to any meaningful conversation has always been Carranza's ambition to be Mexico's top executive — and Carranza, in any case, felt that all these overtures to Morelos were a waste of time. When one of Genovevo de la O's envoys interviewed him, Carranza petulantly declared, "This business of dividing up the land is ridiculous."
Carranza's dogmatic and inflexible hard line enraged her counselors. What they could offer Zapata when the first boss continued to insist that the Zapatists were no more than rustic bandits, a mere crowd; that they were meteorological ones who had previously fought by Madero andOrozco; that if they do not disarm, he would do with them what Huerta and Robles had done; and that any land reform must be entirely for his opinion?He found such a stubborn man. Zapata had only two demands and not negotiable: Carranza had to retire so that there could be a genuinely representative interim government and then really free elections; and the new regime must be in accordance with Ayala's plan,,That, among other things, in article 3 declared Zapata as the supreme chief of the Mexican revolution and in article 12 specified the composition of the Junta de Peace that would replace him. So, here were two men of granite, both refusing to commit or evenSpeak until your initial demands were met in full.
Although insisting that he could not give in to Ayala's plan, Zapata wrote to Carranza to suggest meeting at YautePec in Morelos, but he made the offer nearly impossible to accept, disappointing everything Carranza has been told to date by any of his agents. He made his true feelings clear repeatedly: in a public speech he warned that 70,000 men with Mausers would oppose any Carranza presidency; from shyster; In a letter to Villa, he warned that Carranza's ambitions and greed were extremely dangerous; And in a missive to Woodrow Wilson, he denounced Carranza as simply another in Mexico's long line of machine politicians. At the table, the suggestions, he warned that the upcoming war with Carranza would be prolonged; It would take Obregon and other ambitious generals years to realize that Carranza was really a fetter in his desires.
Carranza, however, saw why trying to neutralize Zapata during the approaching war with Villa and used a multitude of agents to try to stop him.An American Red Cross agent interviewed Zapata on behalf of Carranza on August 25, but was discouraged by Zapata's unaffected comments about the first boss.Carranza was playing a shrewd game, reconciling Woodrow Wilson pretending to be a peacemaker and seeming to want to use the US as an intermediary between him and Zapata.He revealed his true stance by consistently refusing to meet Zapata in Yautepec, insisting that any such interview should take place in Mexico City.From his royal agent Juan Sarabia, he received reports that reinforced his perception of 'rabble';Sarabia stated that the actual number of zapatist staff was nothing more than 15,000 and that everyone was poorly armed and poorly trained.As for Zapata personally, he was an unbridled man of impressive political ingenuity, sustained only by arrogant pride, while his Eminence brown Manuel Palafox was a mere nullity.
Sarabia's ability as an agent was that, while doing hindering reports to Carranza, he also acted as an intermediary for the 'middle of the road' phalanx that included General Lucio Blanco and Nuevo Leon's reformer governor Antonio Villareal.Zapata was eager to find these men in Cuernavaca and Sarabia warned Carranza that there would be no harm in such contacts, which he would monitor.Still keeping an eye on Washington, Carranza pretended to agree with it, but prevented Blanco from going;He allowed Villareal to go on, but prohibited him from making any concessions.Villareal and other envoys traveled to Cuernavaca.Among the group was Alfredo Serratos, a "autonomous and selfish" problem solver, who stated to Carranza and Zapata that he was the plenipotentiary of the other.His true role may have been that of Villa's agent, in charge of ensuring that Zapata and Carranza never reach an agreement.
Villareal and his sent colleagues were shocked by what they saw in Cuernavaca, where the federal garrison had surrendered to Zapata a month earlier.Such a direct and open democracy to Rousseau's style, with illiterate farmers talking about genuine decision -making meetings, and all men, whatever their position or status, wearing white work clothes, shocked their nordic sensitivities.Everywhere they found what they considered a fanatical insistence on implementing the letter of Ayala's plan.They also found unexpectedly real hostility, as Palafox emerged as a hard line "no concessions";His critics claim that he did not see a future in a Mexico dominated by the APPARATCHIKS of Carranza's political machine and acts accordingly.
Villareal and his colleagues were much better with the rising star in Zapatista firmament, Diaz Soto y Gama, a mid -class lawyer lawyer from San Luis.Soto y Gama began in student policy, developed a talent for oratory and moved throughout the spectrum of liberalism to anarchism, where he was inspired by the Russians, especially Kropotkin and Tolstoi.In 1904, a serious decline in the fortune of his family led him to withdraw from political activism and, in 1910, he did not participate in the Madero revolt, considering simply old wine in new bottles.Later, he retracted and wrote a 42 -point timber manifest for the people of San Luis, talking to transforming the city into the Chicago of Mexico.He supported Madero against Zapata until April 1912, when he converted to Anarcho-Syndicalism;He finally joined Zapata in the spring of 1914 and was one of the urban radicals who gave Zapatism his ideology and theory.
The mid-road considered Soto y Gama a valuable ally, as many of them shared their political sympathies. The Anarcho-Syndicalistic Movement, the World Worker's House, divided in 1914, when Huerta banned him. Some joined the Carranza and then helped himforming their `Red Battalions', others, the real leftists, went to the south to join Zapata. However, there were always those, like Lucio Blanco, who thought there was more in common among the left factions, than the trueDivision was between, on the one hand, the bourgeois and reactionary elements in the movements of Zapata and Carranza and, on the other hand, the real revolutionaries in both. In this vision, the personal struggle between Zapata and Carranza was "false consciousness";Soto y Gama meant when he referred to Carranza as bourgeois irrelevance, and it may well have been the reason why Carranza forbade Lucio Blanco from traveling to Cuernavaca.
The envoying also came across a more immediate problem: Zapata himself was nowhere.He is sharply suspicious of doing any business - because he was a morbid fear of betraying his supporters or selling them to discovered - and particularly cautious with anything in Mexico City, above all the sent ones in that neighborhood, Zapata solved his uncertainty about what to doLeaving the city.When the envoys asked where the leader was, they told them that he had gone to a city that was sixty-five miles south and would come back "soon."However, Villareal was soon convinced that the people of Moreos were tired of the war and would turn against Zapata if he did not deliver lasting peace.This insight was a little lost in a useless slang that the envoys had with Palafox, which made it clear that he had no interest in anything they had to say;Palafox simply reiterated ad nauseam that Ayala's plan must be accepted in its entirety, without even changing a comma.In a second meeting, Palafox asked the envoys to be credentials and criticized them when they claimed to be unofficial observers.
It was clear that Zapata would always be a disappointment to leftist 'popular front' ideologues. Always subject to the sacrosanct status of the Ayala Plan, Zapata was a political pragmatist. One might think that his obvious place was in the alliance with Villa, but Zapata feared that Villa could become too powerful, so he was treading carefully. If all the generals joined Villa and Carranza was defeated, the new army would be too powerful for Zapata to resist. This consideration, plus the perennial shortage of ammunition, was what made him welcome into his ranks the ex-Huertistas and Colorados who fled south from the implacable Obregon, although in terms of political ideology these new recruits could be considered men of the right. Villa's fear also made him initially look for a two-pronged approach to Villa and Carranza. Yet another reason for pragmatism was that Zapata's alliances were always fragile affairs; even now, with the movement apparently at its height, de la O announced that he was not necessarily bound by Palafox's centralized administration and orders from him.
Finally Zapata returned and invited the visitors to dinner. During the meal, some of Zapata's caciques accused the Carrancistas of having fired on their forces; for a moment Sarabia thought Zapata was going to order the execution of the envoys. The next day there was a final meeting, in which Zapata lost his temper and shouted to his visitors that if Carranza wanted to speak with him, he should come to Cuernavaca. The more Villareal tried to calm him down, the more enraged Zapata became: how, he shouted, can everything he fought so hard for over three and a half years be traded in all this bullshit? The envoys formally offered to accept Zapatista control of all the villages they occupied south of Mexico City and hand over Xochimilco, controlling the capital's water supply. At first, Zapata claimed he didn't want charity, but Palafox and Serratos persuaded him to accept the gift. Having previously prevented the disgruntled envoys from leaving by failing to issue the necessary passes, Zapata finally relented and let them go the next morning. They returned to Carranza with the disappointing news that Zapata had insisted that the Ayala Plan be signed and that Carranza resign as chief executive; they expressed bafflement as to why Zapata was so adamant and blamed Palafox.
It is tempting at first sight to agree with the emissaries and conclude that Zapata was a mindless fanatic or a slave to irresponsible advisers, but there was a method to his apparent madness. Zapata set impossible terms because he did not want a deal with Carranza, but he also did not want he could say that the Zapatistas would not negotiate. Part of that negative attitude was a specific dislike for Carranza, part was the general paranoia about any overtures that came from Mexico City, the seat of corruption in the eyes of all genuine Morelos isolationists. Furthermore, all of Zapata's advisers were pushing for a formal alliance with Villa, some like Soto Y Gama so that they could make common cause with the 'Popular Front' leftists in all three camps, others, like Palafox and Serratos, because they thought an entente with Villa would advance their careers.
In any case, Carranza rejected Zapata's terms on September 5, declaring exasperated: 'The intransigence of the citizen-general Zapata and her people will not be overcome by wisdom or threats.'Zapata had her own version: as Lucio Blanco wrote: 'I tell you with all the frankness that this Carranza does not inspire much confidence in me.I see in it a lot of ambition and a willingness to deceive people. 'Some observers see the obvious lack of communication simply as another aspect of the mesalliance between northern nineteenth-century liberalism and the old southern values, the viceroy and pre-conquest area.
Since the influential giving and US agents continued to lobby for a Zapatacarranza pact, challenging all the logic and probability, Zapata decided to knock on the door decisively. In September 8, he ordered his followers to implement Article 8 of the PlanAyala, who asked for the expropriation of all goods belonging to those who "directly or indirectly" were opposed to the plan. This meant that all the properties of the field would be delivered to villages and all urban properties used to pay war pensions by orphans and widowsOr to loan to farmers. Effectively, from September 1914, Zapata was defined during the total blood social revolution. Until, it was a case of land recovery taken by government or owners who had previously belonged to the Pueblos; Now it was a matter of expropling new lands. A new form of community ownership of the land, the ejido would give peasants that pastoring and joint cultivation rights and shared property. Zapata showed that he meant business by establishing agrarian commissions to distribute the newLand, leaving Mexico City without doubt what would happen if the Zapatistas occupied the capital.
While Zapata and Carranza were locking horns, Obregon was again slicing death, this time at Villa's hands. The occasion of the conflict was Sonora and the revival of fortunes there by former governor Juan Maytorena. second plan but, with non-intervention by Villa and Carranza seemingly assured, Maytorena moved quickly to assert his hegemony. His first step was to oust Obregon supporters Plutarco Elias Calles and Benjamin Hill; was in a position now to dominate the state. This posed a direct threat to Obregon, who decided to reassert his status in his native state. While ordering Hill and the Calls to strike back against the Yaquis of Maytorena, he traveled north in August 24 to confer with Villa in the city of Chihuahua, taking with him an escort of only twenty men, and thus appeared to enter the lion's den.
Villa played a duplicate hand. He gave the good -guard to Obergon with a guard of honor, invited him to his house and witnessed a cable that he ran to Maytarena, saying him to suspend hostilities against the obsigers.He returned to the Telegraph office to send another cable, telling Maytarena to disregard the previous message, which was only for public consumption; he told Maytarena to end her hill and calls while stopped from Obergon in Chihuahua. However, heHe changed his mind almost immediately when Obergon offered him an agreement: he would abandon Carranza and guarantee that he would not become president if Villa, in turn, would restore his position (from Obergon) in sound.
Villa and Obergon traveled to a sound for a Maytarena conference on August 29.Sobragon asked his rival to declare his complaints against him and Maytarena asked time to compose his answer; in fact, he was now completely confusing what the real intentions werede Villa.Eventually, an agreement was patched by which Obergon was recognized as a general chief commander in the state, but Maytarena had daily control of all military forces. The agreement did not please anyone except Villa and Obergon.that he had just agreed with a configuration where Obergon could legally discard him; Meanwhile, Hill and Calles bitterly complained that they were being sacrificed to Oberla's desire for an agreement with Villa. The agreement lasted only twenty-four hours beforebe repudiated on both sides.
With the clear understanding that Obergon would sacrifice Carranza, Villa agreed to break with Maytarena.On September 3, Villa and Obergon announced that the new interim governor of Sonora would be Juan Cabral.Obregon, in turn, pledged to ensure that Carranza was never president, to put Hill and Calles under the control of Villa and to agree that local and regional elections were held before the nationals, so that a new national regime does notit could simply impose its representatives on the elections.the provinces.How serious was Obergon is questionable;For now, he was prepared to promise anything to thwart Maytarena.Anyway, the new agreement was born dead.Maytarena, Hill and Calles were furiously refused to be linked to him.Carranza also learned and announced that she did not accept the deal.He countered an electoral forum in which all delegates would be chosen by him.
Finding Maytarena intractable and unable to fulfill his promises to Villa because of Carranza's intransigence, Obergon did something inexplicable in rational terms. He not only returned to Chihuahua for more conversations with Villa, thus putting himself in the power of the Centaur when he was goodHumor, but also tried his hand on the intrigue, trying to discredit Villa with his own commanders. At this point, Villa had heard that Benjamin Hill was in the sound march and that Obergon had allowed Carranza to face him about the last agreement.Sense that he was in dangerous waters when a distant village insisted that he was with him to review a military parade in the city of Chihuahua on September 6. The past of March was an impressive demonstration of villalist military power: forty -threeCannons, tens of thousands of mausers, more than 5,000 elite troops. Abragon felt that it was a tip, as he said, that Villa wanted to 'erase him from the book of the living'.
Private conversations began.When Villa immediately lost patience and began to complain about Obergon: `General Hill thinks I can be played ... You're a traitor and I will have you shot now.With a dirty mouth, but this time his anger speech was sprinkled with obscene.If you from Hill or face the shot squad. Obregon said he would never remove Hill under threat. In his autobiography, he claimed to have fought the threat of execution of the following one to suffer from it will be you.
With anyone else, someone would suspect L'Erprit de L'Ascalier or a Tucididian speech, but in Obergon's case he is likely to have spoken in this regard.With his personality focused on death, which on so many occasions revealed an unconscious desire of extinction, Obergon was probably the only man in Mexico who could not be intimidated by the threat of instant execution.Anyway, it seems likely that with his cold blood he gradually established a psychological advantage about Villa, making him question his own reasons.Obregon silently focused on the reason that he was prepared to be a martyr of the revolution, but that, by killing him, Villa would pierce his own legend;He hit Villa in his weakness, arguing that great warriors never killed heralds, even those sent from their enemies.
Villa walked around in the room for one hour, then dismissed the flap that waited outside, but warned Obergon that this was just a postponement.Then he checked with his counselors.Angeles and Raul Madero vehemently opposed execution, and Angeles thought of a safe way to avoid it.He went to see Luz Corral and told her that if Villa executed a guest at his home, he would be violating the most sacred laws of hospitality.Luz then put this point to Villa, hoping to tell him to take care of his own life.He said nothing, was thoughtful and suddenly suspended the execution sentence.Back to Obergon, he went through one of his rapid personality changes, falling into crying."Francisco Villa is not a traitor," he shouted, "Francisco Villa does not kill defenseless men, and certainly not you, my good friend, who is now my guest."When he left the room, he noticed his secretary, soled Orduno Armendariz, shaking with the tension of the recent exciting scenes.He ordered two glasses of orange juice, offered her one and apologized for the stress caused.
Obregon went to dinner with Villa, played with the company, and then danced with Villa until 4 am at a regimental ball for the Division del Norte. One of Obregon's helpers, thinking he was living in a madhouse, asked his boss what exactly was going on. Obregon replied, `I really don't know. I was wondering how to get a safe conduct from don Venustiano in heaven' - a typical Obregon witty, referring to the general Mexican belief that St. Peter had a long white beard like don Venustiano Carranza. However, behind the scenes, the storm still hadn't subsided. Spinning second, third, and fourth thoughts, Villa agonized over Obregon's fate. Predictably, the thugs among his confidants, especially Fierro and Urbina, were all in favor of the firing squad, but all the thoughtful and cerebral, especially Angeles and Raul Madero, were strongly opposed to it. In the end, Villa sided with his intellectuals: Fierro, Urbina and their ilk, he reasoned, would have to follow him whatever he did, but there was a risk of a mass flight of middle-class councilors if he went through with the execution.
Obregon embarked on the train to Mexico City on September 21, very pleased with his achievements. He had marked a psychological victory over Villa, intrigued his generals in his back and could now hope to become president, using the apology of the intractable opposition ofVilla to Carranza. At this point Carranza was also starting to suspect he jump ambition. He ordered all suspended communications among the Zacatecas occupied in villaists and his own HQ in Aguascalientes - an open statement that he considered negotiations atCity of Chihuahua as an irrelevance - and ordered the trails between the two torn cities. These were actions directed to both Oberla and Villa. So he heard of these developments, Villa announced that he did not recognize Carranza as first boss and issued a manifesto, bitterlyCarranza's critic, describing step by step the stages by which Don Venustiano sabotaged the negotiations between him and Villa. The manifesto did not intend to conquer the frowns and obsigsts, as much as aimed at their heads to Zapata and opinion in the US.Ayala's plan, on the one hand, and denounced Carranza's anticlericalism, on the other, with the last attractive point at once to Woodrow Wilson and the Zapatists.
Villa also remembered Obregon's train, in which he traveled with several Villista generals, and which almost reached the Torreon junction. Brought back to Chihuahua City, the perplexed Obregon asked General José Isabel Robles, whom he had converted from Villism to an Obregonist view of the world, to support him: he realized that Robles could not save him if Villa had ordered his execution, but at least it could prevent him from being brutalized and humiliated before he died, as Gustavo Madero had been by Huerta's henchmen. When Robles interceded for Obregon, a scornful Villa ordered him south on a mission. There was no talk of executions; it turns out that he just wanted to air Obregon about Carranza's treachery. Another hearty dinner took place and Obregon was again allowed to leave, in the early evening of 23 September.
What Villa did not say to Obergon was that at the beginning of the day he had called another emergency meeting to discuss what to do about him. It was clear that Villa was leaning alongside Fierro and Urbin.Angeles andRaul Madero responded with an explicit threat to leave the movement. Villa persisted and his instinct, however killer, was pragmatically correct. He accurately predicted the future: `Obergon will cause much more blood to our republic than Pascual Orozco;Fact, he will cause more evil than Victorian Huerta. After a lot of heart research, Villa decided to proceed with the execution, although not in Chihuahua. He ordered General Mateo Almanza to stop the Train of Obergon and kill it, about the measureWith his general colleague Roque Gonzalez Garza, who was following Obergon to Mexico City.
However, Villa chose two generals who agreed with Angeles and Raul Madero and both ignored the orders given to them.Almanza, who should intercept the train, let him pass it.Garza, frantically telegiated by Villa to stop the train so that the Almanza flap of Almanza could reach it, ordered the driver to accelerate and advance at high speed.An increasingly furious Villa telegled to a second execution squad to intercept the Obergon train in Gomez Palacio, but this time he gave the same generals that Obergon had spoken in the city of Chihuahua: Eugenio Benavides and Jose Isabel Robles.They really went to the north and intercepted the train, but removed Obergon from Garza's attack and took him to the ground to Carranza -controlled Aguascalientes.It is difficult to overestimate the psychological impulse that this escape from death gave to Obergon.His tactic of fostering dissension in the North Army had worked;Maybe he could still eliminate Villa and Carranza.His laconic speech when he arrived at AguScalientes was typical.Asked what he intended to do, he replied, 'Dying killing'.
The violation between Villa and Carranza was now opened, and Villa occupied the city of Durango in preparation for the next campaign, but first a fake war period followed. Mexico was tired of war and the need for a new civil conflict periodIt had not been explained to the Mexican people, propagandists and manipulators would have to receive their heads, and in particular the generals on both sides needed to convince that they should risk their necks in a personality shock between Villa and Carranza.US intentions was also a primordial factor, as Wilson's support would be decisive. It would be so dependent on which side could occupy the moral terrain and pose as the true "constitutionalists.", were crucial.
The Carranza Conference in Mexico City, held from October 1 to 5, was the idea of a man -obsessed man, but it was a terrible failure, as everyone except the stubborn frowners, boycott.Full of puppets and supporters of Carranza, the absurd conference was a scam staged by a classical political machine.Four resolutions praising the first boss were unanimously adopted and a spurious "rejection" to Carranza's resignation was overthrown.However, after a lively debate, the representatives were obliged, for fear of the military, to endorse the Trereon clause that the meeting of AguasCalientes should only be for the military.Even the military who supported Carranza considered the procedures of the city of Mexico with contempt;The generals on both sides wanted a peaceful agreement.The military junta, gathered under the aegis of Obergon in Zacatecas, made it clear that all decisions made in Mexico city would be valid unless they were ratified by the most representative convention that would meet a week later in Agescalientes.Carranza thundered that she would never stop being a presidential candidate and would not be commanded by a joint of generals, as powerful as it was.
In October, the Innovative Agescalientes Convention was opened, with the participation of fifty -seven generals and ninety -five officers. The independent predominated and there were only a handful of carranators. The vicalists, only thirty -nine, were notableFor the moderation of their attitudes and demands and their complacency in relation to the "payroll" upholstery range of the Carrancist Officers who did not represent anyone but Carranza. When twenty -six Zapatista delegates were added later, the Convention was a sectionGenuine cross-sectional of the pre-precedence revolution participants which so much enraged Carranza. The British minister, following his suggestion from the first snobbish in the capital, acrytically reported that the convention `appears closely to look like the parliament of monkeys portrayed by Mr.Kipling in the book _7ungle '.
Four main groups can be identified in Aguascalientes: the Villistas, the handful of Carranza men, the Independents, and later the Zapatistas. In the beginning, the Villistas were the most important, but they were always an uncomfortable coalition of disparate and fissiparous elements. Many of the so-called Villistas were only in the sense that their rivals in the various states were pro-Carranza. José Maytorena de Sonora was the classic example. Only interested in looking after his own nest, he returned confiscated properties to their former owners, openly defying official Villa policy, while failing to return their traditional lands to the Yaquis, who were supposed to be his main allies. A similar conservative and reactionary stance was adopted by Felipe Riveros, governor of Sinaloa, and Tepic strongman Rafael Bulna. Despite his reverence for Madero and his express exclusion of his properties from the expropriation orders, Villa could not even count on the support of the extended Madero family, which was divided, with some pro-Carranza members.
Villa was not prepared to accept an alliance with the former Huertists who launched the feelings for him, but without good officers, he saw the point of admitting those who kept federal committees on their ranks. Very more of these they joined Villa than whatCarranza; scholars speculate that Carranza's army was already so professional and homogeneous that she could not support the tension of integrating former feeders.who joins the right -wing forces in Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas if they wanted to continue a military career.
Villa, however, built bridges to the Catholic Church, rejected by Carranza's strident anticlericalism. Villa's attitude towards the Church was always ambivalent: he approved in principle of religion and Catholicism, but hated the reality of Priestcraft; that he considered thieves, humbugos and exploiters, striking a gullible and impoverished believer. Villa already had a stormy scene with Luz Corral because she built a secret chapel in his house; He dismantled it, but Luz had the last word saying that she would continue to pray for him, even if the chapel was gone.
What was impressive about the villains was their willingness to compromise. They were prepared to divide the country into spheres of influence on an 'as is' basis, while Carranza insisted on total national domination; not Carranza himself, while the opposition insisted that she had to be shaved in person; Villista's proposals formed the basis for a credible compromise, while Carranza's demands entailed civil war. Above all, the villains were really trying to find solutions, while Carranza's men attended only to impress naive U.S. observers. The Carrancistas of Aguascalientes were a tawdry lot: ``Proconsuls' and greedy and poisonous who were even more ruthless in their pursuit of wealth than the villa of Urbina or Hipolito Their propaganda for Carranza was confusing and self-contradictory: at one moment he was supposed to be the new strongman, although presumably Mexico had had enough of huertas by now; at another, he was supposed to represent "civilization" against barbarism; then , he was accused of being the only one who could stand up to Washington.
Carranza's lack of sincerity and ambition was obvious to everyone in aguascalients except their cronies.Villa, on the contrary, was totally sincere in his desire not to be president of Mexico or imposing anyone, although he hoped that Felipe Angeles "emerged" as soon as the delegates had time to appreciate his qualities.Villa even offered to resign in favor of Obergon's candidate Eulalio Gutierrez, since Carranza did the same;In 'playing, but serious' mode, he even suggested that he and Carranza be shot to solve the nation's problems.Needless to say, none of the solutions were recommended to Carranza.Feeling that the opinion of the capital was turning against him, suddenly fled to Puebla, who was led by his most loyal general.Feeling safe there, Carranza behaved challengingly in relation to the convention, claiming that Villa had not resigned from her candidacy for the presidency and proposing Machiavellian schemes for the simultaneous withdrawal of him and Villa, all ingeniously structured to keep all theLetters and Villa left powerless.
The Villista faction in Aguascalientes was led by Felipe Angeles and Roque Gonzalez Garza, the man who had saved Obregon the previous month. Angeles was the key figure, aiming to build an alliance with Zapata; Garza, on the other hand, increasingly leaning towards Obregon. In fact, the autonomous power of the Villistas gradually diminished during the month's deliberations in Aguascalientes, while that of the independent grouping grew. The leaders of the independents were Eulalio Gutierrez, the interim president of the republic, and General Lucio Blanco, the brilliant left-leaning cavalry officer who had been mistreated by Carranza. The independent group gradually made more and more inroads among Villa's supporters, luring away from it the intellectuals who expected high cabinet positions in the Villa administration: José Vasconcelos, Eugenio Aguirre Benavides, and José Isabel Robles.
The true star of the convention was Obregon, the only one of the 'four great' to attend personally.Obregon's oratory, intelligence, and charm and patent reasonableness were a great success and convinced many undecided that the future was with him, not Villa.Both Zapata and Villa made a serious psychological error by not attending the convention.The Zapatistas originally had not been invited, but on October 12 Angeles proposed that their presence was necessary to make this a truly national meeting.The convention approved a motion by inviting them, and Angeles himself delegated the task of persuading the notoriously unpredictable and stubborn Zapata to participate.Angeles hoped that Zapata would respect him for his social origin and the honorable way he fought against Zapatists in previous campaigns.He took the caution of including peasant leaders in his delegation to point out the contrast to Carranza, who in his September openings had only sent generals and bureaucrats to Morelos.
All the best hopes of Angeles were fulfilled when he and his delegation found Zapata in Cuernavaca on October 18.Zapata greeted Angeles cordially: `General, you don't know how happy I am to see him. You were the only one who fought honestly against meAnd, by his actions of justice, he managed to gain the goodwill of the people of Morelos and even the sympathy of my men. He was equally affable with the Calixto Contreras: `` I am also happy to see him in Moreos, General, sinceAs a son of the poor and a fighter to the earth, you are the northern revolutionary who inspires the greatest confidence in me. 'Even, he told Angeles that he could not simply order his delegates to be to aguascalients, as requested;, he would have to consult the various chiefs of Zapatista.Angeles asked him to send delegates for a matter or urgency, arguing in no way that, unless Zapatistas were present in Aguascalients as part of a genuinely national convention, Woodrow Wilson can finally finallylose patience and order an invasion.
In fact, Zapata was in a bond, pulled this way and that on conflicting impulses. For one side, having accepted the overfordship of his movement twice before, by Madero and Orozco, with disastrous results, he would never consent to abdicating as leader again.For otherwise, he wanted an alliance with Villa - in fact, all his diplomacy since November 1913 had been turned to this end - and he could barely refuse to participate in the Agascalientes Convention without despising the village., he was in a chicken and egg dilemma: he could not recognize the convention until he accepted Ayala's plan, but how it could do so if he did not send delegates to the north to convince them, which in turn meantIndeed, he solved the puzzle by Legerdemain. The men he sent to the north would be "commissioners" that could become official delegates as soon as the convention endorsed Ayala's plan. To leave his options open, heHe appointed his intellectual counselors instead of peasant leaders as commissioners. This action was unanimously supported by the other leaders of Zapatista. As John Womack puts: `` With fear, like Zapata, of betraying their people, they handed the chances of doing -it to the intellectuals who always had a despised heart.'
Twenty -six commissioners, led by Paulino Martinez, prepared to make the trip to the north. However, it was soon clear that Zapata aimed mainly a political alliance with Villa and found the convention a mere speaker store, because on October 26 theTrain carrying the zapatistas vaporized directly by aguascalients and deposited the commissioners of Villa's headquarters in Guadalupe. This action marked the effective beginning of the Villa-Zapata Alliance.Paulino Martinez gave a speech praising Villa and Zapata as "genuine representatives ...From this homeric struggle ... the Indians the two.
If Paulino Martinez was the Zapatista Doyen of quiet diplomacy, when the commissioners finally sat down in Aguascalientes, it was Soto Y Gama's oratorio that attracted the most attention. Palafox.Promoted to "Colonel" to meet the requirement that all delegates had to be from the army and dressed in the white peasant clothes of Morelos as if he had spent a lifetime in the fields, Soto Y Gama impressed some as a while appearing to others as a charlatan. In his speech to the assembly, he began by tearing up the Mexican flag, declaring himself an anarchist who, following Kropotkin, had to destroy all abstractions that oppressed the masses. This act of secular sacrilege had some of the generals in the audience reaching for their revolvers, while others tried to rush the platform.
When the Order was restored, Soto y Gama treated those who remained and did not protest a seminar on Russian anarchism. He seemed to have a delight to alienate all the factions present, whether followers of Magon, Carranza or Villa.that Tierra y Libertad, the revolutionary slogan taken from the magician also came from Russia: Ricardo Flores Magon simply stole him from Alexander Herzen. He created a sensation for an implemented and splenetic attack on Carranza.Expect to understand the Indians in the south, before starting a synthesis of world history, which presented Zapata as a kind of great Buddha, Marx and Francis de Assis.Y Gama guaranteed a standing ovation for his final words: `Viva Villa! Live Zapata!'
Despite the immediate applause, most reflection delegates considered that Soto y Gama was an appropriate argument for instant medical certification. However, there was a method in his madness. Hence the role was to prepare emotion, while Angeles worked behind the scenes to consolidate oneVillazapata's alliance. Both Angeles and Soto y Gama agreed that the central weakness in the Zapatista movement was that it was a non -national movement and that the best way to make Zapata face his national responsibilities was to put it in a position of power where he had not hadChoice. Upon a certain point, the smoke curtain tactics worked. Other speakers arose from denouncing Soto y Gama as a purely verbal socialist, but were sucked into intellectual sand as the debate became increasingly precious and thinnedIn the end, with the speakers quoting Plínio, Voltaire, Rousseau, Spencer, Darwin and Nietzsche, the academy's spiritual paraffin was dominating in his odor.
On paper, the Zapatistas got a great victory in AgaScalientes.After much negotiation, the Convention agreed to sign Ayala's plan 'in principle' and accepted articles 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 12 as the basis for any future constitution.This showed how far the revolution had already traveled towards a royal socioeconomic change.For the first time in the history of Mexico, a sovereign body had committed to a large -scale land reform;Zapata's immense influence on the Mexican revolution was clear for everyone to see.Zapata responded by recognizing the sovereignty of the de facto convention, but made it clear that Jure's full recognition would only occur when the agency had decisively dealt with Carranza and removed him as first boss.On October 30, Obregon and Angeles conspired to approve a closed session resolution that voted 112 to 21 to fire Carranza.
No doubt Carranza, who pulled the last of his forces out of Mexico City on November 4, was alarmed by the size of the vote against him, but through his intransigence he only had the blame. immediate resignation, stopping. He let Aguascalientes say that, before resigning, he needed to see the shape of the provisional regime that would draft the new Constitution; made by a man with the slightest intention of resigning. Carranza claimed that his study of French history left him with contempt for the "Assembly" of the French Revolution. even every gesture conveyed the message that he, and he alone, could channel the revolution into its right conduits.
Surprisingly, the Convention agreed with the three conditions and again asked Carranza's resignation.The moderate attitude of the convention was the result of the emergence of a 'third force' under Obergon and the election as provisional president on November 2, Eulalio Gutierrez.Obregon, working hard to prevent villalists and zapatistas from destroying the convention, was the agency behind Gutierrez's election.After getting Angeles to agree that Villa should resign, in order to cut the ground under Carranza's feet, Obergon surprisingly made a lobby for the election of Gutierrez, a former mining and political nullity.Obregon was expected to support Juan Cabral de Sonora for office, but Cabral alienated Obergon for his commitment to radical land reform and being very independent.
Gutierrez reiterated Carranza's request for resignation.After four days of waiting, Carranza sent another telegram of Cordoba in the state of Veracruz, making it clear that he considered himself above the law: now he said he would only resign after his three demands were met.Gutierrez talked to the best minds of the convention.José Vasconcelos wrote a opinion that, from the point of view of constitutional law, it was crystalline that sovereignty resided in the constitutionalist army and not in the person of Carranza, and that Carranza was, therefore, as clearly a rebel as any rebel could be.On November 1, the Convention stated that Carranza was in open rebellion.Gutierrez appointed Villa "General in Chief" and head of all operations designed to repress the insurrection.
Unfortunately, the happy village with the trigger aggravated its original mistake not to attend the convention because it did not wait until the constitutional law had followed its course. Before Gutierrez declare Carranza a rebel, Villa lost patience with the endless chances apparently being offered being offeredTo the first boss and sent his troops to AgasCalientes. To save his face, Gutierrez had to pretend he had invited him, but the final sessions of the convention took place with 30,000 villalist soldiers in the city.In a 'third way' that were still trying to reconciliate a tenth hour with Carranza. The most important man so alienated was obregon. Infoundly close to Angeles, and deeply critical of Carranza's autocratic behavior, he discovered, like many liberals in many times, that the third ways are unfeasible. He faced a glaring choice: Villa or Carranza. After his recent bruising experiences with Villa, not surprising that he chose Carranza.
Obregon, even more than Angeles, had dominated the Convention and when he decided to throw in his luck with Carranza, many of those present in Aguascalientes went with him, including even some ex-Villas. Villa's big mistake was to remain aloof and come to the city only for the signing of the final protocol, allowing Obregon to reap all the rewards of charismatic leadership. Zapata's mistake was all the more egregious, for he had neither entered wholeheartedly into the business of the Convention nor boycotted it, and thus ended up with the worst of both worlds. Zapata was now inescapably involved with the national struggle, although he was not interested in it. As Womack observes: "By letting their secretaries involve them with Villa, the Morelos chiefs committed their people to a struggle that was not theirs." Zapata could have had no doubts about the outcome of Aguascalientes, and even if he had, Villa soon had him on the scene. In a somber letter written on November 1, Villa told him that the men who had defeated Huerta were now doomed to fight each other. The Revolution had already become a veritable civil war.
The Twain Convergence
On the night of November 24, 1914, as the latest response came out, Zapatista's avant -garde joined Mexico. Zapatistas found evidence of the most evil vandalism by Carranza, allegedly the "civilization" door against barbarism.Mint and all government archives were looted; a large number of horses, painting train loads and other spoils, huge ammunition caches and materials, they had all been witty in wagons, leaving the Mexican rail system in paralysis;Of resistance, the Carranza generals attached the railway track to Veracruz to a locomotive, so that it was progressively torn as the engine slowly took forward. The irony was that Carranza's vandals entered a recently evacuated Veracruz by Marines NavalFrom the US that Americans had left as a lesson of objects in the management of the city - such a clean and hygienic city that their legendary vultures had to seek livelihood elsewhere.
The men of Zapata did not come as conquerors or looters, but as marvelous visitors, gaping with the unusual characteristics of the city.They were peaceful, respectful, simple people, the classic field cousins raised to spend the day in the big city, naively carrying Guadalupe Virgin banners and displaying their rustic origins for their coarse white cotton clothes, Franciscan sandals and large straw hats.They wandered through the streets like lost children, begging and lunching through passersby, knocking on the doors and politely asking if they could eat anything.A terrified flâneur was approached by a group of zapatistas wielding machetes who, he was convinced, wanted to kill him.However, they took off their huge shadow, stuck us circularly between their fingers, and said in a humble voice, 'Young master could you give us a little money?'The most famous story is that the Zapatistas opened fire on a noisy fire car heading for an emergency, thinking it was a kind of primitive tank, and killed twelve firefighters.
To the surprise of the Mexico City bourgeoisie, there were no expropriations, except houses belonging to brunette planters. It didn't take long for the middle class to point out to the absence of discourses, prospects and confiscations, praising Zapata to the sky and contrasting -withThe predatory and aggressive carrinha and obregon. Where Villa and his bosses were always directly to the most luxurious houses, as they occupied a city, Zapata displayed a CAT -like asceticism, staying in a dirty third -class hotel on a block from a block fromrailway deposit. He left the city administration to his subordinates and delegated to his brother Eufemio the task of showing the provisional president Eulalio Gutierrez around the presidential palace.
The man who four years earlier was an obscure village leader in Morelos was now the master of Mexico City. To the question often honed by an anxious urban bourgeoisie - `What does he want? '- There was only one answer: nothing. Zapata had always hated the national capital and couldn't wait to return to Morelos, but there was more than whim or personal predilection involved here. cities represented the power of the state and its full-time employees, the ultimate anathema to all attracted to anarchism. a national ideology.
Few political movements were more misunderstood than headed by Emiliano Zapata.Anarchism is a useful taquigraphy, as long as it is understood that Zapata wanted only the euthanasia of all bosses, owners and forefront.In no sense it was influenced by an anarchist theory of pure blood such as Bakunin's, which was an urban theory that reflected the concerns of the city's residents anyway.The peasants of brunettes, with their white pajamas and standard boats of the venerable Guadalupe virgin, were light years from the Russian anarchist atheists.Bakunin was known by Puritanism and Asceticism, but Zapatism was characterized by a free and easy hedonism of the traditional Mexican type, where to drink, fight in roosters, throw cards, and make love with women were the basis of existence.Even in his last years, Zapata himself liked to chew fat with his men in the square, chewing his trademark cigar and drinking brandy while discussing horses, hunting roosters, climate, agricultural prices and other peasant concerns.
There was a shadow of Bakunin only in the hostility of Zapata to the state, his antipathy for the railroad (which was politically inspired rather than Ludita) and his cult of simplicity.White pajama uniform has become almost mandatory in Moreos, even for government officials;In the villages, those who wore pants, shirts or boots were in danger of being ridiculed like a catrin, a dandy.It was rightly said that in Moreos the great debutante ball had given way to bullfighting, overcask and top hat to the wide white ceroules and sarapes.Perhaps there was also some resemblance to Russian rural anarchism, in Zapata's dream of a peasant utopia of free villages, with "small" units (families, clans, villages) enjoying self -government and autarchy, united in a loose network, Voluntary association.The Mexican Revolution worked progressively in favor of Zapata in this regard, as it replaced loyalty to the landlord and the political Jefe with the commitment to the village, the chief and the local community.The role of political thinking in zapatism can be exaggerated.Although Zapata heard respectfully whenever his intellectuals talked about the most delicate points of anarchism, in his own mind he was pleased with the fact that all his true political aspirations were already contained in Ayala's plan.
It may be noted, parenthetically, that we once again observe the paradox that intellectuals played a greater role with Villa than with Zapata, even though Zapatismo was, by common consent, the more revolutionary movement. explain the following: Villa's greater command of academic learning; The simplicity, economy, and coherence of Zapatismo; And, above all, the fact that Zapata attracted only anarchists and Christian mystics. as Madero's heir and a proven campaigner against political corruption. rightly so, who, in the main cynics and pragmatists, opted for Carranza. Villa liked to play with this version of himself by learning large chunks of the Constitution of Juarez in 1857 and reciting it to his intellectuals. real reforms in the area of land and labor, Villista intellectuals were primarily concerned with political and educational rather than socioeconomic change, and viewed the centaur as a tabula rasa, on which they could make their own impressions. satisfy that illusion. Zapata, on the other hand, always kept his intellectuals firmly in their place, allowing occasional leaks, as at the Aguascalientes Convention.
The heart of Zapata's own beliefs was his mystical feeling for the earth, “the mother who feeds us and takes care of us,” in the words of St. Francis of Assisi in the song of beings.Zapata's ideology, then, aiming at a free land -owned village association, was fundamentally nostalgic, backward and defensive.This does not mean that it was not revolutionary;As more than one commentator pointed out, the revolutionary's golden age can be located in both the past and future.This communalist view of a society free of bosses, caudillos and the civil subordination to the military was communeist, but emphatically non -communist.How far Zapata was from communism or socialism can be evaluated from a conversation he kept with Soto y Gama, which was reported below:
Soto y Gama: Emiliano, what do you think about communism?
ZAPATA: Explain to me.
Soto y Gama: For example, all people from a village farm gathered their lands and then distribute the harvest equally.
Zapata: Who makes the distribution?
Soto y Gama: A representative, or a council elected by the community.
Zapata: Well, look, when it comes to me, if there is "someone" ... I would try to distribute the fruits of my work this way ... I would fill him with bullets.
As he took stock of the situation in his dingy downtown hotel, Zapata saw four main problems facing him. He failed to export his revolution to Mexico's ``Deep South''; head of the endemic banditry; His own program seemed out of order with the other main currents of the revolution; And, above all, he could not see the lasting foundation on which he could build an alliance with the Villa. that Zapatismo always threatened to leave its founder behind, evolving a different character in different localities. Although Zapata can boast of the distribution of land effected in his name in no less than nine states, and although there was a massive transfer of power and resources to peasants and far from landowners and caciques, the revolution went its own way, even in nominally Zapatista states. In Guerrero, for example, the refusal to pay rents was always a more important factor than the struggle of the village and the hacienda, while in Hidalgo and Puebla peasants practically abolished the sugar cane industry, encroaching on hacienda land and growing staples like corn and beans there instead of sugar.
In the "deep south" of Oaxaca, Chiapas, Yucatan and Quintana Roo, the revolution has so far had little impact, with the coffee and henequen harvests virtually unchanged.Farm owners in these areas have not learned anything from the 1910-14 events and all old abuses - beating, Droit du Seigneur, debt servitude - continued as before.In fact, as the new North ideas arrived in southeastern Mexico, they produced a fierce reaction of the hacendated.While the power of the landlords was closed or destroyed in Chihuahua, Durango, Morelos, San Luis and Tlaxcala, because the military power of the revolutionaries was irresistible, in Yucatan and in the south the opposition to the old order was weak and sporadic.Zapata could not save resources to export the rebellion there, even if she was prepared to conduct military operations outside her Chica Patria, which was not the case.Consequently, the Southeast became a battlefield between Hacendates and the 'proconsules' that Carranza had sent there to execute his warrant.The landowners were able to explore the devotee religiosity of the peasants against anticlerical frowners in this struggle, but it was clear that all the hope of a spontaneous and effective zapatist revolt was in vain.
A more serious problem for Zapata was banditry.The trademark of the revolution, as in all revolutions, was the confusion.In chaos, merciless and insightful individuals had a unique opportunity to cling to and resolve all types of local disputes and personal revenge under the aegis of the "revolution."Tierra y Libertad was a slogan used to "legitimize" a series of family quarrels, bloodshed, sectarian disputes, and even the murder of rivals in love or business.The Juchiteco Revolt in Oaxaca, ostensibly part of the revolution, was indeed an old conflict, and the places took advantage of the revolutionary situation to revive it.In addition, without leaders of the Zapata caliber, agrarian reform movements in states of the epicenter in Morelos tended to fall into jacchaerie or banditry.Non-political jacqueries were a particular feature of the Midwest of Mexico, which remained deaf to the initial call to Madero weapons in 1910.
Direct banditry was a particularly prevalent offshoot of the revolution. Scholars debate the peculiar socioeconomic circumstances in which bandits are apt to arise and whether the ``revolt'' can be said to have social content. was too powerful as an institution of organized political opposition, the enemies of the Hacienda tended to appear in the guise of bandits. On the other hand, many bandit chiefs cooperated with which side, revolutionary or reactionary, they would pay more. of bandits mere dress up of verbal windows to justify looting, or was it genuinely based? `Social banditry', like the terrorism/freedom fighting antinomy, is a peculiarly thorny question. guerrilla movement in support of agrarian reform, as Zapata did in Morelos, might well have had no outlet for social protest other than banditry. social bandit" in state X may be considered an illegitimate terrorist by extending his operations into state y; much depends on the context. One generalization that holds up well into the Mexican revolution is that mining areas were largely free of banditry.
Unfortunately for Zapata, the bandits, inspired purely by looting and the desire to rape and kill with impunity, arrested the identical victims targeted by the Zapatistas - mainly haciendas and trains - and justified their bloodshed as zapatismo. widely copied, though for the genuine bandit train troops were not the target. Capturing a train established a bandit leader in peasant mythology, and these men were careless of the consequences. de Aguascalientes. The bandit leader simply opened the throttle and sent the train crashing across north Jalisco. Fortunately, there was no other traffic on the line and the empty loco finally ran out of steam, twenty miles away, near Encarnacion.
Zapata was also unfortunate, because her hearts were traditional banditaria outbreaks. Puebla, Guerrero and Michoacan were all states with a fearsome reputation of Brigha. These were all areas characterized by scarce population, bad communications, few absent villages and owners, where Population was focused on cities and people comprised a rural proletariat rather than a suitable peasantry. In 1918, the influence of Michoacan Zapata had been widely eclipsed by local bandits with a thirsty reputation of blood. Banditry was an acute problem and the bandits arose to contest the hegemony of the Zapatistas. In late 1914, Zapata saw the danger. His own movement was wide and coherent, but he had noticed as even a state as Durango threatened if he threatened to Dissolve in the warfare when the strong hand of the village was removed. The presence of villalist simply overlaps a pre-existing conflict between Tomas Urbina, Orestes Pereyra and Calixto Contreras, which controlled the cotton country and the brothers of Arrieta who dominated the mountains.
Another issue for Zapata pondering was the face of Janus of the Revolution and how it affected his own program. There was always a dualism in the revolution, with a collectivist ideology in conjunction with a capitalist. This occurred because the farm was a means of oppressing the peasantry andto deprive them of traditional rights and a screaming on capitalism. In that, therefore, Hacienda was attacked two directions simultaneously: of the peasants (especially though not exclusively in the south) requiring agrarian and entrepreneurial reforms of the north who want to usemore advanced technologies. Zapata himself was neither pro-capitalist nor anticapitalist. He was very prepared to be an entrepreneur, but insisted in the primacy of the politician about the economic: he would not allow the principle of profit maximization to replace the principle of independence andfrom autonomous to villages.
This illustrates the broader point that it is impossible to portray people like Villa and Zapata as "anti-capitalists", any more than Mexican landlords can be classified as "feudalists" or "capitalists"; some were one, some the other, some were neither. A similar inadequacy accompanies the usual typology of the "big four" of the Mexican Revolution: the bourgeois Carranza, the petty bourgeois Obregon, the revolutionary peasant Zapata, the social bandit Villa. As Alan Knight has pointed out, it is pointless to analyze the Mexican Revolution in Marxist terms, as much of it was the work of “secondary” classes (peasantry, petty bourgeoisie) who were by no means the substitutes for the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. The great social change that took place in the years 1876-1920 is not necessarily a patterned and stereotyped transition from supposed "feudalism" to supposed "capitalism". This is why many scholars play it safe and simply refer to Mexico as a “permanent transition” throughout the 20th century.
The great class struggle in the Mexican revolution was from the peasant against the landowner.It was Zapata's political genius to understand that the differences between these classes were irreconcilable in a way that the famous Marxist conflict of workers and capitalists was not.Zapata also realized that Obergons and Carranzas represented a new kind of commercial capitalism that was another threat to the old modalities of peasant communities, and the revolution had entered a new phase to determine which of these values should prevail.This explains a lot of Zapata's so -called obstinacy and what was described as his "severe, suspicious and protective" attitude.For all this, Zapata was not blind to the virtue of producing economic goods to do an surplus.He condemned the attitude of the Zapatistas of neighboring states who destroyed their sugar industry to produce subsistence crops.Although life standards in these states (Puebla, Guerrero) have improved in the short term, there was no surplus with which the poor and needy could be supported, or armed and equipped self -defense armies.For this reason, he built four new sugar mills in brunettes and tried to push his followers into a market economy rather than corn and bean subsistence crops.
It is important to be clear that Zapata had no reverence for entrepreneurship as such; its importance in your mind always depended on how far it could reinforce and sustain your peasant utopia. In any conflict between old rights and customs and new technologies, however efficient than ZapataHe descended on the side of the tradition. Once he took over the coals that a young agronomist trained by the university who had been recruited to Morelos to work in participation in the earth.Limit. You will draw the line for me. You are often worried a lot about straight lines, but the limit will be this stone wall, even if you need to work for six months measuring all intricacies.
However, the most urgent of Zapata's problems concerned the proposal of alliance with Villa.Zapata was well aware that in many ways the two great revolutionary leaders were separate poles and worlds.He has never faltered in his commitment to land reform and local self-government, and the only political commitment he would make would be to ally with anyone hostile with an ordinary enemy.This incorruptibility was what allowed him to survive nine years of constant struggle and ever -present danger.Villa has always been another political pragmatist, both by temperament and because the social structure of the North required it.The Zapata movement was coherent, focused on a strong core, dedicated to a relatively direct form of class struggle;The Villa Movement was a transclass coalition, covering military settlers, agricultural workers, miners, railways, industrial workers, the middle class and even some retired farmers.Village was heterogeneous, eclectic and fissiparous: it did not have a single goal, but many, often mutually contradictory.
The main reason for the uncertain political profile of vilismo was the dominion in the movement of the ranchers. The farmers were politically ambiguous and ambivalent, sometimes functioned as a brake in the revolution, sometimes as accelerator.Its natural enemy; in the states where the farm was insignificant as an institution, the farmers tended to fill the hegemonic gap and to be as reactionary as the blocked elsewhere. There was a trend with the north of caudillos to connect the revolutionaries that fought forThey, to Tributed or Press them. As Villa himself in their early life, the ranches played Gabelloti's role in the Mafia de Sicily, well prepared to ally with oppressor or oppressed as required. Generally, their profileIt was like counterrevolutionary figures. Examples were in Guanajuato, Michoacan and Jalisco, where conservative Catholic figures were disinterested in the revolution.
This should mean that the Villa Movement could easily settle for any regime in Mexico City, but concern for local autonomy - which often meant simply warlords - resulted that villalists were so incompatible with the city's technocratsof Mexico as Zapatistas.The Figueroa brothers, who challenged Zapata in Moreos and Puebla in 1912, were classic examples of villalists Avant La Lettre, unable to coexist either with Zapata, Madero or Felix Diaz.This made villalists naturally suspect from Zapata.He realized that Villa's agrarian reforms were the product of convenience rather than conviction or, as Alan Knight said: "In Moreos, the agent dictated the character of the civil war, in the north the civil war dictated the character of the agent."In the north, the existing economic system had to be kept to finance the war;In Moreos, Zapata first undertook the distribution of land and then sought financing for the peasant armies to defend it.
Above all, village and zapatism represented a conflict of different values.Entrepreneurship was a desirable goal itself in the North: this is why land reform delivered most of the land to the hands of small owners and ranchers, rather than in communal villages or brunette ejidos.In the North there has always been more concern for power and resources for leaders than with peasant or communal interests.There has always been a conflict between the Southern Communal Property Program and the Northern Policy to confiscate large properties to give them to small independent owners;But at least Villa didn't want to return the earth to the original owners, as Carranza did.Villa led a movement that was mainly concerned with political revolt and the transfer of national power;Zapata led a movement that was mainly social, concerned exclusively about land ownership in Moreos.Zapata and his followers delighted with parishism.They even developed their own slang to keep outsiders at a distance: a 'friend' was a valley (literally 'a valley');'Fun' (El Gusto) meant to ride and tie steers;Breaking ('bursting') meant 'shooting';Poor (poor) was pronounced probe, we are (we are) as semos, Fue (was) as a hue, and so on.
The differences extended to lifestyle points. Zapata was a genuine man of the people, but the northern caudilos lived in some splendor, imitating the lives of the hacendates who had knocked down.By flexkeys and retainers, it was the permanent ambition of the northern caudilos. Orozco was diversified in mining, transportation and retail, while Urbin retired to a luxury palace in Durango. While in Chihuahua Vilista Roughnecks occupied the confiscated Hedianas and later,In Mexico City, camped in the rich mansions in Moreos, it was the young technocrats and agronomists who occupied the deserted 'large houses' of missing planters.
All of this helps to explain the deep suspicion entered by Zapata to Villa and the vilists, the forced allies with whom he should now share the occupation of Mexico City.Tribute to the National Palace or giving interviews to reporters. Okaying that Villa occupied the northern suburbs without consulting it, Zapata walked away a few days later, doing another of her famous acts that disappear and reappearing in Morelos.He sent a special delegation (composed of carots, sawders and Juan Bandera) to Cuernavaca to guarantee Zapata of his good wishes. The sent delivered a personal letter, in which Villa secured his ally of his personal security, emphasized that Carranza would rejoice if there was noVilla-Zapata agreement and offered to find Zapata on December 4 in the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco, on the outskirts of Mexico. Zapata accepted.
To guide him through the complicated negotiations with Zapata, Villa predictably returned to Felipe Angeles, whose advice was Franco: Under no circumstances allow Zapata to operate independently against Carranza.'said Angeles.' The "army" does not deserve the name. He does not have a single general of any talent.For Veracruz ... if you give the Carranza time to regroup, who knows what will happen.
As his main consultant for the meeting, Zapata chose Paulino Martinez, not a particularly happy choice, as Villa hated him. Zapata expected to build bridges for peasant leaders in the Villa Movement, such as Calixto Contreras, but at the end of 1914 most of the important ones were dead: Toribio Ortega died of Typhus and Porfirio Talamantes was killed at the Battle of Tierra Blanca. In addition to contrary, the main peasant leader who remains with Villa was intellectual Gonzalez Garza. As the mediators Villa and Zapata agreed with two men.General Benigno Serrato, who, much later in Mexican history, would be governor of Michoacan and fought for political supremacy there with future President Lazaro Cardenas. The second was Juan Banderas, the Sinaloan who was with Villa in prison in 1912 and then joined his ownZapata; he was already acting as a broker between villains and zapatistas in the conference aging.
On December 4, in Xochimilco, the two great figures of the Mexican Revolution finally met for the first and almost just time. If we confuse the meeting on December 4 with two more days later - the only occasions when the two men met -We are justified about this as one of those large meetings of history in which complementary protagonists met only once, putting Xochimilcocaso in the same category as the meeting of Nelson and Wellington in 1805 or between Hitler and Franco in Hendaye in 1940. However., perhaps the most protruding comparison is between Villa-Zapata Conclave and Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin in Guayaquil in 1824. In both cases, it was the South Liberator who was disconcerted and the North Liberator who kept the center ofstage later.
Declared with flowers and tamers as if for a party, the school in Xochimilco was the unlikely place of the meeting. There was a Mariachi band and a chorus singing running.Children, his cousin Amador Salazar and a formidable guard -crotch. Daming in a pair of white cotton pants was the son of Zapata. An American observer, Leon Canova was present, representing the US State Department.Day Villa arrived with his escort. He fell to Otilio Montano introduced the two men, who then entered a crowded school and climbed to a makeshift conference room. The principals sat on a large oval table, where they were pushed by aboutSixty enthusiasts who clustered around them, and where Canova watched them thoroughly and tried a literal transcription of his conversation.
Canova, first of all, observed the obvious physical differences between the two men. Villa weighing 18.5 kg, had a flowery complexion "as a German" and was much higher than Zapata who, with 130 pounds, was short, dark andFine. In their contrasting clothes, they both looked like very different spheres. Villa wore a helmet, a heavy brown sweater, khaki pants, leggings and heavy boots.and two fishermen, a large blue silk with one green edge and one in a multicolored floral pattern. He also wore black and fair charrier pants with silver buttons on each leg's outer sewing and two old -fashioned plain gold rings in handLeft.In the top of the clothes was a great shadow, useful for shading the sun outside, but absurdly dysfunctional here. The Snobish Canova noted that the entire clothes of Zapata's sister, clothes, jewelry and everything could have been bought in usUSA for five dollars.
The observers attached great importance to the signs, symbols and subtexts of the Summary Code not written in Xochimilco.Villa's men looked like soldiers, with US uniforms supplied from the US, standard firearms, and clearly displayed classification signs.The men of Zapata looked exactly the peasants in southern Mexico they were, dressed in white cotton shirts, rustic sandals and a heterogeneous variety of weapons.Villa was making clear with his ubiquitous persimmon who commanded a professional army who was the referee of Mexico's fate.Zapata, dressed as if about to make a race at a rural fair, emphasized the notion that the civil ethos should always have precedence about the military.Increasing differences formed a kind of correlative objective of the ideological differences discussed above.
Canova, who wrote his report from the state department, said the atmosphere was initially cold and that it took half an hour for the ice to melt: `It was interesting and fun to watch Villa and Zapata trying to familiarize the other., they sat in an embarrassed silence, occasionally broken by some insignificant observation, such as two boyfriends in the country. Zapat seemed to study Villa for a long time without saying anything. So Villa has made a breakthrough by making a derogatory observation about Carranza. "I said that, "Zapata agreed. 'I always told them Carranza was a sonophabitch.'For an hour, the two tried to overcome each other with anti-car stories. Finally, Zapata asked Cognac and insisted that the Teetotal village joined him in a toast to his partnership..It face writhed and tears came in the eyes as he called the water. With purgado the flavor with water, he offered the rest of his glass to his revolutionary colleague.Pre-planted, he insisted that the great man drain the glass.
Feeling more at ease, the two men gradually found ordinary ground. There were vehemently stated that they had no personal ambitions and only wanted a free hand on their own spheres of influence. Zapata's position was moral: he despised all politiciansFull time. As he said to Villa, 'these taxis [referring to politicians] ... as soon as they see an opportunity, they want to turn it into their advantage and move to their brown nose the most powerful man aroundThat's why I got all these taxis. I can't stand it ... they are all a bastard package. Villa's position was that he had no education and training to be president.From the words he used for John Reed: `` I am a fighter, not a statesman. I'm not polite enough to be president. I only learned to read and write correctly two years ago. As I never went to school, I hope I can talk to foreign ambassadors and the congressional gentlemen. I would be bad for Mexico if a man without instruction was president. The two agreed, however, that the next president would have to be under his control. "That will not cause problems, "said Villa.Zapata replied:` I will advise all our friends to be very careful. On the contrary, they will feel the blows of the machete.
To mention the machete, there was a general laugh."Well," Zapata continued, "I don't think we're wrong. We just loosened their rope, looking for them here, there, to be behind them while grazing."Zapata continued with a speech against the big cities that had Villa agreeing with their heads: 'The men who worked the most and walked are the last to get some of these sidewalks.Nothing but sidewalks.And I'm talking for myself.When I walk on the sidewalk, I feel I will fall. '
Later, the conversation was turned to land reform. Villa accepted Ayala's plan in principle, but was vacant on how, when and where the distribution of land. There is part of his lecture, it was widespread emotional things: 'All the greatProperties are in the hands of the rich, and the poor need to work from the morning until night. You are convinced that in the future life will be different and if things do not change, we will not give up on the mausers we keep in our hands.: `Well, we should give people the pieces of land they want. Once distributed, there will be some who will try to take them back again.
These anodine expressions contrasted with Zapata's passionate statements.Speaking of brunette peasants, he said, 'They feel a lot of love for the earth.They still do not believe when they hear, "This land is yours."They think it's a dream.But after seeing other people taking harvests from these lands, they will also say, "I'll ask my land and sow there."More than anything, this is the love that people feel for the earth.Usually everyone makes a living with it. 'At this point, General Benigno Serrato intervened: “It seems impossible for them that it really happened.They don't believe it.They say, "Maybe tomorrow they take it."'Villa tried to reassure southern men:' You will see.People will be in charge and soon summer who your true friends are.Zapata agreed that the peasants had a very insightful idea of their friends and enemies: “People know that these others want to take their land.They know that they and only they can defend it.But they would die before giving up the earth.
After these public discussions, Villa and Zapata retired to a private room for a secret conference, accompanied by only a handful of trusted consultants. For this session, Palafox was on the side of Zapata. They agreed that any future government should give themA free hand on their respective bailiwicks, and in turn would leave the government a free hand in foreign policy and in the states where they had no vital interests. For the immediate future, the two agreed not to prevent the search for personal enemies and to agreea list of forbidden people. Villa expressed his concern that Zapata seemed willing to recruit someone, former porphyists, former huertists, and, more wounded, former orrozquisters, for their ranks..
At this secret meeting, land reform was poorly mentioned.The two leaders focused on the next campaign against Carranza, and Villa promised to leave Zapata with the artillery and the equipment he needed for his operations.Remembering Angeles' council, Villa tried to obtain Zapata's agreement that he, Villa, should be the supreme commander of the Allied forces, but Zapata suddenly rejected the suggestion.“I don't go north,” he said, “and you don't go south.So we respect each other."But, general," protested Villa, "remember that these people are very strong."Zapata said she would negotiate with Carranza and could guarantee it.Villa shrugged.`Well, if you can guarantee it, 'he said awkwardly.Thus he followed the advice of Angeles.
The December 4 sessions ended with dinner and speeches; everyone seemed to think that the meeting was a great success. From 35,000 veterans dressed in northern division khaki, using Stetsons, entered Mexico City to be received by20,000 Zapata Army Men, dressed in loose white cotton and wide shades. Two leaders rode side by side, both excellent knights with different pilot styles. In a point of Procession Villa's military cap, it fell.Her horse, Zapata shook the side of the hill, took the lid and returned her to a smiling village. Time, the two armies paraded through the streets of the capital to the enthusiastic cheering of vast crowds. In Zocalo, the whole army was revised by Eulalio Gutierrez, but Villa and Zapata treated Gutierrez with contempt and passed him to the presidential palace. Like a joke, Villa sat in the presidential chair, then made a signal to Zapata to give her turn. The humor was never the strong pointFrom Zapata, and his answer was with the position: `I didn't fight for it. I fought to recover the land.Postering for a photograph with him. The famous image shows a euphoric village next to a Zapata Ranzinza. While Enrique Krauze watches, Zapata is on the edge, 'always suspicious of a bullet, perhaps coming out of the camera instead of the flash of a lamp'.
Villa's photograph in the presidential president, shone around the world, convinced foreign observers that Villa was the new ruler of Mexico. However, he was so far from having the necessary administrative capacity that he didn't even plan additional conversations with Zapata.Villa and Zapata never met. Zapata could barely wait to shake the dust of Mexico City, but Villa stayed in the capital, walking through people and pursuing women. Having reached supreme power, both seemed confused about what to do with him.None of them wanted the presidency, their meeting to discuss the consequences of victory can be seen in retrospective as defining the seal in their eventual defeat. They wanted to find people who would be loyal to the revolution, so that they could retire in their provinces, but if theyThey were not prepared to play a national role, who could be these people?
Villa said he was not interested in who would be in the future cabinet; his only mission was to fight, fight and fight again.reveal a mindset of "permanent revolution", with everything forever in a state of flow. He made the admission revealing that he would submit to a president and office, as long as they did not disturb him; Zapata felt the same way.The AD absurdum reduction of the Chica Patrica mindset, as no credible chief executive would be content to nominally govern the country of Mexico, with large tracks from the country in a state of independence.
Why was Villa so reluctant to assume supreme power?Perhaps it was lack of self-esteem, due to his unhealthy ignorance, as he said.Most probably, he realized very well that Zapata would not tolerate him in the presidential chair, which then would have the war with the Zapatists in his hands before ending Carranza and Obergon.As the revolution could not be entrusted to any politician, and certainly not Eulalio Gutierrez, like Villa the Via, his only option was to fight until the issue with Carranza was resolved, when there was then a "second coming" and a newMadero may have emerged.
Even though Villa had decided to bite the bullet and settle as president, the resulting presidency would have been centrifugal, with a weak Mexico city depending on strong flows on the periphery.Villa would have ruled as Tiberius, with Chihuahua as his Capri, possibly with Angeles as the true power in the capital.The result would have been highly unsatisfactory, with Villa and his caudillos as dogs in the manger, unwilling to rule, but unwilling to give up their power and privileges so that someone else could rule.But at least Villa would have faced the problems of power.Zapata could claim her ideology of village anarchism as a reason for her refusal to assume power in the center, but in Villa was laziness, lack of willpower and the adoption of the lower resistance line.With his resignation, Villa assured that, as much as he won battles, Carranza and Obergon were bound to win in the long run.As Octavio Paz wrote about the opportunity lost by Villa and Zapata in December 1914: “He who refuses power through a fatal process of reversal will be destroyed by power.The episode of Zapata's visit to the National Palace illustrates the nature of the peasant movement and its later destination. '
Where Villa's weakness was that he had a truly professional army and could campaign anywhere, but had no national plans not even interests outside his own region, Zapata's weakness was almost the opposite: Ayala's plan had implicationsnational, but his army was very weak and amateur.to campaign across the country.Zapata's armies never professionalized as Villa's and, in this sense, the contrast between the villalist's brown khaki uniforms and the white pajamas of the Zapatists was truly symbolic.Zapata's armies were geographically isolated and based on peasants, reluctant to campaign outside the homeland, and Zapata was unable to generate the surplus that would allow her to professionalize them, as her warlords would rather cultivate subsistence crops instead of sugarcane-Do-school for profit.In contrast, Villa's armies had many remarkable advantages: social composition did not depend on peasants linked to the agricultural cycle, but it was resting on an elite group of mobile knights recruited from various origins;US proximity meant that they were much better armed and equipped;There was a martial tradition of fighting Apaches and Americans in the North who had no equivalent in Moreos;And, of course, the ground in the north was best suited for the willingness of large armies.
The multiple "contradictions" between the movements of Zapatista and Villalist - contradictions that appeared at all levels - not to mention the cautious distrust of the two leaders meant that the Zapata -Villa Alliance was still.and with Villa's real military cooperation. In December 9, one of his secret agents presented a report that Villa and Angeles were simply tying -until they reached their own goals, when they intended to eliminate Zapata. This could have been speculation, butIt was a difficult fact that Zapata had to send repeated orders to Villa before he could get the promised artillery support. Even thus, the Zapatists had to cannon from Manhaul through the pass between the pocatepetl and iXtacchuatl volcanoes because Villa did not provide trains fortransporting artillery. Although this, Villa was increasingly annoyed by Zapata's complicated attitude towards former enemies. In Mexico City, the Zapatistas had been universally popular and actually cooperative with the old porphyrist guard, in contrast to chaoswho began to speak when the villains entered the city. The continuous presence of so many orozquisters under the Zapata track continued to rock villa.
For a time Zapata, at least, kept the faith.With the help of Villa's great cannons, he was able to occupy the city of Puebla on December 15;After a look at the cannon being placed in position, the defenders didn't even try to try conclusions.On December 16, testing the waters, Zapata wrote cautiously to Villa to say that there was abundant evidence that her common enemies were trying to create a barrier between them.
Zapata was finally disillusioned when Villa murdered his advisor Paulino Martinez and instituted a reign of terror in Mexico City. In December 13, the villalist's officers killed Martinez, who had long been bitten of Villa, both because he joined Orozco.In 1912 and because he continually denied Madero in his press articles. It should be admitted that Martinez was verbally bold, exactly the kind of man who made bad enemies with his tongue., allegedly running 6th, Ooo Men, could not take the city of Mexico, when he himself took him with only 23,000 after a march of 2,500 miles. He confused that Obergon entered the capital so easily just because he had made a secret agreement with theFEDERAL - Something Zapata would never do.
Zapata grieved over the loss of Martinez and was angry with Villa for his betrayal, but there seems to have been misunderstanding on both sides. always understood that there would be executions after purge trials; Villa, however, preferred to eliminate his enemies by hit squads or individual assassins like Fierro. Consequently, Zapata executed an old enemy, Guillermo Garcia Aragon, who fought with Zapata against Diaz, but if he had refused to join him in the revolt against Madero. Zapata never forgave this "betrayal" and bore a deep grudge. , tried him before a kangaroo court and assigned him to the firing squad. Because Zapata mentioned this man in his secret conclave with Villa, and Villa mentioned his own animus toward Paulino Martinez, Villa considered his elimination of Martinez to be an execution. of tit-for-tat of the gentle agreed tacitly in Xochimilco.Zapata didn't see the matter the same way.
Martinez's assassination of Villa was simply the harbinger of a reign of terror in Mexico City in which the Zapatistas were often targets. In the early days in the capital, Villa's men behaved well, but they soon degenerated. the middle-class villistas - especially Felipe Angeles - who kept their less refined brethren in line, were in the north, so there was no steady hand. Faced with the temptations of Mexico City, Villista Soldiery largely regressed to the previous mode of banditry. They took their example from the top, not just from the lustful centaur himself, but from the highs of Villista, who simultaneously appeared on their worst behavior: Tomas Urbina distinguished himself by attempting to rape the wife of an oil company manager; Juan Banderas shot a general killed and later destroyed the Cosmos of the Hotel, doing 1,5oo pesos in damage to windows and furniture. Banderas was a notable neighbourhood: two months later, in Tepepan, he quarreled with a heavyweight Zapatista, who degenerated into farce when his opponent brought up an 8omm field gun for dueling.
An orgy of rapture and murder scored Mexico City.In all, there were more villains murders in the zoo in a month and thousands of cases of rape.A series of private accounts and revenge was resolved under the pretext of eliminating porphirists and Huertists, and among the dead in the night shootings were Zapatist.The difference between the men of Villa and those of Zapata was clear to everyone: Zapatistas were merciless to use execution as a state reason, but Villa's henchmen killed for private revenge and then dishonestly claimed that their victims were enemies of the people;When they started killing Zapatistas, the transparency of the complaint was palpable.The behavior of Villa's troops revealed the black face of Villand, showing the deep levels of banditry in movement.The middle classes, foreigners and the Catholic Church were massively alienated.Villa's intellectuals had defended socialism and land distribution, but what they obtained when Villa settled in the capital was chaos.
In this maelstrom of anarchy and chaos, it almost goes without saying that one of the worst criminals was the flagrante fierro. of death for a man in pursuit. Fierro engineered a showdown at Sylvain, one of Mexico City's finest restaurants. refused to pay the bill. Berlanga fell into the trap and intimidated the demonstrators. Fierro said that in doing so he signed his own death warrant and took him outside at gunpoint. The young man was so fearless that even if Fierro drew a cord, he smoked a cigar with a hand so steady that the ash did not fall until after he was shot. Villa dismissed the murder as a matter of no consequence, trying to placate public opinion by rounding up street urchins and dispatching them to the north to their special schools in Chihuahua.
However, the middle classes were not interested in the possible status of Villa as an educational benefactor, nor in their histrionics when they poured tears in the tomb of Madero and renamed the Plateos calle after the dead hero.', with their toad verses. They wanted fast action on the atrocities, now .Jose Vasconcelos went to see Villa to protest, but was apart from the excuse that the general was sleeping; the guards of Villa caused him, to add insult to thelesion.Vasconcelos then spoke to Villa's powerful executor Juan Banderas, known as El Agachado (The Hunchback).An intellectual more or less badly mattered, especially if it meant antagonizing the powerful bands.
Madero's ceremony was another occasion when Villa publicly insulted Eulalio Gutierrez. Villa had Madero's body disinterred and then publicly convened with full ceremony, and ordered all shops and businesses in the capital to close for the day, without even consulting Gutierrez. Everything Villa did inculcated the message that Gutierrez's presidential status was meaningless. The worst affront was when Gutierrez asked Villa to stop Tomas Urbina from extorting money from the rich for kidnapping: Urbina was known for torturing wealthy oligarchs to death. death until they revealed the whereabouts of his money. For Villa, this was part of the normal course of events. He had done the same many times before and chafed that he had to secretly extort money now, to avoid an open breach with Gutierrez .
Eulalio Gutierrez has now begun to stand out from Villa, with the aim of founding a new party and stretching the bleeding, for which hundreds of old disenchanted villains abandoned the cause and went to Carranza.'Third Way' for the many disgusted by Villa and Carranza. Alerted by her spies that Gutierrez was starting to launch sensors to Carranza, Villa went down to the provisional president's house and a remarkable confrontation followed.waived and informed that all Mexico City train services had been suspended .Gutierrez remained calm and protested that Villa and Zapata were making him a stock laughing by despising his authority so openly. He dared to bring out the subject of the murder ofBerlanga.Villa got angry angrily: `` Ordered Dead Berlanga because he was a puppy who was always pulling me. I got tired of so much noise and finally took care of him.
Despite his threats, Villa hesitated to execute Gutierrez.In addition to having no concrete evidence of betrayal, he feared the impact on international opinion and the loss of his reputation in the US.He decided to make a deal: Gutiérrez would be allowed to give orders to Villa troops as long as he did not try to escape the capital.However, the intercepted post soon revealed Gutierrez as an intriguing master, not only negotiating with Carranza, but planning with Obergon to betray Carranza.Villa issued orders for Gutierrez's immediate execution, but unfortunately for him, he chose to order the same man who had already refused an order to execute Obergon: none other than Jose Isabel Robles, the villalist general who currently serves as minister ofGutierrez's war..Robles warned Gutierrez, who made immediate plans to leave Mexico City.After gathering a table of 1,000 loyal soldiers, Gutierrez paved the way to leave the capital, taking Villa by surprise.
Once at large, Gutierrez issued a manifesto, vehemently excoriating Villa and Zapata for their reign of terror, their inability to discipline their officers and men, their printing of worthless money, and for their inconsistent foreign policy. Gutierrez's order shot on sight and declare that all supporters of the 'third way' would be executed. Many conventional leaders were rounded up, but others were forewarned and escaped - taking with them several thousand troops and the contents of the National Treasury - leaving behind the city walls flew with anti-villa slogans. Gutierrez fled to San Luis Potosi. Villa sent his men in pursuit, but Gutierrez had chosen a "hot" state, as San Luis was currently being terrorized by Urbina in authentic villa style.
Gutierrez's first step was to try to persuade the Madero family to join him;This would be a great blow to propaganda and destroy Villa's claim to be the heir to the cloak of the cloak.Raul Madero was tempted but remained faithful to Villa to his brother Emilio's advice.General Eugenio Aguirre Benavides, Gutierrez's ally, made Angles similar openings, who rejected them with disdain.Finally, Benavides, with no great opinion on Urbin military skills, tried to defeat him in battle.He was defeated after most of his troops abandoned him, then captured by the frowns and executed as a rebel.The "third way" was now in terminal disorder.Another of his main figures, Lucio Blanco, fled to the US;Later, in 1922, he was killed in action during a revolt against Obergon.Gutierrez himself fled to Nuevo Leon, realized that his position was desperate, renounced the ghost presidency and went to Carranza.From then on, Villa considered all conventionalists as enemies and ordered them to be shot at first glance.The convention was completed as an executive body, although as a legislator, he remained in Mexico City as a spectral entity, still considering himself absurdly a sovereign institution.
Zapata watched all these events with a mixture of alarm, anger and cynicism. All days he was flooded with complaints by Palafox and Diaz Soto y Gama, in Mexico City, about the treatment of villains and their confrontation with the arrogant Gonzalez Garza, village -official villa and connection officer for jobs, funds and railways. Zapata took it seriously, as their own spies reported the existence of a dressing room in the villa's internal circles that intend to murder all Zapatista counselors, especially PalafoxAnd Soto y Gama. In the end of the year, Zapata accepted the inevitable, remembered his counselors and retired to Tlastizapan in Morelos. They have returned with him, delighted for not having to campaign outside their homeland.
The US Diplomat Canova, who had so exhaustively reported the Villa-Zapata meeting, wrote to Washington on December 30: ʻThe break between (Villa) and Zapata is not remote and when Mr. Palafox arrive will be one of the first villa to appear to.'Zapata had already lost his interest in Villa's next strength test with Carranza and Obergon.He took his veterans out of Puebla, leaving behind former orozquisters and former Huertists, who soon degenerated in a lawless rabble, refusing to receive orders from Palafox or anyone else in Zapata's headquarters.Carrancists noticed the breach and took the opportunity: on January 4-5, 1915, after intense fighting, Obergon invaded Puebla with his army.Zapata seemed as carefree as if the action was happening on the moon.For him, the confrontation between Villa and Carranza was no longer his concern.The so -called 'War of the Winners' would have to be fought without it.
Villa and Zapata's total incapacity to cooperate was one of the great tragedies of the Mexican Revolution and was the main reason for his final defeat.Perhaps the synergy between two different personalities and programs has never been really viable.In an area only Villa and Zapata were brothers on the skin: his womanizer.Little is known about Zapata's marriage to Josefa Espejo, except she gave her two children, Felipe and Maria Assunção, both deceased in her childhood.However, Zapata was able to comfort herself with Nicolas - born of an unknown woman in 1906 - the boy who slept during the Xochimilco conference, and three other children with other women, born in 1913-14: Eugenio, Maria Elena and Ana Maria.Zapata sometimes imitated Villa and practiced spurious forms of "marriage" with her lovers.This was the case of the first lover Juana Mola Mendez and the girls Suarez, Catalina and Pepita, that he and his brother Euphemio would have "married" in a double ceremony.Her most witty gringa lover, Margaret Benton, who wore the pseudonym Maggie Murphy, was a true adventurer who despised these absurd subtleties.In Tlastizapan, in 1914-15, he kept at least one lover, Maria Escobar, having briefly fluttered with another, Josefa Ortega, Mexico City.
Meanwhile, in Mexico City, the villa was enjoying one of her periodic explosions of SARIIAAS.In a store owned by a French, where Villa was shopping. The beautiful box caught his attention and he made strong sexual advances for her; he said he hoped that when he came back the next day, she would not insult him when rejecting.The terrified cashier asked the store owner to do, she advised her to stay home the next day. Villa arrived for her expected achievement and went into anger when she found that the bird had flown in the chicken coop.He caught the Frenchman laughing at him from his back. Encouraging his contested machismo and his committed 'honor', he took her hostage., which caused irreparable damage to Villa's global reputation.
Villa was rarely more self-destructive than in December 1914. While his men raped and murdered and he fulfils, Carranza and Obergon were making careful preparations to destroy him.
Civil war
All campaigns so far in the Mexican revolution involved rebel armies varied against state power, with the federal government in Mexico City apparently having its hand, only to throw its advantages through military incompetence. In January 1915, there was no governmentwith the death of the convention, no obvious 'rebels'. War that broke out that month was a direct struggle for death between Villa and Carranza, with Obergon and Zapata at the beginning in secondary roles; but where Zapata became increasinglyAnother marginal figure in national politics, the importance of Obergon has increased monthly. For a brief moment in AgaScalientes, he allowed himself to expect that Villa and Carranza resigned, but the two never had any intention to hand over the laurels of victory to Obergon.Carranza's renunciation has always been an unrealistic hypothesis; he was a selfish with massive suffocation and would never have withdrawn, believing how he did that he was the only man who could "save" the Mexico.
Obergon began war with deep feelings of feeling. He saw enough clearly to get Villa from Mexico City to Veracruz without delay, Carranza could hardly survive. He opted for reluctant carranza, as he had no realistic alternative.Ethos in the middle of the carrancists attracted him more than Serrano da Villa's mindset or Zapata's peasant ideology. It is immediate ambition to be restored as the main figure in sound and shifting the hated Maytarena, and this ambition dictated an alliance withCarranza.He also did not forgive or forget Villa's brutal threats of death a few months earlier. Finally, and more convincing, his main commanders would not have followed him if he had opted for Villa.
Even as they forged an alliance, Obergon and Carranza were looking with suspicion.Obergon intended to use the army against Carranza if he succeeded against Villa, but in turn was caught by his own ambitious generals - Benjamin Hill, Elias Calles Plutarco and Pablo Gonzalez - who did not fight to raise Obergon to supreme power.They saw more room for their ambitions with Carranza as president.Carranza was aware of all these currents and the many behind -the -scenes intrigues.A skilled politician, he was able to overcome Obergon and keep him firmly in his place as a subordinate.He bet correctly, that whatever happened, Obergon would never throw his luck with Villa.
Obregon's first major military coup was his seizure of Puebla from the Orozquistas Zapata left behind. ordered his army to march north to Torreon. Angeles implored Villa to reconsider and not throw away the chance of an early knockout. Villa, deaf to his pleas, insisted on leaving Mexico City. With Villa and Zapata away from the capital , Obregon saw his chance. He moved in to fill the energy vacuum and, to the chagrin of the burghers of Mexico City, who remembered his earlier hostility, he remained there from January to March.
Angeles' arguments were so convincing that they would have impressed almost anyone besides Villa. In early December, he warned a long stay on Mexico City stones and, in practically daily cables, asked for a quick campaign against Veracruz.He made three main points. First, Veracruz was close enough from the heart of Zapata for the Zapatistas to participate. Second, the army of northeastern Pablo Gonzalez was a chicken, Obergon had not yet taken his strength, and CarranzaIt was almost defenseless. In third place, if Villa settled for a long campaign, Carranza's largest long -term resources would begin to say, while Villa would be forced to court hostility, expropriating foreign properties simply to pay for his armyIt is true that Emilio Madero in Torreon urgently asked Villa to come back there, but this should be disregarded. As Angeles said undeniable: `For us, the most important thing is to attack Carranza, who is the head of everything.Whenever you have to attack your head.
Why, then, did Villa throw away his trump card and not advance on Veracruz? As well as failing to achieve a quick victory, Villa's actions in getting his Northern Division on the march meant that his army was depleted within three months of campaigning, while Carranza made careful preparations and increased his forces in Veracruz. Many explanations have been offered. Villa's most critical critics say he lacked imagination: that he was always uncomfortable fighting outside Chihuahua and Durango and didn't want to fight in the tropical plains of Veracruz, so far from his homeland, where the local population was hostile and he didn't could recruit more fighters. Another critical view is that Villa has always been obsessed with Coahuila's supply lines for its trains. More generous critics say Villa feared that an attack on Veracruz would be interpreted by Zapata as a violation of the agreement on spheres of influence reached in Xochimilco. Others say that Villa was willing to attack Veracruz as soon as he received Zapata's release, but that he never received it. Yet another school of opinion believes that Villa wanted Zapata decisively defeated by Carranza and Obregon, preferably in a Pyrrhic victory, which would weaken all combatants, so that he could emerge as tertius gaudens.
Zapata's reasons for inactivity were analyzed in many ways. A view is that he thought he could defeat Carranza on his own (ironically, Villa argued this exact case with Angeles), but when it was impossible, he could not askHelp to Villa, as Villa had already gone north to Torreon. Another is that he was angry with Villa for not providing weapons and reinforcements, as promised in Xochimilco. A more subtle interpretation is that Zapata, knowing the Animus de Villa inRegarding the orozquisters, he thought that the centaur could divert to liquidate old scores with the Colorado garrison in Puebla, thus ruining the allied strategy and leaving Carranza out of the hook. A thing we can say for sure: Zapata's inactivity was a colossal error.Villa later bitterly complained that Zapata disappointed him badly in the South, that he was waiting for him at least to prevent rail communications between Carranza in Veracruz and Obergon, Mexico City. Villa's complaint was well founded, but what it actually representedIt was that he had not really adopted the mindset of Zapata, Patria Chica. While who was in power in Mexico City did not bother him, Zapata was interested only in reaching peasant utopia in her beloved branches.
Villa's decision to march north meant that Mexico was plunged into nearly a year of bloody civil war. As in all civil wars, there is great interest in what the combatants were fighting and what groups they represented. a clear ideological profile or social program? Or was the entire war of 1915 a giant mosaic composed of very different individual power struggles? Some see Carranza versus Villa as the Directory against the Sans-Culottes, the middle class against the peasantry; see it as the retrograde-seeming forces of modernity versus the forces of reaction, with Carranza as the real radical; their self-sought conflicts.
The old idea that Carranza versus villa represented landowners, petita-bourgeoisie, military politicians, professionals, apparatuses and bureaucrats versus knights, pioneers, cowboys, young people and unaffected soldiers. even intellectuals in the village movement, of whom Angeles and Silvestre Terrazas were the most notable. In any case, this was a civil war in which it was far from clear what each side was fighting for, hence the large number of trimmers, fences, doesn't know, and people who genuinely couldn't decide which faction had a claim on their side. Chihuahua and Durango, representing Villa. Seen like this, it just becomes a culture and locality in conflict with another locality and culture.
Certainly there was no ideological consistency among the combatants. Local warlords joined both sides, dependent on those who supported their local rivals. Typical of a mountainous group who, for reasons of culture, ideology and interest, should have supported Villa,But entered the other side was the faction led by the Arrieta brothers in Durango, who commanded 5,000 soldiers. Arrietes had long been locked in Durango combat with Tomas Urbina; as Urbin was the man of Villa, the arrietes signed up with Carranza.There were dozens of other heads whose culture and interests should have them aligned with Villa, but who joined Carranza because of some old fight or personal revenge with a chief of villains. In the southeast, the planting, which opposed agrarian reform, joined the villa that defended her and was against Carranza who was on her side on this issue, simply because the fight for protruding power in Yucatan, Chiapas and Oaxaca was among the hacendated local and proconsules', Carranza had sent to theSouth to consolidate its regime there and abolish debt peonage. Another group that briefly allied to Villa was Manuel byez and its private army in Tampic.particularly scorned by Carranza as a Yankees tool.Pelaez received his time as he ensured that all genuine revolutionaries were kept outside the oil producing areas, but he had no real sympathy by Villa than the southeastern brothers or the southeastern brothers..
Only three issues clearly divided Villa and Carranza: the role of the central government, land reform, and attitudes toward the US. Carranza favored a strong central government and had a relentless vision of what he wanted; to achieve this, he aimed for a near-monopoly of economic power, control of all provincial administrations, and an iron grip on the military, which he hoped to achieve by playing the generals against each other. Proactive in his centralizing thrust, he was in stark contrast to Villa, who wanted to be left alone operating as a quasi-autonomous state with full power in Chihuahua and Durango. This tendency toward parochialism has always been one of Villa's weaknesses.
Villa was partially committed to land reform. He did not have Zapata's vision of a peasant society based on communalism, but wanted to use the product of confiscated properties for his own utopia of military colonies. If he won the civil war, there would be much moreConfiscations and many other properties would be distributed among their troops. However, in the general land reform, it was very cautious, with the disappointment of peasant leaders in the north, such as Calixto Contreras. Carranza was the only main figure who wanted to use the brakeIn all land confiscations and return properties to their original owners. That is why, from a purely economic but not political point of view, the conflict between him and the owners of plantations in the Southeast was so bizarre.
The most impressive at this stage was the different attitudes of Villa and Carranza to the United States. Carranza has always been anti-American, and her current favorite project was the nationalization of the Tampic oil fields. In this phase of her career, Villa was remarkably pro-Americana.le took seriously Woodrow Wilson's moral postures and, for a while, considered him a kind of American Madero. Wilson's brilliant estimate finally derived from his friend General Hugh Scott, whose character he mistakenly inferred the character.De Wilson.Villa was also nudged for sympathy for the gringo by Felipe Angeles, and George Carots and his two US agents, Felix Somerfeld and Lazaro de La Garza, who had personal financial motives to promote Villa-Wilson Entente.
In early 1915, it was believed that Villa would win the approaching war.Both the British and the Americans were sure that by the end of the year Carranza would no longer exist.For American observers, Villa seemed to have reached the impossible: he was popular with both the rich and powerful, who saw him as a future chromwell and among the dispossessed, who saw him as his champion.As Alan Knight notes: "Some Americans ... They were able to see Villa as, at the same time, the 'Horseman' and the champion of democracy, such as Napoleon and Lincoln gathered in one."Because of Carranza's anticlericalism, Villa was also seen as the Savior of the Church.One could not imagine a better guardian of the liberal and pluralistic democratic principles in American eyes than this pragmatic, eclectic and tolerant heir to the Madero cloak;Carranza, on the contrary, with her obvious dictatorial tendencies and never a word about elections, simply seemed a setback for Porfirio Diaz.
Certainly those who thought Villa would win seemed to step on land, as their advantages were various.A single victory of Villa would be enough to defeat Carranza, but even if Villa was first defeated, he would need to be defeated repeatedly before he was destroyed.He controlled most of Mexico and had uninterrupted lines of communication, where Carranza's forces were confined to enclaves, including communication by sea.In the states that should have been their bases of power, sound and coahuila, Carranza controlled only a small area.In the Southeast, where the frowns were firmer in the saddle, were considered foreign invaders and vulnerable to local uprisings.He was widely known and believed that the US favored Villa, and the centaur was unbeaten and apparently invincible as a warrior, with a series of victories in his credit.Neither Obergon nor Pablo Gonzalez could be proud of something as impressive as Torreon and Zacateca.Finally, and most importantly, Carranza lacked Villa's personal appeal and magnetism, had no charismatic power over her followers and, to the common touch, depended on Obergon, whose main loyalty was to himself.
However, this analysis ignored the many areas where Villa and his movement were decidedly weak. In a personal level, the village was losing its touch, was careless with its image, showing increasing signs of autocratic behavior, not consulting their intellectuals and counselors,Making policies in the wing and alienating the middle classes for the lawless behavior of their troops during their occupation of the city of Mexico. It was true that Villa and Zapata were -Agressors and Carranza was not - there were no praise, nor cucarachas over the bearded - but theCharismatic machismo carried his own price. Villa attracted much more personal envy, despite and jealous than Carranza; hundreds of local caudilos and Bandit heads wanted to be Villa; no warlords wanted to be Carranza.
Villa's parochialism was also a disadvantage. The situation in the south east made it a ripe fruit ready for his poke, but he was uninterested and did nothing. outside of Durango and Chihuahua, and in that respect the contrast with Obregon's longmarching army (over 8 miles of miles) could hardly be clearer. As many historians have pointed out, all of Villa's great victories were "home victories" and his "team" proved unable to gain the upper hand. The Northern division was an improvement over Zapata's army, as it was able and willing to cover a wider sweep of the ground, and was more professionalized than the Zapatistas, but at the same time was outmatched by Obregon's forces, who were even more professional and capable of fighting anywhere.
Carranza was also more talented in attracting new recruits to her standard. Obregon's brain waves build an alliance with the urban working class, promising -the future conditions in the future in exchange for support now; for this purpose, he organized his famous"Red Brigade" in Mexico City's slums. Obriegon liked to humiliate the rich and the clergy and from Truckle to the proletariat. While flying in the church and in the big business of millions, he produced this typical demagoguery piece for his class followersWorkman: `If my children had no bread, I would go out and look with a dagger in my hand until I had found such. '
However, Obregon managed to recruit the proletariat without antagonizing the middle classes. A particular avenue of opportunity, taken by the Carrancistas but neglected by Villa, was provided by the new middle-class diaspora. The Revolution forced many of the bourgeoisie out of their comfortable nests into contact with the lower classes and even the Indians. They were forced to diversify from land into trade and industry and even into the military, where Alan Knight compares them to "the samurai of Meiji Japan or the medieval deracines of Pirenne". Alongside this development, heralding the collapse of the conqueror's ancient contempt for manual labor and commerce, there was another parallel - an effect of the first - when an abundance of domestic servants was thrown onto the market with the impoverishment of their masters. The eagle eyes of Obregon and Carranza took in the new situation, but Villa did not.
Villa also progressively lost the propaganda war.Carranza's organs successfully portrayed Villa as a bandit who was a puppet of reactionaries;Why would another reason the bad guy have changed his name from Doroteo Arango, except to hide his history of banditry?Angeles was named as Huerta's agent, hired by the former dictator to subvert the revolution.Carranza's ideological offensive contained promises to return the lands of the villagers to them, a promise to abolish debt servitude and generous incentives to urban workers.Villa's advertising has never been so effective.His main organ, Vida Nueva, tried to build a worship of Villa's personality and focused on Carranza's insane personal ambition, but in early 1915 both themes were obsolete.
Perhaps the most damaging thing for Villa in the war of words was that Carranza's propaganda was radical and his practice conservative, but with Villa it was the other way around. The only way for Villa to cut the Gordian knot and underline clear ideological differences between himself and Carranza was to emphasize the issue of land reform, but his statements on this were as vague as Carranza's. Each side said that the other's land policies would cause anarchy and chaos, but said nothing in detail about what those enemy policies were or what their own were. All attempts made by the radical Villistas to undermine Carranza in agrarian reform were thwarted by opposition from the movement's conservatives, mainly Angeles and Maytorena. Villista's spokesmen faithfully echoed the leader's line that land could only be redistributed after a military victory, otherwise soldiers, absent from their homelands, would lose; it was also important not to alienate the United States over the land issue until victory was achieved. In addition, revenues would decrease if peasants started to practice subsistence farming on confiscated lands, instead of cash crops for the market.
In general, villalist propaganda fell into all the traps armed by the frowning.Villalists opposed workers' rights to strike or form unions and denied the right of the Indians to suffrage, claiming that most of them were illiterate.Carranza was giving considerable hostages to fortune by facing the US and the Catholic Church at the same time, but Villa failed to capitalize on grabbing anticlericalism.Instead, by pursuing the Spanish priests, he alienated the church, which increasingly adopted a 'pest in both houses' stance.Increasingly, too, the intellectuals were disappointed with Villa and changed their loyalty to Carranza.Only a man without political head would have acted as Villa did with José Vasconcelos and others from his circle.Angeles was used to having his upper insights set aside because of Villa's whims, but Angeles was exceptional, and few other intellectuals were prepared to give Villa the benefit of so many doubts.
Even the objective circumstances that seemed to favor Villa was illusory. The expected benefits of its popularity in the United States did not materialize, in part, although not entirely, because of the outbreak of war in Europe. Villa still had access to the US marketIn weapons and ammunition, but found that he was having to pay much more than the price of 1914 because of the competition of buyers representing the belligerent powers in Europe. In January 1915, the OOO ammunition rounds cost us sixty -seven dollars,Against the US Forty dollars in January 1914. The problem was aggravated by the venality of Villa's shopping agents. When corrupt Felix Somerfeld demonstrated open contempt by providing poor caliber weapons for more dollar prices, Villa resounded it, but found that itHis other agents, his brother Hipolito and Lazaro de La Garza, were equally. In addition, Villa was being deceived by his La Garza agent, who signed a contract with Western Cartidge Company for fifteen million cartridges.For Villa, by La Garza, then `` Gazump 'did it twice, first with the frowns and then with an agent for the French.
At the same time, Villa was suffering from cotton and exportable cattle, and US merchants were increasingly reluctant to accept their inflated paper coin. Arritite, Villa concluded that their US was unidirectional hand traffic:He had to respect his properties and interests in Mexico, without filling out special benefits of his sympathy, except to be rudely informed that he, like anyone else, was subject to market disciplines. Although Woodrow Wilson has favored Villa, the only thingconcrete he had recently done - pulling the Veracruz Naval Marines - really benefited Carranza. Each time Villa became aware of a gap between the pro -villa rhetoric of American and pro -car.
Gradually, Villa's enthusiasm for the United States waned as he ruefully reflected that Wilson had let him down once too often. On the surface, however, he was still conciliatory. When Wilson's envoys suggested leasing the oil port at Tampico and taking over to Baja California, Villa wrote to Zapata to ask him what he thought. Zapata responded that Villa should feel free to come up with whatever arrangements he thought fit - again Zapata's apathy about anything that isn't directly worried about Patria Chica. It was clear that the Americans, who disliked Carranza's anti-gringo jingoism, wanted to investigate the village to endorse a "safe" (ie, pro-American) Mexican president. .He was disgusted by the shady maneuvers and underground business dealings brokered (or attempted) by Wilson's ubiquitous Special Agent Leon Canova, and he sensed that all of Washington really wanted to be making Mexico its colony. believed Wilson, he now saw him as a forked-tongued humbug.
Villa's perception was valid and the situation intrigued historians. Houve until occasions in 1915, when Washington was boarding arms for Villa, but not to Carranza. The villain of this particular piece seems to have been Wilson's special representative in Mexico,John Lind, who favored Carranza, but Wilson cannot be acquitted of responsibility. He decided to cut and run from Veracruz, leaving him as an award for any army inside, which turned out to be Carranza.Wilson was cynically pursuing a policy of dividing and governing in Mexico. Preoccupated by the Far East and the war in Europe, he didn't want problems at his door, especially since Mexico was fertile ground for German agents.
In the long run, it also appeared that Carranza held the important cards. He controlled most of Mexico's export ports, especially those on the Gulf. The two main ports were the ports that appeared in the 1914 crisis with the US: Tampico and Veracruz. For Veracruz it was coffee from Chiapas and Henequen from Yucatan and for Tampico it was pumped in black gold from Mexico: petroleum. generated three times the revenue from its truncated slice of Mexico than the Villa from its green pastures. The price of oil and sisal hemp kept pace with the rising cost of guns, but the price of cattle and cotton plummeted. Carranza's products and the last villages, the consequences were obvious. This financial and economic preponderance of Carranza would be felt in the coming months.
For all this, the villalist military campaign started well, with Angeles achieving an impressive success in the Northeast. Carefully planning, meticulously performing, never disfiguring his triumphs with free blood spill, he surpassed the generals of Carranza Antonio Villareal and Maclovio Herrera, whoThey opposed him on Pablo Gonzalez's old haunts. Model brilliantly, Angeles sent Emilio Madero in a remain to Saltillo, as he himself took nineteen track charges to Estacion Mars in the opposite direction. When the enemy gathered to find himThere, he left Boo's troops to combat a retention action while bending Saltillo, which he took without a shot, having captured the important city of General Cepeda on the way.
Angeles then began to threaten Monterrey, Mexico's third city and a key industrial center. The Carrancistas positioned themselves outside, at Ramos Arizpe, and there, on January 8, 1915, a remarkable but ridiculous battle took place at thick fog. In the comedy of errors that followed, Raul Madero was twice captured and released by the enemy, who did not recognize him; During a break in the fog, MacLovio Herrera had a gunfight on the high nolo with a former comrade and killed him. However, the end result was total victory for Angeles. Carranza's army fled, leaving behind 3,000 prisoners, fourteen locomotives. , nineteen wagons, 2,000 rounds and II, ooo artillery shells. Angeles did not execute his prisoners, but released them after taking their word of honor that they would not fight again; Needless to say, many of them, including most of the officers, broke Your word.
Angeles proved to be extremely popular in Monterrey, as the frowns became unpopular destroying the railway.His moderate policies - without large -scale confiscations, without anticlericalism, human rights guarantees - earned him many friends, but Villa undid the good job when he arrived two weeks later, demanding a forced loan of one million weights.Satisfied that he could now provide his coaahuila coal field trains, Villa was indifferent to Monterrey's situation, whose people starved;Severe food shortages were caused by sertão grabbing control.Once again, Angeles has exhorted him to stop pursuing shadows in the form of Gutierrez and worrying about sound shows in sound, which Villa continued to worry about.Angeles warned Villa that he was chasing monkeys while the resignation player was free.'Those bosses are like hats taken from a track that is Venustiano Carranza.'
Villa hardly needed to come to Monterrey in person, but his presence was needed in Guadalajara. Calixto Contreras and Fierro lost an initial engagement with the enemy there, and Fierro gave in to his fury in typical fashion. Walking past one of his wounded soldiers moaning in agony, Fierro yelled at the man, 'What's the matter with you?' "I'm in pain, general," replied the wounded man. “I'll fix that soon,” said Fierro, who drew his pistol and shot him dead. The revulsion proved that the Villista armies were far from invincible, and Villa, sensing his credibility was at stake, invaded Guadalajara and won the Battle of Sayula with one of his famous cavalry charges. It would be his last victory on a pitched battlefield.
When he occupied Guadalajara, Villa was furious to find out that Calixto Contreras and Fierro had been extraordinarily incompetent to be defeated, as the frowns had thoroughly alienated the locals.In addition to withdrawals and indisciplines through the troops. When Villa entered Guadalajara, he was acclaimed as a liberator; new recruits gathered for him and he maintained a formal military triumph. The climate soon soured when Villa demanded a forced loan of one millionweights and began to alarm the rich to talk about land reform. He particularly offended the hacendated in the state, closing the breach, whereby landowners nominally "sold" their properties to foreigners to avoid taxes. Villa immediately banned these agreements underPain of death and turned to the table in those bustling who made a low statement of the value of their properties to avoid taxes: he announced that all compensation would be for the declared price (low).
Having dominated in the War of Movement in Jalisco and Michoacan and achieved this success in the Northeast that only the border cities of Agua Prieta, Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo remained in the hands of Carranza, Villa decided that his next goal was the port of Oil Dempio.15,000 men under the floor and urbine to assault an enemy strongly in a smaller numbers, but after two months the vilists were farther from success than ever; Chao and Urbina simply launched irrational front attacks against strongly defended positions, where the attackers were devouredthrough the fire of the machine gun.
Obregon was concerned, however, that Tampico might fall and with it would go half of Carranza's financial power; the only way to stop this was to attack Villa. Meanwhile, Carranza urged Obregon to get out of Mexico City, retreat south and tempting Villa to fight there - potentially disastrous advice, as Obregon would have failed in Zapata. Dissaved, the first chief, Obregon left Mexico City at the end of March, but headed north and based himself in Queretaro, tempting Villa to fight there. come and fight him in the Bajio. The Zapatistas returned to Mexico City. Everything now depended on whether Villa would take the bait and attack Obregon based on the latter's choice.
Obergon was both a student of human nature and the art of war.On the one hand, he had read Clausewitz, which meant he didn't mind leaving Mexico City to Zapata, as long as he could thus get the destruction of enemy armies.On the other hand, he knew Villa's psychology and thought he could deceive him.It seemed to him that Villa's strategy was seriously defective in two areas.He dispersed his superior strength in many arenas simultaneously - Villa in Bajio, Angeles in the Northeast, Contreras and Fierro in the West, Urbina in Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosi - and thus offended the principle of concentration of strength.On the other hand, if Villa would fight in Bajio, it would be 1,000 kilometers from its main supply base.Tactically, Villa trusted a lot of cavalry burden, and a thorough study of events in the French trenches convinced Obergon that even the most massive cavalry attack could be interrupted by female -fledged advocates, heavily stuck behind barbed wire.
On April 4, Obergon moved from Querétaro, where Emperor Maximilian had been executed forty-eight years earlier, to the city of Celaya.The field was flat, striated by channels and dug pits for irrigation, and Celaya was on a plain by the river.Here Obregon settled, with 6,000 cavalry, 5,000 infantry, eighty -six machine guns and thirteen field pieces.Angeles immediately spotted Obergon's game and warned Villa in no way to face him in Celaya;Instead, he should retreat, encouraging Obergon to move forward, thus stretching his lines of communication until Villa could cut them.The arrogant Villa rejected this good advice with disdain.He later explained that he feared morale to fall if he retreated, that Obregon would recruit more recruits in the advance and that the villalists' reputation would be harmed.In his view, his prestige demanded a battle as soon as possible.
The only weakness in Obergon's strategy was that he had to be supplied by Veracruz. If Zapata moved against Veracruz and separating this line of supplies, Obergon would face a serious scarcity of ammunition. However, Obergon's spies in the city ofMexico reported that Zapata was no longer collaborating with Villa, that he had no intention of moving against Veracruz and perhaps he did not even have the ability to do so. In April 5, the political advisor of Obregon, Maycotte, assured that allTrails had been repaired and Veracruz's line of supply was open and unimpeded. Abragon was optimistic. He knew his man and knew that Villa would not be able to resist the chance of an early offensive.
The Battle of Celaya began at dawn on April 6. Obregon began operations by sending an advance guard of 15,000 to occupy El Guaje's hacienda, cut the rail line to Celaya, and reduce Villa's mobility. Obregon's first action was a mistake, as he thought that the bulk of Villa's forces were in Irapuato when in fact they were already in El Guaje. The consequence was that Obregon's vanguard was met with a hail of bullets and nearly annihilated. Upon learning of the disaster, Obregon boarded a troop train and rode to El Guaje, attempting to divert attention from the vanguard with a hastily improvised investigation. As he covered the retreat of the beleaguered advance guard, it occurred to Obregon that he might be able to persuade a jubilant Villa to press his advantage and chase him back to Celaya.
Village bit the bait.While the troop train and the avant -garde retreated into confusion and defeat that was a bit real and a half simulated, Villa thought he could take advantage of chaos and set aside a knockout.He ordered a massive cavalry load, which ran straight to the machine guns and barbed wire of Obergon's prepared positions.The casualties were huge and a wiser man would have retreated and reconsidered.However, Villa, the gambler, was playing Double-Oquits and launched attack after attack by his knights without support-the classic mistake made by Ney in Waterloo.He didn't even identify a weak point in front of Obergon and tried to open a hole there, but simply ordered wave after his cowboys tied a wide front.Such was the sustained pressure that, at one point, Obergon's defenses seemed about to give in and he fired a typically hyperbolic telegram to Carranza: 'I will consider my good luck if death surprises me when I handle a blow in the face of his fatal attack. '
The attacks fell at dusk, but were resumed at dawn the next day with even greater ferocity. With ten charges of massive cavalry on the 6th, Villa surpassed on the 7th, sending no less than thirty accusations of dawn until noon day, many of these attacks have both prevented flooded fields and piles of dead horsepower. Once once, the line of Obergon came close to breaking. The legend is that Obergon ordered his bugle-buglers to call the retreat, just when the villains had a oneSterile; Villa's men then abandoned the points that had just led with this bloodshed. In the afternoon of April 7, the northern division ruled out and, right now, ammunition to its Mauser rifles is over.Obregon then called his cavalry, so far unused, to deliver the blow to free. Villa had nothing to oppose them, because he tolled did not keep reservations to cover a possible retreat.The disorganized defeat for Irapuato, leaving Z, the dead in Celaya's dikes and polycers.
The bankruptcy of Villa's Generalness was clear for everyone to see: he had not recognized the battlefield, had not retained the reserves and made the most elementary error of the book charging defensive positions with the unsurpassed cavalry., put him on a cable to Carranza: 'Fortunately, Villa drove the battle personally'. The villa himself blamed the defeat for lack of ammunition, but a more revealing factor may have been the significant desertions of his ranks for Obergon on the second day ofBatalha.EBERGON marked a great victory, but because both sides of the Mexic-Mexican revolution usually lied and claimed victory even after Annihilation, and because Villa's reputation was so high, Oberla's allegation of defeating Villa was widely described.in Mexico and abroad. It will be said that both sides claimed that they had been strongly less, but were probably approximately equal at 1i-12,000 each.
It was obvious now that the villa was to finally have followed the advice of Angeles and withdrew to the north to secure its supply lines, requencies with ammunition and join the troops remembered from other fronts. However, he refused stubbornlyAccepting that Obergon was the best general. The principle, he tried to attract Celaya's Obergon, suggesting quixically a battle in a plain outside Celaya, but Obergon, holding all the letters, treated the idea with the contempt he deserved., there was chaos in the villalist chain of command, with orders sent or disregarded, promised reinforcements that did not arrive and, above all, dissension among the professional army officers, who could see the meaning of Angeles's prescription, and Gung"Hovaqueros of the old guard of villalist, who had not learned anything from the first battle of Celaya and attributed the defeat of the cavalry accusations at chance."
On April 13, Villa attacked Celaya again. This time, he had 20,000 men to throw enemy defenses, but Obergon's number had also risen to about 15 years, including several crack regiments sent by Carranza as reinforcements.Most threateningly, his defenses were even more formidable this time, with much more barbed wire and machine guns at his disposal. Once once he kept a reserve of 6, ooo Cavalry hidden in a nearby forest. To have a chance to harm these defenses, the villa needed to employ Napoleonic tactics, investigate the weak point and then throw everything in it, in a classic demonstration of strength concentration. Once that, he simply did what he had done in the first battle of Celaya and sent wave afterwave of suicidal cavalry accusations.
The Vilists did everything they could in terms of bravery, willpower and sand; taking terrible punishment, they pressed the attack after the attack. This fierce was the attack that until April 14 they seemed to be making incursions. Setting heavy victims,The men of Villa reversed the Red Battalion of Obergon (recruited from the proletarians of Mexico) to his left and came close to the enemy.enough bullets to fight a few more hours. Let's make every effort to save the situation. Eventually, the frowns kept the line against mad, brave and suicidal attacks. From things especially helped them.Senses and tended to rain his splinters in the city of Celaya instead of the Obergon trenches; and on the night of the 14th rain and strong mud, Villa's advanced infantry stopped.
Timing his movement perfectly, Obergon waited until April 15's dawn before releasing his cavalry, which he had kept in the reserve right behind the lines, about eight kilometers east of Celaya.The Knights of Obergon launched themselves on the demoralized villaists, exhausted after forty-eight hours of uninterrupted struggle.This time, the defeat became a total defeat.In a panic, the men of the northern division left thousands of dead, injured and captured, as well as large number of horses, campaign cannons and small weapons.A count of the jubilent men from Obergon revealed 3,000 dead villalists, countless injured, 6,000 prisoners, 1,000 horsepower, 5,000 rifles and 32 guns.Obergon spoiled his great victory with a sign of betrayal.Terrist villain officers put on shallow soldiers uniforms to avoid detection, so Obergon announced that there would be amnesty for all enemy officers;They should not be afraid to declare themselves.One hundred and twenty men were deceived by their words of Doninha, declared themselves and were immediately sent to the shredding platoon.
Obregon, a psychological weirdness he was, seemed not to get any particular pleasure with his victories, but only with his righteous with death.In many of his light verses, he explains that he cannot enjoy the beauties of nature because of the thoughts of death.Two of your poems are indicative:
E:
It was amazing that Villa still felt capable of fighting after a defeat and even more so that his men were still prepared to follow him; it speaks volumes for his charismatic appeal and boundless self-confidence. from a fall from his horse, now joined him and once again urged him to retreat north, if not Chihuahua then at least as far as Torreon.Villa, who seemed to have learned nothing from his two crushing defeats and still attributed them to bad luck, announced that he intended to position himself in Trinidad, on the outskirts of Leon. Angeles warned that Villa was in danger of being outflanked and asked that he had promised not to use cavalry attacks, but to stay on the defensive. Villa rejected the advice of his best general.
Villa withdrew north in good order, using his cavalry as a screen between him and Obregon's advance guard, and he called in reinforcements and fresh supplies of ammunition. into a wide desert valley flanked by the Sierras, at the other end of which was Leon and Villa's army. Less than four kilometers from Leon, Obregon's Vanguard was surprised by 6, ooo Villista Horsemen and fled in confusion to the force principal. Obregon decided to form a solid square around Trinidad's railway station - in fact, an irregular rectangle six to fifteen kilometers long, a kind of melange of Wellington's Torres Vedras lines and the trenches of the Western Front in Europe. The scene was set for the climactic Battle of Trinidad, a patchwork affair, skirmishes and probes in which the advantage tipped one way then the other and which claimed 5,000 lives. April and ended only on June 5, Trinidad has been variously described as Villa's Waterloo or his campaign of 1812.
This time, the villa did not launch waves of unsurpassed cavalry, but crashed a front of twelve kilometers from Leon to Trinidad. Two sides faced each other through the land of a man, making the early stages of Trinidad a bizarre parody of the terrible battles ofWestern Front. The beginning, both sides scaled and probable, with Obergon hoping that Villa ordered another frontal attack, but Villa refused to force.Continued, or that his life line for Veracruz was cut. He was particularly worried, as there were signs that Zapata was starting to better and attack over her flanks. However, Zapata never did the only thing that would have changed toWar to Villa.He never attacked Veracruz. The few attacks from Zapata to Obergon's flank was actually a gesture of despair: he feared that Villa was decisively defeated and that Obergon and Carranza then returned his wrath.
Even without Zapata's help, Villa should have been able to defeat Obregon, as Sonoran made one of their few bad mistakes occupying a static position in the middle of a desert. cut him off from Veracruz and starved to death. Villa neither this nor heeded Angeles' advice, which was for the villains to withdraw to Aguascalientes, forcing Obregon to follow until his communications were stretched, at which point it would be an easy matter to cut him off. the supply line. However, after nearly a month of probe and counter-probe villa, he grew impatient. He told Angeles that his credibility depended on Leon, that he should attack: `` I came to the world to attack, even if my attacks did not always achieve victory and, if attacking today, I am defeated, by being beaten, by attacking tomorrow I will win. '
Villa ordered 35,000 men in a total frontal attack. The inevitable accusation of Cavalry reversed the right wing of Obergon, but the villains suffered strong losses, including a terrible incident when 300 of their men were killed five minutes by cohorts by workers'From Obregon.Abos The sides were being continually reinforced during the battle, Villa de Leon and Obergon de Veracruz.EBERGON had to use all their persuasion powers to prevent their commanders from leaving the trenches and going to the offensive., Do not lose the shape ', became a constant chorus when Obergon inspected his rectangle. Finally, on May 22, after four huge frontal attacks of villalist were defeated and a surprise cavalry attack at the back of Obergon was also contained,Villa sounded the retreat. During a week, there was investigation and skirmishes. Then the arrival of another train of ammunition of Veracruz allowed the frowns to go to traps and recharge for a counteroffensive.Commanders. He promised them that he would attack on June 5.
Obregon was doubtful of wisdom to pass to the offensive, but at the last moment Villa took him out of the hook. In June 2, Villa attacked, stimulated one last effort because his men were demoralizing in the continuous war of trenches, which was new to them.Nead ignoring Angeles' counsel, Villa used his reservations to attack Obergon at the rear. The villalist reservations took the city of Silao and stirred it, but failed to capture Santa Ana Hacienda's main strategic center, the crucial point of the planned offensivefrom Obregon. A terrible battle of slugging developed around Hacienda, with the villains taking huge casualties, failing to make raids and becoming progressively demoralized.
It was now that Obergon's death fantasies have almost come true.Looking forward to an overview of the battlefield, he climbed the farm belfry.The tower was immediately attacked and one of the projectiles tore off Obergon's right arm.The blood dripped from the wound and he was convinced that he was deadly.He pulled the pistol to give the blow to mercy, he crushed her and pulled the trigger.There was a click, then nothing.It was found that his field helper had cleaned the gun the day before, removed the candy of the camera and forgotten to replace them.The men of Obergon attacked the stump they bleed and took the general hastily to the hospital in Trinidad, where surgeons managed to stop bleeding and save their life.
With or without Obergon, his army would surely win on June 3, 1915. His vice and second cousin Benjamin Hill executed his plan to the letter.After repelling the attack on Santa Ana, Hill launched his counterattack at dawn on June 5.The Obergon Cavalry Reserve defeated the villalists in the right and left wing, leaving the way to Leon open, and his army advanced, reoccuping Silao and taking Guanaauato, along with 300,000 cartridges, 3,000 rifles, six campaign guns and twenty machine guns.The casualties in the battle of 38 days included more than 1,000 killed, injured and missing villaists against no more than 2,000 of Obergon forces.Villa has been beaten, but has not yet ended.He retreated toward Aguascalientes as he ordered the fierro that attacked behind enemy lines and paralyzing rail traffic.
Fierro proved to be an inspired guerrilla commander. For just a day or two, it looked like he might be able to pull Villa's chestnuts out of the fire, as Obregon had to detach regiments from his pursuing army to deal with this new threat. Fierro actually recaptured Leon by sending a forged telegram to the garrison commander, ordering him to abandon the city. Then he collaborated with the Zapatistas to take Pachuca and brutally cut the line of communication with Veracruz, showing Villa's incompetence until then. If Villa had sent Fierro on this mission in April, he would almost certainly have won the Celaya campaign. In the long run, however, the Fierro's plan backfired. Fierro himself was captured and defeated shortly after cutting off Veracruz's lifeline, and meanwhile the threat to Obregon's ammunition and supplies galvanized him to make a swift assault on Aguascalientes.
Villa's only chance now was to follow a Fabian strategy, avoiding battle while waiting for the Fierro diversion to produce results, or at least digging into Aguascalientes. Instead, despite falling morale in his ranks, Villa got it into his head that Obregon was already dangerously overstretched, and on 8 July he attacked outside Aguascalientes. As Obregon squared off, Villa foolishly attacked him head-on, squandering his resources on more invincible charges. Obregon was on the defensive until July 10, then counterattacked. He was completely successful and broke through on both flanks. Again rout became rout, again tons of materiel and hundreds of men were lost, and the Villistas were so panicked that Obregon's men could eat the hot stew left boiling in pots by the fleeing enemy. Carranza had won the civil war and Obregon was now the big man in Mexico. The tattered remnants of the once-proud Division del Norte fled north to Torreon and Chihuahua.
Why did Villa lose so massively in 1915 when everyone thought he was sure to win? His personal and military inadequacies have never been so clearly exposed. He made several obvious strategic mistakes: fighting on multiple fronts at once; not to attack Veracruz; failing to employ Fabian tactics and lure Obregon into the northern wastes. These were compounded with tactical errors: not reconnoitring the terrain in Celaya; foolishly attacking on a broad front; without taking into account the impact of machine guns and barbed wire. He never broke communications with Veracruz and never held a reserve. A man of parochial views and limited reading, he had learned no lessons on the battlefields of the First World War like Obregon, and he was too arrogant to listen to the advice of those who had imbibed the principles. Above all, he stupidly ignored the best military mind in his army, Felipe Angeles, and then naively claimed that he had lost the battles of Celaya and Trinidad just because he had listened to him.
Obregon moved cautiously north, ever mindful of his supply lines, mentally recording the miles he had advanced into his computer. By the end of 1915 he had achieved the famous 7,227 kilometers of march that made up such a big part of Obregon's legend - 85 against Orozco, 3,498 against Huerta and 3,644 against Zapata and Villa. He was well aware that he was indeed the new Santa Anna, Juarez or Diaz of Mexico, which Carranza could only govern with his word or acquiescence. At thirty-seven, he was the same age as Diaz when the Liberals finally defeated Maximilian in 1867, and, as with Diaz in Juarez, Obregon felt that the credit for the victory over Villa was his, not Carranza's. However, he still feared that he had only attacked the villista snake and not killed it.
Zapatistas enjoy the unusual luxury of a meal at the Sanborn's restaurant, Mexico City, December 1914
The meeting at the Presidential Palace in Mexico City in December 1914. On both occasions, Zapata looks suspicious of the camera, as if she contains a hidden weapon
American forces occupying Veracruz, 1914
villa in a good mood
Zapata also of Happy Humor (for him)
Felix Diaz: A stone in the shoe of all Mexico leaders for an entire decade
Orozco, just before death in the hands of Texas Rangers
`The Barbed One': Venustiano Carranza, President, Autocrat and Franco de Controle
In the battle of Celaya, the Obregon of an arm was king
Women of the Revolution: Ready to action
Zapata's last authentic image
Villa putting a brave face in adversity
In fact, Villa became more seriously hurt than Obergon realized. He abandoned the siege of tagpic and took his men out of Saltillo, Monterrey and Monclova. The four foundations of Villa's power had crumbled: his reputation of invincibility; his generosity toward thoseHavenots; his promise of future land reform; and the perception that the United States were on its side. A reverse multiplier effect occurred now when the villa's moral and currency collapsed. Before his defeat, Villa had imprinted much more money fromthat the objective state of its economy, but people had the pleasure of accepting it, thinking that it would be victorious in the civil war and then compromise the resources of the Mexican state to rescue the debt. Now it happened that the currency was notValue.The villalist weight plummeted from a value of thirty cents for us, a penny and a half in just two months. Now everyone required gold or hard currency. When Chihuahua traders refused to accept Villa's money or increased their pricesTo compensate, Villa has imprisoned and confiscated their properties. However, the result was that the class of stores voluntarily removed from business. The severe scarcity of food resulted as traders of all kinds refused to stock goods or sell anything.
The Chihuahua to which Villa returned was a land of chaos. Agricultural production had fallen, because of the war, while a large number of troops, along with their women and children, needed to be fed, but the more productiondecreased, the larger was the percentage used to buy weapons. It was common for hungry people to watch sheep and cattle being transported to the United States to increase the revenue of arms agreements as they went hungry.Desperate for money that has been forced to go after previously friendly landowners, foreign and more threatening American capitalists. A forced loan of $ 3, 00o of the American Mines owners was only terminated after the extreme pressure of General Hugh Scott.Negocios and especially foreign interests naturally lost faith in Villa.
Together with financial and economic chaos, there was social dislocation. The Division del Norte, at the end of the summer of 1915, was not the 'victorious army' of a year earlier, but a force full of bandwatchs and everyone was involved in aCrazy struggle to get down again. Many units abandoned Carranza and those who remained were more interested in looting than fighting. To keep any army in being, Villa had a growing resource for his donations, which he used as political commissioners and death squads.Roaming villains bands, some still militarily formidable, looted and looted without letting or now there was no political imperatives against banditaria. Naturally, the middle classes were intolerant with these attempts to "live out of the earth", seeingonly as the undisputed Brigant with an old style.
Villa's last-minute strategy involved an attempted defense of Chihuahua, turning it into a fortress destroying all the railway communication with the outside world, followed by a sound retreat, where he intended to connect with Maytarena and his Yaquis;It would represent Carranza and Obregon a big problem, as there were no railroads in sound. As the state had been spared the spoil war, Villa thought he would feed his troops there easily, while Woodrow Wilson barely made an enemy of Villa, recognizing Carranza when there was muchVulnerable American investment there. Try satisfied was Villa with the idea of sound as his fallback position that he soon began to enter the kingdoms of fantasy. He wrote with Zapata that after a short rest, he would come to the south again, occupying Sinaloa, Tepic, Michoacan and Jalisco, ready to find Zapata on the outskirts of Mexico City for a second triumphant entrance in the capital.
This was Villa's public façade in more ways than one: optimistic, euphoric and Salvador in the face. The private village was of cross, neurotic and irascible granulation, full of betrayal fantasies. Maders were the first to give up his.To ask Villa to abandon a hopeless fight in vain, Raul Madero fled the border to the US, taking his brother Emilio with him, but not before warning Maytarena in a sound to keep Villa's way if he goes in that direction.Angeles also thought that Redoubt Sonoran plans a chimera and urged Villa to face facts. Villa was so angry at her favorite intellectual for this advice that for a while the observers feared for Angeles' life, but in September he was also on the other sideFrom the border with the Maders and the other middle -class intellectuals: Juan Medina, Jose Isabel Robles and The Perezymers Rul, respectively, Villa's secretary and treasurer. Some said they were only in the United States to press Wilson, but it was noticeable that none of them were noticeable.it returned.
Maytorena barely needed Madero's warning. He had experience in the dyspeptic village of old and the last thing he wanted was to see the centaur in Sonora; he knew very well what his life and that of the other oligarchs were worth. entered Sonora in September, Maytorena also fled to the United States, as did Rafael Buelna, leader of the villains in Tepic. Anything was better than a paranoid village in full flight. great loss, but he was devastated when his old comrade Rosalio Hernandez, one of the inner circles and a veteran of Paredon, Torreon and Zacatecas, went to Carranza. The last straw was Urbina's defection. lackluster performance. Imitating his master by making continual irrational accusations in April and May, Urbina was finally defeated at El Ebano on the outskirts of Tampico, when the defenders routed the villains, sustaining one victim for every seven villas. Villa could forgive military failure, however. but not insolence and affronts to his honor. Urbina finally moved into forbidden territory. For Villa, it was a bridge too far, and he bent on revenge.
Urbina, venal and money-loving, was what Villa was often accused of being: a super-bandita. At his hacienda in Las Nieves, he amassed an enormous fortune from theft, confiscation, extortion, and kidnapping. He owned 300,000 sheep, vast herds of horses and mules, fifty-four bars of gold, and masses of jewels hidden in the Hacienda grounds. Villa has so far ignored all complaints about Urbina, even when it was reported that Urbina was plundering rather than fighting Carranza, but the The breaking point came when Villa decided to execute Urbina Borboa's second-in-command for murder. Urbina not only refused to give up on him, but responded insolently to Villa. privilege" of Urbina's execution. A fierce gun battle ensued at the Hacienda, as Soo Villistas overpowered Urbina's men. privately with him for a long time. The frustrated Fierro saw Villa seemingly on the verge of forgiving Urbina. Villa made to leave and ordered Fierro to take Urbina to headquarters. Fierro took Villa aside and whispered in his ear, reminding him of his promise that Fierro could 'have' Urbina. Villa agreed that this was the only solution. On the way back to Parral Fierro stopped the train, took Urbina out and executed him in his usual cold-blooded manner.
Urbin's execution was very popular among the other villalist leaders, who have always resonated from the bias of Villa for him.However, Urbin's gold turned out to be as powerful as the pile in Pardoner's Tale de Chaucer or Traven's treasure in Sierra Madre.Villa delegated the task of finding the gold bars to an officer named Ramirez, saying he would divide the fifty percent treasure with him.Ramirez used a great ability to locate the ingots - sunk in various wells - but then reflected that Villa would probably kill him so as not to have to share his withdrawal.He deserted to the frowns, bringing them the gold, offering them fifty percent in exchange for amnesty.The frowns agreed, then they betrayed Ramirez, leaving him with nothing.
Launched by all the desertions, Villa left for Sonora. Sometimes the 50, the Division Ebululient del Norte, which had won Torreon and Zacatecas, was now reduced to 12, demoralized troops, with little money, ammunition and food; many remained in the armyJust for fear of what Villa would do to their families if they designed. They also had to walk or walk the mountain steep tickets that connect Chihuahua and Sonora - there were no railways - and the walk through Sierra Mother became a real painful way.Manhauling wagons through cold difficulties, with little water on the way and without Haciandas in the March line, where they could revise, the men suffered abominably and were also deprived of Villa's orders that all women had to be behind in Chihuahua.
The only event to lighten the men's hearts was the death of Fierro, the butcher. While negotiating the treacherous mountain ranges, on October 14, 1915, Fierro arrived at the Lagoa de Casas Grandes. gold. When his men seemed reluctant to enter the muddy waters, Fierro spurred his horse forward. To his horror, he soon found himself in quicksand and called his men to fetch a rope and pull him out. Fierro was hated universally, so some of his men prolonged his agony by seeming to help, but deliberately climbing the nooses. would save. No one lifted a finger and all eyes were filled with delight as the loathed assassin slowly sank beneath the sands.
It had been a bad year for heavy killers: first dead urbine, now fierro.Then came more dramatic news with Grim Reaper.In the spring of 1915, when Villa confronted Obergon, the exiled dictator Huerta thought he saw a chance of restoration and departed from exile in Spain to the United States.He departed from New York to El Paso to plan a new uprising with Pascual Orozco, waiting for a counterrevolutionary core around the hordes of exiled generals, landowners, politicians and other displeased Mexican emigrants, possibly with the help of Germany.However, the German factor was also in the minds of the federal agents of the United States, who attacked when Orozco met Huerta in New Mexico.Orozco escaped and remained at large for two months before being located and shot dead by Texas Rangers.Huerta was arrested for five months in Fort Bliss, taciturn, drunk and sick.He died in January 1916, after undergoing two surgical operations.The official cause of death was the combined effect of jaundice, cirrhosis and gallstones, but there were persistent rumors that Americans had poisoned him.He was buried next to Orozco in the Concordia Cemetery.
Villa came to sound for another disaster.Carranza and Obergon, guessing their intentions, sent two armies to invade Sonora, one by sea and the other via Sinaloa.Sonorenses, slaughtered with Maytarena's escape to the United States, offered no resistance.The result was that, after all his efforts on the mountains, Villa found Carranza in possession of the capital, Hermosillo, and the main port, Guaymas.Bitterly disappointed, he felt that he had no choice, for reasons of credibility, except to proceed with his plan to attack the 13,000 -men grabbing garrison in Priet water.The plan has always been a lost hope, for in the meantime Woodrow Wilson had recognized Carranza as the legitimate ruler of Mexico and allowed him to reinforce Prieta water sending coahuila troops to sound through the American territory.This is how Celaya's veterans arrived at Agua Prieta via Arizona, eager for another gap in the man they had humiliated in April.
Not knowing any of these reinforcements, Villa approached the attack on Agua Prieta. In November, he gave an interview to an American reporter, full of Bombast and Braggadocio, that Martin Guzman, secretary of the villa and biographer reported as follows:
Reporter: General Villa, will you attack Agua Priet?
Villa: Yes, and the United States if necessary.
REPORTER: When?
VILLA: I decide that.
Reporter: How many cannons do you have?
Villa: Tell them when they are roaring.
It was a pity for Villa that Calles, one of Obergon's best generals, commanded in Agua Priet.Like his mentor, a master in planning, detailing and ground, Calles had built a labyrinthine defense of moats, fences, trenches, barbed wire, mines and machine guns nests.Villa tried to nullify this with one of his famous night attacks, but Calles was ready for it and lit a battery of spotlight.In the beams that intersect, the villalists were easy prey.After just three hours of bloody struggle, 223 lay dead around the trenches.Villa, never able to recognize that he had been defeated in a fair struggle, was adamant about the fact that the spotlight was launched on the Battlefield on the American side of the border, and his hatred for Woodrow Wilson grew.Calles laconically wrote to Obergon: "The head of attack forces did not fulfill his pompous promises from the night before."
Villa somehow managed to overhear Calles' scornful remarks about him. Days later, in an act of transmogrified revenge, he killed all sixty men in the small town of San Pedro de la Cuevas, supposedly because so many of them bore the patronymics. There could be more to the incident than that. Villista's sources say villagers fired at Villa's men, mistaking them for bandits, and that Villa ordered the massacre in retaliation. He would hear nothing of 'mistakes'; and all, conveniently, favored Carranza. He spared some men at the intercession of the parish priest, on the express condition that the priest not trouble him again. Seven men were said to have survived under the corpses and by faking death.
However, however many reverses he sustained, Villa simply would not give up. Upon hearing that 2,000 Yaquis once loyal to Maytorena were ready to join him, he decided to attack Hermosillo. Leaving 6, ooo men to cover him against a surprise from Agua Prieta, he charged southwest and attacked the Sonoran capital, incredibly still using the discredited method of frontal cavalry charges. As Hermosillo was heavily defended with trenches and machine gun nests, it was not surprising that he was more once defeated with heavy losses. The Carrancistas then cut the ground of Under Villa by a mass kidnapping of the families of the Yaquis; The Yaquis relented, deserted the villa and reached an agreement with Carranza to save their loved ones. the second army he had left behind to stop a sneak attack from Agua Prieta was defeated twice, at El Fuerte and Jaguara. Now there was nothing more to it, except that the Villa returned in defeat and degraded to Chihuahua.
The crossing back from Sierra Mother was even more terrible than going.Men fell into cracks and ravines, abandoned artillery in snow hills and deserted it to the thousands.Villa returned to the city of Chihuahua on December 17;This time there was no sweeping welcome to him, just a ten of his golden escort.With only 2,000 men now, he continued to live in a fantasy world and summoned his commanders to discuss another great campaign against Obergon.For his stunning, one by one generals spoke against him, denouncing his ideas as dangerous illusions and, in fact, going on strike.Almost speechless, Villa made an emotional appeal to them and offered to renounce the position of boss.To his horror, his commanders ignored histrionism and seemed very happy exactly with the result.Finally convinced of the severity of the situation through a private conversation, Villa announced that all who wanted to leave it could do so;Meanwhile, he would provide the peaceful surrender of the city of Chihuahua and Ciudad Juarez.
Villa spent his final days in Chihuahua City executing all those of his followers whom he suspected wanted to seek refuge in the United States. He almost had Silvestre Terrazas executed on suspicion of probing Carranza, but Silvestre was visibly loyal and was able to prove it to Villa. Paranoia was now a dominant aspect of Villa's psychology. He was convinced that he had lost to Obregon only because he had been betrayed, and harbored fantasies of betrayal, fueled by the many instances in which he had actually been abandoned. Before executing Mateo Almanza, a Villista who had defected to Eulalio Gutierrez in early 1915, Villa told him that the firing squad was too good for him, so he would die by hanging. Possibly the 'we've been robbed' fantasy was Villa's only way to keep his purchase in reality; he could rationalize his catastrophic failure in 1915 on the basis that all of his mishaps occurred because someone had let him down or betrayed him.
The last days of December 1915 also saw the last days of the once mighty Division del Norte. At a conference at Hacienda de Bustillos, Villa made one last attempt to persuade his generals to stand with him and fight. All but four of the twenty-seven present shortly afterwards made peace with Carranza. Obregon entered into negotiations with these generals for the peaceful surrender of Ciudad Juarez, offering amnesty to all Villistas except Villa himself, his brother Hipólito, and thirteen high-ranking Villista bureaucrats. No fewer than forty generals, 5,046 officers and 11,128 soldiers took advantage of Obregon's offer of amnesty and draft pay. Many of them, including Panfilo Natera, promptly joined Carranza's army and fought their former comrades.
Chihuahua was now a wasteland, full of the wounded, desperate and starving. There were signs of a Hobbesian war of all against all, with kidnapping, murder and rape all at epidemic levels. their whims, and retreated to the mountain rapids to overcome a precarious life as individual bandits or guerrillas. They may have opted for Carranza, but many local Carrancista commanders used the pretext of amnesty to invite villains to Parleys and then killed them. That's how Calixto Contreras, once Zapata's white hope among villains, became the local Caudillo in Cuencame; Tiburcio Cuevas raised as a warlord dominating the area between Durango and Mazatlan; and Miguel Canales became the new boss Durango's bandit. Sometimes these men turned the tables on the treacherous Carrancistas by offering to surrender and then slaughtering the enemy when they reached the rendezvous to accept surrender.
Centaur himself and his handful of retainers went to the mountains of Chihuahua, with the intention of making guerrilla war until the inevitable happens and Obergon and Carranza began to fight each other. Some Villa's biographers think they made it with relief,Glad to be back in the hills with their most loyal followers, no longer overloaded with state and high politics.From the years, but went to Sierras with only Hardcore hurt. This meteoric rise and fall was a case of anomie and convulses many difficult individuals; in fact, he was an Iron Man. In three years, he went from guerrilla fighter to the height.of power and back. No one could have guessed that he was about to launch a venture that would make him first page news worldwide.
The punitive expedition
Whatever his qualities as a visionary and leader, Zapata was not a political. What a belief passes that while Villa was involved in his titanic struggle with Obergon and Carranza, Zapata should have spent his time transforming burn into a laboratory for agrarian reform, as if he lived on some cut from the rest of the world. Naturally, the temptation was great to do something about what John Womack called "the utopia of a free clan association," but Zapata's political myopia was flagrant.He not only became interested in any interest in Villa's campaigns, but could barely be bothered by events in Mexico City, right at his door. At one point, Zapata acted out of pique because the convention was still the official sovereign body.Ombora Gutierrez has come from the capital with Io, men, he left behind villalist Roque Gonzalez de la Garza as his provisional representative - he was endorsed as a provisional president by the 1915 New Year Convention Croup.Palafox and Soto y Gama and was permanently locked in combat with them, Zapata self-destructively assumed the line that Mexico City was mainly the business of the convention.
For twelve months, from August 1914 to August 1915, Mexico City went through its darker hours. At first, he was subjected to the Draconian sanctions of Obergon, after a blessed interlude when the innocuous Zapatistas traveled to the streets, there was the reignof terror of Villa. So, from January 28, 1915 to 11 March, the capital was again in the hands of Obergon.Wild persecution to the Catholic Church and calmed down its priests and bishops - there was always something crazy and unbalanced in Obergon's anticlericalism, although the church gave substantial hostages to fortune for its Craven attitude before 1910.The occupation of six weeks ofObregon of the capital was the scarcity of hunger and water, caused by the zapatist blockage. When the Zapatists exploded the pumping station in Xochimilco, the water was rationed at one hour of supply per day. Sewage and sanitation problems became acuteand cholera threatened. The struggle for daily existence was exacerbated by the constant change of occupation forces, all of which ruled the currency of their predecessors illegal; therefore, there were no continuous and reliable means of exchange.
So terrible was life in Mexico City during the second term of Obergon that, when he withdrew on March 11, to move north, to Querearero, for the Adjustment of Accounts with Villa, the Zapatists who arrived were receivedas Libertadores.The bells of the churches played as if they were for the Libertadores and, at first, life improved, as the Zapatists restored the water supply and raised the block for food to reach the capital.However, this time the men of Zapata did not come as naive rednecks.They had learned the customs of the city and were less complacent.More sudden now in their demands of food and money, they began to imitate villalists in meaningless withdrawals.Churches, private mansions, gentlemen clubs, libraries, museums and art galleries were stripped of their precious artifacts, not for resale in the market, but simply by vandalism.Horse lovers, the Zapatistas made a clean scan through the city's stables and aura.Soon the citizens of the capital complained that the men of Zapata were no better than those of Obergon or the villalists.In his nest in Morelos, Zapata seemed carefree with the disgusting acts committed on his behalf.He ordered a stop only when a trigger soldier killed an American citizen who resisted a demand for money with threats.To calm Woodrow, Wilson Zapata had to purge his troops and pay compensation for the murder.
Mostly, however, his mind was elsewhere. In his thirst in an old rice factory in the village of Tlastizapan, he presided over the new experiment with local democracy and community property.Land disputes, making minor loans to farmers, even arbitrating men and women on sexual issues. At night, he liked to chew fat with his companions, drinking brandy, chewing his always present cigar, discussing the most delicate points of the mood,Women, Horses and Gamecocks. During the day, he checked with Palafox about the best way to promote his social revolution. Palafox often traveled to Mexico City after March, as he was officially secretary of agriculture at the convention's office.Like the brain behind the details of agrarian reform in Morelos, he was already attracting hostility, from hedonists who hate his work addict, from male zapatistas who despised him for being homosexual and, above all, from the Americans, who, alarmed byIts determination will divide all hacings, even those owned by the US, considered it a dangerous radical. The true power of power in brunettes was tripartite, running between Zapata as the supreme chief of the revolution, Palafox as secretary of agriculture and genvevo de la 0,The new governor of Morelos.
Zapata worked on two main principles. One of them was always to support village leaders against professionals. Even when specialized researchers and agronomists trained by the university said the village's old borders were not meaningful, Zapata always insisted that the village's opinion prevailed.The other principle was that the civilian must always have precedence about the military. Invitably, during a four -year military struggle, the original village leaders had lost their place to quasiprofessional soldiers, but now that Morelos finally had peace - would be the peaceonly interlude throughout the period 191st -19 - was the village elders to reaffirm their authority.
Palafox himself would have enjoyed total blood socialism to supplant Zapata's old -fashioned commune.He designated ninety -five graduates to agrarian committees, who should distribute land in Guerrero, Puebla, Mexico State, Federal District and Morelos. The biggest emphasis was on Moreos, where no less than forty -one of these graduates were employed, based onCuernavaca. The postgraduate commissioners examined the land titles, established border disputes and clearly marked the limits of the land of each village. Once resolved what was the extension of the land of a village, the village could decide as itCommon land with the rights of the user or divided it and give individual title to small farmers; Zapata's line was that only the local custom should decide this result. No one could sell or rent any of these lands, thus preventing the possibility of collusion betweenspeculators and corrupt residents.
All lands entering the public domain through confiscation was allocated by Palafox. Private property of properties not occupied by owners was prohibited, and all forms of projected profit projected rather than use could be expropriated.Palafox's socialism meant that the return to even moderate liberal planters was impossible. Its expropriation of sugar factories and distilleries particularly annoyed by La Garza, president of the convention, who resonates from the Zapatist pretensions to the partnership with the villains andThey thought they did not have the right to put so much emphasis on earthly reform when they were not pulling their weight in the military struggle. Zapata informed La Garza, through Palafox and Soto y Gama, that Villa's campaigns were the means and land reform of the purposes. Has he lost sight of this? Besides, he could not open a second front in the south if Villa would not send him his arms and the promised ammunition at the Xochimilco conference.
Zapata showed little interest in the frantic Mexico City fight between De La Garza and Palafox during May and June - which on one occasion saw the two nearly come out. There. A further concern for him was their inability to generate an economic surplus. Despite his exhortations to produce exports for the market, the residents of Morelos, left their own devices, adopted the line of least resistance, and grew merely subsistence. , he felt moderately content with the social progress of his revolution. The army was decentralized and transformed into self-defense units, operating in a structure of cells, each based in an individual village and ready to melt into the countryside if a very powerful enemy attacked.
Zapata was expelled from her utopian developing in July II, when, after the final victory of Obergon in Trinidad, Pablo Gonzalez occupied Mexico City, forcing the convention to retire in Toluca.Obregon's lines of communication, and the Zapatistas returned briefly, it was clear that, with the defeat of Villa, Gonzalez had the hand of the whip and could return to the capital whenever he would choose. After, Zapata woke up and sent 6, oooMen in a flank attack on the northeast of Mexico City on July 30. However, on August 2, with the threat of the Fierro Cavalry Raiders, and Villa in the north -headed retreat, Gonzalez returned toEntering the capital, and this time, he's here to stay. Zapata still remained incredibly complacent, seemingly setting his hopes at an inter -American conference in Washington that he somehow found to lead Carranza. He also seems to have sheltered Villa's illusionThat Obergon and his general would turn immediately and surrender Carranza, perhaps even signing up at the convention. As Zapata saw, asking for immediate mobilization was to skip the weapon.
Too late, he realized the danger he was in and attacked on a broad front in September, pushing into the State of Mexico and the federal district. However, although he took many towns, and even the Necaxa power plant that supplied Mexico City's electricity, he was unable to hold on to his gains. Difficult by the Carrancistas, the Zapatista bosses in Puebla and the State of Mexico began to accept amnesties from Carranza. With the Villa in full flight, the convention finally accepted that there was outlived its usefulness and curled up in October IO. In Cuernavaca, Palafox futilely transferred its "sovereignty" to Zapata himself as the one and only legitimate head of the revolution. worth recognizing Carranza's government and embarking on all arms sales to its enemies.
Even in the fall of 1915, Zapata remained incredibly complacent. He thought that Carranza would have a short-lived phenomenon like Huerta and would continue to raid a wide area from Oaxaca to Hidalgo. He now had a plethora of unit leaders, some of whom commanded bands from thirty to 200 strong, capable of fighting a mobility war and even a cavalry Blitzkrieg against Carranza. over Morelos. Social experiment was stopped as one by one the land commissioners released their posts.
Paranoia and suspicion were suffering Zapatista's movement now, just as they were with the villains in the north. The brother looked suspiciously to his brother; the Genovevo de la 0 told Zapata that the telegraph operators were cheating on all their secrets toCarranza. Each time more bosses, especially in the state of Mexico and the Federal District, accepted the amnesty of Carranza, rewarding the gateway to even wider open brunettes. In December 1915, Zapata tried a four-point counter-profile,Using four armies of 2-3, ooo each.morelos, south and central from Puebla, the state of southern Mexico and the Federal District were the arenas for fierce combat, as bloody attacks were fought with certain incursions of tick in the heart of breens.More once, Genovevo de la 0 proved to be Zapata's best general. Carranza troops made a surprise from Acapulco and at first swept everything before them, taking chilpance and exploding and exploding in brunettes.He returns after a brilliant against -a bright in Guerrero that took him to the gates of Acapulco until the end of December.
In early 1916, Carranza concentrated all her energies to destroy Zapata forever.He tried to steal his clothes by offering agrarian reform to Morelos;He purited from his army all the former feeders who had acted as Zapata's fifth column;He added 20,000 more soldiers to his army of brunettes, totaling 30,000 men;and even brought air squads to expel the Zapatists from their hiding places in the mountains.Zapata responded with an inflamed and uncompromising manifesto, hoping to gather brunettes, but many zapatist chiefs wanted to bargain to avoid devastation on the scale achieved by Robles and Huerta.Betrayal, betrayal and fraud were everywhere in the air, poisoning the atmosphere of alleged social utopia.
Extraordinarily treacherous was the Zapatista chief Francisco Pacheco. In March, Zapata authorized him to sound out Pablo Gonzalez, whom Zapata wanted to bribe or murder, but Pacheco betrayed Zapata and hatched his own plans with Gonzalez. Genovevo de la 0 detected Pacheco in his treachery and alerted Zapata, who at first refused to believe him. Soon there was no possibility of denial, as Pacheco without warning or authorization abandoned Huitzilac for González, allowing him to stay a short distance from Cuernavaca. Although de la 0 temporarily saved the crumbling front, the gravity of the situation was clear. In fact, Pacheco had the imprudence to complain to Zapata about de la O's supposed betrayal before finally revealing his hand openly in capturing Jojutla for Gonzalez. In his moment of triumph, he was captured by de la O's guards and summarily executed.
Events now moved quickly against Zapata. On the eve of a massive spring offensive by the Carrancistas, he lost one of his most important commanders when Amador Salazar was shot dead by a sniper. Then all hell broke loose. his massive army of 30,000 men and took Cuernavaca on May 2nd; Zapata barely made his escape well. May, he felt confident enough to telegraph Carranza that he had completed his mission. Gonzalez taught the lesson that he intended to be another Robles or Huerta. He executed 225 prisoners at Jiutepec on May 8 and sent back 1,300 refugees, who sought sanctuary in Guerrero, to Mexico City, to be dragged off for forced labor in the Yucatan. The last gasp of the defunct utopia came in mid-June 1916, when Gonzalez took Zapata's headquarters in Tlaltizapan. He sacked and sacked the city and executed more 286 people, including 112 women and forty-two children. Beaten and disheartened, the remaining Zapatistas took to the hills. Zapata and Villa, who had held it just over a year earlier in Mexico City, were now guerrillas on the run in the mountains.
By the fall of 1915, Woodrow Wilson had reluctantly decided that he had no choice but to recognize the Carranza government in Mexico. be followed here, but in August - when the Conference of Ministers of Ministers of Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, Guatemala) met under the aegis of US Secretary of State Robert Lansing - Wilson still hoped he could secure the emergence of a third candidate, neither Carranza nor Villa, as Mexico's next president. This was the conference at which Zapata established so much lodge. his inauguration and Villa and Zapata were on the back foot. Carranza remained dogged and uncompromising towards Washington, but won the support of US business, unions and influential journalists like Lincoln Steffens. After trying in vain to wring special concessions from Carranza, Wilson grudgingly recognized the state of the game and extended recognition in fact; De Jure did not follow until March 1917. All major countries followed the American leader: Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Italy, Spain and greater part of Latin America.
Wilson had no illusions about Carranza's anti -Americanism, but recognition now seemed the simplest common sense.After all, Carranza (or rather his General Obergon) defeated Villa and made explicit promises in particular about the protection of American property.(In public, he strictly refused to make any concessions.) Wilson wanted to focus his energies into the critical situation in Europe and was particularly concerned about Mexico's penetration by spies and German agents.
Villa considered Carranza's recognition for Wilson as the most black ingratitude.He issued a manifesto with violent words, stating that Carranza's recognition for Wilson was a quid pro quo for massive concessions of Carranza, which equivalent to turning Mexico into an American colony.The bitterness practically drips from each Sardonic cadence: 'I emphatically declare that I have much to thank Mr.Wilson, because he is exempt from the obligation to give guarantees to foreigners and especially those who have been free citizens and are today vassals of an evangelical teacher of philosophy ... I am not responsible for future events. '
After the defeat at Agua Prieta, which Villa blamed on the spotlight on the American side of the border, his rage, despair and paranoia knew no bounds. Two American doctors foolishly crossed the border to tend to the wounded Villista. In exchange for this mission of mercy, Villa threatened to kill them in retaliation for Wilson's betrayal and ingratitude, and lectured the doctors on their formerly pro-American attitude. Announcing that he intended to attack the border town of Douglas, Arizona, he raged: 'From this moment I will devote my life to the murder of every gringo I can get my hands on and the destruction of all gringo property.'
At the last moment, Villa forgave the doctors and did not fulfill their threat of attacking Douglas, but the anger did not disappear. Having lost to Obergon and Carranza, Villa moved his anger at Yanquis, focusing on the fact that they had embargoed inweapons and allowing Carranza troops to be transported by US territory to frustrate it in Priet. Villa seems to have believed in its own propaganda that Carranza's US recognition was part of a sinister plot by which Carranza wasHe agreed to give in to the railroads and oil fields of Mexico to the gringos. Villa also cynically calculated that playing the anti-American letter can relive its prestige and dying political movement. First time in the revolution, there was genuine anti-American xenophobia and yanquis nowHe joined the Spaniards and the Chinese in the demonology of the movement.
The force of Villa's rage against the United States in early 1916 has led some sober commentators to conclude that he was suffering from temporary insanity. Admittedly, a letter he wrote to Zapata on January 8 was more than curious. describing the master conspiracy by which Carranza and Wilson intended to dismember Mexico; the chicanery by which he had been defeated at Agua Prieta was part of it. He then admitted that Zapata was right to be so angry when Wilson sent the Marines to Veracruz in 1914 And why did he withdraw them just as Carranza was about to get there, almost as if by pre-established harmony? Did he imagine that Zapata consented to operate in the north, when he always made it clear that he was only interested in the Patria Chica de Morelos? Why would Zapata automatically share his mania about Wilson? through Carranza-controlled territory for a quixotic attack on the Americans? None of this is rational, but it does indicate Villa's manic desire to go for the Yanqui jugular.
Villa soon showed he meant business. On IG January 1916, seventy villains under Pablo Lopez stopped a train traveling between Chihuahua City and the US-owned cusihuiriachic mine on the Santa Ysabel River. of mining. Lopez ordered the train left at the mercy of his Mauser cut-off girls. Within minutes, seventeen were dead, riddled with bullets; only one survived, through feigned death. When the news filtered over the border there was outrage , and Wilson came under extreme pressure to send military units into Mexico. Villa publicly claimed that the commander had exceeded orders, and Lopez himself said that he only intended to rob the Americans, but that when they fled his men lost their minds and opened fire on them. Clearly, Lopez was lying, but did he order the massacre on his own initiative or on Villa's orders? Villa himself renounced responsibility and to "prove" executed two of his officers and displayed their bodies publicly in Ciudad Juarez. The problem was that the dead man displayed in Juarez, who allegedly ordered the murder, was Jose Rodriguez; The real culprit, Pablo Lopez, was one of Villa's new favorites, so he was protected. Despite Villa's protests about "exceeding orders" , the likelihood is that Lopez had actually received Villa's nod, and was acting under a general mandate from him to attack the Americans.
The day before the Santa Ysabel massacre, Villa gathered his 200 donors and said his next target was presidency, the US border city alongside Ojinaga.with great desertions. In January 30, the villa was curved to the inevitable and aborted the mission. To avoid further desertion, the next day he stopped a train and allowed his men to come out of will; the wave of desertions suddenly dried.Ojinaga disaster convinced Villa that if he attacked us targets, he could no longer trust his men. He decided to write men to special and unspecified missions and, to this end, sent his Cervantes Candelario Advisor to his hometown,Namiquipa, to give an omen to all the villalist's former rides. After dragging his quota, Villa has refrained to tell them where they were going, but simply threatened to throw at their families if they deserted.
Having trained and prepared his heterogeneous strength, Villa left on February 24 for an unknown destination. In his expeditionary force, there were two regiments, a graduate of veterans from Chihuahua, the other a mixed outfit that contains Durango men, sound (including someYaquis) and the most distant from Mexico. Dunant two weeks, the Force marched towards the US border by remote regions, moving mainly at night, so that they could not find tasting patrols. The few Mexican civilians they met were arrestedSo they could not give an alarm, but any American found was treated approximately. Villa performed three American cowboys who simply had the bad luck to meet him since his previous days; he also captured a woman named Maude Wight, but kept her with themEven after the attack. Finally, on March 8, Villa learned that he was just six kilometers from his target: Columbus, New Mexico, an indistinct city of a few hundred inhabitants living in wooden shacks.
Why did Villa attacked Columbus? Four very different reasons were suggested, in increasing order of probability. It was stated that the attack was an act of purely personal revenge, because Villa had a grudge against a columbus weapon trafficker named Sam Ravel.Ravel assumed the money as an advance against the delivery of a remittance of weapons and then returned to the agreement. The favor of the story is the fact that during the attack on Colombo, the villains destroyed Ravel property before retiring;The strange fact that Villa's original target was Presidio, which he chose Columbus only as a PIS Aller after the mass desertion fiasco in the ojinaga march.
A more ingenious idea is that Villa was a pawn in the invisible hands. Usual candidates offered for consideration are US commercial interests or the Germans.Lost Lives simply to provoke Woodrow Wilson to order an occupation of Sonora and Chihuahua, where their capital assets were. Although it is not necessarily impossible in this score, the founders of theory in Villa's extreme and foolish anti -Americanism: it is simply implausible that, in hisStaff, he would have conspired with any gringo, no matter why. Germans are more promising as conspirators. The reason would be to join the US in Mexico and make it impossible for her to intervene in the war in Europe on the ally side; also to harm themGun sales to Britain and France, as weapons and ammunition would be necessary for US Expeditionary Force in Mexico. It is true that Germany was in favor in general terms to make Villa attack the US and support it after ColomboBut there is no evidence or evidence that they have established or fostered the attack. In addition, it was likely that the state department could read such transparent intentions and therefore refrain from intervention, thus ruining the whole plot.
The third option is that Villa acted alone.It is possible that he acted by pure impulse and totally spontaneous - that the attack on Colombo was simply his personal satisfaction for the insult offered by Carranza's recognition by Wilson - but, more plausibly, he probably intended to provoke intervention by the United States and discredit Carranza intervention..So far, Villa alone has invested massively against the Yankee: if they invaded, he would be right and his advertising statement that Wilson and Carranza were in secretly vindicated secret partnership.Fourthly, it is possible that he really believed that the US intended to attach Mexico in due time, and found it better to start the war on this issue here and now, instead of the future.
On paper, Columbus looked like an attack on the villains. Amazingly, there were horses, machine guns and springfield rifles, money -filled seats, food -filled stores and only fifty soldiers to defend everything. However, when Villa himself did a recognition ofCity, he found that his spies were seriously deceiving him. There were no fifty troops in the garrison there, but 6oo. He returned, doubtful about the company, but this time were his commanders who convinced Villa.Attack after arriving so far, men would abandon in mass. Villa shrugged and gave the order to attack from the night of March 8 to 9. He went to his 400 fighters and said the attack was revenge for Agua Priet.To will throw them, he mentioned the many cases in the lower Rio Grande Valley in recent weeks, when the Chicians were lynched by the gringos, and the notorious incident in El Paso, where twenty Mexicans were removed from kerosene and burning alive.He said, 'The United States want to swallow Mexico; Let's see if it is not stuck in the throat.
Villa then shared his forces, detailing a section to attack the southern part of the city and attack the garrison in Camp Furlong, while the other boiled in the center of Colombo, there to steal the bench, kill Sam Ravel and intelligently its properties;remained on the Mexican side of the border with a small reserve. The attack was at 4:45.The garrison was completely in surprise, although there were repeated warnings that Villa could try such an adventure. Nem General John J. "Blackjack" Pershing, commanding all American troops on the Mexican border, nor commander of the Herbert J Garrison JSloocum, took the warnings seriously. Not only the garrison was not placed on alert, but the police were routinely allowed to return home to their wives. In that regard to Sloocum, Villa was coming to Columbus, he seemed to think thatHe was coming alone to look for asylum and explain that the Santa Ysabel massacre had nothing to do with him.
Although Camp Furlong was taken by surprise, the two policemen on duty managed to rally their men, aided by a colossal mistake by the villains. ' with rifle fire, they killed horses instead of soldiers. Once the American defenders opened up with machine gun fire, the villains won a hasty retreat, but not before there had been some bloody hand-to-hand encounters, especially in the bathroom. .When the villains invaded the kitchens, the cooks attacked them with axes, knives and boiling water; A Mexican died after being hit with a baseball bat.
Meanwhile, in the center of Columbus, there was a panic when the invaders arrived shitting wildly and shouting: 'Live Villa!Live Mexico! 'They broke into Sam Ravel's commercial hotel and killed four guests, one of whom opened fire on the looters, but they couldn't find a ravel - not surprisingly, as he had gone to El Paso to see his dentist.His brother Louis managed to bury himself under a pile of skins, but the villalists found another brother, Arthur, fifteen, and threatened him with death if he did not reveal the combination in the Ravel vault.The young man was genuinely ignorant of this, so the invaders took him across the street to the Commercial Hotel.Later, when they left the hotel, the boy's captors were shot by US snipers.The boy fled into the night, unharmed.
Soon the American troops in two separate detachments were converging to the Columbus Center, a unit with machine guns and the other composed by the best snipers. In darkness before dawn, it was difficult to counterattack or distinguish the civil invaders., the villains made the mistake of setting the Central Hotel, which had the effect of illuminating the combat; the American troops were able to open clear targets. At 7:30 am, the horn sounded the retreat and the villains withdrew in good order.Americanas crossed the border in persecution, but found strong resistance from Villa reserves and returned to Columbus. Especially civilians, mainly civilians, were killed in the scams and about oo. In the short term, the attack was a failure, as Villa left withoutBank weapons, stores or money. However, long -term repercussions of this first foreign invasion of US territory since 1812 would give it a new life lease.
The Columbus attack caused a sensation in the United States. Woodrow Wilson was up for election in the fall and an angry and enraged Congress forced him to act. Wilson himself was reluctant to intervene in Mexico, as he thought it was to play the game. de Villa and Germany, but after discussions with his cabinet, who unanimously urged military action, he grudgingly accepted that something had to be done. Several points were made by the Secretary of State and others. There was the obvious argument that, unless something was done, Villa would be tempted, almost invited, to attack US mainland again. The government's credibility in Latin America and Europe was also at stake; one fear in particular expressed that inaction would encourage Germany to step up its submarine campaign in the Atlantic. The most compelling of all the arguments, however, was that a poor response would hand the Republicans the 1916 presidential election on a plate.
Wilson still needed to make sure he would not be dragged to a large -scale war with Mexico, which would prevent him from intervening in the war in Europe.He contacted Carranza, explaining his dilemma and assuring him that any expedition sent south of the border was not a prelude to a broader attachment at the United States.Carranza was prepared to accept a small expeditionary force sent to the south with the limited goal of looking for and destroying Villa - he even cited the precedent of American -Mexican collaboration against Apaches in the 1880s - since he received a guarantee of a guarantee ofthat Mexico the sovereignty and dignity of the Mexican people would be respected.Wilson gave the necessary guarantees.On March 1st, he ordered General Pershing to bring 5,000 men to Mexico to find and extir villa and his pack.
On March 15, Pershing crossed Rio Grande with three brigades. His was the classic mission impossible. To get Villa, he had to combat a counter -inspection war, and that meant burning villages, taking reprisals, throwing prisoners.Sooner or later, this should involve collision with Carranza's armies, especially since Carranza made it clear that she would not actively cooperate with what was known as the "punitive expedition."Carranza was inevitable. War plans were elaborated, which imagined the naval blockade of all Mexican ports and the military occupation of Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas; for this huge task, no less than 250,000 soldiers were intended for planningcontingency.Wilson also had a dollar jolly chest with which he planned to recruit a Quisoling army to combat Carranza; from this fifth column, he expected a future Mexican, US -friendly president to emerge.
Supplying the Pershing expedition was a logistical nightmare. Two hundred trucks were commandeered to carry supplies south from Columbus along an ever-widening supply line. American pioneers were bent on building a road into the heart of Chihuahua, as so-called roads were so bad that trucks almost never managed to get into first gear. For the troops themselves, the worst difficulty was the desert climate, where men fried and roasted at midday in temperatures of over thirty degrees. Exhausted, dehydrated, their lungs choked with dust during the day, the soldiers had to endure Arctic conditions at night, when the water in their canteens froze. The march was so grueling that Pershing had to allow a ten-minute stop for every hour of walking. The knights threw away their antiquated regulation sabers in disgust, expressing the wish that they could have been water bottles.
In late March, Pershing was deeply in western Chihuahua, already 350 miles from the border. Carranza continued to follow a difficult line in public, inflexible that he would not allow the expedition to be replenished by rail, but particular conniving with the trickFrom the hand by which the new supplies were sent from the US, not for the expedition as such, but to appoint names in it. However, although Pershing has been well provided, he could advance with a dark or hostile population.Chihuahua, Ignacio Enriquez, urged the people to support Americans, but they conspicuously did not. In difficult and unknown land, Pershing was at the mercy of goodwill and local know-how, but residents did not cooperate, refusing toSelling anything to the invaders or even giving the most elementary directions. The hired guides at large costs invariably led to Pershing away from Villa, and the inhabitants continually fed the disinformation of Americans. Perseing began the long series of epistolar complaints for Washington who would consumemost of their energies in 1916.
However, even with the active and passive support of Chihuahua, Villa's position was dangerous.In late March, Pershing commanded 7,000 soldiers and an air squad of eight aircraft, and was assisted in his scan by Carranza's commanders.While villalists retreated to the mountains, morals in the ranks was low;Nothing seemed to have been reached and they could not even stop to take care of their injured.The inevitable bitter recriminations burst out among the lieutenants of Villa, with Cervantes and Nicolas Fernandez blaming the other for the disaster.However, Villa, for his pure force of personality, charisma and fear he inspired, kept his band together.With each passing Pueblo, Villa Airção was the villagers, calling on them to resist the Yankee, as Mexico and the United States were at war.There was a particularly warm response in the village of Galeana, where residents took Villa's wounded out of their hands and took care of them so that their progress was not prevented by ineffective.The only concern was that there were few recruits to his flag and he was forced to press new 'volunteers'.
There were signs that Villa was beginning to win hearts and minds with his anti-gringo propaganda. On March 16, the Villains encountered a large force of Carrancista troops who likely finished them off, but the regulars mounted as if they were blindfolded. In the village of Matachic, there was a revolt by the garrison who demanded to be able to join the Villa and defend the sacred soil of Mexico against the YanQuis. There were many stories of Carranza's troops sheltering, hiding and even feeding the villains to save them from persecution. Pershing was hot. Carranza was angry at all these stories of collaboration and sent several reiterated 'search and destroy' orders to his commanders. On March 17, there was the first skirmish between Villa and Federal Forces. Ten days later, Villa fought back in force, taking Ciudad Guerrero and attacking the villages of Minaca and San Ysidro in the old Heartlands Orozco. The federal commander of San Ysidro beat the villains, then became overconfident and tried to retake Guerrero. took eighty prisoners and hundreds of weapons.
In the middle of the battle, however, Villa had suffered a bad wound on his right knee. In great pain, he could not walk and had to be carried in a litter. Perceiving how vulnerable he was, he decided to hide in an Eyrie daMountain until recovering, dispersing his men in small detachments in Chihuahua. The trip to the mountain hiding place was a nightmare. As he had to be with the roller coasting passages, and there was no doctor at hand, remedies or painkillers,Each step was an agony, to the point that the village often cry with pure pain, became delirious and jumped in and out of decoration. He made a provisional stop at the ranch of one of his commanders in the middle of the saint of Santa Ana, but he knewthat he would be found if he had been there for a long time.
Accompanied by only two men, the two cousins, he was caught on the back of a mule and took the top of the mountain to the cozmocate cave. The cousins then raised it in strings for the narrow entrance and like slit.Other escape heroes, Robert, Bruce, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Lord Byron, he lived as a hermit in a cave, hidden for seven weeks. All days, his comrades brought limited water and foods (mainly rice and sugar) toEntry of hidden caves, masked by leaves and branches. A day, from the villa of nest of Seu Crow, managed to see the perspective columns walk in the valley below. For two months, he knew nothing of what was happening in the outside world.Recovery of his wound was slow, as no doctor answered him, and the only breastfeeding he received was a gross sauce. The knee was bad and then the right leg was shorter than the left so that he hadthat walking with a shoe made especially.
Once he was ready to resume command, Villa tried to gather his men to a general meeting, but found that most detachments had been eliminated and most of his best lost officers.If he separated from him, Cervantes commanded a powerful detachment, but soon the casualties and desertions reduced his numbers to thirty. Colder then tried to find more recruits in his hometown, Namiquipa, but found residents there, he went crazy and fat in dollars, Ianques,Collaborating with Pershing and selling the vilists and their secrets. Nothing scared, Cervantes attacked one of the Pershing cavalry troops with his handful of followers and was killed in the fight. Another highlight of villalist, led by Julio Acosta, was poorly done by Americans inAzules; Although the acosta himself escaped, he left behind forty -three dead and dozens of injuries.
In two months, the number of casualties of the villa officers had been alarmingly high.Manuel Baca, another killer of the Fierro class, was massacred by angry villagers.Pablo Lopez, the villain of the Santa Ysabel massacre, was left behind injured in Columbus.Somehow, he survived seventy -two hours without food and water before surrendering to the frowns.They took him to the city of Chihuahua and performed an exemplary execution.Before he died, Lopez poured invaluable information about Villa to an Irish reporter.It is worth mentioning their words of challenge for the light that cast on Villa's magnetic domain over their followers:
I am but a poor ignorant farmhand, senor. My only education was gained by leading the oxen and following the plow. Yet when good Francisco Madero rose in arms against our despotic masters, I gladly answered his call. All of us we knew Pancho Villa - and who didn't? His exploits are told every night at every bonfire. He was the object of adoration for all who were on the heels of the oppressor. I join him and have been his faithful follower and worshiping slave ever since... I would rather die for my country in battle, but if it chooses to kill me, I will die as Pancho Villa would have me - with my head held high and my eyes unplundered. History will not be able to record that Pablo Lopez cowered on the brink of eternity.
Lopez made his feedback. He smiled on the way to the shot squad, smoked a last cigar, and when asked for his final desires, he asked all the Americans to be cleaned.Shooting Squad the order to fire. Lopez's bravery caused a deep impression, created a martyr and was instrumental to transform the Chihuahuans against Carranza, whom they now perceive more and more through Villa's eyes as a dog that drove Yankee.eraSignificantly, not even the $ 5th reward and the offered by Villa, dead or alive, could induce any traitor to lead Americans to cozmocate cave.
With the destruction of many of Villista's bands, by the end of April Wilson was under pressure to withdraw the punitive expedition - ironically by the self-named cabinet that originally convinced a reluctant president to send it. that Villa was now militarily neutralized, that it was not dignified for a sovereign state to pursue a lone bandit across the territory of another sovereign state. Tensions with Germany were rising, and it was clear that if the US wanted to go beyond the destruction of Villista's bands for the imposition of a friendly administration in Mexico City, would have to settle in a lasting conflict, involving all parties outside the war with Carranza.
However, Wilson stubbornly - and wrong - refused to remove the punitive expedition. He was reasoning was that the withdrawal now delivered all laurels to Carranza and would immensely strengthen his position, when he did not make satisfactory concessions to Washington.USA were pressing Pershing to remain in Mexico as a bargaining counter until Carranza gave them the economic and financial guarantees they wanted. Wilson, arguing that if Villa was not found, he could stag more attacks on US territory, suggested oneTreated to Carranza, for which he would remove Pershing in exchange for a clause that allowed the US to enter Mexico again at any future date without further need to consult Mexico City.
At this point, the alarms began to touch Carranza's brain, while he realized that the Americans intended to settle for a long stay. He was also concerned about the growing public perception that he was the Poodle of Yanquis, while Villa was the realNational Hero. In the beginning of May, his attitude toward punitive expedition has changed. He announced that Pershing would no longer be able to use the Mexican railroads to replenish their forces, even under the old wink and good arrangements., who had developed a relationship with General Hugh.scott, with well-known anti-American Luis Cabrera as his main negotiator with Washington. Cabrera demanded immediate US withdrawal with an implicit threat of war. While Carranza left her newspapers fromCollar. The principle, he encouraged them not to report the expedition, but in April he could no longer restrict them, especially since many local war lords in Chihuahua were deeply unhappy with collaboration policy.
Meanwhile, Pershing was reporting anti -Americanism by rising daily. When their troops went in parral on April 12, they were greeted by a furious crowd, shouting challenge and shouting: `Viva Villa!'In the fighters that followed two Americans and dozens of Mexicans were killed. Pershing cried out for the political restrictions in his campaign to be raised so that he could take the measures he was appropriate.Wilson refused and ordered him to withdraw northFrom Chihuahua, effectively discarding the possibility that Villa could be taken. Shitting the tightrope, Carranza only issued a great rebuke to the Americans for their "excesses" in parral, but said the incident proved that Pershing should now return to the United States.
A four-way conflict now developed. While Carranza and Wilson were officially united in their desire to root out Villa, Carranza very much wanted Pershing to stand down, and Wilson also wanted Carranza to authorize joint operations by his troops and Mexican federal forces. Pershing, angered by his predicament, was already hostile to both Carranza and Wilson, wanting only the carte blanche that would allow him to go after Villa his way. In his dispatches to Washington he was firm but diplomatic, but in private he fulminated against the absurdity of the task set before him; how could anyone wage war according to a manual of etiquette? His officers were even more frank. Lieutenant George Patton, who would later become the fire-eating general of World War II, had thus far had a "good war". When he shot dead Villista commander Julio Cardenas in a skirmish, Patton recorded, `I feel exactly like when I got my first swordfish. Surprised at my luck. However, in the scatological obscenities he spent on Woodrow Wilson, he excelled. Among his most impressionable views of the President was this: 'He has neither the soul of a louse nor the mind of a worm. Or the backbone of a jellyfish.
In May, Villa gave the Americans by ordering a second transfronist attack on Glenn Springs, Texas, which caused another border crossing by American troops.This time Carranza reacted fiercely and replaced diplomacy and conciliation with a peremptory note.He told Washington that any new incursion of American troops would be vigorously resisted and reiterated his requirement that Pershing would be removed immediately.Pershing was informed that unless he began to redo his steps to Rio Grande, he could expect resistance from federal troops.General Jacinto Trevino, the Carrancist Commander, formally warned Pershing that he would be allowed to move his troops in just one direction - north - and that Trevino would attack any column that moved in other directions.There were great anti -crane manifestations in Mexico, Saltillo and Chihuahua.The fever of war increased: all sides expected with confidence that Wilson would again take Veracruz, leaving Carranza with no choice but to attack Pershing with all his might and perhaps even joining Villa at a crusade against the Yanks.
Villa was particularly enraged by Wilson's statement in June 1916, when he asked for the end of the Civil War in Mexico and urged all Mexicans to come together behind Carranza as the only credible authority. This can be considered pleasant to Carranza, but heIt was as shocked as Villa for the error of the US President and the impertinent intervention. As Carranza said: `History did not provide an example at any age or country of a civil war that ended the union of the parties in dispute..In the end of June 1916, the smallest spark could have lit a general conflict, but surprisingly, no war came, even when a Brand Fire, instead of a spark, was released.
In Zi June, there was a great confrontation between the men of Pershing and the troop troops. In challenge to Carranza, Pershing sent Captain Charles Boyd with a force of about men in an east scan. Carrizal, 80 kilometersSouth of Ciudad Juarez, the Hoadstrong Boyd, of all the bills, another patton, took his men to the city in challenge to a contrary order by the Mexican garrison commander. Mexicans opened with machine guns, killed twelve and wounded twentyand three; but so accurate it was the American artillery that, even from their rooted positions, inflicted thirty -three casualties. Better the dead were the fiery Boyd and the Mexican commander. The Americans retired, leaving several prisoners behind.
Here, indeed, was the long-awaited Casus Belli. However, the war did not start, mainly because neither Wilson nor Carranza wanted it. Carranza, while quite prepared to play the anti-American card for domestic consumption, did not want a full-scale war. that would undo everything he had won in 1915 and would likely replace him in the presidential chair at the National Palace. Carranza's main objective was to drive Pershing out of his territory. The real beneficiary of this Contretemps was Villa, who gained support as the anti-American backlash gathered momentum.
Wilson, in turn, did not want to play Germany's game and sucked into a prolonged conflict in Mexico.He resisted all the appeals, pleadings, and angry notes of Pershing asking to be released from the collar.Whenever Pershing mentioned his favorite projects of occupying the whole Chihuahua or at least the urban centers of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City, Wilson responded with a very firm veto.He was even cautious about Pershing's project of forming betrayal militias in northern Chihuahua, fearing that this would trigger more clashes like that in Carrizal.
Pershing was able to stay under Villa's skin in one aspect, however. He captured the city of Namiquipa, of which many of Columbus invaders had arrived, and guaranteed residents' cooperation, either by threats or bribery is unclear.Forgotten this "betrayal", which to him seemed even more bizarre, as the gringos had recently treated other namiquipans with great cruelty. Perseing won a score of those who participated in Columbus's attack and sent them back to trial in the United States.To Luna County, New Mexico, and given the most melancholy of a trial before a kangaroo court and a suspended judge, the six leaders of leaders, the experienced Lynch-Law justice in the hard way ('We will giveto them a fair trial and we will hang them ') .of that the six were hanged, the `` Peace Officers' turned to others, who were sentenced to eighty years in prison.He abused the Namiquipans to the point that two of them were died. Others were placed in a hard work regime and forgiven only in 1921, when the passions about the Columbus attack finally cool.
Carranza, however, made reassuring noises, muzzled his chauvinistic press, promised to return all American prisoners of war, and proposed mediation by Latin American countries. However, the eventual withdrawal of the Pershing expedition took time and was not accomplished until early 1917. The negotiations, which took place in Connecticut, repeatedly stalled Wilson's desire to control events in Mexico and obtain guarantees and concessions in exchange for withdrawal. from Pershing. Wilson was clearly being underhanded, given his original reasons for sending the Punitive Expedition, but he found the dogged Carranza a thorn in his side and decided to be equally dogged. Furthermore, it was a flaw of Wilson's temperament, as he demonstrated at Versailles in 1919, that he found others willfully blind to the truths he accepted as self-evident.
Carranza stubbornly insisted that she would not agree with a joint US-Mixic commission to act as a forum for a general review of relationships between the two countries, and it was adamant to be limited to the only issue of pershing withdrawal.He estimated that American public, already tired of wild goose hunting, would not allow Wilson to go to the war for poorly clear goals in Mexico, and that this deviation of opinion would be strengthened over the months.So Carranza played to earn time.In late 1916, it was clear that Washington could not guarantee any quid for the removal of Pershing and finally Wilson accepted the inevitable.In late January 1917, the dying punitive expedition raised camp and, on February 5, the last American soldier left the Mexican soil.Carranza obtained a great diplomatic victory.His triumph about Wilson in the duel of wills was the only event in his career that somehow justified his narcissistic view of himself as the Savior of Mexico.
However, the embittered Americans refused to give up in their pursuit of Villa. Baulked on the campaign trail and on the battlefield, they turned to espionage and dirty tricks. The US intelligence community stepped in and, in a strange pre-echo of the CIA's vendetta against Cuba's Castro at the start of IG6OS, hired assassins and hitmen to dispose of the illusory Villa. Villa survived. He had been on guard against poisoning for some time and always had one of his men drink the first half of any drink prepared for him. When all assassination attempts failed, US authorities tried to bury the evidence of his efforts. in closed files.
The punitive expedition is generally considered to be one of the great humiliations of the United States. It has become orthodoxy on the American left that the Columbus affair was a conspiracy involving US commercial interests, with Villa a conscious or unconscious partner. concluded that it need not fear a US declaration of war, as the US Army was ineffective - it could not even capture a single Mexican bandit. Berlin therefore ordered unrestricted U-Boat warfare - which was precisely the factor that brought about the United States into World War I. Wilson took revenge by food, weapons, and (later) even gold and credit to Carranza—measures that seriously thwarted the first chief in his attempt to end Villa and Zapata. Revisionists argued that the long-term consequences of the punitive expedition were beneficial, as the mobilization as a result of tension with Mexico helped to train GIS and convince public opinion of the need for military spending.
The most famous consequence of all was the case of Zimmermann's telegram. In February 1917, Germany's Foreign Secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, sent a code in code to his ambassador in Mexico City, informing him of the beginning of the beginning ofUnrestricted underwater war. To keep the United States worried and neutral, Zimmermann proposed to offer Mexico an alliance: if Carranza would attack the United States, triggering a large -scale war in the western hemisphere, Germany would support Mexico financially and militarily and help her arechivethe lost territories for Americans after the I 846-8 War - Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.zimmermann ended his message proposing a tripartite alliance between Germany, Mexico and Japan. The British broke the German code and invented the telegram to Washington deWay to suggest that he had leaked in Mexico City. When it was made public, Zimmermann didn't even bother to deny that he was the author.Declaration of war to Germany.
If Carranza and Wilson had won differently from the punitive expedition, the real beneficiary was Villa. The presence of Pershing and American troops in Mexico seemed to prove the truth of everything that Villa had already said about the gringos, and Carranza further alienated him. Chihuahua for his military dispositions in the state. The army he sent to fight Villa and, if necessary, Pershing, was a strong pressure on Chihuahua's resources. governor and his replacement by a more formidable figure. Encouraged by Carranza's apparent nod, Trevino maneuvered to get rid of Carrancista machine politician Luis Herrera. This time Carranza put his foot down, for Herrera was a loyal placeman.
However, Carranza foolishly let Trevino master Chihuahua, and Trevino soon alienated the Chihuahuanos to the thousands.Venal, autocratic, complacent with banditry, Trevino has become a middle-class bogeyman by refusing to allow his soldiers to be attacked in shops, restaurants and bars.If anyone opposed, he was removed and shot.The lazy Trevino delegated a lot of power to his lieutenants, who surpassed him in extortion, adding chaos and murder to his list of crimes.The most spectacular scandal occurred when it was found that Trevino was profitable with the export of food in the city of Chihuahua, even while the city's inhabitants starved.
Villa gained great compliments in the first half of 1916 for thumbing for their nose in perspecting, the stories of creating myths of its hiding in the cave and being apparently proven about Carranza.Trevino and the exactions and depredations of his hyenas. Residents forgot his previous disenchantment with Villa, who was now remembered by a golden Nimbus. He was the time of a rebirth of the villalist movement and, in the second half of the village of 1916, returned to lifeAs a guerrilla leader, almost as if his career had not lost a beat and there was never a punitive expedition.
Or Zapatismo twilight
Expelled from his Eden, the Zapatists at first could only watch powerless while the serpent destroyed paradise.Pablo Gonzalez was the last and most terrible of the flagella of brunettes.Ambitious, bloodthirsty, brooding over ancient errors, Gonzalez was another of those men driven from obscurity to the center of attention by the revolution, a kind of Bernadotte from Mexico.Orphaned at age six, fourteen mascate, a failed immigrant in the United States, former trader and policy insignificant in Coahuila, Gonzalez was above all an opportunist who only believed in Gonzalez.First timber, after a ferrist and finally a frowner, González enjoyed the dubious reputation of being the only general who never won a battle.He imitated Huerta's sunglasses and was generally despised as a stupid award -winning, with a much larger ambition than his skills.Above all, he was Carranza's creature, an overpromped nullity, deliberately built by Carranza as a counterweight to Obergon, who was beyond his control.An unscrupulous flatter with an eye on the main chance, Gonzalez was prepared to try anything, do anything, go anywhere to climb to the top of the greasy pole.
Its first step in Morelos was to oblite all the traits of the convention and destroy the agrarian reforms of Palafox. He used the methods of Huerta and Robles, burning, looting, executing the score and deporting through the hundred, but added a new refinement: deliberate destructionFood and properties to hungry and starve people who suffered forzapa over six years. If there has ever been a true southern Attila, it was Gonzalez. Everything was swept into the apple of this Moloch that consumes: sugar, harvests of subsistence, cattle, mills, agricultural machines, military material, wagons, cannons, ammunition, charcoal, sulfur, gunpowder, dynamite, nitroglycerin, sulfur, copper, leather, hides, priests.and surplus for Mexico City intermediaries and justified their vandalism as depriving Zapata from the tendons even the guerrilla war.
From his new headquarters in Tochimilco, at the foot of the Popocatepetl volcano, Zapata prepared to retaliate. He was now operating with a maximum size of an AOO, easier to feed and harder to track. In July 1916, heHe made his presence feel. He eliminated two federal garrisons in Santa Catarina and Tepoztlan, invaded the Federal District and then fought a seven -hour battle with Gonzalez troops in Tlayacapan, as well as two different attacks on the Tlastizapan garrison.Gonzalez that he had pacified brunettes was revealed as a hollow pride.
Zapata directed a complex, cell-like command structure with at least seven main bands in the field, in the four corners of Morelos, on the border of the state of Morelos and Mexico, in Guerrero and in the Federal District. 5,000 men in active operations at any given time, with another 3,000 held in reserve. Before going on the offensive, he had to make sure of morale and support, as it was evident that not all of Zapata's old chiefs wanted to fight. proclamation in August, he denounced these fans as time-serving cowards and egotists, interested only in highlighting their own nests. Montano and Pacheco, who favored making an agreement with Carranza. Zapata announced that Vasquez had been dismissed for "notorious cowardice" and warned that he would visit the same penalty on everyone who reached an agreement with the enemy.
In October, Zapata felt safe enough to set up an offensive. For that Gonzalez's policy of destruction and deportation, he felt that the best tactic was to achieve politically sensitive goals, whose apprehension would undermine the credibility of the Carranza regime.October 4, after a fierce battle, he seized the pumping station in Xochimilco, which provided the city of Mexico all his water. A week later, he fired San Angel's suburb, just eight kilometers from Zocalo, and destroyedThe Bonde Station. Zapata's new policy was to avoid attacking garrisons, but choosing targets - railways, factories, mills - whose destruction would impress consuls and foreign diplomats; cynically, he came to see that foreigners were always more impressed with the annihilation of propertythan with the murder of humans.
A wave of attacks followed across a wide swath of territory, all aimed at sensitive plants, facilities and buildings - in Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacan, Puebla, Tlaxcala, State of Mexico and Southern Hidalgo. Carranza. Not only did he erroneously conclude that Zapata was finished, he also noted that, in the Great Rising in Oaxaca in 1914-15, the Tiger de Morelos had not participated; however, now a more sophisticated political consciousness seemed evidence. matter of sending his Raiders two or three times a week into the federal district to keep the citizens in the capital in a permanent state of nervousness, and, by a system of political commissars, he took great care that none of his alienated guerrillas alienated the villages and that there were no feuds within or between the Pueblos.
Pablo Gonzalez reacted with all the wounded fury of a liar idiot whose lies were detected by the boss. He announced that if a village had helped Zapata, the whole village would be destroyed and all the males dead. Any person who moves away from the boundaries of the villageOr catch traveling without a pass was shot in sight.He intensified the deportation rate and looting, with increasingly portable properties removed for Mexico City by its servants.Finally he lost patience and resumed mass executions. In Tlastizapan, chosen by his symbolism in the Zapatista movement, he stated in men, women, and children for the shooting squad.
This savagery only provoked an escalation of violence. On November 7, near the Joco station in the Federal District, the Zapatistas blew up a crowded train on the Mexico City-Cuernavaca line. Four hundred passengers and soldiers died in the carnage. The embarrassment was particularly acute for Gonzalez, as he was in the capital, conferring with Carranza, when the news broke. His only thought was for more repression. Upon returning to Cuernavaca on November 11, he announced draconian extensions to his pass laws: henceforth, anyone found near a railroad track without official authorization, with or without a road pass, would be executed on the spot, as would anyone who dishonestly vouch for another. to obtain a laissez-passer, or anyone who has given his laissez-passer to another. Gonzalez also gave his troops a virtual license to kill by issuing a new decree that anyone suspected of being a Zapatista would be executed without trial. Zapata's response was to blow up another train, not far from the first; deaths were well over 300.
As Zapata expected, US envoy reported to Washington that Carranza's adhesion in the country was uncertain, that Mexico was sliding to anarchy. In desperation, Gonzalez ordered a section of a backyard of no one to be released in bothsides of the Capital Railway to Cuernavaca. He complained and enraged Carranza that Zapata did not fight the fair, complained that Obergon was sabotaging him in the background and asked even more troops. Carranza said bluntly that if he could not manage with30,000, a few thousand more would make no difference. In addition, there was nothing else to have. Three great armies were already highlighted elsewhere, one to deal with Villa, one to perform surveillance in perspective and one to deal with a new rebellionIn Oaxaca under Felix Diaz.The last drop was when Gonzalez's troops in brunettes began to succumb to the hundreds to the disease: the first malaria and dysentery, later typhoid. In December 1916, 7,000 of 30,000 were dead or were inMilitary hospitals, where many others expired, as medical supplies did not reach them; Quinino and Morfina sent their relief were seized by black marketing professionals in the league with corrupt officers in the Commissioner, and febrifugal drugs were then sold in the black market in the cityMexico.in all the brunettes, sick and dying soldiers could be seen lying on huts and wagons and even bench press on the streets.
Realizing that it was time for a final push, Zapata showed her contempt for Gonzalez returning to her former Tlastizapan barracks, where she launched simultaneous attacks on ten cities and villages: Cuernavaca, Puebla, Yautepec, Jojutla, Jonacatepec, Axochiapan,Paso del Mundo, Izucar de Matamoros, Chietla and Atlixco.The demoralized federals gave way to these coordinated attacks.Only on the first day of the offensive, the Zapatists killed or captured 500 enemies and González ordered the general withdrawal.On New Year's Day of 1917, the Zapatistas triumphantly reset in the main cities of Morelos.
Zapata was disgusted with what she saw when she went down to Cuernavaca.The city was a combination of ghost town and a place of bombing, with only three families in hidden homes;The rest fled or was deported.Gonzalez's men's vandalism levels were indescribable: most homes had the front doors torn off, the sanitation system was deliberately destroyed so that the fertilous streets were like open sewage, churches were looted and images and statues of the saintsdisfigured and desecrated.
In the victorious euphoria of the moment, some Zapatista leaders lost their minds and spoke wildly of putting pressure on Mexico City; others imagined themselves in 1914 and spoke in all seriousness of the importance of reaching the capital before Villa. it was one thing for Gonzalez to cut and run in Morelos, another to think Carranza would do the same in the capital. For a while, there would be stalemate, allowing Zapata to resume the task of land reform, but in the end, as Zapata knew, there would reckoning.
Carranza was unable to deal with Zapata effectively in 1916-17, as he had a number of other problems occupying his attention, diplomatic, military, social and economic.After six years of virtually uninterrupted war, Mexico was chaos.The harvests were not harvested, the cattle were exported to buy weapons, mines and closed factories.In the cities, the banks went bankrupt, the capitalists accumulated their assets, the black markets flourished.Everywhere there was a shortage of food, water, coal and other basic items.Agriculture was in crisis because subsistence crops failed and there was no money to import grains.The peasants were reduced to eating bran mixed with sawdust or even land.Private from their cattle, they surpassed a large Mexican cultural taboo and killed and ate horses.Hunger lurked the earth, and in its trail came diseases and pestilences.The field was a desert of tiered and twisted train tracks, destroyed buildings, burnt bridges, dynamic factories, dead horsepower or make maker for human dead.Even in the arid deserts, an infinite view of devastation could be seen, particularly with the debris and abandoned vehicles of the Pershing expedition.In cities and villages, indigence and misery were widespread, and hundreds of crippled men, men without members, mutilated veterans, and severely injured sturdy patients filled the streets.
The Mexican railroads, once proud, mocked the very idea of infrastructure. All the great political factions had their particular specialization in the destruction of trains. Carranza liked to tear the trail, Villa to use Mkquinas Locas such as makeshift missiles and Zapata to blow up trains -A technique that T. E. Lawrence would begin to use in Arabia in late 1917. In the northern plains, next to the bones of cattle and cattle and docharnel - human corpses, were locomotive and dynamic and derailed stock - over 50,000 tons ofSteel and iron awaiting salvage. Saltillo line for Mexico City was in a especially bad repair, with rusty ears, folded nails and dormant in deterioration.and the wood rotting in the surrounding material. For lack of coal and oil, all trains ran slowly with frequent stops, because they had to consume wood; a railway of kilometers of zoo in the interior can take the time that the programmed railroad of the city ofMexico to New York, even assuming that the risks of bandits and derailments were avoided. Although deficiencies in the rail system would harm all aspects of export and import economies, it was the impact on food supply that was deeper meaning.From Igi6-Ig, Mexico was a hungry land.
Perhaps the worst aspect of the general chaos was financial. All sides of the revolution simply printed money and forced people to accept it; the result was a plethora of banknotes and hyperinflation to rival the later staggering phenomenon in Germany in 1923. By the end of 1916, Mexico was switching to bartering, while Carranza seized the properties of the major banks and decreed that only gold, silver, and whatever the US dollar would be acceptable as a medium of exchange. wages and prices in terms of gold and silver and made the dollar the only paper currency that was a legal proposition. as a result of the huge increase in commodity prices consequent upon World War I. The US price of silver doubled in 1915-18, that of copper increased by two-thirds, while the price of Henequen actually tripled.
It is a tribute to Carranza to say that, even when confronted with chaos on this scale, he did not put his political program on hold, he stood and waited that the storm diminished, but moved on as if he presidiiseconomics in peacetime.A maniac for centralizing control, he was much more difficult than Diaz, much more capable than Huerta and infinitely more skilled than Madero. He eliminated Huertist's old guard, rigidly controlled all newspapers, eliminated public service andThe diplomatic corps, assumed personal control of the railroads, forced loans and taxes on all areas considered hostile and persecuted and used execution as a reflex action. Carranza considered who would not go to heel as an enemy to be hunted without pity.He decreed a general amnesty in 1867, his so -called follower was relentless, merciless and thirsty with blood.
Carranza was determined to make her warrant run everywhere in Mexico. Onde Villa, if successful, would be pleased with loose federalism and a strong statement of state rights, Carranza wanted to rigid and bureaucratic control of the center.Relentless policy of eliminating all opposition, whether former vicarists, former huertists, former invoices, exzapatists, and even former modeers, in favor of a narrow comrade of northern apparatuses, and was particularly efficient in eliminating potentially elimination officersdiscouraged army. Intransigence and hostility to commitment became badges of tests of honor and loyalty in the eyes of Carranza's political machine.
It was a rich irony that a movement that began life in favor of local autonomy ended, imposing centralizing policies more rigid than Diaz or Huerta ever had.Stalinism Avant La Lettre, with spies and informants everywhere. Naturally, those with their hands in the levers of power used accusations of "disloyalty" to liquidate private disputes and ordered land convulsions, not for redistribution but to punish rivals and recalcitrants.
Carranza believed in replacing even minor officials in distant places with loyal officers, but in southern Mexico there was an additional motivation at work. Just as Zapata despised the city as a source of corruption, Carranza despised the south as the home of decay and hoped to rescue it. He had the same kind of contempt for the southern regions that northern abolitionists had for the pre-war south in 1860, or the northern European members of the EU have for their Mediterranean brethren today. In all cases, a corrupt, brutal, criminal and hedonistic dolce far niente mentality is suspected. Hence Carranza's classic "vandalism" in the "deep south" of Tabasco, Oaxaca, Chiapas and Yucatán, when he sent his "proconsuls" to secure these territories for him in 1914-15, before Villa was defeated. It has also been speculated that Carranza saw the south as perfect territory for a last resort 'eagle's nest' stronghold should Villa be victorious, which is why he insisted on a southern strategy in Obregon.
Carranza differed from the Villa in that he wanted actual control of an area, not just the loyalty, reverence and loyalty of local caudillos and warlords. This was why he placed so much emphasis on the character and personality of his warlords, of which three predominated: Francisco Mugica, Jesus Agustin Castro and Salvador Alvarado, governors, respectively, of Tabasco, Oaxaca and Chiapas and Yucatan. Carrancistas and the old Hacendados class who wanted to run things the old-fashioned way and resented being ordered by Mexico City to abolish debt peonage; and within the Carranza movement among the local Carrancista apparatuses and lukewarm supporters and new favorites sent as governors and proconsuls - a classic fight of `ins' and `outs' or court and country.
Carranza was not a man of great political vision like Zapata or even Villa, but as a politician he had qualities they did not have. He was a technocrat, who could happily work in the impersonal realm of bureaucracy, political machinery, national newspapers, and international diplomacy; Zapata and Villa have always been limited by the horizons of the village, the farm, the state and the country. Only Obregon had the imagination to understand both. The charge that Carranza was the quintessential bourgeois is substantially correct. Age had not withered or softened this ruddy-faced old man with his long beard and blue-lensed glasses, and he still represented the values of what one historian called "clean sheets, breakfast trays... and buckets of ice." for wine".
However, the middle classes, as such, did not benefit much in the short term of Carranza. The project was to mobilize the masses to modernize Mexico and create a more stable state than Diaz's, where "contradictions" between modernizationAnd the hacings were resolved. To do that, he had to employ revolutionary rhetoric, if he does not practice. The effect of that, until the terrible six years before, should make the middle class keep its head down. Having seen the emotions that couldBeing awakened by any manifestation of inequality, they were no longer paraded in public in thin clothes, but tried to camouflage themselves, merging on a gray background. Many had fled abroad, especially to the United States, and did not return while thePrecarious experiment for the construction of Carranza states was underway. It was significant that, while American Naval Marines were in Veracruz, this was the city for which a large number of middle classes gravitated. Most had concluded that those who led the revolution,Whether it's Villa or Carranza, it wasn't for them.
Carranza was a workout workout workaholic, which made few friends, both personal and social levels.Extremely unpopular, he was the living personification of Weber's rational-legal leadership, in contrast to the charismatic spark of Villa and Zapata.People watched him in silence, without any enthusiasm and never with genuine applause;All the applause heard in his speeches were the staged efforts of the Rent-A-Mobs hired by his supporters.'Cold', 'cold', 'ice', 'warm', 'warm' were simply the most polite terms to describe him while he traveled across the country trying to build a worship of his personality.Kissing babies and squeezing the meat was not for Carranza;He tended to react to human contact with glacial haughty mixed with petulance.Abstaining, not a smoker, without any breath of sex scandal around him, Carranza appeared in revolutionary races (especially in La Cucaracha) only as a fun figure and a target for Villa.
Carranza's unpleasant personality was not only the invention of her enemies, Zapatista and propaganda of villalist, but an objective fact observed by almost all who knew or interviewed. From the sympathizers judgments, one of them an intimate defender, are eloquent:'He looked like a non -English mayor more than a president of the revolutionary Mexico' and 'General Carranza is not what can be called the easy and accessible man, or that can be considerable devotion or personal loyalty.They knew him, from Spanish writer Blasco Ibanez to American reporter John Reed, were impressed. Conversar with him has always been difficult: he didn't have a conversation, nor touch the gallery, without a gift with people. Its patriarchal beard was a particular objectof irritation.`` `The old headboard '', people whispered in corners, and the famous beard was celebrated in hundreds of jokes and songs, most of them obscene.
However, it is necessary to give it a reluctant admiration for its indomitable willpower.Filled with unctuous righteousness, he faced powerful enemies after powerful enemies: socialists, agrarian reformers, American capitalists, the Catholic Church, and a host of rebels and insurgents, and faced all of them simultaneously.The church performed well under Diaz and even in Madero, but received a rude awakening when Huerta came to power.In his anticlericalism, Carranza was Huerta's continuation by other means.His antipathy for Catholicism was unfair, for the Church was by no means monolithic.Certainly there were reactionary bishops that deserved the Carranza whip, but there were also revolutionary clerics whose social thinking was more advanced than that of Carranza.The church, after all, had no difficulty adapting to the social programs of Villa and Zapata.
However, Carranza and Obregon saw Catholicism as fundamentally a reactionary force: it always tried to swim with those in power, it had enormous resources and rich lands that it jealously guarded, and, above all, it influenced hearts and minds. As such, it was a shackle in a dynamic modern society with a booming economy, and it needed to be reduced - in the long run through educating the masses, in the short term through persecution. The latter took on violent and vociferous forms. Carrancistas drank from chalices, wore priestly vestments as heterogeneous, lit fires in confessionals, shot at relics and sacred images, converted churches into barracks and simulated executions on statues of saints. In the State of Mexico, they banned sermons, baptisms, confessions, masses and even kisses from priests' rings.
Carranza did not avoid these anticlerical outbursts, as they formed a valuable part of his apparatus of centralized control. In his case, a personal puritanism and meticulousness made him look askance at a Church that connived with hedonism, parties, drinking, gambling, bullfighting and even the sins of the flesh - in Carranza's mind all the signs delay and addiction. Its spokesmen accused the Church of reveling in the misery of the peasantry, to the point of opposing elementary hygiene and washing with soap. Carranza was well aware of the absurdity of some of these accusations, but he wanted the Church firmly under his control, so that it could not emerge as an ideological rival to his version of the Revolution or mobilize its supporters to form a powerful political party. However, he was not an anticlerical fanatic, as he knew that virulent anti-Catholicism could be dangerous; when such people genuinely came to power in the 1920s, they sparked the bloody Cristero Rebellion.
Even as he cracked down on a powerful institution, he dealt even more firmly with a much more formidable enemy: US-backed foreign capitalism. There was no hostility to foreign investment as such in Madero, simply an insistence that corporations and corporations pay taxes in the However, Carranza saw the penetration of the Mexican economy by foreign capitalists as a profound affront to Mexican sovereignty and, even when pressed in Veracruz in late 1914, made it clear his determination to reform the foundation on which foreign and oil companies operated in Mexico. In March 1915, when Villa was yet to win the Civil War, he raised taxes on foreign mining interests. companies, but not for the US giants, and continued to resist all pressure from Lansing's Secretary of State. In August 1915, he passed a new law making it illegal for foreign companies to defend their interests by diplomatic means - any defense had to be handled through the Mexican courts - but although Carranza was anti-American, he was no fool. He may have flirted with Germany, but he did not risk Mexican neutrality by provoking the Americans too much and resisted all German machinations, especially on the issue of Zimmermann's telegram.
About land reform, Carranza has always been ambivalent.He accepted a part of it opportunisticly, without absolutely any spark of ideological conviction.His proclamation of June 2, 1915 virtually frozen things the way they are, with the statement that no land would be confiscated "that it had been legitimately acquired from individuals or governments and that did not constitute a special privilege or monopoly."His national agrarian council took a year to start, and when he finally started operating (March 8, 1916), he walked by turtle.Then, on September 19, 1916, Carranza suspended all land concessions made by the Council.In 1917, the advice had restored the lost lands in only three villages throughout Mexico.No wonder Zapata called Carranza "son of a bitch".
Though he despised the peasantry, Carranza listened to Obregon and built bridges to the urban working class. The Casa del Obrero Mundial (The House of the World Worker - the Mexican equivalent of the TUC) signed an agreement with Obregon and Carranza at the start of the civil war. In exchange for preferential treatment, the House promised to fight the 'forces of reaction' (i.e. Villa and Zapata) and established six 'Red Battalions' manned by artisans - carpenters, bricklayers, bricklayers, tailors, typographers, etc. as Villa was defeated and the battalions had outlived their usefulness, Carranza hit back hard against workers who had had the temerity to attack his government. His real betrayal of the workers came in August 1916. When the call for a general strike was raised, Carranza revived a law of 25 January 1862 under which strikers could be sentenced to death, and on 2 August the police de Carranza closed the Casa. The First Chief justified his cynical brutality with futile rhetoric, claiming that the striking workers had denied "the sacred recognition of the fatherland".
Obregon and the Radicals were not satisfied with Carranza's reactionary stance on labor relations and planned to deceive him at the Constitutional Conference convened in Querétaro. With his histrionic sense of the past, Carranza left for the historic conference at 8 am on November 18, 1916, riding all day from the capital to Querétaro, where Juarez had executed Maximiliano. Carranza confidently hoped to be able to build continuity with the Juarez Constitution of 1857, but the Young Turks in his movement had other ideas.
Part of what Carranza wanted he achieved. The Constitution, finally promulgated in early 1917, increased the power of the presidency, abolished the position of vice president and weakened the legislature.Children himself, but created a new executive -chief with powers greater than Diaz enjoyed. A seismic national seizure to expel a dictatorship ended by consolidating an even more authoritarian figure in front of an even more authoritarian system. It was exactly what Carranza wanted.He did not believe in the pluralism of parties, voters and political participation. He defined democracy as the paternalistic state, with himself as the embodiment of state and democracy or, as he said: `democracy ... it can be nothing but governmentof noble, deep, and severe reason '(with oneself as the razon).
However, the radicals had their pound of flesh. They and Carranza could agree on Article 27 of the Constitution, as it gave Carranza what he needed in his battle with the US oil and mining companies. Article 27 declared that private property was not an absolute right, but one that could be revoked, as the best owner of land, water and subsoil rights was the nation. It was established that, in any conflict over subsoil rights (clearly the oil companies were provided), foreign landowners would not be allowed to appeal to their governments, but would have to comply with the decision of the Mexican courts. However, in Article 123, Carranza was clearly outflanked by his radicals. by Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum, this article stipulated an eight-hour workday, abolition of child labor, protection for working women and adolescents, holidays, reasonable wages paid in cash, purchase of profit, arbitration and compensation in case of dismissal .
In religion, too, the radicals at first had their own way. In Articles 3 and 130, recognition of the Church as a legal entity was refused, priests had to be publicly registered, religious education and all rituals outside churches were prohibited, and churches themselves became state property. Carranza had a short way out of this. As chief executive, he simply refused to implement the anti-religion articles. He proposed entirely new and conciliatory Articles 3 and 13, and when Congress rejected them, he became embroiled in a constitutional crisis over the matter. Carranza considered that the radical reforms passed against his will in Querétaro were wrong and that he had a divine right to ignore, veto or sabotage them.
However, Carranza's main problems were military, in two senses, internal and external. Carranza tried to make the military subordinate to his civilian bureaucracy, while ultimately relying on the army to enforce his will - a difficult juggling act. Furthermore, because opposition to his centralism was so intense, Carranza had to ensure that the army was credible. The most obvious means were bribery, and Carranza paid the military so well that the manpower and establishment budget for the The army was ten times the figure under Diaz. However, due to corruption - the favorite scam was the padded payroll - the tax burden on citizens was out of all proportion to the security the military provided. , but he was prepared to conjure up the graft of his generals as long as they did not challenge him.
To prevent their common cause with rebels in their own locations, northern troops were sent to serve in the south, while southern rates were sent to control the north. This created other problems.Southern steaming jungles or southerners with the northern cold. A high degree of mobilization in alien areas spread disease and, due to the longing of home, the troops tended to rebel or desert. Apparent the situation was the frequent payment of soldiers., for the generals had pocketed their wages. The scale of military and government corruption reached the point where the word carrancer was coined to describe the embezzlement and official default. The bureaucrats and generals of Carranza were described as being conferred (with the nailsready) and there were many pieces in words such as society and succisions ('society' and 'filth').
It was with these corrupt, lackluster officers and men that Carranza hoped to wage war at the knife against an array of determined, deadly, and ideologically committed enemies. enemies. There was the formidable private army of Manuel Pelaez, who hired $15,000 a month and was used by US-owned Mexican oil in Tampico and by El Aguila, the British oil giant operating in Poza Rica and Papantla. There was endemic banditry - especially in west-central Mexico and Tampico and San Luis - and in the Laguna area guerrilla leaders such as Calixto Contreras were active, indirectly aiding the Villa through its depredations. , Pedricena, Rodeo, San Juan Del Rio and Cuencame fell to the guerrillas.
In Sonora, there were continuing problems with the Yaquis. In December 1915, Obregon personally tried to broker a deal with the Yaqui chiefs, but he refused their demand for absolute dominion over their ancestral lands. his Bronco brothers fought. In another fierce Yaqui war, large numbers of troops drove the Indians into the mountains, from which they invaded and spread terror across the state of Sonora. they were unable to advance because of ammunition shortages. After a short period of peace, war broke out again in the summer of 1917. Calles, trying to build a political career for himself in Obregon's shadow, threatened terrible retribution, but the Yaquis, so good at guerrilla warfare, it made monkeys of Federal troops, to the point that an American reporter later compared the Yaqui conflict to the RIF war in Morocco.
Above all, there was Felix Diaz's revolt in Oaxaca.From 1916, this soon surpassed the threat of Villa and Zapata as the most dangerous of all challenges to the Carranza regime.Diaz, the dictator's nephew, was the permanent boring of the revolution.Under his uncle, he had been a career soldier and police inspector-general, and in 1911 he briefly acted as Oaxaca governor before leaving resentment.In 1912, he first left his mark as a coup when he led an aborted rebellion in Veracruz.Arrested by Madero when he should have been executed, he collaborated in Reyes's failed blow in February 1913, but after La Decena Tragica thought he had the presidency in his pocket.Huerta deceived him and led him to exile, first in Havana, then in New York and New Orleans.In Diaz's return to Texas, Huerta gave him another chance, but Diaz refused to collaborate because of Huerta's calls with Germany.
Diaz was always lucky, like their amazing adventures in early 1916 they proved. He left to create a rebellion against Carranza and sailed south of Galveston, but his ship was caught in a fierce storm in the Gulf; Diaz and his henchmen were wrecked and allTheir lost roles. This was fortunate when they managed to swim south of the Mexican border, as they escaped identification when they were stopped by local police. After a tortuous journey through Mexico City, Diaz finally reached his destination,Oaxaca, in the summer of 1916. Here he created an army of 3,000 men, but alienated the local inhabitants for forced contributions. As a result, they collaborated with government troops against Diaz and, after several bad maulings of the federal, he decided to changeIts base of operations for Chiapas. After a terrible walk through Southeast's steaming jungles, he emerged in Chiapas, with only one bathroom of 3,000 originals.
The year that Diaz really came into his own was 1917. This time he found a way to coexist harmoniously with the local rebels and gradually to win them over to his cause. He began to invade a wide area: Tabasco, Oaxaca, Veracruz. His aim was to do in the south what Carranza had done in the north in 1913-14: Head a disparate and motley coalition of rebels. Constitutional legality fell in Mexico in October 1913, when Huerta dissolved Congress; Diaz could hardly have cited February 1913 as the date for the end of legitimacy, for it was his machinations that triggered Madero's downfall. program of liberal conservatism in the manifesto with which Diaz tried to connect all the "Out" groups: priests, Catholics, Spaniards, ex-federals, ex-army officers, etc., with an eye to possible support from deThe allies, he he bitterly denounced Carranza's supposedly pro-German sympathies. Diaz's appeal went to all those disaffected conservative and reactionary groups who were repelled by the radicalism of Villa and Zapata.
Since 1917, it was the year of the allegedly "socialist" constitution of Mexico, the Russian Revolution and the American entry in World War I, it was no surprising that a drink consisting of strong pro-alien feeling and right-wing social nostrils.Big advance was Diaz's alliance with Manuel by the, which meant that oil companies paid taxes, officially under protest, to the rebels. In general, the owners were happy to pay for the type of genuine protection types in exchange for the type of genuine protection.which Carranza could never provide. The United States saw the spread of the felicist (after Felix Diaz) with particular satisfaction. Arritite with Carranza for her plans to tax the interests of US oil and the declaration of the underground in the 1917 Constitution, 1917.And concerned about the threat of German sabotage to the oils about which Carranza was madly complacent, Washington secretly supported Diaz and byez, sent weapons to them and the contingency planned plans to occupy the oil fields if Carranza could defeat Diaz and byez.felizPerhaps these schemes remained in the background. Washington never intervened alongside Diaz and byez and gradually reached an agreement with Carranza.
The felicists proved to be as difficult to defeat as Villa and Zapata. Although byez did not have the advantage of mobility - he had to defend the Tampic - Carranza forces could not yet dislodge him. Although Carranza's propaganda bodies criticized Diaz and hisFollowers like "counterrevolutionaries", the mud did not stick, perhaps because people were so disgusted with the endemic corruption of the van system that were not prepared to buy this particular goods account. Some say Diaz was lucky thatThe Southern Indians supported him, when their objective interests seemed to be with the frowns who promised to abolish the debt peonage. However, localism and adherence to Patria Chica by the Indians need not have been the "false consciousness."Sul has always been a village against the village, as in Moreos, peasants against hacendates. Curl the South Deep as headquarters for his conservative trans class coalition was a cunning move from Diaz.
The felicistic movement was at the root composed of disgruntled conservatives, the last hope of those who thrived under Porphyre Diaz, but it was also an eclectic mix of all kinds of political adventurers with different power bases in different locations. Some of the Diaz supporters were indistinguishableof bandits, while others identified the banditaria as the greatest curse in Mexico. He appealed to all who resent the centralism of Carranza, all who wanted a loose federal structure and all who thought Carranza and his dressing room were corrupt opportunists who disturbed disruptingThe Earth. It is based on the southern resentment of the North and its mastery in the southern revolution and hatred of the southern proconsurities.reach the critical point of 'withdrawal' as a genuinely national movement.
The felicistic movement was a great help to Villa and Zapata in the years 1917-20, as it took Carranza forces to deal with a threat considered much more serious. In more powerful, felicists can put more than 20,000 men - up to 15,000 inVeracruz, 2,000 in Chiapas, 2,000 in Tabasco, as well as a large force in Puebla. Carranza advanced as little against Diaz as Pablo Gonzalez had done against Zapata in 1916 and for the same reasons: the low caliber of federal troops, misuse of terrorand repression and widespread corruption of the regime, which saw federal generals by authoring the rebels. The result was an impasse, because Diaz's movement was weakened by both its inability to attract the north and increasing factionism, with only nominally under theDiaz control.
Felix Diaz's rebellion had particular problems for Zapata, for in many ways the felicists were in competition with him - in the case of Puebla, literally for the same space. Although he ideologically was not a rival - its leaders were uttered, their leadersLocal and provincial and non -agrarian concerns, their interest in purely pragmatic land reform - was an important fact of life in the south. Some Zapatista leaders secretly blamed Zapata because they had no more attention to Oaxaca, thus providing an opportune gap that Diaz filled in. Some also actively looked for an informal military alliance with Diaz as the best way to defeat Carranza. Zapata would have none of that. Until the end of his career, he remained impatient and discharge of all the 'popular front' approaches to politicsAnd it remained the green -mar, incorruptible in its commitment to land reform - but the unlikely that Felix Diaz enrolled in Zapata's plane of Ayalaera Claro for everyone to see.
In early 1917, Zapata was again obsessed with returning to work interrupted from agrarian reform and local democracy. Until, after seven years of war, Hacienda ceased to exist as an institution in Morelos., deported or simply bolted; their buildings were destroyed, their factories and dismantled and removed machines; their plantations became a weed jungle. Nor worrying, the village organic community was almost extinct, agriculture was neglected and hunger appeared.To increase the morale of demoralized Pueblos, Zapata, reluctantly, set up a centralized government, hoping to recover the villages. Your agents acted as political commissioners, whose goal was to raise local and encourage democratic ethos. Education was so much a crazeWith Zapata as with Villa, and he made great efforts to benefit the population, introducing schools of all kinds.
In the military front, Zapata abandoned her attack policy to Mexico City - in any more dangerous case now that Perseing has retired and Carranza could reimpound one of her armies - in favor of the reduction and tried to throw a steel ring to the Redormorelos, organizing herarmies in a square in the four corners of the state, ready to repel all raids. However, there were three threatening developments that, seen in retrospective, announced the first signs of decline for Zapatism. The first was that the principle of Zapata de Auto was-Ajuda by the jerk of the jerk. The policy of arming the villages to combat Gonzalez Boomeranged when these self -defense units began to resist Zapata's foraging parties.Increasingly place the supply of food for their troops above the maintenance of good relationships with the residents, these men compromised the careful structure of the rights and interconnected duties that Zapata had built.
Allied to this was the problem of banditry. The destruction of Morelos, years of hard fighting and multitudinite atrocities had broken the shell of civilization and made it difficult for Zapatismo to continue as a coherent and untouched force. operated as bandits, and more and more genuine bandits operated under Zapata's banner, to the point where all distinctions between revolutionary guerrillas, so-called "social bandits" and old bandits became meaningless. In extreme cases, Zapata had to take action. military against armed criminal gangs in Morelos.
The most serious and threatening problem, however, was the crumbling determination and discontent of their leaders, who seemed to be losing their stomachs from the struggle. As Carranza proved not to be an evanescent phenomenon but a permanent fixture, this meant that the Zapatistas were they now committed to permanent eternal war? Shouldn't they also try to make a deal with Carranza or at least form an alliance with Felix Diaz? it is surprising that the patience of his generals broke. The first to fail was Domingo Arenas, his commander in Puebla. The loss of Arenas meant that Zapata had to abandon his next military project: the capture of the city of Puebla. extraordinary efforts to try to convince Arenas to double back, even promising an alliance in Puebla with the felicistas, but Arenas was deaf to all arms;He had a good offer of amnesty from Carranza and was now convinced that the future lay with the bearded.
The next round of desertions was even more serious.In early May 1917, in the city of Buenavista de Cuellar, Otilio Montano and Lorenzo Vasquez announced that they were forming a separatist movement of Zapata.For Zapata, this was a double betrayal even more serious than Domingo Arenas, as Montano was one of his first companions, the man who had given him Kropotkin to read, studied all the scriptures of Anenecuilco land and was co -author of the plan ofAyala.Zapata attacked the city of Buenavista on May 5 and hanged Vasquez without more ceremonies.About Mountain he hesitated, especially when his former comrade argued eloquently that Zapatism had come out of the tracks because of the evil influence of Palafox and Soto y Gama.This duo, in turn, accused Montano of conspiring to plan Zapata's death and presented some blunt circumstantial evidence.
Zapata was reluctant to proceed with the martial court against his old friend, but Palafox insisted that the revolutionary justice should follow its course. Soon, therefore, did another of his missing acts and left Tlastizapan until the trial ended. Evidence against Montano were heardon the camera and, for all the bills, never went beyond the circumstantial. Montano vigorously denied all the accusations and against -soto y Gama and Palafox of having betrayed the revolution.He denied it the last rites and even the usual favor of being able to face the shot squad. He died on May 18 with his arms extended, declaring his innocence.Palafox hung a sign about his neck that said: `Then die all thetraitors of the homeland '.
A curse now seemed to hang over the Zapatista movement. Zapata, like Villa, entered a paranoid phase where he saw conspiracy and betrayal everywhere. As Soto y Gama was ordered to compose a proclamation that traitors and all their families and children would be eliminated, Zapata repeated his credo: 'I can forgive those who kill and steal, but I never forgive a traitor.' Despite this, dissatisfaction and partisanship continued. Antonio Barona killed Felipe Neri for trying to disarm some of his men and then liquidated Zapatista leaders Francisco Estrada and Antonio Silva. Finally Barona came across a man even more formidable and fierce than he was: Genovevo de la 0 dragged him to his death on his horse's tail, galloping through the streets of Cuernavaca.
Signs that the movement was in serious, possibly terminal, confusion could be detected with the rise of Valentin Reyes, who was just to become Fierro de Zapata, killing a large number of people personally - thirty in a lot alone in March of 1917. Other Zapatista leaders were driven to tear down the sugar factories to begin a career of extortion, selling the scrap metal on the black market. The most unusual cut was the behavior of Eufemio Zapata. involved in more and more barroom brawls and alienated more and more people. He had the peculiarity of getting enraged when someone was drunk while he was sober. Demanding an apology from a colleague for a trifling bit, he roared at him: 'you'll soon have to find out what my machete knows'. He even began to make offensive remarks about his brother. In mid-June 1917, he finally went too far. He lost his temper with the father of his second-in-command Sidronio Camacho for being drunk and beat him with a stick until the old man lost consciousness, scolding him with every stroke of the stick. Camacho came after Eufemio, took him out in the street and then dragged the dying man to an ancient of ferocious and burning ants of soldiers before getting ready. He fled to Carranza, which granted him amnesty.
Euphemio's many enemies whispered behind his hands that God's revenge was just, that the Zapatistas had finally managed to kill someone who deserved a shooting.Zapata, however, was inconsolable: his paranoid suspicions increased and he spent more and more isolated time;If it was the intoxicating days of chewing fat in the square.Always taciturn has now become dark, irascible, neurasthenic, subject to changes in humor and violent explosions, feared by his men for their unpredictability.He sought comfort with his lovers, especially the new favorite Maria Flores, and continued to generate children in women other than his wife: a son Diego was born in 1916, a daughter Maria Luisa in 1918 and another son Mateo in the same year.
The more Zapata reflected, the more he thought Otilio Montano was right, that Palafox and Soto y Gama had brought harm than the movement well. From the fall of 1917, they were in disuse, their influence seriously in decline.plus Palafox at the expense of others, as in their saying: `Martinez, Soto and Serrato made the smoke, but Palofox cooked the meat. 'The new favorite, main consultant and eventual successor to his cloak, was GildoDo Magana - 26, 26,A native of Michoacan, a natural and reconciled mediator - but Magana's first task for Zapata almost ended in a disaster. In August 1917, Sunday Arenas sent a message that she has now regretted her decision to look for Carranza and wanted to returnAt the fight and protect Puebla to Zapata. If suspected of betrayal or determined to kill a man he repeatedly reported as a traitor, Zapata sent Magana to meet arenas with a company of armed men.Fight between Magana and Arenas increased spontaneously, others that Magana, prepared by Zapata, caused scandalously triggered. The result was that both sides began to shoot and the arenas fell, mortally injured.
Magana advised Zapata that, with the movement at a dead end, he should try to find allies among Carranza's putative comrades who secretly loathed him. Zapata argued that outside contacts never produced results: on the one hand, a whole bunch of agents in Cuba and the US had achieved nothing on the other. However, Magana patiently connected, and in the end Zapata agreed that they should reopen the canal to Villa, making it the first building block in a coalition. more amenable to the idea of networking with Felix Diaz. (The fact that Diaz was involved in the downfall and Madero's death would have made it impossible for Villa to work with Diaz, but Zapata was unconcerned with that consideration, as he never held any high opinion. de Madero.) However, the most interesting of Magana's suggestions was that they approach Obregon, who had recently criticized Carranza.
Obregon's career since his great military triumph in 1915 was uneven. He remained in Carranza's cabinet as Minister of War until 1917, working to produce a fully professional army, but at the constitutional conference in Queretaro, he supported the radical youths while remaining superficially loyal to Carranza. As soon as the new constitution was formalized, he resigned as Minister of War, married Maria Tapa, his second wife, and retired, like Cincinnatus, to grow chickpeas on his hacienda at Quinta Chilla. he had not abandoned his ambition, however. As he later joked, 'I have such good eyesight that from Huatabampo I could see the presidential chair.'
The idea of an Entrente between Obergon and Zapata remains one of those fascinating historical power of power. They were the only two of the Great Mexican Revolution Quartet who never met and never had personal baggage to bring their relationships with each other. While Carranza and Zapata, on the one hand, and Obregon and Villa, on the other, were consumed by personal hatred and dislike, Obergon and Zapata were incognito land for each other. Some say that the covenant of Zapata and Obergon was as implausible as an alliance between the classes thatThey represented: the peasantry and the bourgeois petite. Other say the class is not the important factor, that a gulf of culture, tradition, mental and even religion divided the two men.
The possibility of an understanding between them seems remote. Obregon emphasized national concerns, Zapata's local ones; Obregon was a city man, at home with organized work, Zapata despised the city and considered the proletariat an irrelevance; Obregon was Weber's “rational-legal” man, dedicated to the bureaucratic, the apersonal and the meritocratic, Zapata the charismatic leader linked to the traditions of personalism and caudillismo; in short, Obregon represented the nationalist, urban, literate, secular, bureaucratic, achievement-oriented ethos, while Zapata was the champion of the rural, the parochial, the illiterate, the pastoral, and the agricultural. At the simplest level, Zapata was a Catholic and Obregon an anticlerical and the latter was a Northerner while the former was a Southerner. Obregon was interested in business, economic diversification, and producing cash crops for export, while Zapata led an agrarian movement of nostalgia, resisting economic change. So how could the two have found common ground?
Zapata's search for allies was overtaken by events when, in November 1917, Carranza again sent Pablo González and the Army south to "pacify" Morelos. Gonzalez, drawing on the invaluable local knowledge of Sidronio Camacho, who had fled to Carranza after killing Eufemio Zapata, quickly took Cuautla, Jonacatepec and Zacualpan. Facing a serious threat to his position, Zapata was rescued when a major revolt broke out in Coahuila under Lucio Blanco, sending ripples as far as Veracruz and triggering an army mutiny there. Finally, it looked like a national resistance to Carranza was brewing, if only Blanco could unite and make common cause with Felix Diaz. In the euphoria, Zapata wrote to his allies in Hidalgo and Tlaxcala to encourage them to join Blanco, but it was yet another false dawn. The revolts in Veracruz and Coahuila failed.
Magana did not despair, explaining patiently to Zapata that the Gulf that separated Obergon and Benjamin Hill, on one side, from Carranza and Pablo Gonzalez, on the other, was so wide that, in the end, a division would have to come., Magana really proposed to make openings for Carranza; the agreement would be that Zapata recognized Carranza as president and, in return, Moreos would receive virtual autonomy. This was something like the proposal that Zapata had made to Sunday arenas when he separated, but oneI wake up that he was prepared to do with a goldfish that would not do with Leviathan himself. For his part, Carranza treated all these proposals with loud contempt. One of Carranza's most attested comments was: 'I was never a revolutionary, nor me,neither will I be. He did not reject Magana's proposals; he simply ignored them.
Meanwhile, Zapata was alarmed after an interview with American tycoon, theosophist and amateur archaeologist William E. Gates, who argued that the US would certainly intervene in Mexico when the war in Europe ended. Zapata foresaw two dangers: that Washington would support Carranza to the hilt to crush all dissent, or that Carranza would fall and, in the ensuing chaos, the Americans annex Mexico. He therefore abruptly changed tacha. In his 1918 manifestos, he stopped mentioning the Ayala plan and began to to emphasize the common cause of national unity. All of Zapata's utterances in 1918 were popular front in spirit; head, Zapata finally learned that the defense of the villages of Morelos was not equivalent to the defense of the nation, that in great crises the local cause was subsidiary. But in his heart it seemed that the two fights had been one until the end.
In the summer of 1918, the popular front craze of Zapata had reached its apogee.And Manuel byez.Pelaez answered - he and Zapata agreed to be vice to serve the other as a supreme - but yet nothing happened. When four more felicist risks began in April 1918 in Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Guerrero and Puebla - three of them - three of themFormer Zapatista - Zapata sent a traveling envoy to check with the men of Diaz in each theater. It was minor, who has always been to alliances of any kidney, now alerted Zapata against an alliance with Diaz, arguing that his organization would probably beabsorbed by felicists as a sponge and transformed into an essentially reactionary movement.
Magana was right to be cautious. The reason Moreos took so long without another visit by Pablo Gonzalez was that Carranza was obsessed with the threat of Diaz. In 1918, the felicists had an impressive national network of supporters, not just in Veracruz, Oaxacaand Chiapas, but also in San Luis Potosi, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, not to mention Peloez in Tampic. The worrying for Zapata was that Diaz and his allies had almost completely replaced in Puebla, Guerrero and Michoacan., where the villages were rare and haciendas and farms predominated, professional banditaria had now completely replaced the politically motivated guerrilla war.From the thirty -year war, Brigandage swept Michoacan on three great pests. In the region of Balsas and Tierra Caliente was Jesus Belt; in the central cities was Al Capone, Jose Altamirano; and worst of all, in the field, there was the scourge of Michoacan,Ines Chavez Garcia.
In addition to Felix Diaz and Villa, Carranza ranked Chávez Garcia as the most serious threat to his regime's credibility, far ahead of Zapata at this point. Informally linked in alliance with the felicistas, Chávez Garcia was the most terrifying monster created in the entire Revolution, a man who made Fierro look prosaic. A legendary horseman who could sleep comfortably in the saddle, he had no base or the protection of friendly locals, but he relied on sheer speed to evade capture. Where Villa's thugs cut off ears, Chávez enjoyed personally slitting throats with knives or machetes. In the city of San Jose, he killed twenty men to the accompaniment of music, sadistically granting each victim one last wish before twisting the knife. Another great pleasure was watching his men gang-rape women and forcing virgins to participate in chain orgies. The terror of Michoacan and the most feared man in Mexico, Chávez Garcia scornfully brushed aside all attempts by the feds to get him. He succeeded for a while precisely because Zapatismo had abandoned fighting in Michoacán, and when he died it was from the 1918 flu pandemic, not in battle or at the hands of a firing squad.
In Moreos, 1918 was notable for the disappearance of Palafox.For over a year, Zapata moved away from him under the influence of Magafla.In retrospective, he now saw the 1914 alliance with Villa - of which Palafox was the architect - as his biggest mistake.Palafox behaved more and more arrogantly, even with the decline of his influence.He told everyone that they wanted to hear that he, not mountain, was the true author of Ayala's plan.He insulted Zapata's royal and potential allies and continued with the hard line intransigence.However, what finally knocked him down in the macho Machista society was a homosexual scandal, and Zapata used this excuse to fire him.At this point, Zapata was so angry with Palafox that she really wanted to send him to the shooting platoon.Magana advised him against it, saying that Palafox's execution would make him a martyr and put serious questions of credibility against Zapatism as a whole.Palafox fled to Carranza, spreading obscene rumors about his former boss.Palafox said Zapata's key failure was that he was lazy and was very interested in 'good horses, fighting roosters, showy women, card games and intoxicating drinks'.He listed the twenty-two women Zapata had cases in 1911-18;Another disappointed and liar admirer of Zapata, H. H. Dunn, later increased the number for twenty -six.
Mexico in 1917 was a country in control of famine, pestilence and disease - all the more reason why Carranza was not strong enough to attempt a final settlement of accounts with Zapata. Scarcity and famine brought the inevitable hoarding, speculation, grafting. and profit in its wake, realized by private and official entrepreneurs. With food short, street cleaning and sanitation non-existent outside the big cities and misery everywhere, it was not surprising that deadly diseases were setting in the population. it was Typhus, the time-honored killer who lurks in the wake of wars and famine. He claimed 1,000 deaths a week in 1916-17, and in the south more murders joined: smallpox, yellow fever, and malaria. heart of Zapata that Pablo Gonzalez had started.
Then, in the winter of 1918, a new enemy appeared in Moreos: Spanish flu that would take forty million people worldwide. He effect in Mexico was devastating: while in England mortality was four out of a thousand, south of RioBig, they were twenty to the thousand. The total mortality in the pandemic Mexico was 300,000, almost the only benefit is that the discarded virus of Chavez Garcia. In Moreos, the flu is particularly deep, as it impacted a population weakened by displacement, nomadism, nomadism.Hunger, fatigue, impure water, and a particularly severe winter. People fell like flies hit and died much faster than they could be buried. In December 1918, the prosperous city of Cuutla was a ghost town.Population, both the mortal virus and the exodus of Morelians to the neighboring Guerrero, a reputation to be free of flu. Zapat, therefore, suffered serious losses of hand in his army, by pure unfortunate coincidence, that all his ownMain agents and gunrunners were gathered in Mexico City.
Zapata's letters in winter 1918 betray a great and superdetermined anxiety. He was concerned with his hand losses, suffering from the situation of brunettes, concerned with his inability to find allies and, above all, assume hisgreat concern: that the United States would finally invade Mexico now that the war in Europe was over. Zapata even wrote to Felipe Angeles, asking him to use his presumed influence with Marshal Foch, so that France restricts the US.He wondered if the Allied powers would intervene to prevent chaos in Mexico, as they had done against the Bolsheviks in Russia. In a very short time, Zapata went from a parish perspective to a national and then international.who cared about nothing but the terrestrial actions of the villages of Morelos interpreting the international statesman and writing to gain help from the European powers.
What Zapata finally feared emerging. Esperando until the rainfall ended, Pablo Gonzalez returned to Moreos again, this time with 11,000 soldiers. Finding the very weakened resistance, he quickly captured Cuautla, Jonacatepec, Yautepec, Jocutla, Tlavetilizapan, Tetecala andCuernavaca.Gonzalez installed garrisons in all major cities, imposed his own government in the villages and began to bring workers from other parts of Mexico in a paid scheme.Heads were again on the run. Puebla's military commander, General Cesareo Castro, a Carranza favorites, offered Anesty to Magan and all moderate leaders of Zapatista, hoping to attract them of Zapata and leave him isolated.Of the huge temptations and pressures on them, the bosses remained faithful to each other - not just for La 0 and Mendoza, but all the leaders of the "second level".
Despite his danger, Zapata has always refused to fold his knees to Carranza.In new manifestos, he criticized him as a hunting dog of Kaiser, partisan of imperialism and enemy of democracy, thus expecting to interest the European powers.Meanwhile, he saw Hope in the mining notes that Washington was now starting to send Carranza about mining laws and oil companies.He also continued to lobby with apparent regime supporters who were not part of Carranza's intimate circle, trying to free them from him.Accepting that it was for some an obstacle to national unity, Zapata offered to leave the position of supreme chief of the revolution in favor of Francisco Vasquez Gomez, which Magana had nominated as the favorite choice of Carranza's moderate enemies, such as Angeles and Villareal..Zapata then made Vasquez Gomez the focus of his hopes of a popular front, even writing Villa and by the to exhort them to come together around this new leader.
Zapata was still one step ahead of Pablo Gonzalez, who in February 1919 sent his troops in a chase of wild geese, supposedly at the tail of Zapata, from Jojutla to Jonacatepec to Tchimilco. However, Pablo Gonzalez who ruled from Cuernavaca in1919 was a very different animal from the scourge of three years earlier. He was now eyeing the 1920 presidential elections, where he imagined a dark horse candidate, and did not want to blow up his chances by making mistakes in brunettes. In the beginning of 1919, there wasFew armed clashes between Zapatistas and the army, only a few isolated skirmishes. Where, since he had looted and destroyed, Gonzalez has now tried to reinforce his reputation trying to make morales in motion economically. Politically, but he still faced impasse because he failedCapture a single chief of Zapatista, some of whom are so contempt for their garrisons and so certain of the protection of the inhabitants they opened openly through the larger cities.
Suddenly Carranza told Gonzalez to end Zapata for any, fair or dirty, that he could invent.Carranza publicly announced that Zapata was "beyond amnesty."What caused this last explosion was the news of their spies that Zapata and bye were about to complete an alliance, which in turn would open the window to Zapata for the entire felicist revolt.In the meantime, by and he published violently discharge letters with "the mustaded" and sent his brother Octavio to Mexico City to confere with pro-Abregon elements.Carranza was also furious to be under Washington's strong pressure, even when William Gates's propaganda efforts and his inspiring journalism made Zapata a hero to American readers.Carranza understood Gonzalez that Zapata's death could only be the plate that guaranteed her presidential appointment in 1920.
By pure chance, Gonzalez found a way to achieve betrayal of what he could never reach by armed force. Even began with a genuine line between Gonzalez and his commander of the Ace Cavalry, Colonel Jesus Guajardo, 5 of the Rules.May Guajardo persecute Zapata night and day in the mountains around Cuautla, but then caught him by drinking in a bar in the city when he should be on duty. Apart from Guajardo's excellent history, Gonzalez arrested him and threatened to have him at court.Listening to this, Zapata thought he saw a way to destroy Gonzalez's position in Morelos. In March 21, Igig, he had a smuggled grade to Guajardo's cell, asking him to join him with the entire 5th regiment.Gonzalez intercepted the letter, nodded in front of Guajardo as proof of his "betrayal" and gave him two options: cooperate in a plot or being filmed by betrayal. Guajardo agreed to cooperate.It would be acceptable as a means of getting rid of Zapata and then implemented her stratagem.
At Gonzalez's direction, Guajardo wrote a note to Zapata, saying that he was prepared to come to him and bring his knights. To test his sincerity, Zapata asked him to shoot Victoriano Barcenas and his fifty ex-zapatista renegades who were now under the protection of Carranza. Guajardo arranged to meet Zapata at Jonacatepec on April 9, did so, presented him with a beautiful chestnut horse named Ace of Diamonds, and 'proved' his sincerity by executing the fifty men. Zapata then asked Guajardo to come to the station At 4:30 pm on April 9, Guajardo and 6oo of his men gathered at the shepherd. Zapata greeted him effusively, giving him the Bearhug Abrazo and the gift of an unlucky horse. called the Golden Age. Taking thirty men each, they proceeded to Tepalcgo. Further conversation took place, but the suspected Zapata was still not entirely beyond doubt. The two men agreed to meet again the next morning at Hacienda Chinameca. Guajardo spent the night there while Zapata camped in the hills.
Early on Thursday, Io April Zapata and his escort made their way slowly up the hills towards the Hacienda - familiar territory, as it was one of the first places he had taken in early 1911, so familiar that he claimed to know all the blades of grass there. There were several stores outside the Hacienda, and Zapata and Guajardo checked there, within range of their escorts. Word soon came out that the enemy was approaching. Zapata organized patrols and reconnoitred. died, it was 1:30 pm. So far, only one Zapatista has ventured inside the walls of the Hacienda: the ADC Miguel Palacios de Zapata, who was discussing the delivery of 12-year-old Guajardo, rounds of ammunition.
Guajardo then invited Zapata to dinner within the walls. Zapata was suspicious, but finally, tired and hungry, he accepted and, taking a bodyguard of just ten men, around 2:10 pm. he mounted a sorrel horse and rode through the gates. Guajardo's honor guard was ready, as if to greet the visitor. A bugler sounded the call of honor three times as the men presented their weapons. When the last note sounded and Zapata reached the threshold of the hacienda building, the guards opened fire at close range. Zapata dropped dead immediately; Palacios and two of the escort were also killed in the hail of bullets. The rest of the Zapatistas fled in dismay.
Guajardo's men pulled their body into the farm, carried it in a mule and set off for Cuautla.Gonzalez was notified at 7:30 pm, but suspected a trick.At 21h.Guajardo's men arrived in the dark with their body.A flashlight on Zapata's face showed that this was really the brunette tiger.Gonzalez wrote in triumph to Carranza, who rewarded Guajardo with the post of Brigade General.However, although Gonzalez has organized public exhibitions from the bullet -covered corpse and even filmed by a professional team before being buried, the people of Morelos refused to accept that Zapata was dead.There were several stories: that Zapata had sent a double to the meeting (he was even appointed as Jesus Delgado), that the body was not from Zapata, because the corpse did not have the unique distinctive marks of Zapata - a mole on his right cheek,A birth mark in the chest and a little finger missing.Finally and inevitably, Zapata was seen by eyewitnesses riding her sower in the Guerrero mountains to the south.The most bizarre story was that Zapata could not have been killed in Chinameca as she boarded "Arabia" on April 9 in Acapulco.
There may be truth in the most persistent legend: that Zapata had foreseen his own death and that, on the eve of his murder, a healer came to him and prophesied that if he went to the meeting the next day, he would be dead.From Zapata, in which he told his comrades that he did not fear death, for great movements are strengthened with martyrdom. He spoke of men who were greater in death than in life, mentioning Benito Juarez, and said that the greatest men ofHistory have always been murdered - this time he quoted Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ. Zapata was a cunning judge. In Moreos, he became an icon almost at one level with the Virgin of Guadalupe.of inspiration from Chiapas Indians as they fight oppression. Viva Zapata!
The decline of villainy
When Villa withdrew to his seriously injured cave and many of the villalist detachments were defeated and scattered in the spring of 1916, everyone thought that Centaur's days were numbered.In June, however, Villa reappeared and summoned a general meeting of all villaight bands.Many answered his call, as the cotton crop was already harvested and they could return to war with quiet conscience.Villa's reappearance contributed to his legend.Refuting the numerous rumors of his death, the great leader, however, initially badly made an impressive impression.Now with a full black beard, he walked on crutches, and even when he dropped them, he always limited;He couldn't put on a shoe on a foot because his leg was swollen from knee to foot.It was very painful for him to ride a horse, so for long trips, he tried to travel by car.
As he was still being sought by Pershing and a great army of a frowner, Villa's situation was extremely dangerous on the role. However, in the duel with Carranza, he enjoyed several advantages that were not immediately apparent. In first place, CarranzaHe played in his hands for his disastrous policies in the state of Chihuahua, oscillating between leaving his corrupt companions to direct the state in a spoil system and treat it as a busy territory, under the heel of the nominated generals of Mexico.What he followed was hated by the people of Chihuahua. The only mistake Carranza did not make was to bring back to the Creel-Terrazas faction, but her own supreme, Ignacio Enriquez, was, if something, worse than the old guard.Carranza nor Enriquez had the idea of how to integrate Villa's annoyed veterans into the state's economy, the only offer made to them was to join the Federal Army, which everyone hated as the old enemy. So Louis XVIII made it possible for a hundred days to notFinding work for Napoleon's veterans, Enriquez without notion has practically secured a recrudescence of vilisma. When Villa reappeared, many of his veterans concluded that life in saddle with him was preferable to define it in indigent unemployment.
Villa enjoyed another advantage. Therefore, the periodical weapon embargoes of Woodrow Wilson and the competition of European weapons traffickers, Carranza was lacking ammunition in 1916. Villa, on the other hand, hid huge caches of weapons and ammunition in secret placesin Chihuahua.He also had a dedicated body of young officers, who had gone with him and the donors in the mountains in late 1915. Although some of them (Pablo Lopez, Candelario Cervantes) had fallen into the set of setbacks in early 1916, theOthers (Martin Lopez, Nicolas Fernandez, Baudelio Uribe) remained. Mini-fierra in perspectives and sensitivity, they soon became a synonym for terro.villa was more humane than Carranza, as only police officers executed the captured troops,Letting the ranakes break free, with the promise that they would not fight him again. Of course many did so, if only because they were hit by the frowning.The prisoners to be instantly recognizable and warned them that if they were caught again, it would mean instant death.
Also in 1916, Villa enjoyed all his former popularity with the people of Chihuahua.Where the frowns allowed their troops to plunder and pile freely, Villa and his men paid for the food they bought from the peasants.The harvests in 1916 were good, the food was abundant and Villa could pay in gold and silver, so its popularity fired.His statement that he was struggling to save Mexico do Gringo played a friendly rope, as was his land redistribution and stores he then transferred, Robin-Hood style, to the peasants.The use of terrorism and pile by Villa was carefully selective: he liked to reach American properties or cities that had some connection with the Yanks.With his threats to freeze the blood, he expected to undermine Americans' morale in Chihuahua, making them close mines and send their women home for security.
The second half of 1916 saw Villa invading Chihuahua up and down apparently without leaving or prevents.In July, 1,000 men of him took the city strongly garnished in Jimenez;With their approach, the federal troops terrified and demoralized simply fled.The city was then systematically looted, and Baudelio Uribe was the pioneer in his technique of arresting the ears of the few frowns who committed the foolishness of remaining.Momentarily, Villa was too confident and forgot that she was involved in a cat and rat game.Moving quickly to Durango, he was defeated in Villa Hidalgo, but saved his face by winning a few skirmishes.With the approach of autumn, he felt it was time for a great demonstration of Carranza's impotence in Chihuahua.
So, on September 15, he launched a major attack on the city of Chihuahua, with the aim of freeing political prisoners from prison. A large number of Orozquistas were billeted there and their leader, former Orozco deputy José Inês Salazar, was sentenced to death, along with many of his men. Gone are the days when Villa loathed the Orozquistas for their betrayal of Madero; now he needed allies wherever he could find them, and he operated on the basis that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." The odds were heavy against Villa, as he only had 2,000 to throw against the garrison's 9,000 troops. He relied on the element of surprise, planning his attack to coincide with Independence Day celebrations. Ignacio Enriquez's moderate governor, Jacinto Trevino, had been warned of Villa's approach, but, like Pershing in Columbus, he ignored the warning and allowed most of his troops to participate in the national holiday festivities.
Villa hit midnight.Fun units attacked the palace and barracks while the main force invaded the penitentiary.I caught completely by surprise, Trevino panicked and fled.The villalists killed all the prison guards and released Salazar, who was taken triumphant to Villa;A bear hug sealed your pact.In great euphoria, Villa began to retreat north with the main force, the orozquisters and some valuable pile items, but in an unforgivable mistake, forgot to tell diverse units to interrupt combat.Since the frowns still shot wildly in anything that moved, the villalists thought the main battle was still happening.Too late, they noticed their mistake and had to fight to leave town, losing three quarters of their number when doing so.
Despite this, Villa marked a great blow and his supporters took the most of it. People started asking how it was possible that Villa got this achievement when there were 9,000 federal troops in the city of Chihuahua and Pershing still had IO, men ooo around the regions.northern state. The federal were so demoralized that they had no stomach for a persecution when Villa withdrew to the Canyon of Santa Clara. So came the news of a defeat of coahuila government troops by villalist Calixto Contreras in the Laguna area.Villa's fortunes were really revived. Unemployed and unhappy began to meet with him, so that September to December 1916 was a half -time time.
Villa's next target was the city of San Andres; it was a debt he owed to the dorado, many of whom came from there. Their Carrancista commander unfortunately considered himself something of a military genius. When he heard that Villa was approaching with 400 men, he divided his forces, remaining in the city with his best sixty soldiers and ostensibly sending his deputy into the desert with another 300 soldiers, to give the impression that they were fleeing because of his troops. . lives. When Villa attacked, the 300 were supposed to come around and catch him from the rear.
Unfortunately for the commander, his deputy panicked when the shooting began and led his men to the desert instead of falling into the villalist rear;Forty they died hungry and headquartered in the deserts without trails and without water.The unfortunate commander resisted in San Andres for six hours until, at a numerical disadvantage, he was forced to surrender.Villa executed him and the defenders without mercy.This was a retaliation for the execution of the villalists captured as they tried to fight to leave the city of Chihuahua.In addition, Carranza has issued a new martial law decree that anyone gets arms should suffer the death penalty without pardon.Villa crowned his success by obtaining the Military Code book and telegroping asking for reinforcements.Other twenty -five federals arrived to be taken to the shooting platoon.
After San Andres, Villa had the Minas Gerais city of Cusihuiriachic in his sights and tried to secure a bloodless victory, heading in front to say he was on his way. The troke troops panicked and evacuated the city, but just as they wereLeaving, a cloud of dust announced the coming of a large company of armed men. A bloody shooting followed, and it was only when the heavy victims were taken from both sides that the newcomers were not villains but reinforcements, but reinforcements.FEDERAL. AMALLYING THEIR LUCK, THE SURVATORS TURNED TO FACE THE TRUE VILLISTS THAT FINALLY APPEARED. The troops were quickly overloaded; all who were not killed in the shooting were executed on the spot.
Villa was in a roller now, as he began to take the city of San Isidro and, a few days later, defeated another great federal strength in Santa Isabel. Changed for his series of victories, and the excessive confidence, Villa stopped posting guardsAnd it was almost surprised by a second frowning force. The federal ones managed to capture the villalist's forces, forcing them to flee on foot, but, crossing the battlefield of Santa Isabel, they were demoralized with the vision of so many corpses and notThey managed to press their initial advantage. Longe to fall upon the disorganized vilists, they progressively lost their nerves, fearing ambush and flank attack. Villa managed to recover their horses and, the next day, against -defeating the feds with large massacre.
After the unbroken streak of victories, more and more Federals dropped out of the ranks to join Villa, and all the old legends of his invincibility resurfaced. As Carranza's grip on Chihuahua seemed increasingly shaky, Villa took the psychological offensive and issued a manifesto, as if he were once again a credible national leader. Once again, the target was the Gringo: Villa announced that in future Americans would not be able to own property or pursue any form of economic life in Mexico. homeland against the Yankee Octopus, he announced that there would be Universal National Service and that all projects would be carried out. by Fortunato Maycotte, one of Obregon's most gifted advisors and an architect of victory at Celaya. Maycotte accompanying north would be Villa de Durango's old enemies, the brothers of Arrieta.
Obregon advised Maycotte that he was accepting a poisoned chalice, as he did not have enough ammunition to mount a credible search and destroy operation against the Villa at their home in Chihuahua. Maycotte and the Arrietas rejected the advice and advanced on La Enramada. they were attacked by a contingent led by Baudelio Uribe, led by "Earcutter". After a few minutes of fighting, the villistas appeared to break and run. Thinking that this was the main force, the federals accused of pursuit, but were soon "eaten " to the devastating fire of Villa's main force on strong defensive positions. Obregon was angry with Maycotte, irritated that the Federals had fallen in love with the tactic of feigned retreat repeatedly. Maycotte's defeat of Villa convinced many that Carranza could never impose himself on Chihuahua. The useless Governor Trevino sent his wife and looted $150,000 fortune to El Paso and refused to obey orders to take the offensive against the Villa.
Between September and December 1916, Villa was victorious in twenty -two armed meetings, in which he captured more weapons and ammunition. Until, as in the fall of 1913, he controlled all the Chihuahua outside the big cities.In the temporary capture of Santa Rosalia and Jimenez.In November 6, he made his first entry in Parral and occupied the city again in December..
In his attacks on larger cities, Villa liked to attack the property of Americans, Spanish and Chinese and did not care when his men killed Chinese and Syrian merchants, but, threateningly, he was starting to alienate the peasantry and the middle classes now that there wasThere are no more properties of oligarchs to confiscar.The bourgeoisie opposed forced loans, and the peasantry to forced military service, especially since those pressured in the "crusade" against the gringos always seemed to end up fighting the frowns.
However, while Villa continued to pay his men a silver weight a day, he could always find buyers, especially among those who had their properties looted by the frowning and were thirsty with revenge.As his confidence increased, he began to dream of reviving the northern division and ascending as a guerrilla leader to the position he held in 1915 as leader of a regular army.During the second occupation of Parral, he actually had new uniforms for his men.All of this caused growing irritation and dismay in Mexico City.Obergon chose the nepotista responsible for the Trevino payroll for a particular censorship, saying he did not understand guerrilla.In response, Trevino has traveled, trying to blame for the disaster in Chihuahua to Pershing and then to Obergon himself, pointing out that he was the one who organized the disastrous Maycotte/Arrietes expedition.
On November 23, Villa made his second attack on the city of Chihuahua. This time, his attack was not designed as a mere attack, but an attempt to take the whole city, capture Trevino and destroy Carranza's credibility in Chihuahua at onceVilla's difficulty was that a column of relief was on its way to Trevino and there was a risk that his agitation force could be caught between the fire of defenders and appeasing.City to sustain the advance of reinforcements, then placed its own troops on trains and cooked steaming toward the city of Chihuahua. It was four days of dark struggle. The initial accusations of villa cavalry were divided by machine gun machinery in the hillFrom Santa Rosa, overlooking the city, and on November 24 Trevino led a counterattack that seemed to succeed even Villa to counterattack strongly with his hurts. Even Trevino thought he had won and organized a 'victory dinner' toThe 28th.
In the small hours of the morning of November 27, the villas broke into the hill of Santa Rosa. The attack was led by a wounded Martin Lopez, who got up from his sick bed to be there.In panic they were removed. Trevino made his escape without informing any circle, with the result that many police officers found themselves to deal with Villa after the escape routes were closed. Some chose to commit suicide instead of being taken to the shooting squadBut the remaining advocates, after robust resistance, surrendered to a personal guarantee from Villa that their lives would be spared.
The fall of Chihuahua City created a sensation, and mutual recriminations and quarrels previously broke out among the Carrancistas. Trevino again tried to blame others, saying that the relief column did not arrive in time. Obregon publicly accused Trevino of cowardice, but astute observers it was thought that Obregon's real target was Pablo Gonzalez, whose protégé Trevino was. However, Trevino lost the propaganda battle as well as the battle for Chihuahua City. More objective and dispassionate observers pointed out that whatever Parti Pris de Obregon, Trevino was certainly guilty of corruption, lies and incompetence, even if a bracket was placed around the charge of cowardice.
After taking the state capital, Villa walked to the crowd, leaving them attacked by looting. He did not feel strong enough to cling to the city, but carried tons of shops, arms and ammunition on his troop trains.He turned to face the relief force led by Francisco Murguia, who was destined to be the federal shadow of Villa in the next three years. Known as "The Hangman" because of his pleasure in public executions, Murguia was a cruel character andCruel, totally corrupt, and venal, specializing in accumulating food for speculation as people died around him. To deal with the 10,000 people column, Villa sent 3,000 men under the command of the orozquist leader he had previously rescued from prison, JoseInes Salazar.to give to Salazar, the position of honor seemed without generous to Villa; the students of their methods concluded that this was the typical villa makeupism, seeming to give prestige to a commander who was obliged to lose in a "mission impossible"The accusation of Salazar's cavalry predictably did not break the murguia formation, but the villains retired in good order, having taken light victims and bought the time necessary for Villa to make an efficient evacuation.
Villa's next target was Torreon, a city filled with memories of its glory days. As a prelude, he sent Baudelio Uribe to extinguish Camargo's garrison—a task easily accomplished—but Camargo was destined to deal a deathblow to the Villa legend. As he rode into town, a woman tearfully begged him not to kill her husband, the Carrancista treasurer. Intending to do her a favor, Villa made inquiries and discovered that the man was already dead. The woman then inexplicably flew into a rage, accused Villa of killing her husband, and dared him to kill her as well. In a hot rage, Villa drew his pistol and shot her. This aroused the bloodlust of his followers, who asked permission to kill all the other 'bitches' who had given their favors to the carrancists. Still shaking with rage, Villa agreed; the result was that ninety women attended the firing squad. This atrocity received very wide currency and effectively ended popular support for Villa.
There was a new brutality evident in Villa from this moment. He took this with Murguia, combining him brutal action for brutal action, atrocity of atrocity. As in the rest of Mexico, violence generated violence and six years of uninterrupted war had extinguished theMost of the traces of humanity and provided a kind of socialization in barbarism. It can be argued that the true villain was Carranza, who began the cycle by decreing that all prisoners should be killed, but in part it seems that Villa's growing cruelty was born fromFrustration and disappointed idealism: he did so much to people, and his only return was betrayal and gross ingratitude. Villa seemed to feel about the people of Chihuahua almost as if one of his lovers had been unfaithful to him.
Enough weapons and ammunition had been captured at Camargo to leave Villa confident of taking Torreon, whose garrison numbered just 2,000. The federal commander sent desperate pleas for reinforcements to Murguia, but he refused, saying that eliminating Villa's base of operations in the mountains of western Chihuahua should be his priority. Even when he received a direct order from Obregon, Murguia still refused to reinforce Torreon. all over Mexico that there were no troops to spare. As a result, Villa found it easy, almost to the point of passing, Storm Torreon on December 22, 1916; the federal commander committed suicide rather than fall into his hands.
Tororeon gave Villa more artillery, more troop training, more supplies and more volunteer in the press. He raised forced loans and instituted a pogrom against the Chinese traders. Candidate as always, he requested a crowd of spectators who came applauded him at the hotelFrance, holding them all and then choosing the most capable of "volunteers." Carranza's main supporter Luis Herrera, was killed in the battle for Torreon, so Villa had his body publicly struggled publicly for two days, with a paper weightIn one hand and a portrait of Carranza in the other. These arbitrary actions were particularly infurized consular employees of Torreon, but then Villa was never the favorite of diplomats, who knew how to deal with Carranza and even Huerta, but were out of depth with Centaur.A that hated him more than most, Patrick O'Hea, said, 'His career is that of a dog in anger, a crazy mulá, a malay that ran.'
Ex Lord of Skills and Resources, Villa was now confident that he could defeat Murguia. However, the village that faced Murguia in battle was the same village that could not think of his strategy and properly prepare in Celaya and Leon.He rejected theBaudelio Uribe's plan for a night attack on the rear enemy with men from Iooo and quixically sent Nicolas Fernandez on another mission with 2,000 men while confronted murguia from the front. The result was a severe defeat.A villalist defeat followed when it was that Villa had not reserved.
Retreating to Parral, where he stayed for no more than twenty-four hours, the Villa undid some of the damage done by Camargo's atrocity when he invited the townspeople to a looting pedestal. had loaded onto wagons, Villa invited the citizens to help themselves; in the Free-for-All that followed, the wagons were stripped in a few hours. Villa's largess seemed misplaced, however, when news arrived that the Carrancistas they had seized most of the supplies that Villa had cached after the capture of Chihuahua City. a unified command with the Villista rebels already fighting there under Contreras and others.
It was March 1917 before Villa was ready to face Murguia again in Chihuahua. This time, it was Murguia who was too confident and once again he fell in love with the stratagem of the fired retreat.Cavalry not supported and no reserve, Murguia treated the battle as a replay of his previous success, not knowing that Villa had posted men in the hills. When Murguia advanced to complete the expected defeat, he was surrounded.He took 2,500 casualties and was exceptionally fortunate to escape the field. Villa took 6o prisoners and executed them. In a macabre and terrible butcher act, the donors dispatched them into groups of five, firing a particularly powerful bullet through all five headsat once to save ammunition.
Fortune now once again turned against Villa in the smoking battle with Murguia. Rafael Mendoza, a Dorados specialist, was captured by the feds and about to be executed when he offered them a deal they couldn't refuse. Mendoza was one of the few trusted aides who knew where Villa's weapons caches were hidden, and he led Murguia to a gigantic cache at Chevarria containing tens of thousands of rifles and several million rounds of cartridges. When this catastrophic loss was reported to Villa, he was so He was so devastated that he began to cry. Reeling from the setback, he decided that the only way to recover was another attack on Chihuahua City. He built huge bonfires to make Murguia think the attack would come from the south and then took his forces north to attack from there, but Murguia did not die of the bait. After a fierce battle, Villa's ammunition gave. Murguia took all 200 villainous prisoners and hanged them in rows on Colon Avenue in Chihuahua City, just as Crassus hanged the Spartacists along the way. of the Appian after the slave revolt.
Still meditating on Mendoza's betrayal, Villa decided to cause revenge on everyone who had betrayed the secret of his so -called weapons and drove their steps toward Namiquipa, whose people had betrayed a perspective cache. When all the males of the villages fled to the mountainsIn his approach, he gathered all women Nubile and let his troops rape the gangs. This was a myopic madness, as it simply alienated the former residents of solidarity with him and was punctuated with the atrocity of Camargo in the counting of war crimes and crimes againstHumanity accused of his account. Villa soon learned how stupid he was in giving in his feelings of anger. However before the residents warned them about the Murguia approach, disgusted with the indignation of Namiquipa that they stopped helping him.Immediately, a federal attack on his headquarters in Babicora was a complete surprise; after surrounding Hacienda, Murguia killed hundreds and Villa, and 400 survivors were difficult to start after the most desperate hand -to -to -hand combat.
As he licked his wounds, Villa's darkness was increased by the betrayal of one of his colonels from Dorado. On a promise of pardon and payment from Murguia, he planned to assassinate Villa, but the unusual presence of men on the rooftops was noticed, and Villa sent officers ahead who were fired. For three days, Villa sulked in his camp like Achilles, full of paranoid fantasies, uncertain who he could trust and who was loyal. US border at Ojinaga, where he was waiting for another cache of weapons from his agent in Presidio, Texas, across the river. sell weapons to the Villa, even at inflated prices.
At this point, the villalist movement began to seriously implode. By its atrocities, Villa had lost the hearts and minds of the peasantry and now, with the betrayal of many of his arms deposit, he was seriously with weapons and ammunition.-Villa Pueblos came to an agreement with Carranza after they realized that Villa could no longer protect them. The villalist propaganda no longer worked, by the idea that Carranza had sold Mexico to the gringos, was refuted both from the removal of the punitive expedition andby Carranza's support to Germany, who proved eloquently that he had not treated a secret between him and Wilson. All hopes of a resurrection of the northern division were now seen as the chimeras they were.Only a few hundred men, Villa has divided his strength into small units, which made running attacks into cities and garrisons; the idea should be that since the harvest was gathered, the various units could recombine, but the obstacle was that the obstacle wasVilla could not exercise control over what actions the units took on their behalf. In order he could explain why he continued to fight if he knew himself. It was difficult to articulate ideas and political, because not a single intellectual remained with the villains.
To save herself from becoming marginalized, Villa joked with ever -strange schemes. When a war of words broke out in the Chihuahua press between Murguia and Trevino, each accusing the other of cowardice, Villa tried to cut the Gordian knot writing for aSpanish newspaper in the United States (with union rights in Chihuahua) challenging murguia for a duel. When this offer was predictably received with silence, Villa was obsessed with a hare-brave scheme to go to Mexico City, kidnap Carranza, and LeváThe Zapata in Moreos for a 'judgment of people' there. Improbably, unaware of or insufficient of obstacles, the villa really moved on with this idea and took a unit of men chosen to the south with him.
Once south of Chihuahua, Villa had the first idea of what he had taken.This part of Mexico was an armed field and each village was full of militias, aggressive and challenging for the strangers.To cover his tracks, Villa had to perform all the people he met.In Durango, he joined 27 armed villagers in a platoon in search of bandits.True to his principles, he killed them all, but then he was persecuted by the furies of a collective village league, determined to avenge his colleagues.Alarmed, Villa retreated to Aguascalientes, just to get lost.With his men's nerves almost at the skin, Villa was forced to cancel his great adventure and return to the north to Chihuahua.He divided his strength and paved his way back dangerously to the state, using all the shortcuts and passages in the mountains.However, the morale of the unit was so low that he did not personally led that there was a riot and the commander was murdered.When Villa reached the leaders and hanged them, the rest of the unit fled to Murguia.
The failure of his quixotic operation from Mexico City plunged Villa into deep darkness, and for a time he considered giving up the fight. He offered terms for the surrender of Murguia, who refused them, like Villa, like Zapata, had been declared "beyond amnesty" by Carranza. Villa was now in a canyon of his own making: Carranza would never forgive him, and if he fled to the US, he would be tried and executed for the attack on Columbus. Even if he tried to go into exile in Europe, like Diaz and Huerta, he would be extradited by the allies, eager to do favors for Woodrow Wilson, or by the central powers, who were friendly to Carranza. He was lucky that the Carrancistas, for their stupidity in driving recruits into arms - describing anyone who resisted his depredations as villains - still kept his movement alive.
Villa could still count on the hard core of a few dozen comrades, linked to him by indissoluble ties of kinship or compadrazgo, but by the end of 1917 there were too many unfavorable factors working against him. The impression of atrocities and collective rapes lingers in popular memory. The withdrawal of the Punitive Expedition cut the ground beneath his feet and made his fight against Carranza seem like meaningless or the personal resentment of a man defeated by a more capable politician. Without the encouragement of his intellectuals, Villa did not know how to appeal to the masses and, left to himself, completely forgot about agrarian reform. The rise of village militias or social defense groups worked against him, as these armed bands saw themselves as the seeds of a new Chihuahua and fought against Villa and Carranza.
More and more Villa was being marginalized as these militia groups became the focus of struggle in the Carranza regime. Ignacio Enriquez, now the civil governor of Chihuahua, tried to build these militias as a counterweight to Murguia and the Army. He stood on the fence as his two companions carried him away. He probably could have ended the Villa for good by giving greater power to the social defenses, but to do so, he would have had to relinquish central control through the army. to the point where Murguia tried to assassinate Enriquez, and Carranza was finally forced to take sides. He singled out Enriquez, sent him back as commander of all militias and paramilitaries, and transferred Murguia to Tamaulipas.
The emphasis on armed militias finally began to be worth it. In all places, Villa was, he was confronted by them. He issued another manifesto, stating that he was fighting for Chihuahua's autonomy against Carranza's despotism and threatening the militias with reprisalsHard, but no one paid attention to him. In the end of 1917, Villa even gave up harassing Americans and allowed US companies to return as long as they paid tax.to pay residents for silver weight supplies. He was able to survive with popular resentment against Carranza, for in 1918 the first boss turned right and restored his hacings to the Terrazas family.: He wanted the elite in Chihuahua United and the confiscated properties, now totally looted and no longer worked, were a dead weight, generating income.
Much, the village of 1918 was so tired and exhausted that he didn't even bother to make the capital of this sign "betrayal" by Carranza. It was a period of doldrum in his life: he dodged mainly from sierras with his faithful hurts, occasionally invading occasionallyThe food, but trying no large company. However, he was expelled from his apathy at the end of the year by a very unexpected event: Felipe Angeles returned from the United States and sought him.Other parts of the US, including New York. The long-term 1916-18, he shared Villa's obsession with a US invasion in Mexico and, although no longer part of the fight, continued to admire Villa, Zapata and La0 by far. Angeles' greatest tragedy may have been that the brilliant captain and the versatile intellect, though he was, was not political. He was the only man who could unite all the factions of the revolution if Carranza could have been ifGetting rid of it, but would not be aware of how to achieve this desirable consummation. Your closest friend was Maytarena, but in the end he was disillusioned with his defeatism and the way he converted the 'art of the possible' to impossibilism so thatThe present moment could never be the right time to act. As Angeles observed darkly: `Sancho Panzas did never do anything great; whenever anything real importance should be done, the crazy ones like Madero or Don Quixote must be done.
While Angeles was wondering if he should cross Mexico to offer himself as an alternative to Carranza, Villa wrote to him in the most friendly terms. This decided Angeles, who was convinced that with the end of the War in Europe, the United StatesSoon they would send their armies to Mexico. He crossed Rio Grande in December 1918, and shortly there was a cheerful meeting with Villa. While they talked, however, Villa realized that he was still distant in their thoughts.Idea of how firmly entrenched Carranza was and how ubiquitous his troops. How could Angeles realistically expect a government of national reconciliation? Ironically, although Angeles had come back to speak of peace, his presence encouraged the villa to make war and he decided to attack parral.If, by magic, Angeles' mere presence seemed to have turned the luck of Villa. For only 500 men until the end of 1918, new recruits increased the numbers to 2, o0 a few months later. It would see that Angeles's presence really meant somethingfor the people tired of Carranza.
The 1919 villalist army was an entirely voluntary force; Villa stopped pressing men when he found it so unpopular and unproductive. It was assumed to be healthy, as his warfare had grown from taxes charged on foreign owned companies andThe long resignation of active campaigns. The situation of weapons and ammunition was also better, for corruption under Carranza, reached the point where there was a prosperous black market in arms filled with Carranza's weapons factories.Political and propaganda he needed.Angeles visited the villages of Chihuahua, making speeches in which he emphasized religious tolerance and respect for foreigners and their properties.Males fled to the mountains whenever they heard Villa approaching.
The most important change in Angeles's villalist politics was a new attitude toward the prisoners. Angeles impressed Villa that he could make a breakthrough if he stopped executing his captives. Villa made two points in his defense: that he hadanswered only when Carranza began the whole vicious circle; and that if he did not kill them, the prisoners simply returned to the federal, with or without cut ears. Angeles asked him to try, and Villa promised to implement the new policy in parral.The parral in March that the IGRQ was bitterly resisted by the federal garrison and the militia. Villa was able to overthrow regular troops - the militiamen accused the troops of abandoning them - and the fighters of the defenders were retired to the hill of Cerro de laCruz and fought resistantly until finally being forced to surrender. I am to his word to Angeles, Villa left all eighty -eight surviving militiamen except the three leaders he executed. He had a particular reason to kill Joseph of Luzraand his two children, for they were part of the Herrera family who betrayed him; Maclovio and Luis Herrera (killed in Torreon) were the most notorious former villalist villages to join Carranza.
Villa also handed over to Angeles to the federal troops he had arrested; Angeles attributed them and let them go. Angeles's policy ended up being wise. Once the Villa did not execute prisoners, and mouth to mouth made him totally credible, the garrisonThey were prepared to surrender to the villa and hand over their arms and ammunition after the greatest resistance to the token. The theme of the theme, Villa also stopped performing recalcitrant gringos and, instead, made Angeles make them give a lecture.Famous in this sense in the Santa Eulalia Mine in April, Igig, when Villa himself joined the balance of his fingers. The new policy paid dividends. Not under Villa's automatic death sentence, the militia began to refuse to fight for Carranzaciting his 'betrayal' for the army in Parral.
Angeles' next initiative was much less the taste of Villa: he asked him to change the guerrilla war for regular campaigns. Villa protested that he had no labor or resources; as he could put 3,000 men against 17,000 Carranza in ChihuahuaPatiently Angeles explained his thought: the tidling commanders were in dagged dagged, all of them corrupt on the payroll; men were mainly Indians who spin in the press, hungry, poorly equipped and suffering from the scarcity of horses; and the militiasthey refused to cooperate with them. Villa agreed to try a regular campaign, but came to an end to Angeles. Order there was a disagreement of politics and Villa shocked Angeles for their animals."For signing the Treaty of Ciudad Juarez with Diaz, and even more because he had not had Felix Diaz after the scam in Veracruz. The feelings were high and the result was a genuine match of shouts between Villa and Angeles.that Villa would certainly order that his friend executed, but Villa ended up calming down and said to Angeles, "You are the first man who did not die after contradicting me."
Villa's next venture certainly satisfied Angeles' prescription that effective action had to be quixotic. Since Chihuahua City was too strong to capture, Villa opted for an attack on Ciudad Juarez. de Angeles in the regular war was correct, in part he wanted to restock his food and stores, but above all he wanted to sound the YanQuis' intentions. During the brawl over Madero, Villa accused Angeles of going soft against the Americans and being "cut ".Angeles said the Americans were just waiting for an excuse to cross the border, but Villa maintained that they had badly burned their fingers on Pershing's expedition and it was a paper tiger. was right.
On June 15, 1919, Villa's favorite commander Martin Lopez launched the attack at such an angle that no stray bullet would go to the American side of the border in El Paso. The attack went well.USA, the villains did a little work from the barbed wire defenses and, within a few hours, took the city. Lopez then foolishly allowed their troops to dispense, alien to the fact that most feds had retired in good orderFor Fort Hidalgo nearby. A group of frowns came back to recover their standard and found the scattered villos.A surprise attack. Their panic was contagious and soon the whole army was leaving the city. It was your men coming out, Villa walked in town to dinner in a favorite restaurant and was in one of being captured by federals.He ordered his men to regroup and resume the city. They succeeded, taking the feds back to Fort Hidalgo once again, but this time the frowns had an extra shot in their closet in more ways than one. They deliberately fired throughFrom the border against El Paso, provoking Americans to intervene. The argument of Villa-Angeles was decisively resolved when US troops crossed the border in strength and Villa was forced to abandon their earnings with great effort.
Angeles plunged into the dark darkness for this result. Now he saw the extension of American hatred to Villa, he realized that Washington would never agree to recognize the government of national reconciliation he proposed to establish. In addition, all his propaganda in the villages hadEmphasized that the Ianquis were about to intervene against Carranza on Villa's side, and now the opposite had happened. The American intervention in Juarez also broke all his patient who works with Villa.That the Donveh approach had failed and from now on it would be a war for the knife; the gringos would be killed as and when found. In desperation, Angeles abandoned all his dreams and told Villa that he intended to return to the US.
The two men parted as friends. Villa warned of the danger of capture by the Carrancistas and provided a small escort, but for some reason Angeles did not immediately cross the border and instead wandered aimlessly through northern Mexico for reasons that remain unclear. .Did he fear that, if he returned to the US, he would be accused of violating neutrality laws? Perhaps he aspired to leadership of the Zapatistas now that Zapata was dead? he couldn't bear to admit to himself that he had failed, but his actions were so self-defeating that if we're dealing with Obregon, we'd be tempted to post a simple Extinction Wish.
One of the villains betrayed Angeles' hiding place and he surrendered to Carrancistas after receiving an express promise that he would not be shot. In Mexico City, Carranza faced a dilemma. a public relations disaster, for he was already anathema to the international community after his treacherous assassination of Zapata. On the other hand, his prisoner was, in many ways, his most dangerous opponent. His moral and intellectual superior, Angeles was the only a man who could unite all of Mexico's factions to overthrow him. He could not allow such a man to live. Either way, a summary execution or a prolonged trial, Carranza reaps the whirlwind. Ever the shrewd, he thought of a third way that would avoid the dilemma.
Angeles was a marcial court in the heroes Theater in the city of Chihuahua, although he was not subject to military law, as he was not a member of the Federal Army and in front of the judges who were all his bitter enemies. Carranza aimed at a rapid judgment that would not allowthe delays of the normal criminal courts. Angeles made a brilliant speech in his own defense, praising Zapata, socialism and the village, emphasizing redemption and love for hatred. He argued that Villa, for all its excesses, was good toHeart and that Carranza was the guilty of continuous turbulence in Chihuahua, because he had not offered credible terms that Villa could lay his arms.
The speech impressed everyone and won over most of those who were not sure what their attitude was. Carranza realized that the longer the trial dragged on, the more support Angeles would receive, so he ruled that the court should publish its findings within two days. The prosecution rushed the case and the kangaroo court judges, Carranza's puppets to a man, sentenced Angeles to death for "rebellion". Carranza refused to commute the sentence and denied Angeles the right to appeal, although this was expressly permitted by Article 107 of the 1917 Constitution. Despite protest meetings, petitions, and US pressure, Carranza carried out the sentence. Five thousand people defied Carranza by attending Angeles' funeral, often quoting his last words that the blood of martyrs fertilizes a great cause.
Villa Retaliou attacking the Santa Rosalia garrison and cleaning it to the last man. He then moved south and attacked Durango, but sustained a reverse as bad as Ciudad Juarez. To prevent him from being attacked from behind, he saidTo his men to tear the railway track that leads to the city of Durango. For uncertain reasons, they disobeyed the orders and when Villa launched his attack, he was predictably taken in the rear, suffering disastrous defeat and the loss in the battle of his favorite commanderMartin Lopez.The defeats in Ciudad Juarez and Durango and the execution of Angeles had a cumulative effect, and once again an epidemic of desertion and demoralization traveled the army of Villa. In addition he could look for anything from the peasantry.So alienated from him that he was reduced to take the old hostages in all the Pueblo in which he entered, so that residents could not denounce it to the authorities; the old ones would be released in the next village, a new set of hostages, and so on.
Villa was riding his luck and could have been finished right now, but was suddenly rescued by dramatic events in Mexico. In 1919, Carranza repeated Diaz's mistake and tried to perpetuate his government.Being breathing in Carranza's neck, but only with Claro Tacito, understanding that he would be the next president of Mexico. In his sound ranch, he told the days, but began to eat too much, possibly reaction to the problems of being an armBut most likely through simply boredom. He gained weight, seemed swollen, his hair became gray; he forty, he looked like an old man. Preocupated with his health, he became a hypochondriac and made frequent visits to US hospitals.
Obregon proved to be as capitalist as a general. This cultivated area has increased from 18 to 3,500 hectares; he formed a nozzle grain collective and signal to write the product; he diversified in cattle and mining, exporting leather and meat and formingAn import agency-export agency. In 1918, the price of chickpeas doubled and he won us $ 5, O00 that year alone; at the beginning of Igig, he had 1,500 men on his payroll.He carefully cultivated a descendant image of `` just personal '. He dressed like a tramp, exaggerated the poverty of his origins and tried to be a Mexican Abe Lincoln, with many references in his speeches to his early years and the main value of theCommon man. Abragon was immensely self-established, but he hid him well for his lack of solemnity, his fool and, above all, for his jokes.
He shared with Lincoln the genuine characteristic of being the pessimist who believes that the only way to reach people is through the humor. He had a huge repertoire of jokes, was a great accountant and a talented imitation, and had the invaluable gift from beingcapable of improvising, ad lib and limiting the jokes of other people; the only gap in its humorous arsenal was the inability to appreciate irony. Its prodigious memory and ability to learn poems and heart music allowed him to take many poseur and falsehood.It has been suggested that the jokes of Mexican culture are the anverse side of death, a sign that the Joker finds his life meaningless. That would be fueled with the psychological profile guided by the death of Obergon. A observant near him said: "Towards lifeObergon was capable of anything except to take him seriously. "
In June 1919, after serving time in the political wilderness, Obregon announced his candidacy for the presidency. Carranza should have bowed to the inevitable and given his blessing to Obregon's bid, but he disliked him personally and saw him as a representative of the military wing that Carranza wanted firmly under the control of civilian bureaucrats. He therefore looked for ways to stop him. A subtle politician, Obregon blocked Carranza's obvious ruse by reaching an agreement with Pablo Gonzalez, making it impossible for the president to play the two generals against each other. However, Carranza continued to insist on his mantra that only one civilian should succeed him, citing Juarez's attack on "the hateful banner of militarism". Having alienated Obregon, Carranza emulated Diaz in choosing a nonentity as his successor: Ignacio Bonillas, the Mexican ambassador to Washington.
This was grown to the humorous mill of Obergon. At the time, there was a popular song about a wandering shepherd who suffered from Amnesia, who knew nothing - where she was born, that her parents were - except her name was Flor de Te.Obregon's supporters popularized a simulated slogan that ridiculed Bonillas Pitlessly: Viva Bonillas! Live Flor de Te! In November 1919, Obergon began his whistestop tour and was equally blunt.Huerta, Villa and Zapata and would not allow a small thing like Carranza to remain in her way. To applaud and klaxons, he announced: `Before the old bearded can manipulate the election, I will get up against him. '
Soon Obergon built a powerful coalition, joining the military, the enormous opposition from the middle class to Carranza and the working class that Obergon has always favored and whom Carranza betrayed.Campaigning as the Military Genius of the Mexican Revolution, cultivating a populist style of cracker barrel philosophy, Obergon attracted to him the abundant masses of dissatisfied - disgruntled politicians and candidates for public office, guerrillas, army officers and intellectuals such as Vasconcelos.Faced with this whirlwind of opposition, Carranza's famous political instincts, usually so sharp, abandoned him.He knew he was facing great difficulties, despised as he was in the United States, the ordinary people of Mexico for his corrupt regime and the generals and the radical young people for their autocracy.However, he refused to retreat.First, he caused Congress to take Obregon from his military post, but this absurd victimization act simply increased the popularity of Obergon.Then he accused him of planning a military conspiracy and ordered his arrest.Obregon escaped by train to Guerrero, where the military chief was Fortunato Maycotte, his deputy in Celaya.Always ready to represent, when she met Maycotte Obergon caught the eye, greeted and said, 'I'm your prisoner.'"No," said Maycotte, "You're my commander."
When Carranza ordered the calls to use troops to end the Obregonista challenge in Sonora, Obregon raised the bar for outright rebellion. On April 20, 1920, he announced that Carranza violated the Constitution and called for an ascendant to unite behind the interim president Adolfo de la Huerta. Three days later, he issued the plan of Agua Prieta, which laid out his dreams for a New Mexico. In May, feeling the tide rising against him, Carranza left Mexico City for Veracruz, hoping to to repeat his success in 1915. On his last night in Mexico City, he read a biography of Belisarius, the comforting story of a man who gave thirty years of brilliant service to Emperor Justinian in Constantinople, but ended up blind in prison. But Belisarius never he was a destroyer. On the other hand, when Carranza left the capital, he filled sixty railway carriages with their hangers, arms and ammunition, government archives and the entire national treasure in the form of gold bullion. Accompanying him was Villa's former adversary, Murguia, the absurd Bonillas and a handful of generals and ministers. The so-called "golden train", carrying the president, just pulled away from the capital before Pablo Gonzalez and his hordes entered.
Carranza's nomadic government began to crumble immediately after leaving Mexico City.He was encouraged by the extravagant statements of support by Guadalupe Sanchez, a general who devastated the isthmus, such as Sherman, in 1917 in persecution of felicists.However, Sanchez immediately betrayed him, went to Obergon as most generals and attacked the presidential train.A strong skirmish in Villa de Guadalupe alarmed the frowns for the evidence that gave the depth and persistence of the obregonist support.Now each season in the line for Veracruz was a potential deadly trap and each kilometer traveled became a case of nervousness.On May 14, there was a bloody shooting at Aljibes station with the most rebels led by Guadalupe Sanchez.In the presidential car, Carranza watched the shooting in a distanced and Olympic way, observing chaos and panic as if she were a Martian.His leal General Francisco Urquizo begged him to escape, but Carranza remained impassive and impassive.Finally, when Murguia added his voice, he went down the train and set up a rested horse (his had been killed on the skirmish two days earlier).
As the battle continued, the news came that the line to Veracruz had been cut.The presidential train now seemed a wreck, but the legalists were willing to resist and fight, covering Carranza's escape and his escort.Still calm, serene and impassive, Carranza with Murguia, Generals Barragan and Mariel, and about 10 troops, plunged into the desert.After six days of strenuous march, on May 20 the exhausted caravan crossed a river to the territory controlled by Rodolfo Herrero, a former reel who had accepted Carranza's amnesty.Herrero greeted his unexpected guests and acted with subservience to Carranza, leading him to a safe accommodation in the remote village of Tlaxcalantongo, where they should expect news from General Mariel, who went to the north to do a recognition.
The village was just a collection of cabanas. Carranza shared one of them with his private secretary and three other men, and bent down with a saddle and a pony blanket like a vaquero.Herrero came to say that he was called in an emergency: his brother had been injured in a nearby village. Carranza was usually a ready -made sleep man, but tonight he played and turned and was still awake at 3 am when a message arrived fromMariel to say that the way forward was clear. 'Skulls,' said Carranza, "now we can rest." He had barely fallen into a light tanning when, above the rain, the shots could be heard.
Resting on her stomach like snakes on the muddy floor, Herrero gunmen reached the other side of the cabin where Carranza slept.Through the wall, their snorings could be heard.The gunmen opened fire.Carranza shouted that her leg was broken and there was shouts of 'death to Carranza!'and 'skirt, your old bearded goat'.So, according to a version, the gunmen entered the cabin and ended it.Some say, however, that as soon as he realized that his leg was broken, he pointed the gun to himself.In this version, Carranza put the glasses, took her revolver Colt .45, signed it between the thumb and the indicator, pointed the barrel to the chest and fired two shots.Witnesses said the steer of death came before Herrero's men came in.Carranza's body was embalmed, taken to Mexico City and buried in Dolores Cemetery.Few cried for him except a bunch of women who accompanied the catafalk, singing: 'Our father is dead.'
With Carranza gone, Villa had a unique opportunity to secure peace with honor. He entered into negotiations with all who would consent to correspond with him, sending shoals of letters to the victors. The first responses were unpromising. Calles responded that the best route for Villa was to go into internal exile in Sonora; Villa read this correctly as the spider inviting the fly into his room. Obregon did not respond, but raised the bounty on Villa's head to 100,000 pesos. Ignacio Enriquez looked like diplomacy itself and agreed to meet, but Villa suspected a trap. He set up mannequins around a brightly lit fire and waited with his men in the shadows for Enriquez to arrive. As the men murderously entered the camp with fixed bayonets, they were cut to ribbons by Villa's sharpshooters.
Gradually, Villa focused most of his hopes for amnesty on President de la Huerta. Along with Maytorena, De La Huerta had been one of the men who encouraged Villa to make its famous entry into Mexico with just eight men in April 1913. He had no old scores to settle with Villa and could see ways in which the centaur could be useful to him in his own future ambitions. Consequently, he sent his envoy, General Eugenio Martinez, North for negotiations. he met Villa at the Hacienda de Encinillas. Villa set his terms: he wanted a hacienda for himself and his men, which would be a kind of embryonic military colony; of amnesty and future contract would be signed by Obregon, Calles and Benjamin Hill.
These terms were transmitted to La Huerta, who has made a counterproposal: Villa was to retire absolutely from public life to Hacienda de Canutillo with a guard of fifty gunmen. This seemed promising, especially when La Huerta mentioned that Hilland Calles were prepared to sign up for it. The point of discord was Obregon, who refused to sign anything.indignation to expect from the US.de La Huerta took over the wide tip and suspended all negotiations. You sent Martinez, an honorable man, warned Villa about what was in progress and advised that her life was in danger.
Villa decided that he would have to show Obergon that there was a high price to be paid for not making a deal with him.He changed his base of operations to Coahuila, threatening to devastate the economic life of this rich and prosperous state, full of natural resources.The danger was that Obergon's image in the United States was ruined and the Americans would remove their investments because of the Mexican government's failure to ensure order.Before Villa could implement this strategy, however, he had to cross the terrible 1000 -kilometer desert, Mapimi's Bolson, which was between the states of Chihuahua and Coahuila, and the waterway without water proved to be an even bigger nightmarethan the most blind pessimist could imagine: many died of thirst and others driven out of lack of water.Coahuila came as the promised land.Emerging from the desert, villalists quickly took the city of Sabinas and Villa Telegre de la Huerta that he was still ready to make a deal;If not, the consequences would fall on him.
The long samurai march from Villa to Coahuila took Obregon by surprise. Eagerly he conferred with de la Huerta. It was clear that the government was about to suffer huge economic losses and be constrained in its relations with the US; at the limit, Washington may finally get tired of Mexico's unpredictability and send a quarter of a million troops across the border. De la Huerta decided that the only way to break the impasse was to isolate Obregon on this issue. He got Hill and Calles to agree to a better deal for Villa: the Canutillo farm and bodyguards as before, and additionally 800 demobilized Villistas to receive pay and land. Obregon was nearly apoplectic with rage when he read the agreement. De la Huerta advised Villa on the best way to play his cards. Having previously said that he would only sign if Obregon put in his counter-signature, Villa signed anyway. This put Obregon on the spot. If he refused to sign, he would be branded a warmonger and perhaps even be the cause of US intervention, which would likely trigger his own downfall. Still smarting from the humiliation, Obregon refused to sign, but told de la Huerta that he would not oppose the deal.
On July 29, Villa sent Obregon a friendly and even deferential letter, asking for his friendship and citing their mutual contacts with Raul Madero. It took Obregon two months to compose a reluctant reply, in which he confirmed that when he took office in In December, Villa would enjoy the same terms granted by De La Huerta. From all sides, a collective sigh of relief could be heard. Villa threw his arms around Martinez, hugged him and said, `` You can say that the war that now honest men and now honest crooks go together. Even Washington, weary of the endless conflict south of the border, agreed to draw a line under the Columbus incident. About the only unregenerate and implacable public enemy left to Villa was Winston Churchill , in England, who continued to fulminate over the Benton case.
Villa and his last 759 men depused the weapons and received their promised payment and land.For Villa, the return of Sabinas to Tlahualilo was a Roman triumph than the prelude to retirement.In Tlahualilo, he was greeted by Raul Madero and watched closely by his old enemy Patrick O'hea, who described him quite grudgingly as having gained weight.Villa told Madero that he had four ambitions now: maintaining good relations with the government, developing his farm, living in good relations with his women, and protecting himself from murders.Carranza's death and Villa's surrender ended the Mexican revolution.Carranza and Zapata were slaughtered by killers, but Villa and Obergon, the protagonist and antagonist of that powerful conflict, seemed to have survived.
Epilogue
In retirement on his farm in Canutillo Villa tried to achieve the four aforementioned ambitions: to remain on good terms with Obregon and the government, to turn Canutillo into a military colony, to sort out his tangled private life, and to protect himself against assassination by one of his numerous enemies, especially Calles, Ignacio Enriquez and Obregon himself. The fourth was the easiest goal to achieve. In addition to his fifty heavily armed bodyguards, Villa could count on his other servants and the many ex-dorados who had settled in the neighboring properties. , Villa turned Canutillo into an impregnable fortress, limited the number of visitors to the estate, and posted a trusted official at the nearest railway station to report all arrivals and departures.
Villa drove his property on military lines; within his gates, he was the only law. Canuc outillo consisted of 163, the acres, of which 4,400 were rich and irrigated. Before the revolution, Hacienda could be proud of 24,000 sheep,4,000 goats, 4,000 horsepower and 3,000 head of cattle, but in the ten years of the revolution most animals disappeared: sold, stolen or sought after.Improving owner, who installed telephone lines, post office, telegraph department, flour mill and even a school for 200 students, but canillo was never an equal utopia, if only because most of his pawns and workers were legada doantiga was paternalistic.Villa's own men - the core with which he expected to found the new military colony - settled on two adjacent properties.
Villa's most complicated task was to maintain good relations with Obergon, whose massive victory in the presidential election of September 1920 signaled the end of the Mexican revolution.Natural Fixer, a manufacturer of agreements who, by co -optation, cajolo and bribery restored the country to a peace they have not known since 1910. His basic approach was to freeze the status quo, leaving a flap, a political mosaic: in some states asOld elites were still in charge, while in other village communities and agrarian reformers were dominant. He offered all the attractive terms of amnesty, which they accepted; much of this stabilization was reached in the intermediate period, when La Huerta was presidentProvisional.Felix Diaz entered the exile in the US, and the felicists laid their arms. Pablo Gonzalez was arrested for sectioning in Nuevo Leon, tempted by betrayal, considered guilty and sentenced to be shot; appease the American opinion of La Huerta forgave him,And Gonzalez joined the other anti-Obregon exiles in the US. The only comfort for the heirs of Zapata was that Jesus Guajardo was removed and shot by Nuevo Leon's authorities, without the complication of a trial.
The greatest triumph of Obergon's peaceful transformation took place in Moreos, where the Zapatists were co-opted, partly by Obergon's reluctant acceptance of the agrarian program, in part by winning them with places and positions.Gildrado Magana, expressly designated by Zapata as his successor, had long proved his pro-Abobon credentials intriguing him from the back of Carranza in 1918-19.He took advantage of the agitation and turbulence of 1920 to complete a very favorable agreement with Obergon and soon the Zapatistas were no longer revolutionary, but an integral part of the consumer system.So big was the right turn in some cases that Zapata's nephew allied with a circle of reactionary generals and tried to expel the possessors of ejidos (communal lands) in anenecuilk and obtain them for themselves.Zapata's son, who was famous for sleeping during the meeting with Villa in Xochimilco, became landowner, was elected mayor of Cuautla, sold to the old elites and was eventually client of the Morelos Plantocracy.
Obregon has always been a capitalist who believed that the real business of the revolution was business. He did not like landowners not for ideological reasons, but because they were incompetent as entrepreneurs. He was so interested in improving capitalism that diluted the provisions of the Constitutionof 1917 on the rights of the underground, granting the US oil and mining companies much larger than they had under Carranza and gaining a dubious reputation for "selling" and trucks for Ianques. He announced that Article 27 of the Constitution would not apply to theMineral rights acquired by foreigners before 1917 and, through his Treasury Secretary of La Huerta, negotiated an agreement with Washington, whereby taxes charged to US oil companies would be highlighted to pay foreigners (mainly numbers) securities holders (mainly nurses) securities., after nine years in default.com Wall Street now by his side, Washington was poked in a reluctant recognition of the Obergon government in 1923.
During the four years of his presidency, Obergon gained the reputation of being cruel and as slippery as an eel. In a moment, he looked anti -American and in another almost obsequious compared to Washington; in a state, he would distribute land to the peasants, inanother, he would repress them with a heavy hand; in one city, he would support the workers against the bosses and, in another, use troops to break attacks. Always an anticlerical dedicated, he continued to chase the Catholic Church and, in part trying toBreaking his dominion over hearts and minds, he devoted great resources to education. He brought back the exile Jose Vasconcelos as a rector of the National University and encouraged the flowers of Ioo to flourish: it was during the presidency of Obergon that the great geniuses of the Mexican realistic movementIn Painting - Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros - made their mark. However, for opposition, as much as the InCoate, Obergon was relentless. Benjamin Hill began to form an opposition party in late 1920 and, in his ministerFrom the war, he prepared to sue Rodolfo Herrero for the murder of Carranza. This did not please Obergon; on December 14, Hill died mysteriously, allegedly after poisoning food in a banquet.
Villa knew very well that Obergon was a man you crossed at your own risk and was effusively affable, and even flatteller, in the letters and telegrams you sent you.In 1922, the old enemy of Villa, Murguia, raised the banner of the revolt against Obergon and crossed Rio Grande from the US with thirty men, hoping to do what Villa had done in 1913. He failed desperately and sought refuge in Canilllo..Villa knew where he was and could easily have killed or betrayed him, but perhaps for a rare state of empathy, he didn't.Murguia was betrayed by someone else without the knowledge or consent of Villa, judged and executed.Obregon, who imagined that Villa had delivered this enemy, began to affect him and write cordial letters to cannillo;He made a point of personally responding to all the increasingly sophisticated Missivas who came from a more sophisticated villa, who now read with voracity and liked to display the results of his self -taught.Such was the final environment that Obergon bought Canutillo immediately and introduced to Villa to the Scriptures;Between 1921 and 1923, he also paid him an additional amount of $ 100,000 for 'improvements' or as 'compensation'.
As he grew older, Villa revealed himself more and more as a man of the right. There was a widespread perception, both in Mexico and the United States, that Villa was now simply another big landowner, who was not interested in land reform, but only in distributing land to his soldiers. All evidence suggests that this perception was correct. Detesting Bolshevism, with which Minister of the Interior Calles was known to sympathize, by 1922 political conservatives increasingly identified Villa as "their" man. His own statements left little doubt on the matter: 'The leaders of Bolshevism...in Mexico and abroad advocate an equality of classes which cannot be achieved. Equality does not exist and cannot exist. It's a lie that we can all be equal... For me, society is a big ladder with some people at the bottom, others in the middle, some going up and others very high... it's a ladder clearly determined by nature. You cannot act against nature. What would happen to the world if we were all generals or capitalists, or if we were all poor? There must be people of all kinds. The world, my friend, is like a big store where there are owners, employees, consumers, manufacturers... I would never fight for the equality of social classes.'
However, there were sometimes flashes of the older villa, more radical.In 1922, he wrote to Obergon asking him to support the peasants of the Aldama Bosque Agricultural Colony against Ignacio Enriquez, governor of the state of Chihuahua.Enriquez, whose aversion to Villa was so exaggerated that Obergon disregarded his ritual complaints from his Bete Noire, was allied with the Terrazas family and tried to put in operation a blow by which an American prosecutor would resume the lands confiscated for them., thus avoiding all taxes on expropriated territories.
In March, Villa wrote to Obergon, exposing the scandal and expressing his strong opposition to the false substitute sale and claiming that he was part of a conspiracy for his three greatest enemies: the Terrazas, Enriquez and the gringos.And he interrupted the sale to the American prosecutor. Decreasing a cry on "Bolshevism" in the American press, Obergon agreed to compensate: The American Prosecutor, A. J. Mcquatters received a million dollars, while the terraces received $ 13 million.Having finished well, but actually disadvantaged a great failure of communication between Obergon and Villa. Obriegon interpreted Villa's letter as an implicit threat that he would rebel if the sale was ahead; Villa, not knowing that Obergon was also under intense pressureFrom their right arm, it calls them not to approve the sale, misinterpret the Obergon's 'capitulation', overestimated his own influence and became arrogant and excessive.
However, in the first two years in Canilllo Villa, he has worried less about high policy issues and more with his complicated private life.Probably what worried him most was his brother Hipólito, who, although it was not exactly the headache Eupata had caused Emiliano, was certainly a brother he might well have dismissed.For most of the 1916-20 guerrilla war period, Villa did not see Hipólito.In 1916-17 he was based on Havana, ostensibly as Villa's agent, but in reality an helpless lingering under constant surveillance of US secret agents.Some scholars speculate that Villa simply tried to keep his brother out of danger, but if that was the intention, he failed.Hipólito was arrested, incarcerated, and detained for extradition to the US on charges of exploding train tracks in US territory.
From his prison cell, Hipólito complained to Villa that he was only in this mess because he was taking care of his brother's business. His head was full of chimerical schemes to open a second front in Yucatan and ally the Villista forces with the reactionary hacendados who were fighting with the proconsuls of Carranza for control of the state. Villa ignored all quixotics, but managed to get Hippolytus out of prison through the good offices of his friend George Holmes, who then took Hippolytus back to his Texas ranch. There he was soon spotted by American agents, who again placed him under close surveillance. Lacking evidence of his involvement in Columbus - or anywhere else - they could not arrest him, but they followed, harassed and harassed him; they even managed to keep him in jail for a short time on charges of having entered Florida under an assumed name. Shortly before the agreement with Obregon, Hipólito returned to fight alongside his brother and thus won a place of honor in Canutillo's hierarchy.
Whatever trouble Villa had with his brother was a Bagatelle alongside the twisted skein of his relationships with a series of women, some referred to as 'wives', others more blatantly mistresses and concubines. When he went to the Sierras in late 1915, Villa sent Luz Corral and her official family to safety. Then he promoted a woman named Soledad Seanez as "first wife" and she was the harem queen until 1917. Soon after, Villa began the most passionate relationship of his life, with a young woman middle-class chihuahuan named Austreberta Renteria. She was initially noticed, then kidnapped, by Bandelio Uribe, who knew Villa's taste in women and guessed that the patron would be delighted with her. Uribe proved to be a good judge. Villa was in love with coup de Foudre and, when a terrified Austraberta did not submit to his subtle overtures, simply raped her. He then went through another of his sham marriage ceremonies in front of a meek judge and kept her a prisoner in a safe house in Ciudad Juarez.
When the villalists evacuated Juarez.Austreberta's father fled with her to a US sanctuary, abandoning her bourgeois life in Chihuahua to do manual work in America - anything, as long as the ogre could no longer put his hands on his daughter.However, at some point Austtreberta decided that he was, after all, in love with Villa and escaped his father's protection to join the centaur.At this point, Villa was in Canudillo, with Corral and Soledad Seanez light in a restless menage.Austreberta's unexpected arrival put a new wheel in Villa's Polygamo wagon.He resolved the impossibility of entertaining a female troika humiliating corral light and sending it away.Without permission even to appear on neighboring farms, Luz survived for a time of Hipólito's alms.
Austreberta proved amenable to the bizarre nursery-type kindergarten villa she had gathered in Canutillo. there were three sons (Agustin, Octavio and Samuel) and four daughters (Micaela, Celia, Sara and Juana Maria), all supposedly born to different women. In addition, Austreberta bore him two more sons, Francisco and Hipolito (the latter born after Villa's death).Although Austreberta was the undisputed queen of Canutillo and addressed with great tenderness by Villa as `Betita', eyewitnesses always said that she seemed an unhappy woman. ' Soledad Seanez and Villa boss Manuela Casas, but she hit Villa's line.
Villa could command his women, but from his brother and sister Martina he received the usual family contempt meted out to all brothers. On one occasion there was a big family fight with Villa on one side and Hipólito and Martina on the other. Villa accused Hipólito of meddling in business that did not concern him. Perhaps because Hipólito helped Luz Corral and advised her to write to Obregon; more likely it was simply the result of one of Hippolytus' shady financial dealings. Villa feared that Hipólito was meddling in politics in a way that might end up drawing Obregon's ire on Canutillo, assuming Hipólito acted on Villa's orders. In 1922, Villa wrote to Obregon, asking him not to make any more loans or entrust more funds to the useless Hipólito. Presumably, at this point, nothing about the events in Canutillo surprised Obregon. Luz Corral also wrote to him, reminding him of the favor she had done him in 1914 when Villa wanted to execute him. After mulling over her request for financial assistance for a few months, Obregon paid her alimony.
Obregon soon had more worrying things to worry him about than Luz Corral's begging. There would be a new president in 1924 and Obregon was already worried about the succession. The main contenders, Calles and de la Huerta, represented the interests of the left and right, respectively. Obregon favored Calles and allegedly said, when he, Calles and de la Huerta were driving together in Mexico City's Parque Chapultepec, that since de la Huerta was a talented musician, Calles should have the succession. 'You and I, Plutarch,' he said in his well-known clown manner, 'we cannot leave politics because we would starve; on the other hand, Adolfo can sing and give singing and music lessons.'
Obergon wrote to Villa, asking him to give an interview to the press in which he would explain that he did not want to return to politics.Villa, however, wrinkled his nose to Obergon by giving the interview and saying he would do one of two things: to declare himself to the presidency or give his support to La Huerta.In the typical vanglorious way, Villa could not resist telling reporters that he was still able to raise 40,000 armed men in forty minutes.Obregon read the interview as a threat that if he tried to impose Calles through manipulated elections, Villa would rebel.Even from La Huerta was alarmed with Villa's arrogance;He met the centaur on a train between Jimenez and Torreon and urged him to support Calles.Villa played La Huerta's attitude as weakness, disappointed with him and sought another presidential candidate, opting for Raul Madero.Public opinion polls showed very unpopular Calles, miles behind La Huerta and Madero and only marginally ahead of Villa himself.Annoyed by the course of events, Obergon and Calles turned violently against Villa and now saw him as the biggest threat to his plans.
For a while, the villa was tormented by murder throws by Jesus Herrera, the only surviving man of the Herrera clan. Sob stress of the continuous attempts of murder of Herrera and often suffering from the old wound in the leg, the village, theTetotaler throughout his life, he took to the bottle and was insanely jealous of women on his harem. In May 1923, he sent a long letter to the newspaper El Universal, denouncing Herrera de Herrera's sustained attempts and followed with letters to letters toObergon and Galles, exhorting them to do something about him. Obregon ordered Herrera to give up on the pain of execution. The reason was simple: he had enough Villa and was now riding his own murder plot.
Even for the president of Mexico, this was not an easy thing to come to terms with. Villa never slept in the same place and rarely got up in the morning from the same bed he had slept in. He never allowed anyone to walk behind him, and he had his fifty Dorados lined up for an eternal vigilance pitch. Villa got overconfident and momentarily let his guard down. He was asked to be godfather at a baptism in the village of Rio Florido and decided to make the trip, knowing he could combine it with a visit to Parral to see his lady Manuela Casas, who by this time had been removed from Canutillo because of the friction she caused. .Trillo, playing the wise steward, advised the Villa that they could save the considerable outlay for fifty men and fifty horses if only a small party traveled by car.
The would-be assassins had rented a house on the outskirts of Parral, at the intersection of Benito Juarez and Gabrino Barreda streets, where all traffic to and from Canutillo had to pass. Renteria, who told him that if he left that day, she would never see him again. The gunmen planned to intercept him on the way to Parral, but their plan backfired, as Villa's car passed, hundreds of children spilled out of a school in the end of school; Opening fire in such circumstances and killing innocent children may have set off a scandal big enough to finish off Obregon and Calles.
After the baptized Villa returned to Parral and spent a few days with Manuela Casas.At 8 am on July 20, he and his men left the hotel to return to Canutillo.Villa had no notion of danger: his three secret agents in Parral had released him, and the garrison commander Felix Lara had always been effusively friendly.Villa did not know that Lara and her troops had been sent out of town in a forged military maneuver.The old villa, however, would certainly have smelled a mouse, for the city seemed strangely deserted and there were no police officers on duty;His famous intuition should have told him that something was wrong, but perhaps the drink, complacency or devastation of time had desensitized their antennas.
Villa took the wheel for the drive back to Canutillo. The car was a large Dodge saloon, but six men were packed in it; in addition to Villa himself, there was his driver, Trillo, the secretary, his personal assistant Rafael Medrano and two -backs, Ramon Contreras and Claro Hurtado. When the car reached the junction of Benito Juarez and Gabrino Barreda, an old man selling sweets at a stall called `Viva Villa! 'This was the pre-arranged signal for the men at the windows of the rented house to open fire. As he rounded the corner, Villa was met with a huge fusillade and was killed instantly when nine bullets hit him. Also killed were Trillo and the driver. Dodge spun out of control and hit a tree. The injured Rafael Medrano managed to crawl under the car and feign death while one of the gunmen ran to pump more bullets into Villa's lifeless head. Ramon Contreras, although wounded, managed to shoot one of the assailants killed before escaping. Claro Hurtado was less fortunate. He tried to escape over a bridge to the riverbank, found his path blocked, and was later shot dead when he turned around.
The assassins escaped on horseback. They had pumped over forty rounds into Villa's car, using dum-dum bullets. Villa was found doubled over, right hand still reaching for his gun. bullet, while his heart was turned to mush by the internal explosion of Dum-Dum bullets. He was buried the next day, taken to his resting place in a chariot drawn by two black horses, accompanied by a military honor guard, a band and thousands of mourners. Felix Lara, who returned to town when he heard the shooting, filed a report with Obregon, saying he could not pursue the assassins for lack of horses. Obregon, who knew Lara was in on the plot, minutes that he had never heard such an absurd excuse, but did not take action against him.
For several days, there was tension in the parral area. Obregon ordered federal troops to occupy Canutillo to prevent a revolt of villains, but they opposed the Dorados and a three-day stalemate that lived in Nails ended only when Hipolito arrived at the Hacienda on 23 July. He immediately left Obregon, assured him of his loyalty and promised that he would put everything in order. After ten days of erasure, while he tried to gauge public reaction to the assassination, Obregon rescinded the order to the army to occupy Canutillo and the crisis it happened.
It was obvious to everyone that Villa had died as a result of a well -designed conspiracy.The suspicious circumstances were multiple: the entire parral garrison had been sent out of the city "coincidentally";There was no persecution of the killers for forty -five minutes, and all the time they acted safely, without showing any urgency in leaving the crime scene;The cannulllo telegraph line had been cut, so it took six hours for the news of Villa's death to the Hippolytus and the Golden of the farm.The House of Representatives of Mexico tried to conduct an investigation into the murder, but was prevented at all points by local military and civilians.Since all these people were under the control of the federal government and, therefore, from Obergon, when no action was taken against them by flagrant incompetence, the ordinary man soon added two more.
There is no serious doubt that Obergon planned the murder of Villa. Some said the so -called invented the whole thing, unknown to Obergon, but this has never become true in psychological, political or even logistics.Durango, Jesus Rooms Barrazas, said he had organized the murder without help from the federal government, leaving Obregon ostensibly out of the hook, but immediately rediregon immediately redeemed his suspicion finger back to himself by absurdly claiming that he had no way to have a lot of authorityBarzas, as he was a senator of Durango. Still more absurdly, Obergon changed his mind, arrested him, and saw him sentenced to twenty years in prison; Three months later, Governor Enriquez, Chihuahua, forgiven -no more was arrested oraccused in connection with the murder.
In fact, Barrazas was a very small gear on the conspiracy wheel. The true author was Meliton Lozoya, administrator of Hacienda Canyllo before being given to Villa.Lozoya deflected a huge amount of money from the property, and Villa warned him that he shouldFulfilling losses or having the consequence. Concigrating that the only way out of this impasse was to kill it, Lozoya recruited eight men with strong complaints against Villa, rented the house in Parral and set up the ambush.Lubricating the wheels. Through the calls, he paid Felix Lara 50,000 pesos to ensure that the conspiracy was successful. Not only did he take all his troops out of town in maneuvers', but really hardened Lozoya's murder squadyour best shots.
A mountain of evidence, both documentary and memories, implies Obergon in the plot. La Huerta's eolfo said the pressure to kill Villa initially came from Calles and war secretary Joaquin Amaro. In the beginning, Obergon was reluctant, arguing that Villa had kept theAgreement he made in 1923, but once talked to Galles, he became the main engine, using a series of secondary conspirators - Jesus Herrera, Barrazas and Jesus Agustin Castro - Paracamuflating his role.Express condition that conspiracy should never be tracked to him or his government.Jesus Agustin Castro, Durango governor and remarkable villa, was a key element in the plot, and there is documentary evidence of conspiracy in a barrel room letter toCastro on July 7, 1923. Barrazas rooms agreed to be `Fall Guy 'for the murder of Villa, and this was confirmed in letters by Castro and Amaro.
The conspiracy began to unravel with Salas Barrazas. He was under the clear understanding that his position as deputy for Durango gave him immunity from arrest, but Castro refused to comply, fearing suspicion would fall on him. Salas Barrazas joined. panicked when arrested and wrote to Amaro for help; Amaro transferred him to Chihuahua, where Ignacio Enriquez pardoned him. Obregon's file, when opened, showed the president granting extraordinary favors to Lozoya and Salas Barrazas. de Obregon was not only involved in Villa's assassination, but actually organized it. The reason was the 1924 presidential election. Cabeças and Obregon feared that, if necessary, Villa would support de la Huerta with an armed revolt. If he became president, Villa would likely be his strong right-hand man as governor of Durango, and the two would take a tough line against US oil companies. There were also whispers that the price of Washington's recognition of Obregon's government was a final resolution of the ``Question from the Villa'.
If Obregon was the main political beneficiary of Villa's death, Hipólito Villa harvested the financial rewards.He inherited Canutillo, appropriated all income and gave nothing to Villa's women.Soledad Seanez and Manuela Casas were the obvious losing in the 'harem struggle', for their legal claims could not match those of corral and austreberta light.Austreberta, without a penny, appealed to Obergon, but he responded with meaningless bromides;He was not willing to take any action against Hipólito who could trigger a villalist revolt.Austreberta, refusing to accept a non-response, wrote again to Obergon, but he replied that he had no jurisdiction and referred her to the courts.When Hipólito later conflicted with the Federal Government and Austreberta thought his time had arrived, Obergon again rejected her;His favorite among the women of Villa was Luz Corral, who had interceded in his name in 1914, when Villa wanted to kill him.
Although Obergon eliminated Villa to ensure presidential succession by calls, his own task still ended in bloodshed. La Huerta refused to allow calls to be successful only in the sponsorship of Obergon and entered the presidential race.Probably winning in a fair contest, Obergon intervened with intimidation and interruption against La Huerta's field. In December 4, 1923, by La Huerta followed the family route to Veracruz and declared himself rebellion against Obergon, quoting the "odious and intolerablePresident's violence against the sovereignty of the Mexican people. "The army was divided evenly, with about 25,000 soldiers going to La Huerta and 30,000 remaining loyal to Obergon.Decisive in Ocotlan. In Vitória, he was as merciless as always and executed dozens of his former comrades, including Maycotte, who joi