The Mexican revolution was the first major Socio-Political Revolution of the 20th century. It lasted for a decade and was at least as bloody as the Spanish Civil War of a quarter of a century later, the population of the country falling from 15 to 12 million between 1910 and 1920. Unlike the later Spanish conflict it attracted only minimal and peripheral foreign intervention and remained largely a domestic affair. Hollywood has ensured that the names of the main participants - Zapata, Villa, Huerta and others - are almost universally known. The same cannot however be said for the causes of the Revolution, its conduct or its outcome. This article endeavours to remedy this and give at least an outline of the circumstances which precipitated a decade of blood-letting and the course of the Military and Political events during that period. INTRODUCTION After the defeat and execution of the French puppet Emperor Maximilian, Benito Juarez, the leader of the Mexican nationalists and constitutional President of Mexico, set about the conversion of the country from an anarchic post-colonial state into a modern nation, giving it its first truly stable government since independence. Juarez was re-elected President in 1871 but died the following year, the first Mexican President to die from natural causes. A rebellion against the next elected President gave Porfirio Diaz, a prominent republican general of the war against the French and Maximilian, the opportunity to establish himself as President. Diaz was to rule Mexico as absolute dictator from 1376 to 1911, with a brief inter-regum in 1880-84 when another general was permitted to hold office in deference to Diaz's promise not to succeed himself. Although autocratic and corrupt, Diaz provided 34 years of stable government during which the economy flourished and foreign investment increased although at the cost of a worsening of the already wretched conditions of the Indian peasants and the growing urban working classes. Popular disaffection, manifested in a series of strikes, increased during the early years of the 20th century inflamed by the polemical writings of Francisco Madero, a liberal aristocrat who unsuccessfully challenged Diaz for the presidency, from prison, during the 1910 election. Released from prison, Madero fled to the United States from where he provided the ideological background to the revolts of the - 41 - Indian tenant farmer Emiliano Zapata, in the south and the Mestizo bandit, Doroteo Arango, better known as ''Pancho Villa" in the north. The successes of the rebels sparked off army revolts and rioting, causing Diaz to flee the country on May 25th, 1911. Madero was elected President in November 1911 but proved to be inept if well-meaning, soon being denounced by Zapata as unfit to govern. FALL OF DIAZ - MADERO AS PRESIDENT The early stages of the Mexican Revolution consisted largely of skirmishes between undisciplined hordes of rebels and smaller groups of Federal troops whose lack of motivation offset any theoretical advantage of training or equipment which they possessed. Madero was in fact established as President without his supporters having won a single significant military engagement. The first military opposition to Madero took the form of a revolt in the north, in March of 1911 led by Pascual Orozco, a local store-keeper with political ambitions, his supporters, popularly known as "Colorados", being unusually and apparently illogically blood-thirsty and guilty of many excesses. Further risings took place in Chihuahua during 1912, provoking the concentration of 34,000 U.S. troops on the Texas side of the frontier, whilst in the State of Morelos, adjoining the capital, Zapata rose in open revolt against the failure of Madero to honour his promises of land reform. An army of 80,000 Federal troops, sent northwards to deal with the insurrection of Orozco (and the unconnected rising in Chihuahua) was defeated by a smaller force of 'Colorados", the Federal general committing suicide, but the tide began to turn in the face of a new Federal offensive, under Victoriano Huerta, an able but corrupt General, in uneasy alliance with Pancho Villa. Although this alliance was broken by Huerta in June and Villa was arrested for alleged insubordination and packed off to Mexico City for execution, the offensive continued and by October Orozco's revolt had collapsed with his surviving supporters making common cause with the Federals. More or less simultaneously, another brief rising, this time at Vera Cruz and led by Felix Diaz, nephew of the deposed dictator, also collapsed after the city was surrounded by Federal troops and blockaded by the Mexican Navy, one of the very few occasions during the revolutionary period when that force took any significant part in military operations. However, a more serious rising, involving a large portion of the garrison of the national capital, occurred in February 1913. MURDER OF MADERO - HUERTA HI-JACKS THE PRESIDENCY Felipe Angeles, the Mexican Army's most competent general, whose loyalty was not in doubt, was at Cuernavaca, leading 2,000 troops in the offensive against Zapata, and Madero was forced to entrust the defence of the presidency to Huerta, whose loyalties were ambiguous, to say the least. For ten days, Huerta and the rebels engaged in an aimless artillery duel, the main result of which was to destroy much private property. On February 18th the President was arrested by Huerta who declared himself provisional President. Four days later, Madero was murdered whilst ostensibly being driven into exile. Mexico now sank into virtual anarchy as rival revolutionary factions struggled for supremacy. While Zapata continued his war of attrition in the south, the main threat to Huerta came once more from the north. Venustiano Carranza, a landowner and former senator, became the political centre of the opposition to Huerta's dictatorship being rapidly accepted as leader of the Constitutionalist faction. Carranza was no soldier however and military opposition to Huerta in the north was initially led by Alvaro Obregón, an ex-farmer turned shop-keeper who although totally lacking in formal military education possessed a natural gift for organisation and leadership, but lacked the charisma of Zapata or Villa. The latter, who had escaped from prison the year before and fled to the United States, returned from exile, slowly gathering together a small army which met the Federals in a number of minor skirmishes during the summer of 1913. In September, Villa's forces, which had grown to a respectable strength of 8,000 men and now styled itself "La Division del Norte", attacked the important railway centre of Torreon, garrisoned by 2.000 Federal troops, capturing it on October 1st together with three batteries of modern field guns, a railway-mounted naval gun and six machine-guns, plus over 40 railway locomotives and large quantities of rolling stock which gave the Villista forces unprecedented mobility. On October 26th presidential elections were held throughout those parts of the country still in Federal control, Huerta declaring himself elected, although his name had not appeared on the ballot papers. The United States had however never recognised Huerta and diplomatic pressures against his regime began to build up. Meanwhile, on November 7th, 1913, Villa mounted an unsuccessful attack on Chihuahua, this was garrisoned by 7,000 Federal troops. Withdrawing from Chihuahua, without dislodging its garrison, Villa then went on to capture Ciudad Juarez on November 15th. In response, Huerta dispatched a force of 5,500 men northward by rail, the Villistas destroying the track at a point 45 miles south of Ciudad Juarez. Three days of bloody battle between November 23rd and 25th resulted in a costly defeat for the Federals and their withdrawal from Ciudad Juarez with the loss of almost 1,000 dead. Three days later, they abandoned Chihuahua without firing a shot, the remnants of their force retreating to the border town of Ojinaga. Zapata Although the Federals regrouped and retook Torreon at the end of November, Zapata continued to tie down a large force of the Federal Army in the south, Obregón controlled the north-west and in the north-east another Constitutionalist force, under Pablo Gonzalez, was preparing to move against Monterrey and Saltillo. Villa captured Ojinaga on February 12th, 19914 thus completing his mastery of the State of Chihuahua. Villa now prepared to retake Torreon, which was formidably garrisoned by 10,000 Federal troops. The first Villistas reached Gomez Palacio, a Federal outpost four miles north of Torreon, without their artillery and suffered heavy casualties in foolhardy frontal assaults. Once Villa's artillery was brought up however the Federals withdrew towards Torreon, this was re-taken by Villa on April 2nd, after heavy fighting. Meanwhile Obregón and Gonzalez pushed southward against relatively limited resistance, by-passing Mazatlan, Monterrey and Saltillo, which were surrounded and left in a state of siege. On April 5th, the Constitutionalist forces began their assault on the important port of Tampico. U.S. INTERVENTION AT VERA CRUZ - FALL OF HUERTA In the early stages of the battle for Tampico a minor incident involving the arrest and rapid subsequent release of some U.S. naval personnel escalated, resulting through a bizarre process of escalation in the U.S. occupation of Vera Cruz which was actively resisted by the Federal garrison who suffered considerable casualties. This almost united the Constitutionalists with the Federals in defence against a common invader, only the common-sense of Villa preventing Carranza and Obregón from common cause with their enemy. The incident did provoke intense diplomatic activity by the South American "Big Three", Argentina, Brazil and Chile, ultimately bringing further pressure to bear on the Huerta Government. On a military level events were also continuing to go against Huerta, Monterrey falling on April 24th, followed by Tampico on May 14th, only Saltillo continuing to holdout in the north. Against his own better judgement, Villa, who was preparing for the final advance on Mexico City, allowed himself to be persuaded by Carranza to attack Saltillo. Villista forces captured Paredon, the main outpost of the defences of Saltillo, garrisoned by 5,000 Federal troops, on May 17th and three days later Saltillo itself fell. The smouldering differences between Villa and Carranza as respectively the military and political leaders of the Constitutionalist faction, now came to a head and a major rift occurred. Villa having resigned the command of the "Division del Norte", the most important formation of the Constitutionalist army, his lieutenants refused to choose a successor, eventually persuading him to resume command and on June 23rd the Villistas, now numbering 23,000, took Zacatecas, garrisoned by 12,000 Federal troops. Villa's further advance was however prevented by the lack of coal for his rail transport and meanwhile Obregón's Division of the North - West took Guadalajara on July 6th, provoking the resignation of Huerta, who fled into exile on July 17th. 1914. CARRANZA BECOMES PRESIDENT The way was now open for Carranza to assume the office of President and he entered the capital in triumph on August 18th, three days after Obregón had arrived with the first Constitutionalist troops. Zapata who had borne the main brunt of the military operations in the south and whose troops were already in the southern suburbs of Mexico City, had never recognised Carranza, whilst the latter's rejection of Villa, ensured that the three-year-old civil war was now split three ways. In the north, fighting broke out again almost immediately between the supporters of Carranza and those of Villa. Convention A revolutionary Convention, held at Aguascalientes in October and November, voted to expel Carrenza from the presidency and replace him by the relatively unknown but widely acceptable Eulalio Gutierrez. Refusing to resign, as he had originally offered when the possibility of the acceptance of the offer had seemed slight, Carranza withdrew to Vera Cruz which the U.S. forces had abandoned on November 23rd, Obregón reluctantly continuing to support him in the face of the open defiance of Villa and Zapata The Zapatistas now occupied Mexico City, Zapata and Villa meeting at Xochimilco on December 4th to agree a plan of campaign against Carranza that involved a pincer movement against Vera Cruz, with the Villistas attacking from the north-west and the Zapatistas from the south-east. Puebla was taken by the Zapatistas before Christmas but then halted 200 miles short of their main objective. Villa, fearful of his straggling line of communications, also faltered, spending Christmas in the capital. In the New Year fighting broke out again between Carrancista and Villista factions in the north and while Villa was occupied elsewhere Obregón reorganised the Constitutionalist forces as the "Army of Operations". Puebla was retaken from the Zapatistas, on January 5th, 1915, after a six day battle, while a second Carrancista force pushed to within 60 miles of Mexico City. By January 25th Obregón had reached Teotihuacan, 30 miles from the capital, this he entered three days later after the retreat of the Zapatista garrison. Obregón however abandoned Mexico City on March 9th, the city being reoccupied almost immediately by the Zapatistas. DECLINE OF VILLA AND RISE OF OBREGON The Army of Operations now moved north-westward, driving a wedge between the forces of Villa and those of Zapata On January 18th, 1915, the Villistas had already been driven out of Guadalajara, which however they re-captured it on February 12th only to lose it again later the same day, suffering 2,000 casualties. Villa himself suffered a severe defeat at Celaya, after two days of heavy fighting on April 6th and 7th, returning to the attack on April l3th/lSth when 25,000 Villistas threw themselves at 15,000 well-entrenched Carrancistas in the biggest and bloodiest battle fought in the North American continent since the American Civil War A force of 6,000 Carrancista cavalry, attacking the Villistas from the rear, threw them into confusion, routing them with the loss of 4,000 dead, 8,000 prisoners and 28 pieces of artillery. Obregón now enjoyed a numerical superiority and pushed slowly northward, reaching Leon by the end of May. Villa launched an unsuccessful counter-attack on June 3rd, being repelled again with heavy losses. On June 13th, the new Army Corps of the East, under Pablo Gonzalez, commenced its attack on the Zapatista garrison of Mexico City and on July 11th, after almost a month of fighting, the Zapatistas withdrew, although they were to reoccupy it six days later after Gonzalez withdrew in the face of the approach of a large Villista force. THE PERSHING EXPEDITION The tide was now running against Villa and by September his main force had been reduced to 6,500 men. A disastrous attack on Aqua Prieta, on November lst/3rd, further reduced Villa's effective force to 3,000 and after another equally unsuccessful attack on Hermosillo the once proud "Division del Norte" was reduced to a guerrilla band with only a few hundred members who subsisted mainly on the proceeds of bandit raids across the border into the United States. The incursions of Villa's guerrillas into the United States, culminating in the major raid on the garrison town of Columbus, New Mexico, finally provoked U.S. military intervention, 6,000 troops under the command of General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing crossing the frontier on March 15th. Although several skirmishes occurred between it and small groups of Villistas, the punitive expedition failed to catch Villa and it was finally withdrawn on February 5th, 1917, its presence having strained relations between the U.S. and the Carranza Governments to the point of war on several occasions. CARRANZA TRIUPHANT - MURDER OF ZAPATA AND ECLIPSE OF VILLA Carranza had been endorsed as president of Mexico in the election of March 11th, 1917 and he now proceeded to bring about the elimination of Villa and Zapata. Pablo Gonzalez laid waste the State of Morelos, the stronghold of Zapata, provoking a bitter and bloody two-year intensification of the civil war which ended with the treacherous murder of Zapata, in April 1919. Villa had meanwhile built up his forces and resumed operations in the north, raiding Ojinaga and Chihuahua during 1917 and 1918. By the spring of 1919 Villa's forces had again grown to about 1,200 men and on April 25th he sacked the town of Parral. An attack on the frontier town of Ciudad Juarez, on June 15th, provoked further intervention by the United States, elements of two U.S. Cavalry Regiments crossing the border into Mexico and finally destroying the Villistas as an organized force. THE END OF THE BEGINNING Carranza, whose administration had set new records in corruption, was deposed in may 1920 and Adolfo de la Huerta installed as interim President on June 1st. De la Huerta's brief presidency witnessed the final pacification of the Zapatistas and of Villa who agreed to disband his remaining forces and retire on July 28th. This he duly did although he was to be murdered by an old enemy of his bandit days three years later. On October 26th, 1920, Alvaro Obregón was elected President and the military phase of the Mexican Revolution effectively came to an end. Obregón was succeeded in 1924, by the rabidly anti-clerical former schoolmaster Plutarco Elias Calles who engaged in a ruthless persecution of the Catholic Church, provoking a three year revolt by the fanatically Catholic "Cristeros" which manifested itself in attacks on public buildings and isolated army garrisons. Obregón once more succeeded to the Presidency in 1928 but was assassinated by a religious fanatic before his inauguration. The Mexican Government and the Church finally reached an accord in 1929 and although the original revolutionary fervour had by now lapsed and been largely replaced by the traditional institutionalised corruption, the succession of Presidents during the late 1920's and 30's consolidated the basis of the Revolution, supporting the Spanish Republicans in the civil war of 1936 to 1939 and President Lazaro Cardenas expropriating foreign oil holdings in 1938, thus becoming the first Latin American country to challenge the rights of multi-national corporations to exploit its natural resources. Sources: Aitken, Ronald. "Revolution Mexico 1910-22", Macmillan, London, 1969. Hughes, James B., Jnr. , "Mexican Military Arms, The CartrIdge Period 1866-1967", Deep River Armory Inc., Houston, Texas 1968. Janvier, Thomas A., "The Mexican Army", Harper's New Monthly Magazine, New York, November, 1889. Mexico, Embajada de en Francia, Archivo. "Ejercito Regular de Mexico en 1910", Paris, 1911. Mexico, Secretaria de Marina, "Gestas Historicas de la Armada de Mexico", Mexico, D.F., 1985. Womack, John Jnr., "Zapata and the Mexican Revolution", Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1972. APPENDIX I: THE MEXICAN-ARMY OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD Under Porfirio Diaz Mexico was divided into eleven military departments. The Military Academy had been re-established in 1867 and graduated about 60 cadets annually and an arms factory had been set up at Mexico City. The Army was reorganised in 1897 and was now to consist of a total of 33,780 all ranks, on a peace footing, expanding to 148,100 on mobilization. The 7mm Mauser rifle displaced the Remington in 1895 and there were now also some Colt and Rexer machine-guns in service. Some Krupp and Schneider 7Smm mountain guns, together with small quantities of Schneider Model 1897 75mm field pieces, were obtained in the early years of the 20th Century to supplement about forty existing 80mm de Bange breach-loading rifled mountain cannon and Hotchkiss Model 1896 machine-guns subsequently replaced the older models previously in service. On the eve of the Revolution the Federal Army, was organized in 30 Battalions of Infantry, plus 4 Battalion cadres and 4 independent companies; 14 Regiments of Cavalry, plus 4 Regimental cadres; the presidential Mounted Escort; 4 Regiments of Artillery [2 mounted, 1 mountain and 1 light] , plus 2 Regimental cadres [1 mountain and 1 light] , 5 Coastal Batteries and 1 machine-gun company; a single Battalion of engineers and a squadron of military police. Although, in theory, each Infantry Battalion was to number 600 all ranks and each Cavalry Regiment 450, no attempt was made to recruit up to full establishment and most units were skeletonized, their commanders drawing and embezzling ration allowances for their full authorised strengths. In fact the Army numbered only 24,000 in 1910. There were also 12 "Corps", each of three companies, of mounted gendarmerie, the famous "RURALES", with a total establishment of 3,647 all ranks. APPENDIX II: THE MEXICAN NAVY OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1910, the Mexican Navy consisted of the 1200 ton cruiser ZARAGOZA", which was used mainly for training; the gunboats "BRAVO" and "MORELOS", also of 1200 tons; the 980 ton gunboats "TAMPICO" and "VERA CRUZ"; old gunboats of less than 500 tons each and fit only for harbour service; the 1850 ton armed transport "GENERAL GUERRERO" and the 1560 ton armed transport "PROGRESO". There was a Naval Academy at Vera Cruz and the major bases were Vera Cruz, on the Gulf coast and Salina Cruz, on the Pacific. Being largely inactive during the revolutionary period the Navy had to wait for its closing phases before it underwent any expansion, the gunboats "DOLPHIN" and "MACHIAS" of 842 and 1,200 tons respectively being purchased from the United States in 1920 and receiving the names "PLAN DE GUADALUPE" and "AQUA PRIETA". Two wooden-hulled submarine chasers, renamed "MAYO" and "YAQUI", were also purchased from the United States during this period, together with six 486 ton ex-Canadian armed trawlers, which received the names "TAMPICO", "COVARRUBIAS", "MAZATLAN", "GUAYMAS", "ACAPULCO" and "VERA CRUZ". APPENDIX III: AIR POWER AND THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION Mexico was the first Latin American country to appreciate the value of air power, a single aircraft, flown by a U.S. mercenary pilot, Captain Hector Worden, being used on bombing missions by the Maderista revolutionaries, as early as 1911. A Beriot XI monoplane was also demonstrated to President Porfirio Diaz, shortly before his overthrow by Madero Having proven the military value of aircraft, Madero, as President, sent 3 military pilots for training in the United States in 1912. The fall of Madero, in 1913, interrupted the development of official military aviation in Mexico although the Huerta Government had plans for the training of 31 pilots in France which was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. Meanwhile, the Constitutionalist rebels, in the north, had formed three flights of aircraft, Obregón's "Division del Noroesta" having two Glenn Martin pusher bi-planes, Villa's "Division del Norte", five Wright "L" bi-planes and the "Division del Este" of Pablo Gonzalez having two Morane Saulnier mono-planes. Flown by foreign, mainly U.S., mercenaries, all of the above aircraft were active in support of their respective ground forces as the Constitutionalist forces pressed southward during 1914. The Carranza Government set about the establishment of an Air Arm as an integral part of the new Constitutional Army. The war in Europe had however cut off all external sources of supply, although both a flying school and a central aviation workshop were set up at Balbuena, near Mexico City, in November 1915, with the surviving aircraft of the Divisions del "Noroeste" and "Noreste." With a surprising ingenuity the Talleres Nacionales de Construcciones Aeronauticas set about the development and production of aircraft from scratch in 1915, the TNCA Serie "A" tandem two-seater bi-plane trainer, powered by the Mexican developed Azatl air-cooled six cylinder radial engine, entering production the following year. Despite the highly unsettled state of the country, an air mail service was inaugurated in July 1917 with the ninth production aircraft of this type. Further products of the indigenous aircraft industry followed, including the TNCA Serie "B" trainer, the Serie "C" lightweight single-seater fighter, the Serie "D", "F" and "G", derived from Bleriot and Morane-Saulnier designs, ten examples of the locally-designed Serie "E" sesquiplane and finally 15 examples of the Serie "H" two-seat parasol monoplane light bomber. By the end of the Revolution in 1920 the Arma Aerea de las Fuerzas Constitucionales had a total of approximately 50 locally built aircraft. Back to Table of Contents: Booklet No. 5, Mexican Army 1900-20 Back to El Dorado List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 by The South and Central Military Historians Society This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com