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 storekeeper 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 Orozcols 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 partin military operations. However, a more serious rising, involving a large portion of the garrison of the national capital, occurred in February 1913. More Mexican Revolution Introduction Fall of Diaz, Madero as President Murder of Madero, Huerta Hijacks the Presidency US Intervention and Carranza Becomes President Decline of Villa, Rise of Obregon, and Pershing Expedition Carranza Triumphant: Murder of Zapata and Eclipse of Villa Appendix 1: Mexican Army of Revolutionary Period Appendix 2: Mexican Navy of Revolutionary Period Appendix 3: Mexican Air Force of Revolutionary Period Back to Table of Contents -- El Dorado Vol V No. 3 Back to El Dorado List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by The South and Central American Military Historians Society This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history and related articles are available at http://www.magweb.com