Decline of Villa and Rise of Obregon The Army of Operations now moved northwestward, 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 13th/15th 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. Obregon 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 llth, 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 Agua Prieta, on November 1st/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occurred between it and small groups of Villistas, the punitive expedition failed to catch Villa and it was finally withdrawn on February 5th, 1917, its presence having strained relations between the U.S. and the Carranza Governments to the point of war on several occasions. 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