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The Militarization of Mexico, 1913-1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Michael C. Meyer
Michael C. Meyer*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska
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Extract

THE Mexican Revolution was almost two and a half years old when General Victoriano Huerta captured the presidential chair. The chaotic period between November, 1910 and February, 1913 witnessed an ever-increasing militarization of the country which just a few years earlier had prided itself as the most stable republic and lucrative investment field in Latin America. When the military campaigns of the anti-Díaz movement began to assume serious proportions early in 1911, the government in Mexico City set out to increase at once the size and efficiency of the federal army and the rurales. Although Díaz efforts were for naught, the preparations themselves augured ominously for the immediate future. When the rebel general Pascual Orozco captured Ciudad Juárez in May of 1911, the die was cast. A small but effective revolutionary army, adept at guerrilla warfare, had humbled a professional fighting force schooled in the nineteenth-century German tradition.

Type
Dedication
Information
The Americas , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , January 1971 , pp. 293 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1971

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References

1 El País, March 10, 1913.

2 Captain William Burnside, the United States military attaché in Mexico City, estimated in June that the federal army had only 20,000 to 25,000 troops. This estimate appears to be quite low as does the State Department estimate of 28,000 made in April. See National Archives, War Department and General and Special Staff, Military Intelligence Division, File 5761, Reports of Captain Burnside, 1912–1913, Report of June 10, 1913. Hereafter cited as Burnside Reports with appropriate information. See also Records of the Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of Mexico, 1910–1929, Memorandum of Fred Morris Dearing, April 16, 1913, 812.00/8070. Hereafter cited as RDS with appropriate information.

3 El País, April 22, 1913.

4 The other six divisions were the Peninsular Division (Ménda) under General Tracy Aubert; the Division of the East (Puebla) under General Samuel García Cuellar; the Division of the South (Iguala) under General Juan A. Hernández; the Central Division (León) under General Rómulo Cuellar; the Division of the West (Guadalajara) under General Joaquín Téllez; and the Division of Nazas (Torreón) under General Ignacio Bravo. El País, March 22, 1913.

5 México, Congreso, Diario de los Debates de la Cámara de Diputados de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, XXVI Legislatura (México: Imprenta de la Cámara de Diputados, 1922), Apr. 1, 1913.

6 Ibid.

7 Great Britain, Public Records Office, Foreign Affairs Records, Embassy and Consular Files, William Fearon, Acting British Vice Consul, Guaymas, to Francis Stronge, March 30, 1913, F.O. 115/1738, folios 330–332. Hereafter cited as F.O. with appropriate information.

8 Archivo de la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores de México, Revolución Mexicana Durante los Años de 1910 a 1920, Informaciones Diversas de la República y de las Oficinas de México en el Exterior, De la Cueva, Consul Naco to Sec. de Relaciones Exteriores, April 15, 1913, L-E 771, Leg. 1. Hereafter cited as AREM with appropriate information.

9 Archivo Histórico de la Defensa Nacional, General H. Casso López to Sec. de Guerra, March 24, 1913, Exp. XI/481.5/26. Hereafter cited as AHDN with appropriate information.

10 The Ley Juárez of January 25, 1862 had been decreed at the time of the Veracruz intervention by French, English and Spanish troops.

11 Arturo M. Elías, Consular Inspector, San Antonio to Sec. de Relaciones Exteriores, May 20, 1913, transmitting text of Decree of May 14, AREM, L-E 786.

12 Taracena, Alfonso, La Verdadera Revolución Mexicana: Segunda Etapa (1913 a 1914) México: Editorial Jus, 1960), p. 63.Google Scholar

13 Aragón, Alfredo, El Desarme del Ejército Federal por la Revolución de 1913 (Paris: n.p., 1915), p. 56.Google Scholar

14 Decree 446, Ministry of War and Marine, August 14, 1913, F.O. 115/1741, folios 203–207.

15 Archivo General de la Nación, Ramo de la Secretaría de Gobernación, Samuel García Cuellar to Sec. de Estado y del Despacho de Gobernación, April 1, 1913, Policía, Gobierno del Distrito, 1912–1913. Hereafter cited as AGN/RSG with appropriate information.

18 Diario de los Debates, September 16, 1913.

17 Ibid., April 30, 1913; Ibid., May 13, 1913; Huerta to Aureliano Blanquet, August 14, 1913, F. O. 115/1741, folios 203–207.

18 México, Diario Oficial (México: Imprenta del Gobierno Federal, 1913), October 27, 1913; Memorandum of Colonel Gage, January 23, 1914, F. O. 115/1789, folio 15.

19 Lionel Carden to Edward Grey, February 6, 1914, F.O. 115/1789, folio 90.

20 In July, 1913 the daily pay (in Mexican currency) for the lower ranks was as follows: privates, $1.50; corporals, $1.75; second sergeants, $2.00; and first sergeants, $2.25. Although uniforms and equipment were provided by the government, subsistence was not. See Summary of Military Events, July 8th to 15th, Burnside Reports, July 15, 1913.

21 Wilson, Henry Lane, Diplomatie Episodes in Mexico, Belgium and Chile (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1927), p. 302.Google Scholar

22 Planearte, Francisco Ramírez, La Ciudad de México Durante la Revolución Constitucionalista (2nd. ed.; México: Ediciones Botas, 1941), p. 52.Google Scholar

23 John Lind to William Jennings Bryan, November 15, 1913, RDS 812.00/9568; Estañol, Jorge Vera, Historia de la Revolución Mexicana (México: Editorial Porrúa, S.A., 1957), p. 351.Google Scholar

24 W.D. Howe, Director, International Banking Corporation to Sec. de Gobernación, November 13, 1913, AGN/RSG, Asuntos Varios, Diversas Secretarías, Gobierno del Distrito…1913–1914.

25 General Comandante Militar de México to Sec. de Gobernación, May 8, 1914, AGN/RSG, Asuntos Varios, Diversas Secretarías, Gobierno del Distrito, May 8, 1914; Sec. de Gobernación to Gobernador, Distrito Federal, May 30, 1914, Ibid.

26 Summary of Military Events, July 8th to 15th, Burnside Reports, July 15, 1913.

27 Diario Oficial, September 4, 1913.

28 Diario de los Debates, September 16, 1913.

29 Calero, Manuel, Un Decenio de Política Mexicana (New York: n. p., 1920), p. 139.Google Scholar

30 Diario de los Debates, September 13, 1913.

31 Ibid.

32 Wilkie, James W.1, The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change Since 1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 22, 293.Google Scholar

33 Estañol, Vera, Historia de la Revolución, p. 51, n. 3.Google Scholar

34 Diario de los Debates, September 16, 1913.

35 Defeats of the federal army at rebel hands invariably found tens of thousands of rounds, hundreds of small arms and even artillery pieces being lost or turned over to the enemy. See for example, Memorandum of Colonel Gage, January 23, 1914, F. O. 115/1789, folio 16; Carothers to Bryan, July 5, 1914, RDS 812.00/12473.

36 Stronge to Grey, July 26, 1913, F.O. 115/1741, folio 64.

37 De Lama to Sec. de Relaciones Exteriores, March 18, 1914, AREM, L-E 783, Leg. 1.

38 Departamento de Artillería to Sec. de Relaciones Exteriores, October 7,1913, AREM, M-E 759, Leg. 9.

39 Arms, Ammunition and Equipment, Mexican Army, September 13, 1913, Burnside Reports; Thomas Summons, Consul General, Yokohama, Japan to William Jennings Bryan, November 10, 1913, RDS 812.00/9845; Guthery, Minister Tokyo to Bryan, December 1, 1913, RDS 812.00/10129.

40 Summary of Military Events, October 16 to October 22, 1913, Burnside Reports, October 22, 1913.

41 Report of Secret Agent Scully, December 17, 1913, RDS 812.00/10284.

42 The activities of the smugglers, especially their negotiations for the huge cargo carried by the Ypiranga is examined in Meyer, Michael C., “The Arms of the Y piranga” Hispanic American Historical Review, 50 (August, 1970), 543–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 F. Aruz Romo to Comandante Jefe de Esta Inspección, June 3, 1914, AGN/RSG, 4o Cuerpo, Armamento y Municiones.

44 Inspector General to Comandante del 4° Cuerpo Rural, April 21, 1914, AGN/RSG, 1913; Rafael Serrano to Coronel Inspector de los Cuerpos Rurales, November 3, 1913, AGN/RSG, 4° Cuerpo, Armamento y Municiones.

45 The Santamaría Diccionario General le Americanismos defines busca “en Méjico… provecho por lo general ilícito, que se saca de algún empleo o cargo, principalmente de carácter público.”

46 Memoranda on Affairs in Mexico Prepared by William B. Hale, July 9, 1913, RDS 812.00/8203.

47 Report of Captain W. A. Burnside, May 21, 1913, RDS 812.00/7275.

48 Secretaría de Estado y del Despacho de Gobernación to Inspector General de los Cuerpos Rurales, July 9, 1913, AGN/RSG, Gobernadores de Estados, Asuntos Varios.

49 Diario de los Debates, September 16, 1913.

50 Secretaría de Estado y del Despacho de Gobernación, Decree of July 7, 1913, AGN/RSG, Decretos, 1913.

51 The most detailed breakdown of the federal army in the spring of 1914 is contained in a report by the British Military Attache. He indicates federal troop strength in each state, territory and the federal district but cautions that the total of 82,250 is a little high. See M. F. Gage to Spring Rice, March 20, 1914, F. O. 115/1791, folios 233–237.

52 The rivalry between federal regulars and irregulars is exemplified by the disastrous schism between General Pascual Orozco and General Salvador Mercado in the Chihuahua garrison in the winter of 1913–1914. I have discussed this situation in my Mexican Rebel: Pascual Orozco and the Mexican Revolution, 1910–1915 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), pp. 105–110.

53 Lieuwen, Edwin, Mexican Militarism: The Political Rise and Fall of the Revolutionary Army (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968), pp. 22–23 Google Scholar; Quirk, Robert, The Mexican Revolution, 1914–1915: The Convention of Aguascalientes (New York: The Citadel Press, 1963), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

54 The best work on the adventure at Veracruz is Quirk, Robert E., An Affair of Honor: Woodrow Wilson and the Occupation of Veracruz (New York: McGraw Hill, 1964).Google Scholar Some additional information can be gleaned from Sweetman, Jack, The Landing at Veracruz, 1914 (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute, 1968).Google Scholar The Mexican position is chronicled passionately in Palomares, Justino N., La Invasión Yanqui en 1914 (México: n. p., 1940).Google Scholar