A brief review of a two-sided story
PART THREE
War is not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means
Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz
German military theorist
De todos los Madero, fueron a elegir presidente al más tonto
Gustavo A. Madero
Once Madero was held prisoner and forced to resign presidency, Pedro Lascuráin, by the time Secretary of Exterior Relations was constitutionally elected President of the Republic as long as 45 minutes, time just to appoint Huerta in the Secretary he has just left and resign himself to presidency, automatically making Huerta the new President of Mexico.
The murder of Madero and Pino Suárez is precisely related in Taibo´s Temporada de Zopilotes.[1] Synthesizing his narration, once Blanquet held Madero, Huerta kept him in the quartermaster of Palacio Nacional aside the Vice-President and General Felipe Ángeles. But there were no a visible head of the coup d´etat, and Huerta took advantage of this situation shaping up as the leader once the very promoters of the revolt had been killed one and subordinated the other to Huerta´s orders. He sent a hitman, Major Francisco Cárdenas, to kill Madero in these terms:
– We know, Cárdenas, that you´re a man who knows how to do what is ordered. The one that killed a Santana[2] can easily kill a Madero. Don´t be shy. It´s not the first time you kill a man.
– Yes, my General, but no one this size.
– Very shortie, he is.[3]
– And must die all three?
– Well, Ángeles may stay, but the other two must die today without dilation.
So Madero was taken from his prison and introduced in a rented Protos and Pino Suárez in a so rented Peerless, the first escorted by Major Cárdenas and Corporal Francisco Ugalde and the second escorted by Corporal Rafael Pimienta and Officer Agustín Figueres. It was 2220 hours on February 22nd 1913,[4] and the two cars left Palacio Nacional heading to Lecumberri Penitentiary, less than a mile away. Parking behind the prison, Cárdenas shouted, pushing Madero: “Off you go, damn it!” and shoot him twice in the head, from behind. Pino Suárez tried to run but he was reached by the bullets of Pimienta; wounded and with a broken leg, Vice-President was killed by Cárdenas and Pimienta. The autopsy showed thirteen wounds in his body. The corpses were buried in a ditch and covered with rocks.
Palacio Nacional after apprehension of Madero and Pino Suárez
With the end of maderist presidency, Huerta decided to dissolve Congress and begins trades with the American Embassy commanded by Henry Lane Wilson who, in fact, actively participated in the coup d´etat generating a political agitation in the days between the Bernardo Reyes and Félix Díaz rising and the killing of Madero.
Mexico, history of: Huerta mocked in political cartoon. Photograph. Enciclopaedia Britannica Online. Web. 10 Jul 2011. Swann Collection of caricatures & cartoon/Library of Congress, Washington D. C. (LC-USZ62-85449), by Thomas E. Powers, 1913
All these illegal acts unchained the rage of the army Generals (very late, I should say) and provoked the signing of the Plan de Guadalupe by General Venustiano Carranza Garza. One should give a glimpse on this man: born in Cuatro Ciénegas, Coahuila, he was son of a prominent farmer and elected Mayor of his town. He held a political struggle against Governor Garza Galán supported by Bernardo Reyes, Commissioner of Porfirio Díaz, in 1894. After that he supported the campaign of Reyes against Porfirio Díaz and added to Madero´s campaign from exile in San Antonio, Texas.
Once Revolutionary Army conquered Ciudad Juárez, Madero elected him to be Governor of Coahuila, a political place he had desired since he was Mayor. After that and when Madero was elected President, Carranza Garza occupied the Secretary of War and Navy. He seemed not to like Villa´s natural scent.
From the left: Emilio Madero (?), Pancho Villa, Venustiano Carranza, José María Pino Suárez y José Medinabeytia, in Chihauhua, 1914. Villa and Carranza viewing opposite sides. They did not like each other.
Aware of Huerta´s coup, Carranza declared himself in default and refused to recognize the Huerta´s government, holding the rank of First Chief of the Revolution (a rank he desired since the days of first Mexican Revolution), as said in the Plan de Guadalupe, proclaimed in March 26th 1913.[5] In southern México, on the other hand, Emiliano Zapata, leader of Liberating Army of South, modified the Plan de Ayala, document in which people of Morelos state deplores Porfirio Díaz regime to deplore Huerta´s coup, without subordinating to Carranza´s orders and begins a parallel war against Huerta.[6]
Palacio Nacional. In the middle, Villa sited in Presidential Chair. To his left, Zapata, holding a huge hat.
Carranza rise the army from northern México in three big corps: Northwest Army under command of General Álvaro Obregón in Sonora where José María Maytorena was Governor, Northeast Army under command of Pablo González Garza in Coahuila, state governed by Carranza himself and, lately, the Northern Division commanded by Francisco Villa in Chihuahua, where the Governor was Abraham González.[7]
Once up in arms, Carranza´s army was easily defeated and The First Chief crossed all the biggest states of northern México from Coahuila to Sonora to join Obregón´s army. In Chihuahua, on the other hand, the revolt wasn´t unified and there were many guerrillas fighting against federal troops, one of these commanded by Villa who, lately, will be elected commander in chief of Northern division. In this political convulsed river, the fisherman made them profit and Pascual Orozco negotiated with Huerta´s government, legalizing it. So he was pursuit and defeated by Villa lately.
Carranza sent to Chihuahua to Juan Sánchez Azcona and Alfredo Breceda trying to get Villa´s submission to his very power. Villa decided to join the Constitucionalista army (so named by Carranza) only if Chihuahua territory was not to be under the command of Sonora´s military and himself was not to be under any command. By the time, Chihuahua was torn by bandits and “gavillas” of thieves so, Villa, far from face the government troops dedicated his forces to pursuit and eliminate these gavillas, bringing back to the state the tranquility it has lost, wining, by the way, the respect of people cause his army was severely punished if there was any act of vandalism after their entrance to any town.[8]
Villa was never subordinated to Carranza´s power and operated always in his own terms of internal government and chains of command keeping in mind his primary objective: the defeat of Huerta. But Carranza was looking forward, watching himself in the Presidency. And Villa and his power in the biggest state of the Republic was an obstacle to him. When the fight moved southbound and won territories and cities, one of those being Torreón, Coahuila, Carranza begun to show an authoritarianism that divided the army.
Maybe the most popular photograph of Pancho Villa, misknown as The Fall of Torreón, it was taken in Zacatecas.
Once Torreón was in hands of the revolutionaries, Carranza tried to separate the División del Norte sending Villa and a little column of this corps to support Pánfilo Natera´s army in the assault to Zacatecas city. Villa refused, in polite terms to do so and Carranza insisted. It was June 11th 1914. Carranza received a telegram from Villa proposing to move not only a column of his forces, but the entire Division, but Carranza insisted in sending not only three thousand, but five thousand men to support Natera. The next day, Villa sand a new telegram to Carranza saluting him and apologizing to be unable to help Natera questioning him for his decision to attack Zacatecas by himself instead of waiting for Northern Division. By the way (maybe as a probe to Carranza), Villa asks the First Chief to name a new commander of the Division. Natera failed in taken Zacatecas; even more, his army was almost annihilated. Carranza answered Villa that, if he had accomplished the orders himself had send Villa, Zacatecas would be under their rules. Taibo says:
In the conference, Carranza argued that if Villa had not received the supports that Carranza send him in Torreón with Durango corps, (Villa) he would not been able to take it. He is not proposing Villa to subordinates to General Natera; it´s all about that “he takes the city and expedites the way for himself southbound”. And, insists, victim of the authoritarianism that obsessed him: “Natera will stand for two days. Send (Eugenio Aguirre) Benavides, (Jesús) Ortega, (Calixto) Contreras or whomever you want”.
It has become an authority duel begun as a political maneuver (…). “The reason that was heavier in the spirit of Mr. Carranza to avoid Villa to take Zacatecas was that, once it has fall, he could be able to continue his march to México City”. [9]
Villa resigned to the command of the Northern Division and called Felipe Ángeles (that one that was held prisoner aside Madero) to give him the command of the forces. Ángeles fears the cracking of the Division which, in fact, it´s about to happen. Some of the military menace to go to the sierras and begin a guerrilla against Carranza. Villa sent a telegram to General Álvaro Obregón in Sonora, informing him about his resignation. Obregón and Villa had met in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. The meeting was, surprisingly, witnessed by General Pershing; there is a photo in which a young Lieutenant George Patton shows a naive smile. Carranza asked the generals supposedly gathered in the telegraph office in Torreón to designate the chief that would replace Villa. The generals answered asking Carranza to reconsider Villa´s resignation in view of his services to revolution. Carranza asked to designate another chief. The generals stand clearly that Carranza would not be able to go over the División del Norte and its chains of command based in the popular election of its chiefs:
We could, following the example of sir General Villa, let the command of our troops dissolving so the División del Norte, but we cannot deprive our cause of a so valuable element of war. So, we are about to convince the chief of this División to continue the fight against Huerta´s government as if no unpleasant event had happen today and we admonish you to do same, to defeat our common enemy.[10]
Carranza, deaf to reason, asked them to designate a new chief. General Maclovio Herrera, partner of Villa since the beginnings of Madero´s revolution, and infinitely more prosaic, telegraphed to Carranza:
Mr. Carranza: I´m aware of your behavior toward my General Francisco Villa. You are a son of a bad woman.[11]
But the other generals, modestly more moderated, answered:
Torreón, June 14th, 1914. Mr. V. Carranza. First Chief of the Constitucionalista Army, Saltillo, Coahuila. Your last telegram made us to suppose you had not or wanted not to understand our two last telegrams. They says in its medullar part that we do not take in account your order to General Villa resign the command of the División del Norte, and we could not assume another position against this apolitical, anti-constitutional and anti-patriotic action. We have convinced General Villa to understand that his compromise to the Homeland obligates him to continue in command of this corps (…)[12]
Carranza would be, in a near future, pursuit by Villa in his runaway from Mexico City to Veracruz and Coahuila. When Carranza (enthroned as the Máximo Mexicano) knew of the approach of Villa´s army by the north and Zapata´s army by south, charged a train with all his stuff, the Presidential Chair included, and begun a itinerant government trying to emulate President Juárez. When the villistas finally reached Mexico City, says the legend, one of the troopers saw the chair in which Villa and Zapata was photographed and asked:
And we are killing each other ´cause of this thing?[13]
Villa and Zapata entering México City. Villa surprisingly in uniform and Zapata with his charro usual clothes.
[1] Taibo II, PI, Temporada de Zopilotes, una historia narrativa de la Decena Trágica, editorial Planeta Mexicana, México, 2009, 155 pp.
[2] Refering to the killing of Santana Rodríguez, a magonist guerrilla from Veracruz.
[3] Sarcasm related to Madero´s size: he was 4´ 8” tall.
[4] Coincidently, this day was celebrated the birthday of George Washington with a reception in the American Embassy. After ordering the murder of Madero, Huerta went to the Embassy to celebrate with Ambassador Wilson.
[5] Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de las Revoluciones Mexicanas, INEHRM, Página del Bicentenario, consulted on http://www.bicentenario.gob.mx, on July 10-07-2011.
[6] Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de las Revoluciones Mexicanas, INHERM, Op. cit.
[7] Salmerón P, La Divisón del Norte, the land, the men and the history of a people´s army, Booklet, Planeta Mexicana editorial, México, 2006, page 299
[8] Salmerón P, Op. cit.
[9] Taibo II, PI, Pancho Villa, Una biografía narrativa, Editorial Planeta Mexicana, 2006, México, pp. 372
[10] Salmerón P, Op. cit. page 454
[11] Taibo II PI, Op. cit. Page 373
[12] Salmerón P, Op. cit. page 456
[13] For most fighters, “the chair” was the coloquial way to refer to the Presidency, to the Power of the Nation. Even today, political struggle is called the Fight by the Chair.
