PART FOUR
Politics,
when I am in it, makes me sick
William
Taft
The consequences of the murder of
President Madero were feeled beyond Mexican borders.
By the time General Huerta became
the leader of the headless coup d’etat
and ordered the killing of Madero and Pino Suárez, the US Embassy was ruled out
by Henry lane Wilson.[1] The Ambassador felt –and showed, and open and
deep aversion against maderista regime, as said by some historians, as result
of Madero’s refusal to favor Wilson in some personal business that the American
politician asked the new President by means of his own wife and Sara Pérez,
Madero´s spouse.[2]
Beyond his mission to protect American lives and properties in Mexican
territories, Wilson wanted to take advantage of the new social and economic
conditions grown in the country to make a personal fortune, but this was the
opposite to Madero’s Revolution, focused in get Mexico and its citizens in
possession of the richness the country offered. So, as Mondragón and his followers
rise against Madero, Wilson begun to send American State Department telegrams
that, in the best of the cases, exaggerated the social and political situation.[3]
Henry Lane Wilson played more than an observer roll in the fall of Madero regime.
US president William Taft and his
State Department Secretary Philander Knox were unaware of Mexican affairs,
perhaps not too much beyond knowing the Revolution were taking place very near
to El Paso, TX, and that US Army captured or killed some Mexican revolutionaries
in US territory. This may seem unlikely as US long arm always reached foreign
politics, but with Presidential elections around the corner, they may have been
too busy to care about a dusty revolt south of the border so, as they received
Wilson’s telegrams and phone calls, they supported Huerta’s revolt, the very
desire of Wilson. Wilson made too much that only narrate the events occurring
in México: he promoted a reunion in US Embassy with ambassadors of Japan,
Chile, England, Spain and other countries to determinate the politics México
should follow in the next months and signed the so called Plan de la
Empacadora, a document in which they, the ambassadors, dictating precisely the
steps the transition government will take to carry the new politics. This
document is better known as the Pacto de la Ciudadela (or Pacto de la Embajada, as said because it was signed into the American Embassy in México City. There even exists a
picture in which Wilson is signing the paper in his office of Reforma Avenue).
Again, the American flag crowned Palacio Nacional (in a metaphoric way, this time) as did
in 1847.
On March 1913, Woodrow Wilson became
President of the United States and named William J. Bryan as State Secretary.
Following their non intervention politics, they did not recognized Huerta´s
government (as some European nations did) and removed Henry lane Wilson from
the Office and from the country. But the harm was done.
The very night Huerta ordered the
killing of President and Vice President, Wilson celebrated George Washington’s
birthday at US embassy and Huerta joined him to celebrate. Eventually, as Mexican
northern governors rise against Huerta, US Government shot down all kind of
support to the de facto Government
and recognized Carranza fight, mainly because of two reasons: a) Carranza
represented an army that fought against a dictator and, b) as an act of democracy
against tyranny.
From the left: William Taft, Philander Knox, Woodrow Wilson and William Bryan. The foreign politics of the White House changed as the power was given to Wilson and Bryan.
One of the Mexican governors that rise
in this second Revolution was Venustiano Carranza in Coahuila. Born in 1858 in
Cuatro Ciénegas, as son of a local politician, he spent his early life in a
political tradition family. As a youth, he went Saltillo and Mexico City to
study. He returned as a bachelor to contest for the post of Mayor in Cuatro
Ciénegas, and he won. After that, he did contest to Governor of Coahuila but
lost against García Galán who did re-elected in contravention of Madero’s
ideology to which Carranza added immediately. Once in revolutionary army
Carranza was named War and Navy Secretary and, after that, finally Governor of
Coahuila after a popular election, charge in which he was the very moment of
Huerta’s revolt. He published the Plan de Guadalupe as a statement against the
golpistas.[4]
Being an extremely proud person,
Carranza named himself as El Primer Jefe
(The First Chief) of this new revolution. It should be said that Carranza
depicted Madero ‘cause he did consider the President as a soft politician. But,
contrary to what one can expect, he didn’t respect the opposite –that would
mean Villa’s roughness and decision. He´d only accepted his own toughs. Yes, he
was proud.
The new politic s of the White House
seemed to benefit Carranza as it should allow the free commerce of weapons and
ammunition from the US into México[5],
but it was against of American politics of non intervention. So, the chance of
Americans support the Revolution was stuck.
The Revolution took eleven months to
throw Huerta from Palacio Nacional. With Carranza in position of The Chair,
Huerta on the loose heading Veracruz, and Villa´s División del Norte following
him, the US Government asked for free elections. But Carranza did not organize
them, on contrary; he seemed possessed of the illness of all Mexican
politicians: Power. So, as an advertisement to the Mexican Revolutionary
Governement, president Wilson decided to invade the Veracruz harbor in April
1914, which, even against the resistance of the brave people of the city, was
occupied until November of the same year.
What, in the name of God, was Villa doing
meanwhile?
We have argued before that Carranza did not
like Villa and that Villa did not trust Carranza. The President did freeze the
División del Norte ordering it to do some “tactical” movements in the north of
the country, preventing that Villa and Zapata meet in Mexico City. Villa, as a
soldier, as a northern and as a wise man, was waiting to see what it seemed to
him an imminent betrayal of Carranza and the gringos against the Revolution.
Leon Canova, US State Department Mexican
Affairs’ strong man was sent by his
Government to approach Villa and pact with him against Carranza. But Villa
refused to receive American support, perhaps because of his anti-american
beliefs as he had grown watching US citizens and politicians take advantage of
Mexican people along years. Of course, in this appreciation one can easily fall
in the cliché of the poor Mexicans oppressed by the powerful Americans,[6]
the lucha de clases, the historical
mutual benefit-betrayal-disrespect relation, the boot of the oppressor on the
neck of the oppressed. There is more, as we all know: Mexican-American
relations have always been framed by two main facts: American desire of
expansion and Mexican need to appear as victims in one hand, and the American interventionist
politics (centered in the deep paranoia of the Government that seem to believe
that anything out if its control is made against it) and the Mexican tiredness
to be ruled by self serving politicians and wars that lead nowhere for the
people without taking any real action to change that, on the other.
American president Wilson wanted an American
(as a continent) hegemony in the political field and a revolution in the
biggest latin-american country, in addition shoulder to shoulder border, was a
concern. Villa had a non political but practical defined social project in mind
(it was carried out some years after in his hacienda in Canutillo, Durango)[7]
that take not in account any American intervention. This project, aside to
Zapata’s Reforma Agraria was a stone on the shoe of Carranza whose only concern
was to keep power. Carranza, in fact, never came out with a social proposal or
a political reform plan: the Revolution was the moving of the Power bones from
one tomb to another. So, Villa decided, in 1915 when Huerta was held prisoner
in Fort Bliss (where he will die soon) and President Wilson did recognized
Carranza’s regime, to dissolve the División del Norte. But he did preserved the
regular corps named Los Dorados, the elite of the División, soldiers of proven
bravery who were in charge of ending the military actions of the División,
military police and personal guard of General de División Villa. It’s said that
the name came because of their brunette skin, for they was paid in gold, and
because they were superior to a famous band of outlaws named the Plateados
(Silver Ones) that had been defeated by the corps. They probably were the
original name of a corps of Brigada Cuauhtemoc, commanded by Trinidad Rodríguez
who did give the name for Brigada Villa, commanded by Francisco Villa himself.[8]
Los Dorados de Villa, elite troops of the División del Norte. Villa marked with arrow.
It seemed a mistake, but Villa was one step
forward.
As long as all the revolutions took place in
México, Villa created a vast, immense, network of adepts to his cause. Elected
Chihuahua’s Governor in December the 8th, 1913, Villa promulgated
the so named Decreto de Confiscación de Bienes de los Enemigos de la
Revolución,[9]
a document that stated a non precedent act of social justice in which he deprived
the Terrazas family and similar ones from all the properties that they took
from the peasants and the workers in Chihuahua. But it did affected American
properties as well. All along this time, Villa did buy and buried weapons,
money, gold, silver, ammunition and other gear in clandestine pits, caverns,
cannons, houses, preventing to ride again against the government. Now this was
the time. With the power in Carranza’s hands, Villa only got to call his old
commanders to rise that war machine called División del Norte.
When Villa finally regrouped the División del
Norte he was able to make Congress to remove Carranza from the Presidency and
as an answer, Carranza begun a itinerant Government as Juárez did in his time,
carrying all his stuff in a train from México City, the “chair” included (not
only the figure of power, the chair,
but the very furniture), to end his travel in Veracruz.
But the main fact of this story is not the
legend of Villa, nor the proud of Carranza or the murder of Madero; is the
invasion of a little town in New Mexico named Columbus.
Why did Villa attack a border town in a state
so recently added to the Union?[10]
[1]
Yankelevich P, La revolución y Estados Unidos, Relatos e Historias en México
3(27):Nov 2010, 77-84
[2]
Taibo II, PI, Temporada de Zopilotes, una
historia narrativa de la Decena Trágica, editorial Planeta Mexicana,
México, 2009
[3] Yankelevich P, Op. cit.
[4]
Rosas A, El Primer Jefe, Relatos e Historias en México 1(9); May 2009,
38-45
[5] Doesn´t it sound as a fact of
actuality?
[6] One should remember the statement
of Porfirio Díaz: “(…) poor of México: so far from God and so near to the
United States.”
[7] A central piece of his Project was
education as the only mean to change people’s mind. In the period that he was
Chihuahua’s Governor, he’d build 50 elementary schools in his state (looked on
our actual lights it’s nothing, but in the time we are talking about it was
unthinkable for the government to do so). This shows the impact of Villa in
Chihuahua people: they not only had a Governor extracted from the lines of the
farmers and ranchers, but one that cared about their future, that gave them the
opportunity to get the tools to improve their way of life, one that think and
act as themselves.
[8]
Ávila GR, La elite de la División del
Norte, Relatos e Historias en México 3(3);Feb 2011, 25-28
[9]
Salmerón-Sanginés P, El sueño de Pancho Villa, Relatos e
Historias en México 1(2);Oct 2008, 38-45
[10] Arizona and New Mexico territories
were added to the Union in 1912, during presidency of President Taft as wroten
by Bumann J, Patterson J, Our American Presidents, Willowisp
Press, Ohio, 1989, page 97
