Victoriano Huerta – The Pull Of The Land

Prelude to the Cristiada II

October 28, 2022October 28, 2022 Richard Barnes

“The United States cherish very sinister designs toward Mexico and desire that a condition of complete anarchy should supervene.” — Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary (December, 1913)

“I am going to teach [Mexico] to elect good men.” — Woodrow Wilson (November, 1913)

Comparing President Woodrow Wilson’s pious pronouncements about Mexico with his related actions and directives stretches the intellect beyond the breaking point. And it helps one to understand the utter exasperation easily perceived in the dispatches and minutes of foreign diplomats (Belgium, England, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and more) who did their best to mediate between the intransigent American president and his Mexican counterpart, who early on offered to resign with minimal conditions but whose offers were rebuffed by the rigid American. An attitude that would be repeated — with catastrophic results — in Versailles only six years later.

As explained in the prior post, Victoriano Huerta assumed the presidency of Mexico on February 19, 1913, pursuant to a 126-0 vote of Mexico’s congress, in accordance with Mexico’s constitution. Less than a month later, on March 4, 1913, Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated as president of the United States.

Wilson despised Huerta — as amply substantiated by contemporary minutes and diaries, let alone actions and directives.

A brief quote by one of his allies, Robert Lansing, who would serve as Wilson’s secretary of state from 1915 to 1920, provides us a good summation of Wilson’s attitude and approach to Mexico and Huerta:

“With him it was a matter of conviction formed without weighing evidence and going through the process of rational deduction …. His judgments were always right in his own mind, because he knew they were right …. He knew it and that was the best reason in the world — no other was necessary.”

Mr. Lansing’s diplomatic words can be summed up in one: sanctimoniousness. And that translated into desastre for Mexico and her people.

As noted previously, after Francisco Madero’s rebellion against Porfirio Díaz and the latter’s resignation, Mexico descended rapidly into anarchy, a dreadful contrast from the previous 34 years of peace. Huerta, who had served three presidents, including Madero, eventually worked to depose him to prevent further chaos and bloodletting. Wilson refused to recognize Mexico under Huerta and this refusal was blatantly inconsistent with his actions elsewhere in Latin America.

For example, in February, 1914, when a military junta seized power in Peru, the London Times reported, “President Wilson, if he lives up to his declared policy against unconstitutional government, may be unable to recognize the new regime.” However, Wilson recognized it immediately with not even an inquiry as to the prospects for a future move towards democracy.

He also, with a whoop and a holler, recognized China despite its president having murdered a rival.

Impervious to his hypocrisy, he looked kindly upon Peru and China, both of whose leaders had acquired power without even the semblance of constitutionality, while assiduously seeking the overthrow of his southern neighbor. Just how the former differed from the situation in the latter was known only to the president, other than his cryptic reply to a cabinet official who had asked whether the Chinese regime was really democratic: “…. after years of study he had only one final conviction in government, and that was that the same sort of government was not suitable for all nations.” A statement which channelled Huerta and the Mexican government but which Wilson refused to apply to them.

Clearly the president employed a double standard while refusing to heed advice from those who had worked in or with Mexico for many years and who understood the country and its people.

Throughout 1913 and up to July 15, 1914, when Huerta resigned, President Wilson supported Venustiano Carranza and his loudly self-proclaimed “Constitutionalist” rebellion.

In the first place, his rebellion had nothing “constitutionalist” about it. His uprising arose as soon as he saw that Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize Huerta. He proclaimed his “Plan de Guadalupe” signed by his own collaborators and subordinates. This “Plan” proclaimed him “Primer Jefe” [First Chief].

Carranza, like all Jacobins before and since, understood the need to appropriate language. The Jacobins tossed the term “virtue” around more than you could shake a stick at. And they kept proclaiming it from the rooftops even as the blood of thousands of decapitations flowed like rivers throughout France. Their virtue could not be questioned. After all, they said they personified virtue, no?

Likewise, nowhere in Mexico’s constitution would anyone ever see the title “Primer Jefe” nor would anyone ever discern the creation of a government on the basis of a self-proclamation signed by the proclaimer’s underlings. But the “Constitutionalist” term hit the sweet spot and it was all President Wilson needed.

And even after it became clear to any barely objective observer that Carranza’s movement was utterly despotic and terroristic, and that nothing about it was “constitutional”, the United States, directed by President Wilson, continued to aid the “Carrancistas” with materiel and moral support. Like all dictators or would-be dictators, Carranza’s actions were realized by means of arbitrary “decrees” headlined by the phrase, “In virtue of the extraordinary faculties invested in me….” A phrase nowhere countenanced in Mexico’s constitution which he purported to be defending.

Carranza’s uprising and government of areas he subjected — with United States weapons — was scandalously corrupt, as opposed to “constitutional”. His criminal hordes (there is no other way to describe his men based on their actions; to call them “troops” would be an insult to honorable soldiers everywhere) demolished vast swathes of Mexico’s civilizational patrimony. Fields were laid waste and haciendas were sacked and burned; valuable mines and business establishments were destroyed and buried; women and girls and boys were assaulted, violated, tortured, and murdered.

Bridges, works of art, trains and railroads were destroyed; prisoners of war were tortured and murdered in cold blood; civilians were accused of collaboration with the enemy — the “enemy” being the constituted government of Mexico — and were executed after indescribable torture.

And, foreshadowing the horrors that awaited Mexico, nuns and virgins awaiting consecration to the church were violently gang raped, tortured, and cruelly murdered in butchery, debauchery, and sacrilege totally unknown to any level of Mexican society. The “Carrancista” hatred of the faith had never before been seen at such a level in Mexico. Jean Meyer in his work, La Cristiada, succinctly described the Carrancistas’ modus operandi: “….upon entering a village or populated area, they confiscated the keys of the church … they took the church goblets and emptied the consecrated communion bread to the horse stalls….”

One need not be a Roman Catholic to be horrified at the actions of these vicious gangs.

But he kept being identified — even to this day! — as a defender of the constitution. It is dangerous to cede control of language to the enemies of objective truth. Such need to be called out. Not doing so will end in bewailing our silence.

Regardless, Carranza’s actions were supported by the United States government under Woodrow Wilson. He encouraged his administration to ignore the arms blockade when it came to allowing shipments of military hardware and weaponry to the “constitutionalist” while strictly enforcing the blockade against the government. He also fought against Huerta diplomatically. Seeing the futility of obtaining arms from the United States, Huerta began to buy them from Europe, but Wilson ordered the blockage and later the occupation of Veracruz.

Carranza’s allies included Pancho Villa whose cruelties were often seen across the border by horrified Texans and New Mexicans whose protestations to the president fell on deaf ears.

Veracruz remained occupied till the end of 1913 when the American commanders handed the port over to General Cándido Aguilar, a Carrancista. Later, after Pancho Villa and Carranza had a falling out, Wilson blocked any supplies of armaments to Villa, while instructing his agencies to allow shipments to Carranza’s forces.

These and other actions by a United States president explain William F. Buckley, Sr.’s sworn testimony before the House Foreign Relations Committee in 1919: “… the abnormal element of the present series of revolutions is the active participation in them by the American Government.”

Space obligates me to pass over much more, including Wilson’s daily nefarious interference with the mediation efforts by diplomats from Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to a peace settlement. It got to a point where the three delegations resigned, but were persuaded to return to the table. With hindsight, perhaps they should not have.

One such outrageous interference was to insist on the participation by Carranza, against all the rules of civilized mediation efforts which forbad one of the parties who continued to rape and pillage and murder while “mediation” took place. The South Americans refused to acquiesce to this outrage, to their eternal credit. However, Wilson’s “personal representative”, John Lind, kept Carranza informed daily and, congruent with Carranza’s instructions, made unreasonable demands on the mediators, who were unaware of the daily backchannel Wilson sustained with Carranza.

In sum, the American president willfully ignored the glaring contradictions between the Carrancistas’ pronouncements and their actions and worked assiduously and, regrettably, successfully to bequeath Mexico to the Carrancistas.

The first major action by Carranza was to dispense with the constitution he had been supposedly defending by calling for an assembly to “reform” it by means of proclaiming a new constitution. The assembly was loudly hailed to be one that would express the “popular sovereignty”. Another sleight of hand with the language. “Popular sovereignty” sounded good to post-French-Revolution ears; however, the reality was quite different. To take perhaps the most egregious, not to mention foreboding, example of actions contradicting words, the fourth article of Carranza’s decree calling for the convention stated that such as “had helped with arms or served by means of public employment in the governments hostile to the constitutionalist cause…” were prohibited from participating.

Therefore, the assembly excluded anyone associated with Huerta, Zapata, Villa, or being suspected of having been — a truly elastic condition — in addition anyone who was in the slightest suspected of professing the Christian faith.

Put another way, over 90% of the population was excluded from representation. That’s some “popular sovereignty”!

The constitutional assembly was sectarian to the utmost, composed entirely by Carrancistas named directly by Carranza or by his right hand henchman, Álvaro Obregón, but supposedly “elected” in rigged and manipulated elections. This became very clear when it was obvious that, to this day, we still do not have a bonafide number of delegates to the assembly. The number varied day by day.

The spirit that reigned was totally Jacobin, intransigent, and — at the risk of being repetitive — anti-Christian. One of the deputies, José Natividad Macías, synthesized this spirit very well:

“…there is a deep religious sentiment in this people and the customs of a people are not changed from night to day; in order to ensure this people ceases to be Christian, for a people to stop being Christian, for the sentiment that reigns today to disappear, education is necessary and not just an education of one day or two or three; it is not sufficient to have won the revolution; the Mexican people continue to be ignorant, superstitious, and completely attached to her ancient beliefs and her ancient customs, unless we educate them.”

Using another of the Left’s disarming words, education, the delegate’s expressions sound harmless to anyone reading them a century later. However, such words and sentiments led to the horrendous Cristiada.

And those were the beliefs that characterized an assembly purporting to “represent” the Mexican people. Yeah. Right.

Again, space does not permit an analysis of the constitution this rabble drafted. Suffice it to say, such was never submitted to a referendum and her anti-Christian spirit and text are totally contrary to the “sentiments of the nation”.

The constitution is openly authoritarian (it “bestows” rights, for instance) and “anti-Catholic”; however, I would caution my Protestant brethren to not dismiss the latter wording. In Mexico, as in revolutionary France, “anti-Catholic” must be read as “anti-Christian”, for that is what it is. For example, one of the revolutionary leaders, Tomás Garrido Canabal, named his son, Lenin, because he (Lenin) was an enemy of God. He had a farm with a bull named God, a cow named Mary, and a donkey named Christ. Must one be a Roman Catholic to be appalled by such blasphemy?

The Carrancista constitution went into effect in 1917. Mexico now faced an uncertainty and arbitrariness that persisted well into the latter 20th Century and beyond. But, most horribly, a mere decade later, she would face a Cristiada with untold cruelty and bloodletting occasioned by a radically atheistic president determined to “enforce” with the constitution.

As for Woodrow Wilson, he was re-elected with the slogan, “He kept us out of war!”, meaning war with Mexico.

The only truth in that slogan was that we had not formally or officially declared war on Mexico. However, we plunged that country into a chaos which led to the horrendous bloodletting of the Cristiada. And we ourselves, under Wilson, also went to a war whose aftermath continues with us to this very day.

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), President from 1913 to 1921

Robert Lansing (1864-1928), Secretary of State from 1915 to 1920

One of thousands of decapitations during the French Revolution. They were so “virtuous” that no one dared say otherwise.

Left to right: Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920), Francisco “Pancho” Villa (1878-1923); Francisco Madero (1873-1913); Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919). Each was assassinated.

Prelude To The Cristiada I

October 22, 2022October 22, 2022 Richard Barnes

“To understand the Mexican situation it must be understood in the beginning that the present is more or less the normal condition of Mexico; the era of peace during the Díaz regime from 1876 to 1910 was an abnormal period in the [post-colonial] history of that country. All revolutions in Mexico work along conventional lines and the present series of revolutions are in no material sense different from those that beset the country from 1810 to 1876; the abnormal element of the present series of revolutions is the active participation in them by the American Government [emphasis mine].” — William F. Buckley, Sr., testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Relations, December 6, 1919 (7 years before the major outbreak of the Cristiada)

Mike Ashe will soon be posting on the unjustly memory-holed Mexican Cristiada or Cristeros War of the early 20th Century.

However, events do not simply “occur” by spontaneous generation or by a sudden explosion of sentiment or rebellion. There are leaders and, more importantly, philosophies that have taken root or to which key elements of society have submitted, which in turn can lead a culture or civilization to heights of achievement or depths of torment and depravity.

To better grasp the immensity and the nature of the calamity which befell Mexico and, by extension, the United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it is worthwhile — and necessary — to take a moment to review what went before.

1810 — We begin with a brief allusion to 1810, which is the date usually associated with the initiation of Mexico’s independence from Spain. Invariably, historians generalize with comments such as, “revolt against a large reserve of resentment” or “the pressure cooker finally exploded” and more such terminology. This is found in scholarly as well as popular, Wikipedia type essays.

However, the first thing one must notice about the date, 1810, is that it is barely two decades after the storming of the Bastille and the ensuing French Revolution, which Lenin, a century later, criticized because the Jacobins stopped the terror, something he (Lenin) was determined not to do. And his disciple, Stalin, agreed and fully proved his devotion to Lenin’s counsel. Even after tens of millions of deaths later, large swathes of American colleges and elites indulge their love affair with the French Revolution and its Communist progeny.

Clarence B. Carson wrote, “What particularly intrigued revolutionary socialists, Karl Marx among them, about the French Revolution was the drastic changes it made in the lives and ways of a people. It demonstrated, at least for them, in embryo form, the potentialities for changing man and men in society by revolution…. In sum to … totally reconstruct society.”

With that background, let us briefly consider what happened in 1810 when “Father Hidalgo” allegedly shouted his call for independence from Spain. “During the siege of Guanajuato, his followers captured the city granary in which nearly five hundred Spaniards and criollos [descendants of Spaniards] had taken refuge, many of them women and children. The massacre that followed shocked [all] throughout Mexico….” This event, and others like it, identify the atrocities in Mexico with those in France and with the rest of South America and the Caribbean, as witness Haiti and Venezuela.

In other words, Mexico and Hidalgo were no different than Venezuela and Bolivar and the denouement of each is unsurprisingly similar: massacres, rapes of women, girls, and boys, cold blooded murders of prisoners, invalids, hospital patients, and other defenseless men and women, blighted fields, mines and manufactures burned and buried, homes and offices delivered to pillage, and much more.

In my childhood and youth I invariably heard comments expressing alarm or marvel at the alleged Spanish propensity for cruelty and pillage as seen in the Spanish colonies’ 19th century revolutions. Well, in the first place, a propensity to evil is in all men; however, more importantly, what those comments alluded to were acts that were totally alien to the Spanish colonies. To see such acts in Europe, one would have to visit revolutionary France, not Spain. It is truly a wonder how France and its nefarious, hateful Jacobin ideology gets a free pass.

Just as it can be mystifying to contemplate today’s college professors and their benighted students’ dangerous infatuation with modern Jacobinism, including an overriding hatred of Christianity.

This explains Mr. Buckley’s comments on Mexican revolutions from 1810 to 1876 quoted above.

1876 – 1911 — This was the “Porfiriato” the rule of Porfirio Díaz. As alluded to in Mr. Buckley’s testimony (see quote above), this was a time of post-colonial peace and order not seen before or since.

The Cristero period, which officially began in 1926 under the Plutarco Calles administration, was actually sown in 1911 with the Francisco Madero administration. Madero was opposed to Christianity, or at least any ecclesiastical manifestation of it. He was deposed and allegedly murdered in 1913.

But we must briefly consider how Francisco Madero became president of Mexico.

Madero had launched a revolution from San Antonio, Texas, declaring himself president in November, 1910. Men such as Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco rallied to him in northern Mexico, creating and fomenting turmoil and mayhem, which eventually culminated in the resignation of Porfirio Díaz in May, 1911, who sincerely wished to avoid further bloodshed.

Francisco Madero was elected president in October, 1911, hailed as the “apostle of democracy”. However, discontent with his administration set in almost immediately and rebel factions erupted throughout Mexico. For example, Zapata rebelled against Madero in November, 1911, barely a month after the elections.

Similar to like men in politics today, Madero was an aristocrat, having been schooled by private tutors in Paris and in the United States. He had little in common with the peon classes that he waxed lyrical about. He had promised everything to everyone and therefore pleased no one.

More worrisome, disorder and lawlessness were such that the Mexican ambassador to the United States resigned in December, 1912, saying, “I lied to the American government for ten months telling them that the Mexican revolution would be over in six weeks…. The truth is that the situation is desperate.”

General Victoriano Huerta was a soldier and natural leader. His drinking was legendary — think Ulysses S. Grant. One example of his fearlessness occurred in Cuernavaca. He was in a hotel when a group passed in the street shouting, “Death to Huerta!” The General “heard the cry, got up, and walked to the door — alone, ‘Here is Huerta,’ he said. ‘Who wants him?'”

General Huerta had been a loyal and dedicated soldier, having fought under three presidents: Porfirio Díaz, Francisco de la Barra (interim president between Díaz and Madero), and Francisco Madero. In over 40 years of service, he had applied for only two leaves.

After putting down multiple rebellions against Madero, General Huerta was once again called upon to defeat yet another insurrection in Mexico City, in February, 1913. It was during this event that he decided to work to depose President Madero. He saw that lawlessness persisted in Mexico and lives and properties of citizens as well as foreigners were continually in danger. The fighting in Mexico City was frightful but is beyond the scope of this post.

Suffice it to say that the government forces were defeated after much property damage and human carnage. Americans as well as diplomats from other nations flocked to the American embassy for shelter. The ambassador demanded that all combatants respect American rights. The patience of the ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson (no relation to Woodrow Wilson, who was to be inaugurated as president in March, 1913) was exhausted and he worked to seek a permanent solution that would protect American and foreign interests and people in Mexico, believing that would also protect the Mexican people.

“This situation is intolerable … I am going to bring order,” declared the ambassador, who then worked with British, Spanish, and German ministers, whose countries had the largest colonies in Mexico City. In addition, twenty-five Mexican senators urged President Madero to resign. Madero rebuffed all approaches.

Concurrently, General Huerta was completing his preparations for a coup which took place February 18, 1913. At 5:10 P. M., the cathedral bells sounded and a large crowd assembled. The people “wildly cheered” Huerta and a general air of celebration prevailed. American newspapers reported that President Taft and his cabinet showed “great relief”.

There were many delicate negotiations between the factions which are beyond the scope of this post. In sum, negotiations were concluded but General Huerta refused to declare himself president. He wished to follow constitutional norms. While Madero was prisoner, he was technically still the president, since he had not resigned.

Huerta, although “in de facto control, cooperated with Congress and the Foreign Minister to secure legal title to the presidency.” He requested Congress to convene and expressed a desire to “place himself in accord with the National Representation” to “find a legal solution” to the crisis.

On February 19 Francisco Madero signed his resignation, which was submitted to the Congress later that morning. The Congress, which had a Maderista majority, accepted the resignation by an overwhelming vote and at 11:15 A. M. the Congress confirmed Huerta as constitutional president by a vote of 126-0.

Thus Huerta assumed the presidency not at the time of the coup, but upon the resignation of Madero and the vote of the Congress, in accordance with Mexico’s constitution at the time.

Turmoil still persisted as several factions refused to recognize Huerta or even the Congress. Added to the tensions were rumors of Madero’s ambitions to foment yet another revolution akin to his actions against Porfirio Díaz in 1910.

On February 22, 1913, after 10 P. M. Francisco Madero and the former vice president, José María Pino Suárez, were shot as they were being transferred from the presidential palace to the penitentiary. There were several “versions” purporting to explain the assassinations, including that relatives of persons killed on orders of Madero’s government attacked the convoy transporting the prisoners. However, there is general agreement that, at the least, President Huerta should have taken more serious precautions to protect Madero. Of course, the most accepted version is that Huerta’s cabinet, including Huerta, ordered the shooting.

Whatever the truth, the fact of repercussions became clear upon the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson, whose actions led directly to the Cristiada.

(To be continued)

Expected to be released in March, 2023. Pictured: William F. Buckley Sr. (1881-1958)

Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson (1857-1932)

The Mexican Revolution 1910 – 1920: Part 3 — Scorecard — Mike Ashe

August 31, 2022August 31, 2022 Richard Barnes

[This is the third of a 4-part post: Prologue and Beginning; Civil War and Ending; Scorecard; US Interventions. This part, “Scorecard”, focuses on names and I found it to be of much help in “matching” names to timeframes and events. Americans are well-advised to be more cognizant of the major events of our neighbor to the south — RMB]

Scorecard of the Revolution

It’s hard to follow the events and participants of the revolution without a scorecard. Hopefully this will help answer the questions raised in the prologue.

[Mike’s prologue asks whether the Mexican Revolution advanced the interests of the Mexican people. See Part 1 for more — RMB]

Presidents in Chronological Order After Porfirio Diaz beginning in 1910:

1) Francisco Madero — In office 1911-1913. From Mexico’s wealthiest families, from the State of Coahuila. Educated in UC Berkley. Assassinated by Victoriano Huerta in 1913. Resting place: Monument of the Revolution, Mexico City

2) Victoriano Huerta — In office by coup 1913-1914. From the state of Jalisco. Military Career. Presidency not recognized by US as legitimate. US President Woodrow Wilson ordered troops to Vera Cruz and into Mexico City. Huerta fled the country to Jamaica, UK, Spain, and the US, continuing to plan another coup until his death in El Paso Texas. Viewed with great disdain then and now.

[Huerta is indeed viewed very negatively. But, as usual, there is more to the story, especially the catastrophic effect of Woodrow Wilson’s supposedly moralistic approach to foreign policy and his responsibility behind Huerta’s actions. If interested, The United States and Huerta, by Kenneth Grieb is a good resource — RMB]

4) Venustiano Carranza — 1915-1920. Wealthy land owner from the state of Coahuila-Northern Mexico. A shrewd politician and Primer Jefe of the constitutionalists. A pragmatic governing style did not win him many friends at the time but history has been kind to him. His assassination in 1920 marks the ending of the Revolutionary Period in Mexico.

Noteworthy Combatants:

1) Alvaro Obregón — From the State of Sonora (Northern Mexico). Most successful of all the Constitutionalist Revolutionary Generals. A practitioner of Modern Warfare used in WW1, he was able to defeat all his enemies including Huerta, Villa, and Zapata. In his fight against Villa his right arm was blown off, which nearly killed him. His severed arm was recovered, embalmed, and put on display at the Parque de la Bombilla in Mexico City. Obregón was the first post revolution president from 1920-1924. In 1928 he was again elected president but assassinated shortly after his reelection.

[Obregón chose Plutarco Calles (see below) as his successor. He is rarely held accountable for this nefarious decision, but ought to be — RMB]

2) Emiliano Zapata — From the state of Morelos (south of Mexico City). A champion of the peasants and agrarian reform, Zapata was a fierce fighter and feared by many which resulted in his assassination in 1919, ordered by Carranza.

3) Jose Doroteo Arrango Arambula, aka Pancho Villa — Northerngeneral allied with Zapata against Carranza in a full-fledged civil war. Lost to Obregón. In 1916 invaded Columbus New Mexico to goad the US into war with Mexico. Was assassinated in 2023. In 1976 his remains were reburied in the Monument to the Revolution.

4) Pascual Orozco Vázquez, Jr. — Army General who led forces that ended Diaz’s presidency by first raiding government garrisons. In 1911 after ambushing federal troops, he ordered their uniforms to be removed and sent to the President with a note which read, “Ahí te van las hojas, mándeme mas tamales” (Here are the wrappers; send me more tamales). He later joined Huerta in planning a coup to overthrow Carranza supported by the Germans circa WWI years. He exiled himself to the US from whence he, with Huerta, sought financial assistance to take power in Mexico. He was arrested along with Huerta in Texas, but escaped. He and three of his men were ambushed and killed in 1915. In 1925 his remains were returned to Chihuahua.

5) Plutarco Elias Calles — Northern General under Obregón; later became president in 1924-28. Responsible for the Cristeros War.

[Plutarco Calles was born in poverty; his mother and alcoholic father were not married, at a time when such was keenly disapproved of. After his mother’s death, he was reared by his uncle, an ardent atheist and fanatical anti-Christian. Unsurprisingly, Calles was vehemently anti-church and worked tirelessly to eliminate her. No public religious services were held for three years, until 1929, after he left office, although his influence persisted for over half a decade more. Upon the election of Lázaro Cárdenas — even more leftist than Calles — in 1934, he was exiled and lived in California until 1941, when he was allowed to return to Mexico where he died in 1945 — RMB]

6) Enrique Gorostieta — Huerta’s youngest general who fled to Cuba after Huerta was defeated. Later, he returned as General of the Cristeros even though he was a Mason and anti-cleric.

[Andy Garcia played the role of Gorostieta in the film, For Greater Glory, in which Ruben Blades played a credible Plutarco Calles — RMB]

The 1917 Mexican Constitution

There were four constitutions before 1917. The 1917 constitution created a minimum wage, the right to strike, and an eight-hour workday. It also implemented a strict separation of church and state, land reforms, and term limits for the president and the legislature. It also contained a statute limiting the amount of land that a person could own and legalized the federal government’s expropriation and redistribution of land.

Articles 3, 5, 24, 27, and 130 were anticlerical and restricted the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico.

Article 3 — According to the religious definitions established under article 24, educational services shall be secular and free of any religious orientation.

Article 27 Places of worship are owned by the state, not the church

Article 130 Gave the right of the federal government to regulate church services. President Plutarco Elias Calles issued an executive decree to strictly enforce this article that led to the Cristeros war.

Like Mexican slavery, most Mexicans do not know much about the Cristeros war; it was shamefully covered up.

[Calles’ power continued for over half a decade beyond his presidency. He named his ally, Tomás Garrido Canabal, to serve in Lázaro Cárdenas’ cabinet. Garrido, like Callas, was a virulent atheist. He named his son, Lenin, because he (Lenin) was an enemy of God. He had a farm with a bull named God, a cow named Mary, and a donkey named Christ. He zealously pursued the anti-church policies of Callas, even years after the official end of the Cristeros War. After he ordered the murders of Christians in Mexico City, in 1935, Cárdenas sent him to Costa Rica. He died in Los Angeles in 1943 — RMB]

[Unsurprisingly, both Calles and Garrido ceased to be atheists upon their respective deaths — RMB]

The constitution was amended 62 times from 1917-1979 and 137 times from 1980-2016.

Alvaro Obregón (1880-1928) after the Battle of Celaya in 1915. A brave and colorful soldier and man.

Venustiano Carranza is seated on the left; Francisco Madero is seated, third from the left; Pascual Orozco is seated on the right. Pancho Villa is standing on the left.

Pascual Orozco, third from left; Francisco Madero, second from right (circa 1911)

Plutarco Calles (1877-1945) at his house in Mexico City (circa 1931) where he continued to hold strategic meetings after his presidency.

Andy Garcia in the role of Enrique Gorostieta in the film, *For Greater Glory,* one of the very few dramatizations of a truly terrible product of the Mexican Revolution.

Graham Greene’s novel, later made into a John Ford film starring Henry Fonda and Pedro Armendariz. The Mexican official who pursues the Christians is believed to be modeled after Tomás Garrido Canabal.

Tomás Garrido Canabal (1890 – 1943), virulent anti-Christian, still considered a revolutionary hero by the usual suspects

The Mexican Revolution 1910 – 1920

August 26, 2022August 26, 2022 Richard Barnes

[This is the second of a 4-part post: Prologue and Beginning; Civil War and Ending; Scorecard; US Interventions. The reader will recognize several names from movies, novels, or other sources, but Mike manages to put them in at least a general context which enhances our understanding and, if interested, encourages further study. Regardless of the level of interest, Americans are well-advised to be more cognizant of the major events of our neighbor to the south — RMB]

Civil War and Ending — Mike Ashe

The Civil War Breaks Out

Francisco Madero was assassinated by the commander of Los Federales (federal troops) Victoriano Huerta in 1913. Huerta assumed power and dissolved the congress. At the same time, Jose Venustiano Carranza (a shrewd Politician) issued the Plan de Guadalupe to oust Huerta. His plan called for agrarian reform (unlike Zapata’s Plan de Ayala which was specific to the state of Morelos) and created communally held village lands called “ejidos” for all of Mexico. At the same time, he became the leader of the Northern Coalition (Alvaro Obregón and Pancho Villa).

[One of the effects of the violent civil war that broke out in Mexico was the thousands of refugees fleeing north across the border. This was a major issue when Woodrow Wilson took office in 1913 — RMB]

In 1914 Woodrow Wilson sent Marines to Vera Cruz and before entering the port city bombarded it — resulting in great numbers of civilian deaths, as well as that of young naval academy cadets, to support the revolutionaries. This tipped the scale and led to victories by revolutionary troops and Huerta resigned and left the country. The US exited Mexico City leaving behind valuable military hardware for Carranza whom Wilson supported.

[Madero’s “liberal” philosophy was to upend the social order in Mexico by destroying the landed aristocracy and the Roman Catholic church, thereby sowing the seeds which eventuated in the terrible Cristeros War a decade after his death. His politics bore constitutional fruit in 1916 (see below). After his assassination, Wilson refused to recognize Huerta’s government and relations deteriorated between Mexico and the United States, especially after Veracruz — RMB]

Political infighting and shifting alliances/coalitions between Obregon, Villa, Zapata, and Carranza led to the Convention of the revolutionary generals in Aguascalientes (north of Mexico City). The convention was a failure resulting in more civil war.

Villa and Zapata appealed to the peasant population but not to the urban workers. Carranza used this and his strong stance against the US occupation of Vera Cruz and Mexico City to political advantage.

His armies also held strategic positions such as the Ports of Vera Cruz, Port of Tampico, Mexico City, and the oil fields. Carranza defeated the northern armies and the Zapatistas in 1915.

Once an ally of the unions, he feared their continued strength worrying about the survival of capitalism with the number of labor strikes increasing. He first tried to negotiate with the workers but a series of general strikes forced him to use his troops to suppress their movement. In 1916 the Constitutional army along with foreign investors forcibly disbanded the Casa de Obrero Mundial and defeated the working-class revolution.

Obregon became Carranza’s minister of war.

During the presidency of Porfirio Diaz, foreign mining companies received generous concessions; however, Carranza issued a decree to return the wealth of oil and coal to the Mexican people, raised taxes, and removed the diplomatic recourse for mining companies. These policies were opposed by the US, but she did recognize Carranza as president.

[The stated purpose of Carranza’s nationalizations was indeed to bequeath Mexico’s natural wealth to her people. However, the fruits of these policies are still evanescent to this day, when wealth is unevenly distributed, much as it was at the end of Porfirio Diaz’s rule — RMB]

In 1916 a constitutional convention was held in Queretaro with 85 conservatives and 132 radicals. The radicals promoted widespread labor reform and Articles 3 and 130 were strongly anticlerical; the Roman Catholic Church was denied recognition as a legal entity, priests were denied rights and subject to public registration; religious education was forbidden, public religious ritual outside the church were forbidden, and all churches were property of the nation. The position of Vice President was eliminated, and Carranza became president in 1917.

[In March 1916, Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico, killing 20 Americans. Despite the demands of outraged senators, Wilson did not declare war on Mexico, although he did order Brigadier General John J. Pershing deep into Mexico in a fruitless mission to capture Villa. Wilson ran for reelection in 1916 on the slogan, “He kept us out of war”, meaning war with Mexico, and, by implication, the then raging Great War, which we nevertheless entered in 1917 — RMB]

Fighting continued against Carranza including Emiliano Zapata in the Morelos mountains, Porfirio Diaz supporters active in Vera Cruz, and Pancho Villa active in Chihuahua. Obregon retired to his ranch in Sonora and Carranza ordered the assassination of Zapata in 1919.

Carranza remained neutral during World War I mainly due to anti-American sentiment resulting from interventions and invasions. This was a smart move by Carranza keeping German Companies operating and selling oil to the British to fuel their warships against the Germans.

In 1920 Carranza decided against running for president again but failed to promote Alvaro Obregon as his successor. Obregon and his allies, Sonora generals (Plutarco Calles and Adolfo de la Huerta), issued the Plan de Agua Prieta. It repudiated the Carranza government and renewed the Revolution.

Ending of the Revolution

A Carranza assassination attempt failed which prompted Obregon to bring his army to Mexico City. Carranza fled to Vera Cruz where he was assassinated on May 21, 1920. The telegram ordering his death was from Colonel Lazaro Cardenas, a future president of Mexico.

There were 30,000 mourners at his funeral cortege. He was buried among ordinary Mexicans in a third-class section of the cemetery. His heart was kept by the family and later reunited with his body in 1942 at the Monument to the Revolution.

Carranza’s death marked the end of the Mexican Revolution.