British QF 3-inch 20 cwt anti aircraft gun. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

This is a British QF 3-inch 20 cwt anti aircraft gun. Entering service in 1914, they remained in service in various uses, including naval, until 1947.

 Last edition:

Japanese Type 95 Ha-Go light tank. National Museum of Military Vehicles.

Labels: 1930s, 1940s, Armor, Imperial Japanese Army, National Museum of Military Vehicles, World War Two, Wyoming (Dubois)

Wednesday, December 13, 1899. British victory in the Cape Colony.

 General French routed Boer troops advancing into the Cape Colony toward Noupoort.

French would go on to be the commander of the BEF in 1914 and 1915.  He died of bladder cancer at age 72 in 1925.

Last edition:

Monday, December 11, 1899. The Battle of Magersfontein.

Labels: 1890s, 1899, Boer War, Philippine Insurrection

Roads to the Great War: Why 1914 but Not Before? — RIP Franz Ferdinand

Roads to the Great War: Why 1914 but Not Before? — RIP Franz Ferdinand: The July Crisis of 1914 Simplified A Selection from "Why 1914 but Not Before? A Comparative Study of the July Crisis and Its Precursors...

Blog Mirror: Mexican bean salad, 1914 style

Seeing as we've been featuring 1914:

Mexican bean salad, 1914 style

Wednesday, December 22, 1943. Beatrix Potter, author and farmer.

Beatrix Potter, author of the Peter Rabbit books, died at age 77.

Potter was from a family that held extensive agricultural lands and was, in addition to being an author, a sheep farmer.  She married in 1914 over the disapproval of her family, as her husband, a country solicitor, was regarded as being beneath her status.  Never having had any children, she left most of her large landholdings to the National Trust.  Her husband, who died in 1945, left the balance of them to the National Trust.

Good people.

Some not so good people, including one Adolf Hitler issued a Führerbefehl creating the Nationalsozialistische Führungsoffiziere who were charged with getting German soldiers to believe in final victory, even if they were clueless on how that would come about.

Hmmm. . . .

On the same day the German government ordered that males down to 16 years of age register for conscription.

Hmmm. . . .

The Red Army completed its victory in the Second Battle of Kiev.

The German light cruiser Niobe was sunk off of Siba Yugoslavia by British torpedo boats.

The Lost Cause and the Arlington Confederate Monument. Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 53d Edition.

Laying the cornerstone in 1912.

Coming at a particularly odd time, given the resurgence of the type of views that the monument represents¹, the Federal Government is removing the Confederate Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery.

A massive allegorical work, the monument by Moses Jacob Ezekiel² portrays the Southern cause heroically, and includes a slave in the "mammy" role, saddened by the departure of her soldier owner.

Probably always offensive, the work was part of the rise of the Lost Cause myth in the early 20th Century, which is when many of these monuments date from.  It's being removed and will be relocated at a park dedicated to Confederate monuments.

This process has been going on for a while. Under President Biden, military posts named for Confederate generals have been renamed, but even before that, monuments in Southern states started coming down on a local basis.  Interestingly, right now the Southern cause is strongly in mind as Donald Trump tacks closer and closer to the secessionist's view of the nation that brought the war about and which preserved racial segregation for a century thereafter.

The monument itself was located in the Confederate Section of Arlington, which was created in 1900 at the request of those who felt that Confederate dead in the cemetery should be located together.  Ironically, the move was opposed by some in the South, who felt that they should be relocated to "Southern soil".  Laying of the cornerstone of the monument came in 1912, and it was dedicated, Woodrow Wilson in attendance, in 1914.

Wilson at dedication of the monument in 1914.

Things like this are particularly problematic in various ways. For one thing, the monument is a work of art, and as such it has its own merits, no matter how dramatically flawed its image of the Southern cause was.  And they have, interestingly, an image of the South which was, while false, sort of bizarrely aspirational in that it depicted, as many such monuments of that period for that cause do, a South which was a yeoman state, when in reality the South was controlled by strong large scale economic interest to the detriment of the Southern yeoman, and certainly to the massive detriment of Southern blacks.

And they also reflect a period of American history, lasting roughly from the end of Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Era, when the nation as a whole adopted a false view of itself, or at least a large portion of itself.  They reflect, therefore, the zeitgeist of that time and our own.  Removing the monuments is understandable, but it doesn't cure the massive defect of past racism and slavery.  It does serve to help us forget how racist we once were, and not only in the 1776 to 1865 time frame, but the 1865 to mid 1970s time frame as well.

Footnotes:

1.  Just this past week Donald Trump, whose acolytes sometimes brandish the Confederate battle flat at his events, or in support of him in general, spoke of immigrants "poisoning" the blood of Americans, much like Southern Americans sometimes did in regard to desegregation in the 1960s.  The Nazi allegory has come up frequently, but to my ear, perhaps because I'm old enough to remember the tail end of that era, it sounds more the Southern view of the 60s or even 70s.

2.  This work is by far Ezekiel's best known one.  Interestingly, another major one is an allegorical monument from the 1870s dedicated to and entitled Religious Liberty.

Last Prior Edition:

Lame. Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 52nd Edition.

Blog Mirror: 1914: A Key Juncture for an Innovative Camping Trailer

 

1914: A Key Juncture for an Innovative Camping Trailer

Monday, December 3, 1922. Erin go Bragh

The House of Lord voted to approve the Irish Free State Constitution Act of 1922 with only one dissenting vote.  That came from Lord Carson, who had blocked Home Rule in 1914, thereby ironically bringing about the Anglo-Irish War a couple of years later, and guaranteeing that Ireland would become an independent state.

Lord Carson, whose opposition to any independence for Ireland helped set it on the path to full independence.

Rudolph Valentino toured St. Louis.

Wedesday, June 22, 1921. Reducing the Army, Hope for Ireland.

President Harding signed a bill reducing the size of the U.S. Army from 220,000 to 150,000 men.

Virginia National Guard being inspected at Camp Meade, July 23, 1921.

Given the events that would occur twenty years later, the reduction of the size of the inter bellum army has often been criticized, but it's frankly highly unwarranted.  You will often hear things like "In 1939 the U.S. Army was smaller than that of Romania.

Well, sure it was.  The US in 39 was a giant democracy with a large militia establishment bordered to the north by the world's most polite people and to the south by a nation that troubled us, but which was unlikely to attack us.

The US had always maintained a very small peacetime Army and that had, frankly, been conducive to its development as a stable democracy.

Indeed, the traditional military structure of the United States had been based on a professional Navy, a large militia establishment controlled principally by the states, and a small standing army.  Very early on the standing army had been so small it basically didn't exist at all, but that had proven impractical so a tiny professional army became the rule.  After the War of 1812 the peacetime army slightly expanded in size and continued to do so after the Army obtained a frontier policing role following the Mexican War, but it was never overall very large.  

It also lacked any sort of foreign deployment application prior to the Spanish American War.  The Army was thought of as mostly defensive in nature, in case of a foreign invasion, save for the potentiality of trouble with our immediate neighbors.  When the need to deploy ground troops overseas occurred prior to the 1890s, which it occasionally did, it was the Marines, a small force that was part of the Navy, and not the Army, that was used.

Large mobilizations did come during times of war and the size of the Federal Army was always expanded during them by necessity. The use of large numbers of mobilized militia were also a feature of such wars.  Really large mobilizations were very rare, and occurred only during wartime, with the Civil War being the outstanding example prior to World War One.

World War One had been a test of a major reorganization of the Army in the early 20th Century when Congress officially made the National Guard the organized reserve of the Army.  The Army itself had been enormously opposed to what became known as the "Dick  Act" after its sponsor, Congressman Dick, who himself was a longtime member of the National Guard.  For years before World War One the National Guard had sought this status while, simultaneously finding itself frequently used as state police.  Perhaps the defining moment in that is when the Colorado National Guard found itself being called out for that purpose to break a strike at Ludlow, Colorado, a use that ended up being bloody and which necessitated the deployment of the U.S. Army as a result.

 Colorado National Guardsmen at Ludlow, Colorado, in 1914.

That event came a good decade after the Dick Act, but it symbolized what Guardsmen hoped to avoid.  In 1916 things began to change for good when the crisis on the Mexican border necessitated the mobilization, in stages, of the entire National Guard, followed by its demobilization just weeks before the U.S. declaration of war on Germany.  

The start of the Great War none the less saw a resumption of the struggle with some in the Regular Army actually arguing that the Guard should not be deployed, a biased, and frankly stupid, argument.  In the end, the Guard basically saved the American involvement in World War One and rendered it effective as the Regular Army was far too small to provide any immediate assistance anywhere.  While the Regular Army remained biased against the Guard, and would all the way into the early 1980s, the direction was set.  Following World War One a major reorganization of the National Guard commenced with state units for the first time starting to be assigned roles by the U.S. Army that contemplated full mobilization in time of war.

In 1921 that full mobilization was something that was regarded as possible, but not immediately likely. Already by that time some visionaries worried themselves about a resurgent Germany, although Germany in 1921 was on the floor.  Many in the military establishment were worried about Japan, which was beginning to flex its naval muscles in a fashion that clearly demonstrated its resentment at not being accorded great power status by other nations.  It is not true that American thought no future war was possible, they did, but they thought that a large militia establishment, a strong navy, and a small army, could rise to any challenge.  In that they were prove correct.

On this day in 1921, John Garfield Emery, the head of the American Legion, had his portrait taken.

The American Legion was a very powerful institution at the time, far more so than now.  The voice of Great War veterans, it represented a group that had come out of the Great War determined not to be forgotten, and not to be silent.

King George V opened the new Parliament of Northern Ireland with a speech calling for Irish reconciliation.

King George V.

His speech stated:

Members of the Senate and of the House of Commons 

For all who love Ireland, as I do with all my heart, this is a profoundly moving occasion in Irish history. My memories of the Irish people date back to the time when I spent many happy days in Ireland as a midshipman. My affection for the Irish people has been deepened by the successive visits since that time, and I have watched with constant sympathy the course of their affairs. 

I could not have allowed myself to give Ireland by deputy alone My earnest prayers and good wishes in the new era which opens with this ceremony, and I have therefore come in person, as the Head of the Empire, to inaugurate this Parliament on Irish soil. 

I inaugurate it with deep-felt hope, and I feel assured that you will do your utmost to make it an instrument of happiness and good government for all parts of the community which you represent. 

This is a great and critical occasion in the history of the Six Counties, but not for the Six Counties alone, for everything which interests them touches Ireland, and everything which touches Ireland finds an echo in the remotest parts of the Empire. 

Few things are more earnestly desired throughout the English speaking world than a satisfactory solution of the age long Irish problems, which for generations embarrassed our forefathers, as they now weigh heavily upon us. 

Most certainly there is no wish nearer My own heart than that every man of Irish birth, whatever be his creed and wherever be his home, should work in loyal co-operation with the free communities on which the British Empire is based. 

I am confident that the important matters entrusted to the control and guidance of the Northern Parliament will be managed with wisdom and with moderation, with fairness and due regard to every faith and interest, and with no abatement of that patriotic devotion to the Empire which you proved so gallantly in the Great War. 

Full partnership in the United Kingdom and religious freedom Ireland has long enjoyed. She now has conferred upon her the duty of dealing with all the essential tasks of domestic legislation and government; and I feel no misgiving as to the spirit in which you who stand here to-day will carry out the all important functions entrusted to your care. 

My hope is broader still. The eyes of the whole Empire are on Ireland to-day, that Empire in which so many nations and races have come together in spite of ancient feuds, and in which new nations have come to birth within the lifetime of the youngest in this Hall.

I am emboldened by that thought to look beyond the sorrow and the anxiety which have clouded of late My vision of Irish affairs. I speak from a full heart when I pray that My coming to Ireland to-day may prove to be the first step towards an end of strife amongst her people, whatever their race or creed. In that hope, I appeal to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and to forget, and to join in making for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment, and goodwill.

It is My earnest desire that in Southern Ireland, too, there may ere long take place a parallel to what is now passing in this Hall; that there a similar occasion may present itself and a similar ceremony be performed. 

For this the Parliament of the United Kingdom has in the fullest measure provided the powers; for this the Parliament of Ulster is pointing the way. The future lies in the hands of My Irish people themselves. 

May this historic gathering be the prelude of a day in which the Irish people, North and South, under one Parliament or two, as those Parliaments may themselves decide, shall work together in common love for Ireland upon the sure foundations of mutual justice and respect.

His speech came at least a decade too late. By 1921 Ireland was irrevocably on the path of independence, save for a massive British military crackdown that the British, to their credit, did not have the stomach to make.

The United Kingdom was, it might be noted, not only about to endure defeat in Ireland, it endured defeat at the International Polo Cup on this day in 1921, with the victory going to the United States in a game that could hardly be regarded as an American forte.

President Harding was photographed with what were termed a group of "Georgia Peaches".

The photograph was no doubt completely innocent, but based on what we now know about Harding, it's hard not to get a certain icky feeling with photos of this type.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the East: The ruins of of Saint Albain Nazaire, France.

Churches of the East: The ruins of of Saint Albain Nazaire, France.: 

The ruins of of Saint Albain Nazaire, France.

The 16th Century "Old Church" at St. Albain Naizaire in France stands as a silent reminder of the violence of World War One.  The church was destroyed by the French Army to keep it from being used by the Germans as an observation post in 1914.

Following the war, locals elected not to rebuilt the church and leave it as a monument to the tragedy of the war.

All photographs by MKTH.

The Mexican Revolution. . . where we're at in terms of century delayed time.

Yesterday we ran this item:

Lex Anteinternet: Venustiano Carranza assassinated . . .: .

Venustiano Carranza assassinated . . .

on this day in 1920, by officers who had betrayed him, pretending to offer him a safe lodging for the night in the town of Tlaxcalantongo.  Sometime during the night, their forces surrounded the house and then opened fire into ito.  Oddly, the assassins then telegramed Obregon to inform him that "we are at your service" but also asked for permission to bring Carranza's body to Mexico City for burial.  Obregon replied with the comment "It is very strange that a group of officers who vouched their loyalty and honor should have permitted him to be assassinated instead of complying with your duty."

And it goes on from there.

So, where are we at on this story that we've been following for years and for which there are now 306 entries on this blog.

The story starts with the revolution against Porifirio Diaz in 1911

Well, not really.  Diaz, who had been a lieutenant of Mexican revolutionary and then president Benito Juarez, served as President of Mexico three times with his last period of dictatorial service running form 1884 until May 21, 1911.  An odd statement to an American reporter about being willing to hold elections in 1908 lead to one and ultimately he proved unwilling not to run, as he'd promised, with his running meaning an assured reelection..  That lead to the rebellion in 1910 we now call The Mexican Revolution, lead at first by the improbable Francisco Modero.

Diaz at age 77.

On this date in 1920, Diaz had been dead five years.  He'd died of natural causes at age 85 in France.

In 1911 he took to his exile and was succeeded by Francisco León de la Barra y Quijano, whom Mexican conservatives called the "white president" due to his purity.  He only served until November.

León.

During his short administration León had to attempt to deal with the growing revolution against him and the growing right wing extremism in his army.  He wouldn't succeeded, but he did succeed in outliving the revolution  He was still living in 1920 and had a career as a diplomat ahead of him.  He ultimately retired to Spain, but even there was used unofficially in this capacity as a go between between France and Spain.  He died in 1939 of natural causes.

Modero.

León's successor was Modero who was a weak president from November 1911 until he was killed in a military coup on February 19, 1913.  His death threw the country back into civil war.

The fallen Huerta.

His successor was the successful head of the coup, Victoriano Huerta.  Huerta was able to topple Modero, but he couldn't quell the revolution, and he went into exile in July 1914.  Going first to Europe and then the United States, he died an alcoholic in 1916.

His successor, Francisco Sebastián Carvajal y Gual, served for only a month before also going into exile, a victim of Huerta's failed effort to reclaim Diaz's position in Mexico.  His story was happier, however, as he met his wife in exile in the United States and he ultimately returned to Mexico in 1922 to resume his legal practice, which he occupied until his death by natural causes in 1932.

And then came Carranza.

So, so far we've seen the assassination of two of the real revolutionary presidents of Mexico, the odd but admirable Modero and the determined and not so admirable Carranza.  And we've seen the exile of three of the right wing pretenders, two of whom had died by natural causes.

Not dying by natural causes up to this point were thousands of Mexican soldiers who had fought on both sides of the Mexican Revolution, and in some cases literally on both sides.  Included in that number was Emiliano Zapata, the greatest of the Mexican revolutionaries, who was its best post Modero hope.

And the revolution was getting increasingly extreme. Having gone from a hope for democracy with Modero it was coming to increasingly reflect the extreme left wing politics of revolutions of its age, something that would have ill consequences for Mexico in coming years.

Indeed, a real oddity of Mexico's post Maximillian politics in general, up to this point, is how radical it was even when seemingly combined with conservative elements.  If Diaz sometimes dressed like Napoleon, his politics, he in some ways was like him.  He was a political liberal but one who did not trust the democratic process.  Ultimately he governed as a moderate liberal with a focus on stability.  Even today he is credited with having laid the foundations for modern Mexico.  His real fault was in not trusting democracy and running for reelection in 1910, when he promised not to.

Had Diaz held to his initial promise, Modero would have been elected in 1910.   Whether Diaz stepping away from politics voluntarily would have necessarily resulted in a Mexican army that would have accepted the election is another question, and one we will never know the answer to.  Had that occured, Mexico would have stepped into being a true democracy in 1910, something that would take another century to occur.  Diaz's failure to trust his own people lead to a revolution in which propelled radicals to the top.  One of those radicals was Carranza, who ended up sharing that lack of trust with Diaz.  He sought to dictate the results of the upcoming 1920 Mexican election, which in turn lead to his bloody end in May, 1920.  That put Obregon in the position of being the assured ultimate next president of the country, with extreme radicals rising up right behind him.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: Community Congregational Church, Big Piney Wyoming.

Churches of the West: Community Congregational Church, Big Piney Wyoming...:

Community Congregational Church, Big Piney Wyoming

The Big Piney Community Congregational Church was built the same year that the Episcopal Church was, 1914.

Churches of the West: St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, Big Piney Wyoming

Churches of the West: St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, Big Piney W...:

St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, Big Piney Wyoming.

This classic Prairie Gothic church was built by the Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming in Big Piney in 1914.  Much of the western part of the state, as I'm learing, was settled really for the first time about that time.

Emiliano Zapata, the greatest of the Mexican Revolutionaries, assassinated

And with him died the hopes for a rational, just and democratic Mexican government for decades.

Emiliano Zapata was the Mexican revolutionary who embodied the best hopes for a real reform in Mexico that was not tainted by the radical spirit of the era, and who held the real hopes of most Mexican's closet to his heart.  He was a great man, and in some way unique among North American revolutionaries and politicians.  His attributes were, in some ways, also his faults, and those faults lead him in the end to unfortunately be ineffective when he could have been a national force.  His death guaranteed the rise of of institutionalized socialist cronyism in Mexico from which it has only recently emerged.

Zapata was of the small farmer class from Morelos State.  His class had been disadvantaged under the regime of Porfirio Diaz who favored the small farming class over the peasant class on water distribution, which was necessary for the production of sugar cane.  This caused Zapata to become politically active at a young age.

During the first stage of the Mexican Revolution, Zapata formed and commanded the Army of the South, proving to be a highly effective military leader.  This, together with the efforts of Pancho Villa in the north, proved critical if the defeat of the Mexican Federal Army.  Once in power, however, Modero, under the influence to a degree of Diaz functionaries and military men who had been left behind and whom Modero did not displace, suppressed Zapata and denounced his views. In turn, Zapata issued the Plan of Ayala and went into rebellion against Modero in November 1911.  The plan stated:

1. Taking into consideration that the Mexican people led by Don Francisco I. Madero went to shed their blood to reconquer liberties and recover their rights which had been trampled on, and for a man to take possession of power, violating the sacred principles which he took an oath to defend under the slogan “Effective Suffrage and No Reelection,” outraging thus the faith, the cause, the justice, and the liberties of the people: taking into consideration that that man to whom we refer is Don Francisco I. Madero, the same who initiated the above-cited revolution, who imposed his will and influence as a governing norm on the Provisional Government of the ex-President of the Republic Attorney Francisco L. de Barra [sic], causing with this deed repeated shedding of blood and multiple misfortunes for the fatherland in a manner deceitful and ridiculous, having no intentions other than satisfying his personal ambitions, his boundless instincts as a tyrant, and his profound disrespect for the fulfillment of the preexisting laws emanating from the immortal code of ’57, written with the revolutionary blood of Ayutla;

Taking into account that the so-called Chief of the Liberating Revolution of Mexico, Don Francisco I. Madero, through lack of integrity and the highest weakness, did not carry to a happy end the revolution which gloriously he initiated with the help of God and the people, since he left standing most of the governing powers and corrupted elements of oppression of the dictatorial government of Porfirio Díaz, which are not nor can in any way be the representation of National Sovereignty, and which, for being most bitter adversaries of ours and of the principles which even now we defend, are provoking the discomfort of the country and opening new wounds in the bosom of the fatherland, to give it its own blood to drink; taking also into account that the aforementioned Sr. Francisco I. Madero, present President of the Republic, tries to avoid the fulfillment of the promises which he made to the Nation in the Plan of San Luis Potosí, being [sic, restricting] the above-cited promises to the agreements of Ciudad Juárez, by means of false promises and numerous intrigues against the Nation nullifying, pursuing, jailing, or killing revolutionary elements who helped him to occupy the high post of President of the Republic;

Taking into consideration that the so-often-repeated Francisco I. Madero has tried with the brute force of bayonets to shut up and to drown in blood the pueblos who ask, solicit, or demand from him the fulfillment of the promises of the revolution, calling them bandits and rebels, condemning them to a war of extermination without conceding or granting a single one of the guarantees which reason, justice, and the law prescribe; taking equally into consideration that the President of the Republic Francisco I. Madero has made of Effective Suffrage a bloody trick on the people, already against the will of the same people imposing Attorney José M. Pino Suáez in the Vice-Presidency of the Republic, or [imposing as] Governors of the States [men] designated by him, like the so-called General Ambrosio Figueroa, scourge and tyrant of the people of Morelos, or entering into chains and follow the pattern of a new dictatorship more shameful and more terrible than that of Porfirio Díaz, for it has been clear and patent that he has outraged the sovereignty of the States, trampling on the laws without any respect  for lives or interests, as has happened in the State of Morelos, and others, leading them to the most horrendous anarchy which contemporary history registers.

For these considerations we declare the aforementioned Francisco I. Madero inept at realizing the promises of the revolution of which he was the author, because he has betrayed the principles with which he tricked the will of the people and was able to get into power: incapable of governing, because he has no respect for the law and justice of the pueblos, and a traitor to the fatherland, because he is humiliating in blood and fire, Mexicans who want liberties, so as to please the científicos, landlords, and bosses who enslave us, and from today on we begin to continue the revolution begun by him, until we achieve the overthrow of the dictatorial powers which exist.

2. Recognition is withdrawn from S. Francisco I. Madero as Chief of the Revolution and as President of the Republic, for the reasons which before were expressed, it being attempted to overthrow this official.

3. Recognized as Chief of the Liberating Revolution is the illustrious General Pascual Orozco, the second of the Leader Don Francisco I. Madero, and in case he does not accept this delicate post, recognition as Chief of the Revolution will go to General Don Emiliano Zapata.

4. The Revolutionary Junta of the State of Morelos manifests to the Nation under formal oath: that it makes its own the plan of San Luis Potosí, with the additions which are expressed below in benefit of the oppressed pueblos, and it will make itself the defender of the principles it defends until victory or death.

5. The Revolutionary Junta of the State of Morelos will admit no transactions or compromises until it achieves the overthrow of the dictatorial elements of Porfirio Díaz and Francisco I. Madero, for the nation is tired of false men and traitors who make promises like liberators and who on arriving in power forget them and constitute themselves tyrants.

6. As an additional part of the plan, we invoke, we give notice: that [regarding] the fields, timber, and water which the landlords, científicos, or bosses have usurped, the pueblos or citizens who have the titles corresponding to those properties will immediately enter into possession of that real estate of which they have been despoiled by the bad faith of our oppressors, maintain at any cost with arms in hand the mentioned possession; and the usurpers who consider themselves with a right to them [those properties] will deduce it before the special tribunals which will be established on the triumph of the revolution.

7. In virtue of the fact that the immense majority of Mexican pueblos and citizens are owners of no more than the land they walk on, suffering the horrors of poverty without being able to improve their social condition in any way or to dedicate themselves to Industry or Agriculture, because lands, timber, and water are monopolized in a few hands, for this cause there will be expropriated the third part of those monopolies from the powerful proprietors of them, with prior indemnization, in order that the pueblos and citizens of Mexico may obtain ejidos, colonies, and foundations for pueblos, or fields for sowing or laboring, and the Mexicans’ lack of prosperity and well-being may improve in all and for all.

8. The landlords, científicos, or bosses who oppose the present plan directly or indirectly, their goods will be nationalized and the two-third parts which [otherwise would] belong to them will go for indemnizations of war, pensions for widows and orphans of the victims who succumb in the struggle for the present plan.

9. In order to execute the procedures regarding the properties aforementioned, the laws of disamortization and nationalization will be applied as they fit, for serving us as norm and example can be those laws put in force by the immortal Juárez on ecclesiastical properties, which punished the despots and conservatives who in every time have tried to impose on us the ignominious yoke of oppression and backwardness.

10. The insurgent military chiefs of the Republic who rose up with arms in hand at the voice of Don Francisco I. Madero to defend the plan of San Luis Potosí, and who oppose with armed force the present plan, will be judged traitors to the cause which they defended and to the fatherland, since at present many of them, to humor the tyrants, for a fistful of coins, or for bribes or connivance, are shedding the blood of their brothers who claim the fulfillment of the promises which Don Francisco I. Madero made to the nation.

11. The expenses of war will be taken in conformity with Article 11 of the Plan of San Luis Potosí, and all procedures employed in the revolution we undertake will be in conformity with the same instructions, which the said plan determines.

12. Once triumphant the revolution which we carry into the path of reality, a Junta of the principal revolutionary chiefs from the different States will name or designate an interim President of the Republic, who will convoke elections for the organization of the federal powers.

13. The principal revolutionary chiefs of each State will designate in Junta the Governor of the State to which they belong, and this appointed official will convoke elections for the due organization of the public powers, the object being to avoid compulsory appointments which work the misfortune of the pueblos, like the so-well-known appointment of Ambrosio Figueroa in the State of Morelos and others who drive us to the precipice of bloody conflicts sustained by the caprice of the dictator Madero and the circle of científicos and landlords who have influenced him.

14. If President Madero and other dictatorial elements of the present and former regime want to avoid the immense misfortunes which afflict the fatherland, and possess true sentiments of love for it, let them make immediate renunciation of the posts they occupy and with that they will with something staunch the grave wounds which they have opened in the bosom of the fatherland, since, if they do not do so, on their heads will fall the blood and the anathema of our brothers.

15. Mexicans: consider that the cunning and bad faith of one man is shedding blood in a scandalous manner, because he is incapable of governing; consider that his system of government is choking the fatherland and trampling with the brute force of bayonets on our institutions; and thus, as we raised up our weapons to elevate him to power, we again raise them up against him for defaulting on his promises to the Mexican people and for having betrayed the revolution initiated by him, we are not personalists, we are partisans of principles and not of men!

Mexican People, support this plan with arms in hand and you will make the prosperity and well-being of the fatherland.
Ayala, November 25, 1911
Liberty, Justice and Law

Modero's troops, which consisted of Diaz's former Federal Army, were very heavy handed in their campaign against Zapata, which ended up throwing support to Zapata. Those forces, lead by Victoriano Huerta, ended up deposing and assassinating Modero in 1914, ending Mexico's first really republican government of any kind in decades.  Following that, former forces and elements that had supported Modero in the first stage of the Mexican Revolution joined forces with him in various regional uprisings in what might be regarded as its second stage, including forces loyal to Villa, Carranza and Obregon.  They in turn defeated Huerta.

The problem had become, however, that with the death of Modero radical elements in the Mexican revolutionary forces were contesting a reactionary government.  None of the forces opposing Huerta lacked radical ideas, but those that were coalescing around Carranza and Obregon were radically socialist and bordered strongly on concepts what would emerge across the globe in the form of Communism.

This not surprisingly lead to strong disagreements between the forces that ousted Huerta and efforts to reconcile the failed.  A provisional government was formed under Eulalio Gutierez and Francisco Pancho Villa was appointed head of the new government's army. At that point, at least technically, Carranza, a socialist radical, was in defiance if not rebellion of the legitimate Mexican government.  

Villa, as the Conventionalist General and head of its armies, Gutierez, the head of state, and Zapata, as always in traditional Mexican dress, at a state dinner in Mexico City after their near victory over Carranza.

The forces of that government, under what was then Gen. Villa and Zapata, successfully waged war against Carranza who withdrew his forces to Vera Cruz.  Villa and Zapata entered Mexico city on December 6, 1914 with a force of 60,000 men.  At that point, had they been more organized and unified, they could have potentially emerged the victors in the war, but their provincial views soon came into play.  Zapata, always a provincialist, withdrew his men to his home state of Morelos, which granted is just south of Mexico City, and the alliance that had allowed for his side to take Mexico City and nearly drive Carranza into defeat fell apart.  For his part, Zapata had turned out not to be impressed by Villa once they had become successful, which was a common impression of the man who was a brilliant cavalry commander but who was also extremely erratic without the stabilizing influence of Modero.

Without Zapata in the capital, Carranza reemerged and soon defeated Villa.  Wild swings of fortune such as this were common in the Mexican Revolution.  Villa remained in the field, but with very little in his control.  Carranza, for his part, secured the support of President Woodrow Wilson in a bizarre twist of fate given that Carranza strongly disliked the United States and he was not sympathetic to Mexico's northern neighbor in any fashion.  He was also a political radical.

Carranza's victory, however, can be partially attributed to Zapata.  Carranza regarded Zapata as an uncultured savage but did try to treat with him when he was under pressure.  It soon became apparent, however, that Zapata's withdrawal to Morales meant that the Constitutionalist had a free had against Villa in the north.  This allowed the Constitutionalist to gain ground and install their regime in Mexico City, which soon acquired international recognition.

Returned to Morales, Zapata was for a time effectively its ruler and he put into place in full his agrarian reforms, which greatly benefited the average peasant but which also harmed other elements of society.  He had a relativity free hand in doing this until 1916, when the victorious Carranza turned his attention on Morales and the Constsitutionalist army invaded and took it. Following this, Zapata engaged in a guerrilla war against Carranza's forces, which of course Pancho Villa was doing in the north as well.  That same year, as we already know, Villa crossed into the United States and the U.S. entered onto Mexican soil as a result.

Indeed the war being waged by Villa in the north, and Felix Diaz in Oaxaca meant that the Cosntitutionalist were not able to reinforce their forces in Morales and Zapata re took the state by the end of 1916 showing how weak the Constitutionalist really were.  During this same period Villa began to grow resurgent even as the U.S. sought a way to exit from Norther Mexico.  By the turn of the year, however, Constitutionalist positions improved and resistance to Carranza outside of Morales started to collapse.  Zapata, for his part, was content to have the state of Morales and not venture outside of it.  Carranza in turn felt secure enough to hold elections in 1917 and to enact a constitution which incorporated Zapata's Plan of Ayala.

This lead to an uneasy state of quasi independence that couldn't last.  Some of Zapata's supporters, recognizing this, sought to treat with the Constitutionalist.  Zapata did not take that approach and looked for support in the country among the followers of Diaz, a political liberal, and even the United States.  By late in the year a rebellion in Morales itself threw part of the state into the hands of Zapata's opponents.

The winter of 1918 proved to be a harsh one in Mexico and the Spanish Flu was devastating in the country.  One quarter of the population of Morales died due to the Spanish Flu.  In December of the year the Constitutionalist commenced an invasion of Morales and Zapata's forces suffered the loss of ground.  With this, Zapata turned his attention to the upcoming 1920 election and threw his support behind Vazquez Gomez and publicly urged Carranza to resign, while also accusing Carranza of sympathy with teh Germans. This threat was not an idle one and did cause Carranza concern. He was urged by his supporters to openly campaign against Carranza but declined, feeling that his leadership of his troops was vital.

In March 1919 the Constitutionalist intended to resume their offensive in Morelos and Gen. Jesus Gaujardo was ordered to do so. Prior to that, however, he was caught carousing in a tavern and a public scandal ensued.  Zapata naively saw this as an opportunity to cause Gaujardo to switch sides and sent him a note inviting him to do so. The note, however, made its way to Gaujardo's superior who called Gaujardo in and dressed him down to the point of tears, before offering him the chance to redeem his honor by enticing Zapata to a meeting as a ruse.  An meeting was arranged between Zapata and Gaujardo on this day in 1919, in which Zapata believed the plan would be to work on the details of a military mutiny.  Instead, he was mowed down by Gaujardo's troops.  The brutal action would be used by Obregon, now a political candidate, against Carranza in the 1920 election.

The dead body of Zapata, photographed for proof of his demise.

Following Zapata's death, his senior commanders aligned with Obregon in ever fashion.  Obregon's vision, however, was not the same as Zapata's.  Zapata was an agrarian in his views and indeed it was his strong regionalism that in the end made him ineffective in a larger sense, even if some of his land reform programs did come into play.

Beyond that, of the principal Mexican revolutionaries of the period, he was the only one who generally fully embodied the view of average Mexicans and the long history of Mexican revolutions against autocracy.  He was an adherent Catholic, if one who strayed (he had a large number of illegitimate children and one legitimate daughter) whose troops marched under a banner featuring the Virgin of Guadalupe, making him in the only notable revolutionary of that period who wasn't either 1) indifferent to religion (Villa); or 2) outright hostile to it, such as Carranza.  The views of Mexico's revolutionary leaders on this point would lead to real hostility to the nation's average citizens and to the Catholic Church, which in turn would lead to the Cristero War in the 1920s.

While an economic radical of a sort, as an agrarian and as a sort of proto distributist, he was not any sort of capitalist and therefore American politicians of the day would not have been keen on his views. Having said that, however, he was not a quasi socialist like most of the Mexican revolutionaries of the period were, and far less radical in every sense than those who came into power with Carranza.

He was also so regional, however, that he had a difficult time seeing outside the boundaries of his own state, and that in the end doomed much of his efforts.  In order to really be effective after his falling out with Modero he would have had to have been willing to play a central role in a national government, and he wasn't.  That proved to be a national tragedy.

Indeed, that tragedy strangely played itself out in a Mexican revolution that odd mirrored the Russian revolution that came a few years after the commencement of Modero's, although it never reached the genocidal level of violence and the absolute extremes that the Russian Civil War did.  Like that war, the first revolution saw a democrat take office but to fall in the face of other forces. The resulting civil war saw the more or less democratic forces at first prevail only to fall due to disunion.  Like the Russian Civil War some of the forces were really purely local, within one of the significant ones in each country being an agrarian entity. And in both nations the side that ultimately prevailed was deeply antithetical to large portions of the nation's culture and absolutely opposed, in the end, to any political competition whatsoever.