Showing posts with label Emiliano Zapata. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emiliano Zapata. Show all posts

Monday, June 22, 2015

Tuesday, June 22, 1915. Zapatista advances.

Career Army officer and ally of Zapata, General Rafael Eguía Lis, a Conventionist supporting the sitting government defeated Carrancistas attempting to reach Los Reyes and San Cristóbal.  The Zapatistas, on the other hand, were entrenched in Cerro Gordo, using the Grand Drainage Canal as a defensive line.

German and Austro-Hungarian forces captured Lemberg, restoring Galacia to their control.

A large earthquake occured in the Imperial Valley, California.

Last edition:

Sunday, June 20, 1915. South Omaha.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Friday, June 18, 1915. Wanted, Horses. War expands in Mexico.

 


The prices were good too.

The Allies ceased offensive operations in the Battle of Artois.

Emiliano Zapata orders all of his senior officers to report for duty.

There were now effectively three armies in the field. One under Villa, which was contesting Obregon, who was allied to Carranza.  A second Carranza army under Pablo Gonzáles Garza that had just been formed by Carranza.  And, finally, the Zapatistas.  None of the leaders of these armies was the de jure head of the Mexican state.

The Motion Picture Directors Association was formed in Los Angeles.

Last edition:

Thursday, June 17, 1915. Navy to Mexico, Bryan says chillax on war prep, French try to take Vimy Ridge.

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Monday, June 7, 1915. Reinforcing Gallipoli. Leaving Mexico.

The French 2nd Army attacked German positions around Hébuterne, France to support the 10th Army efforts further north at Artois.

The Dardanelles Committee met in London and decided to reinforce the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force of General Ian Hamilton with three divisions from Kitchener's Army.

British pilot Reginald Warneford of No. 1 Squadron shot down a Zeppelin over Ghent, Belgium in hte first instance of an airship being taken on in that fashion.

Foreigners were leaving Mexico.



Last edition

Sunday, February 8, 2015

The Mexican Revolution

This is one of those posts that start off and then sit around as a draft for a very long time.  Looking at this, I started the post, or just the topic really, in 2012, and here it's 2015 and I'm writing on it again.

Anyhow, what motivated me to write it is the excellent photos posted this week on the theme of the Mexican Revolution on the Old Picture Of The Day blog.  Or, rather, it was the comments that caused me to revive the post.  The reason being is that people really don't grasp the Mexican Revolution at all.

 Wealthy Mexican in flight
Mexican refugee entering the United States.  In spite of the caption, his wealth is probably all on this horse.

For one thing, people seem to think that the revolution was something like the Villistas against the Federales.  Not hardly, or at least that's not the whole story by a long shot.  So, let's take a look at what really happened, as its a significant story, and the long range impacts of it still very much impact us today.

Mexico has had an entire series of revolutions, as is well known, but they are not all of the same character.  I don't intend to list each and every one, as that would be a book in and of itself, but it's important to realize that revolutions have been part of the Mexican story in a way that they have not been in regards to the United States.  We had one revolution, or arguably two if you regard the Civil War as one, but in each instance ours had the feature of having the revolutionary side not even conceive of itself as being in rebellion, and featuring a democratic government.  It would have been perfectly possible for a soldier to serve, for example, in a New York state militia during the Revolutionary War and not conceive of himself as being in rebellion against anything.  Likewise, the Civil War, while a species of rebellion, wasn't quite regarded that way by either side that fought it.

Mexico's revolutions, however, have been real revolutions.  They didn't arise with the concept of protecting a set of liberties and rights from trespass, but sought to overthrow a rule or government entirely.

The first successful revolution was against Spain, of course, and it set the pattern for a large number of them that came thereafter in that they were really revolutions by Spanish aristocracy in Mexico against, at first, Spain and then later against each other.  The Mexican people had very little stake in them.  It wasn't really until Juarez rebelled against the French and their installed Austrian Emperor that a different type of revolution, that being the people against an perceived oppressor, arrived in Mexico.  Unfortunately for Mexico, and the Unites States, by that time a very pronounced political culture of having Caudillos, strong men, was well established, and in spite of a people's rebellion, it really couldn't be broken.

Caudillos, or strong men, aren't unique to Hispanic cultures by any means, and its worth noting that they almost seem to be the global rule, rather than the exception. They're the exception to us largely because we're heirs to English culture, where strongmen have not been appreciated very much.  Indeed, perhaps the biggest single example of an English language strongman can be found in that of Oliver Cromwell.  While the Lord Protector was a force during his life, not all that long after it the English Restoration occurred and Cromwell was posthumously sentenced to death, which required his body to be exhumed and beheaded.

A culture which feels so strongly about dictators that it'd dig one up to behead him isn't going to have very many.

In contrast, the example of a strongman whose is both a dictator while simultaneously being given as an example of the will of the people is surprisingly common in many cultures.  In our view, this is always negative, but in some cultures we can still find examples of such a person being heroically viewed.  Napoleon gives perhaps the best example. We think of him as a megalomaniac, but in France, and in much of the Latin world, he's viewed as a liberal hero.  In order to do that you have to separate his actions from his declared values, to some extent, but then he actually was a liberalizing force while also being a dictator, an odd combination.  That model is one which Maximilian I of Mexico, the unwelcome French installed Austrian "emperor" of Mexico himself sought to emulate.

In Mexico's case, pretty much every  revolutionary leader prior to the rebellion against France was a Cauldillo or Caudillo wannabe from the Spanish aristocracy, with very little concern being exhibited for the average Mexican. About the only exception was Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla who lead a revolution from 1809 to 1811, and whom was a Catholic priest.  He lead a rebellion against Spain, which failed, and which resulted in his execution, but he clearly sought to give voice to the peasantry and the onset of his revolution is today celebrated as the Mexican independence day, even though it didn't result in it.  Subsequent rebellion against Spain was not such an egalitarian affair and following revolutions in Mexico were, for many years, simply power struggles between the landed military Spanish elite.  It was not until Indian Benito Juarez successfully rebelled against Emperor Maximilian, the Austrian nobleman that France had installed as Mexican emperor, that a leader rose up through rebellion who was a member of the peasant class.  Even then, oddly enough, Maximilian was himself a species of liberal Cauldillo, espousing the liberal views of the French Revolution even while acting as a foreign born emperor in Mexico, while Juarez would not always strictly adhere to democratic values.  In essence, Maximilian was a foreign liberal dictator, much in the mold of Napoleon, while Juarez really started off as a liberal peasant rebel.

 [Benito Juárez, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front]
 Benito Juarez, Mexico's first president of Indian ancestry.

Juarez died in 1872, and from there things descended into confusion.  As I don't intend to do a history of Mexican politics, I won't, but rather I'll simply note that one of Juarez's electoral opponents was Porfirio Diaz, who had been a member of Juarez's army.  He entered politics thereafter, but rebelled against Diaz's successor, and like seemingly all failed Mexican revolutionaries, he took refuge for a time in the United States.  Returning to Mexico he secured election to the presidency and evolved into a dictator, occupying that position for thirty years.  He was another enigmatic figure in that he was a dictator, but a type of liberal, both repressing democracy and seemingly dedicated to the advancement of liberal ideas. Business did very well under his regime in Mexico, and he differed from prior liberal Mexican dictators in that he did not oppress the Catholic Church, which liberals often did in a seeming desire to crush the institution that the Mexican populace held closely. He also neither aided nor repressed the common population, something that was an unusual middle ground.

Porfirio Diaz 
Porfirio Diaz in full military costume.

A person simply cannot rule for thirty years without being an autocrat, even accidentally, and at some point a revolution would become inevitable.  But the way it came about was particularly odd.  He gave an interview in an American magazine.

 
 Porfirio Diaz in Pearson's Magazine

By the first decade of the 20th Century Mexico had seemingly settled into a comfortable business oriented dictatorship.  Diaz was firmly installed in that role, and he ruled under the thesis that the Mexican people wanted him there, which some no doubt did.  His downfall came, oddly enough, when he expressed the opinion that Mexico was a real democracy in an interview given to the American Pearson's magazine.  That was in 1908.  In that interview he stated that if the Mexican people wanted to replace him in an election, they could do it.

That an interview in an American magazine would spark a Mexican revolution is fairly amazing, but perhaps it shows how interconnected the world was, even then.  That interview brought in Francisco Madero, one of the least likely Mexican revolutionaries a person could imagine to the forefront.  Madero was an odd character, to say the least.  Highly idealistic, he was very much given over to the spiritualism movement that was gaining ground at the time, and he believed he was in direct contact with the spirit of Benito Juarez.  Taking Diaz at his word, he challenged him for election in the campaign of 1910.  The Diaz regime, in the meantime, drew itself closer to the United States, with Diaz meeting with President William Howard Taft in a meeting in which he emphasized his role in boosting Mexican business and American business in Mexico.  Ultimately Diaz had Madero arrested, but, given leave to move about the city of Monterrey, he escaped and fled to the United States, a move common for almost all Mexican revolutionaries.

Ernesto Madero and wife, Francisco Madero and Elenora Madero
Unlikely looking revolutionaries, the Maderos.  Maderos entire family became involved in his efforts to bring about democratic reform in Mexico.

This sparked the revolution.  Madero, not willing to give up, raised an Army and crossed back into Mexico.  His supporters in other regions of the country rose up.  Colorful figures like Emiliano Zapata and Francisco "Poncho" Villa appeared on the scene as Maderoistas.

 Gen. Pancho Villa
More typically imagined in a sombrero, General Francico Villa.  The colorful, erratic, and perhaps somewhat mentally unstable Villa would attempt to retire to a ranch he acquired after his surrender to Obregon and Carranza, but he ended up being assassinated under cloudy circumstances in 1923.  His killer would live into the 1950s and declare at the end of his life that he'd rid the world of a "monster".

Emiliano Zapata, 1879-1919
 Emiliano Zapata and his staff.  Zapata was an agrarian and looked the part, which we in turn tend to confuse with the look of the Mexican Revolution.  As with many leaders of the Mexican Revolution, Zapata was assassinated, although unlike Villa he still commanded an army in the field at the time of his death.

That revolution sought to install Madero as the rightful democratic president of Mexico, and it was opposed by Diaz's government and its conservative backers.  While it didn't have the expressed support of the United States, it had the implicit support of the US in that the local, highly conservative, American mission to Mexico viewed Madero as a species of dangerous radical, something akin to a socialist, and they feared both his movement and what it would mean for American business interest in Mexico.  Nonetheless, Modero's forces prevailed and Diaz surrendered in May, 1911, agreeing to go into exile.  Madero became the president of Mexico.

 [Mexican revolution against the Diaz government]
American soldiers observing the Battle of Juarez from the El Paso side of the border.

If only Madero could have been idealistic enough, and naive enough, to take on Diaz and win, he was also singularly unsuited to rule Mexico.  Having just overthrown very entrenched interests, he seemed to believe that he could take over the mechanisms of government and simply rule.  He therefore left the defeated Mexican army in place.  Diaz's army had little interest in the liberal ideas of Madero, and the result was virtually inevitable.  Moreover, Madero soon faced rebellions by his own former lieutenants, and a newly freed Mexican press exercised its voice for the first time in critizing Madero.  Soon Madero was faced with a plethora of rebellions from the right and the left, and had to rely both upon those forces which remained loyal to him, and the Mexican federal army.

In 1913 Victoriano Huerta, a Mexican Federal general whom had been successful in putting down revolts against Modero, launched one of his own with the support of remaining Diaz supporters and the support of American Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, who distrusted Madero.  H. L. Wilson was not to be long in his role, as at that time Woodrow  Wilson was already elected to the Presidency and coming in, so his actions not only were improper, but they came at the very time in which he was going out and a more progressive administration coming in.

Henry Lane Wilson, whose views proved to be a discredit to the United States and which did damage to Mexico.


Huerta was successful in his uprising against Madero and ultimately the victors acted to have Madero killed.  Huerta was the new Mexican strongman.

V Huerta.jpg 
Huerta looked every inch of the part he was to play in the Mexican Revolution.  He died of natural causes in an American jail after being arrested for plotting to involve Germany and Mexico in a war with the United States.

Almost immediately significant figures in Madero's forces, including Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata rose up in rebellion against Huerta, and in many ways the revolution we typically think of as being the Mexican Revolution, which was really its third act, got started.

 American soldiers of fortune in Mexico, serving in Villa's Division del Norte.

On this go around, revolutionary forces ultimately sort of coalesced around Venustiano Carranza, a Mexican revolutionary who was a rancher and a true radical.  Carranza never had the level of support that Madero had, and his views were to the left of Madero's.  In Carranza, the opponents of revolution in Mexico were faced with a man whom, while much weaker in support, was really much more of the man that they feared.  With the various revolutionary factions supporting him, Carranza managed to quickly defeat Huerta, who went into exile in 1914.  Ultimately, like deposed and losing Mexican forces and personalities seemed to do, he entered the United States in 1915, where he was cheeky enough to negotiate with German agents and Mexican revolutionaries in an effort to bring Mexico into a war with the United States.  Arrested, he died in an American jail of unknown causes.
 Gen. Carransa [i.e., Carranza]
 Revolutionary, intellectual, and radical. General Carranza.  His government fought Villa and Zapata successfully, but he'd go down in a coup lead by his own general, Obregon.

Before that could occur, however, the United States intervened, sort of, in the Mexican Revolution in the Tampico Affair.  Woodrow Wilson, justifiably horrified by the actions of Henry Lane Wilson, declared Huerta to be an illegal occupant of the office and enacted a blockade, of sorts on Mexican ports, preventing them from receiving foreign arms. Soon enough, an American sailors and Marines ended up having to land, and fight, in Vera Cruz, where their superior numbers guaranteed their success in the landing.

 [U.S. Naval occupation of Vera Cruz, Mexico: Tower at Vera Cruz damaged by shells from U.S.S. CHESTER - Mexican War]
 Tower damaged by Naval gunfire in the Battle of Vera Cruz.

 Raising U.S. Flag, Vera Cruz

 [U.S. Naval occupation of Vera Cruz, Mexico: Searching Mexican for weapons at Vera Cruz]
 Sailor searches Mexican man in Vera Cruz.

Indicative of things to come, perhaps, Huerta was defeated and fled while the United States occupied Vera Cruz, but he was no more pleased about the American presence there than a disgruntled Huerta was, who went on to plot with German agents to bring Mexico into war with the United States, as noted.  American forces withdrew in November 1914, but they'd be back, as we'll see, in a different location only shortly thereafter.  The intervention at Vera Cruz, however, did prevent the Germans from supplying a shipment of arms to Huerta, which may or may not have had an impact on the Mexican Revolution.  Ironically, the arms were actually American made as the Germans, in 1914, were not in a position to export arms to Mexico.

Carranza soon found himself fighting the two main stars of the Mexican Revolution, Pancho Villa and Emiliano  Zapata. Zapata, while he receives less attention, is by far the most interesting of the two as he had a real political vision for Mexico, that being a distributist agrarian state.   Villa was more of a peasant free agent, with less defined goals. Suffice it to say, however, both had been highly successful revolutionaries and a betting man would have bet against Carranza at that point.

However, Carranza was a radical as well, and that position allowed him to undercut support for a war weary Mexican population in the south.  This began to undercut support for the agrarian Zapata, and he began to face supply problems and accordingly set backs in the field.  Nonetheless Zapata was still in the field in 1919 when he was lured into a trap in an effort to secure supplies and assassinated.

In the north, Pancho Villa, who had been a very successful natural cavalry commander, found himself unable to adapt to the changes in battlefield tactics that were also being used in Europe.  Constantly in battle against Carranzaista commander Alvaro Obregon, who used barbed wire and trenches, his fortunes rapidly declined.

 Gen. Alfaro Obregon & staff of Yaquis
Alvaro Obregon, whose competence and study of military tactics lead to the defeat of Pancho Villa and his Division del Norte.  He'd ultimately become present of Mexico following his coup against Carranza.  Obregon would serve one term as president of Mexico, and was elected to a second term to follow his successor Calles, but he was assassinated prior to taking office.

But before they did, Carranza, in spite of a dislike of the United States, approached the Wilson administration about transporting troops through Texas by rail to be used against Villa.  Wilson had been horrified by H L. Wilson's actions in bringing about Madero's downfall, and he deeply desired to see an end to the fighting in Mexico.  Deciding to recognize Carranza as the legitimate ruler of the country, he granted permission for this to be done in 1915. Traveling under arms, they were used against Villa.  Villa retaliated against the United States for its entering the conflict in this fashion by raiding Columbus New Mexico on March 9, 1916.

 Columbus, N.M. after Villa's raid

The raid on Columbus has seemingly baffled American historians ever since, but the reasons for it couldn't be more apparent.  Villa was a fairly simply man, not a diplomat, and he had been attacked by Carranza's forces after they'd crossed the United States by rail.  By doing that, the US had taken a position in the war, which indeed it had whether President Wilson recognized that or not.  Indeed, Wilson had been warned by those knowledgeable not to support Carranza, who deeply disliked the US, and when it wasn't clear who was going to win the civil war.  Wilson's actions did nothing to engender love from Carranza but it did inspire Villa to retaliate against the US.

 Ambulance Corps leaving Columbus, New Mex. for Mexico in search for Villa
U.S. Army ambulances headed south as part of the Punitive Expedition.
This resulted in what's known to history as the Punitive Expedition, in which the United States briefly became a participating, again, in a Mexican Revolution. Designed only to punish, and perhaps capture, Pancho Villa, the United States ended up basically mobilizing its military infrastructure in order to send a force into Mexico, and in order to be prepared for war with Mexico, which seemed likely to break out any minute.  An expedition under the command of General John J. Pershing was in the field in Mexico for nearly a year, penetrating ever deeper into northern Mexico, but never being able to catch up with Villa. The entire time relationships with Carranza's government deteriorated, and Carranza never viewed the US. as an ally in his fight against Villa.  By the end of the expedition American forces had exchanged gunfire with Carranza's troops and it was unclear to the men in the field who the enemy was.  As a purely accidental benefit, however, the expedition caused the United States to mobilize its military establishment prior to its entry into World War One and the Army had dusted out its cobwebs, used the National Guard on the border and conducted large unit maneuvers in field conditions for the fist time since the Spanish American War.  March 9, 1916, was arguably the start of American participation in the Great War.

 Soldiers in Texas writing home. Apr. 24, 1914
These soldiers are probably National Guardsmen. Their campaign hats are the previous type, not the M1911 campaign hat, which had just come into service and which went to Regulars first.  Nearly the entire National Guard rotated to the border on border service during this period, out of a genuine fear that a war with Mexico was right around the corner.

Col. G.A Wingate, seated on ground, 1913
 New York National Guardsmen serving along the border.  These officers are (self) equipped with the new pattern of campaign hat.  Col. Wingate carries the newly adopted M1911 .45 ACP pistol, in the pattern of swivel holster adopted for cavalry. The officer on his left carries the prior pattern of revolver, probably a double action Colt .45, a pistol which came into emergency service due to the failure of the .38 during the Philippine Insurrection.

[U.S. Army in Mexico, 1914: soldier on horseback]
 American serviceman in Mexico, probably serving in the Quartermaster Corps. This soldier is mounted on a stock saddle, not a McClellan saddle, which was a standard saddle for packers and quartermasters, and which would shortly be given an official designation of M1917 Packers Saddle. The saddle, however, had been in use since about 1905.

After Carranza died, Obregon took over. And that death came in the way that the Mexican Revolution featured.  He was murdered in a conspiracy featuring one of his own general, Obregon.

 [U.S. Army in Mexico, 1914: Mexican refugees(?) cooking in camp]
Mexican civilians, potentially refugees, in U.S. Army camp in Mexico.

Obregon, in spite of his dispute with  Carranza, continued to take Mexico leftward.  He faced a rebellion in his single term as president, and then handed the reigns to Plutarco Calles, who likewise continued to head left.  Calles and Obregon were, moreover, opponents of the Catholic Church, reviving an anti clericism of the left which became massive in some regions of Mexico.  Ultimately at least one governor of a Mexican state was so far to the left as to be practically a communist, if not in name, and killings of clerics became a localized feature of Mexican rule.  Suppression of the church and churchmen occurred, including closing of seminaries and a prohibition on wearing religious clothing in public.  The Mexican revolutionary state had effectively gone to war against the church, and ultimately in 1926 another rebellion broke out.

 
Calles, unlike all of his predecessors going back to Madero, was not assassinated.  After Calles' assassination, he continued on in power and became increasingly authoritarian, and he began to flirt with fascism.  He was ultimately forced into exile in the United States in 1936 but was able to return in 1940.  Ironically, given his hostility to the church,in his old age he joined Madero as a spiritualist.

Called the Cristero War, this war is properly recognized as one of the many wars of the Mexican Revolution, with this one again featuring peasantry against the government. The revolution failed, but not before the Cristeros lost 30,000 men, the government 50,000 and 250,000 Mexicans fled to the United States. This formed the last peasant rebellion against the state, but attempted military coups would occur as late as 1938.  In the 1980s, Zapatista forces once again appeared on the scene, recalling the agrarian dreams of their founder and the Mexican army never was able to really put them down.  By that time, however, Mexico was transforming, finally, into a true democracy, which it is today.  Decades of rule by the PRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, dedicated to unending revolution, came to an end.

So, as we can see, the Mexican Revolution is something that, in at least the common American view, we don't quite recall accurately, which isn't to say t hat we get it all wrong.  But it was a much, much longer struggle than we imagine, and a much more modern political struggle than we generally allow.  It plays well, indeed, in the sense of an early 20th Century revolution, featuring forces of the right and the left, including the hard right and the hard left.  Even Distributism, which also made an appearance with the Greens in the Russian Revolution, appears in the Mexican Revolution, where it went down to defeat as well.

And as a North American tragedy it stands amongst the most prominent and long lasting, a tragedy which the United States is more than a little responsible for.  Our representation in Mexico during the Taft Administration proved to blinded by his own ideology and views not to see that a new day in Mexico had arrived, and indeed a new day was arriving in his own nation, and his closing act in his role was to be a participant in the overthrow of a democratic president who deserved our support.  Would that have prevented the Mexican Revolution from descending into the radical cycle of violence it did? We can't know that, but we could have tried to avoid it. And for that matter, President Woodrow Wilson's act in supporting Carranza through the extraordinary allowance of troop transmission across the US was amazingly inept.

The relationship between Mexico and the United States, never an ideal one, would descend to its depths in the decades immediately following the Mexican Revolution, and wouldn't really start to improve until Mexico declared war on the Axis during World War Two, something that we were not to sure that the Mexican government didn't feel the other way about at first.  Mexico itself, in spite of having a "revolutionary" government wouldn't be able to really address the needs of its impoverished people until it developed a true democracy, by which time a culture of conceiving of itself as poor was well entrenched.  Today, the majority of Mexicans, for the first time in Mexican history, are middle class and the economy of the country is fully modernizing.  Mexico itself is a true democracy, although violence now has resumed due to the crime wars between those seeking to have an orderly society and those seeking to export illegal drugs to the United States. Still, it is once again a new era, and a better one, for Mexico.

Saturday, December 6, 2014

Sunday, December 6, 1914. Villa and Zapata enter Mexico City.


60,000 men, the combined forces of Villa and Zapata, entered Mexico City. 

Carranza retreated to Veracruz.

Álvaro Obregón issued a 14 point statement on why he opposed Villa.  Part of the statement confirmed Pancho Villa had executed Scottish expatriate William S. Benton in February.

German forces occupied Łódź,

Serbians forced the Austro Hungarians back to Belgrade.

Last edition:

Friday, December 4, 1914. An alliance based on opposition.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Wednesday, November 18, 1914. Karolina Kózka and a march on Mexico City.

Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata commenced their march on Mexico City following Carranza's public refusal to step down from the disputed Mexican presidency.

Imperial Russian and German forces clashed in bitter winter conditions at Łódź, Poland.  The Russians held.  Both sides were still clad in their summer uniforms.


Deeply Catholic Karolina Kózka, a 16-year-old Polish girl died while resisting an attempted rape by a Russian soldier near her village of Wał-Ruda, Poland.   The soldiers stabbed her to death. Pope John Paul II beatified her as a "martyr of Christ" in 1987.

Austro-Hungarian forces began an assault on Lazarevac, Serbia.

Russian, Turkish Fleets Clash Off Cape Sarych

Admiral von Tirpitz advocated massed Zeppelin attacks on London.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 17, 1914. Strained resources.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Saturday, October 10, 1914. Convention of Aguascalientes

The Convention of Aguascalientes, called by Venustiano Carranza convened.  Carranza, in spite of calling the meeting, did not attend and did not send representatives.  Pancho Villa's representatives were in attendance.  Álvaro Obregón came in person. Zapata's representatives would arrive fifteen days after the start of the convention.  Villista's dominated.

The first thing the convention did was to declare itself sovereign, the de facto government of Mexico.

British and French forces attempted to take the French city of La Bassée.

King Carol I of Romania, who opposed entering the Great War, died.

The SMS Emden left British held Diego Garcia, with its residents unaware that a war had started.


Boston took game two of the World Series, 1 to 0.


Last edition:

Friday, October 9, 1914. Antwerp surrendered.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Sunday, August 30, 1914. The Imperial Russian Army destroyed at Tannenberg.

The German Army wiped out Imperial Russian forces at Tannenberg, taking 92,000 prisoners and inflicting 78,000 casualties.  10,000 Russian soldiers escaped.  The Germans took 12,000 casualties.



Russian commander Alexander Samsonov is believed to have committed suicide after walking into nearby woods. German troops found hsi body a year later.

The Russian chances of ending the war before the winter of 1914 were over, and the German gamble of taking on the Imperial Russian Army early on had paid off.

20,000 Austro Hungarians were taken prisoner by the Russians at Gnila Lipa.

French forces withdrew at Saint Quentin, but in an orderly fashion.

New Zealand invaded and took German Samoa.

Emiliano Zapata agreed to support the government of Venustiano Carranza.

Last edition:

Monday, August 25, 2014

Tuesday, August 25, 1914. German murders in Belgium.


The German Army sacked Leuven, Belgium.  248 civilians were killed and the entire population of the city of 10,000 expelled.  156 civilians were killed in Aarschot, 211 in Andenne, 383 in Tamines, and 674 in Dinant.

300,000 Medieval texts were lost at the Catholic University of Leuven in a fire set by the Germans.

German barbarities did not start in 1939, they started in 1914.

German actions against Belgium's civilian population would not be forgotten during the war, and would be used against it.


The Austro Hungarian Army prevailed at  Kraśnik,

Pyotr Nesterov rammed his Morane-Saulnier Type G into an Austrian Albatros BII, killing all involved, but making him the first aviator to down another aircraft in combat.

British and French forces took Togoland.

Japan declared war against Austro Hungaria.

Emiliano Zapata agreed to accept the Constitutionalist government on the condition that it accept the Plan of Ayala, which had been drafted in 1911, and which had objected to Modero.  The Plan stated:

Liberating Plan of the sons of the State of Morelos, affiliated with the Insurgent Army that defends the fulfillment of the Plan of San Luis, with the reforms which it has believed proper to add in benefit of the Mexican Fatherland.

We who undersign, constituted in a revolutionary junta to sustain and carry out the promises which the revolution of November 20, 1910, just past, made to the country, declare solemnly before the face of the civilized world which judges us and before the nation to which we belong and which we call [sic, love], propositions which we have formulated to end the tyranny which oppresses us and redeem the fatherland from the dictatorships which are imposed on us, which [propositions] are determined in the following plan:

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 [Constitution of 1857], 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 [if they] 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

Signed, General in Chief Emiliano Zapata; Generals Eufemio Zapata, Francisco Mendoza, Jesús Morales, Jesús Navarro, Otilio E. Montaño, José Trinidad Ruiz, Próculo Capistrán; Colonels…; Captains… [This] is a true copy taken from the original. Camp in the Mountains of Puebla, December 11, 1911. Signed General in Chief Emiliano Zapata.

The Canadian Arctic Expedition rescue ship Bear was stopped by sea ice 20 miles from Wrangel Island and had to turn around and return to Nome for more coal.

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Monday, August 24, 1914. The Great Retreat and Winnie The Pooh.