Friday, February 18, 1916. Villa departs from Plaza de Namiquipa.

Pancho Villa's forces departed from Plaza de Namiquipa and disappeared.  They would not be fully heard from again until March 9.

The German garrison at Mora surrendered after a year and a half long siege.

Last edition:

Wednesday, February 16, 1916. Russian Army blunders, Lomond established, Kermit Roosevelt Jr. born.

Labels: 1910s, 1916, Adams, Bush, Disaster, Dương Văn Minh, Erzurum Offensive, Imperial Russian Army, Kennedy, Ottoman Army, Roosevelt, Texas, Trump

Saturday, February 6, 1926. Linguistic dispute.

Pancho Villa's skull was stolen by grave robbers.  It's whereabouts remain unknown.

Mussolini delivered a defiant speech about the fascist program of Italianization of South Tyrol, which had an ethnic German majority.

The Italians and Germans managed to put this aside after the rise of Hitler, but had the Germans won the second World War, they certainly would have turned on Italy over this issue.  As late as the 1990s, if not later, there was still Italian support for the fascist decrees on the topic.

It was a Saturday.

Last edition:

Friday, February 5, 1926. Attacking the couriers.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, actors and actresses, Art, basketball, California (Los Angeles), Latvia, Terrorism, USSR

Thursday, December 23, 1915. Villa defeated again.

 

The news reported a Villa defeat.

Henry Ford Abandons His Peace Ship

Last edition:

Wednesday, December 22, 1915. Hartmannswillerkopf ends.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Alsace-Lorraine, Battle of Hartmannswillerkopf, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, World War One

Punitive Expedition Display, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Dubois Wyoming

This is a smaller display, adjacent to the larger World War One display.  

The first displayed item is the typical field uniform worn by soldiers in the Border War.  This sweater pattern is unique to the period, the M1910 sweater. The campaign hat is the long serving M1911 campaign hat. Some National Guard units that served on the border were not yet equipped with it.  The saber is the M1913 "Patton" Saber, which was designed, based on a British pattern, by George S. Patton.  For the most part, enlisted men were not allowed to carry their sabers into Mexico, following a tread that had started during the Indian Wars.

The car is a Dodge touring car, perhaps most famously associated with a raid conducted by Patton.  Automobile use was heavy during the Punitive Expedition in spite of it being largely a horse cavalry effort.  Indeed, the Army's 1st Provisional Aero Squadron was committed to the effort largely due it being the only U.S. Army unit that was completely  motorized.

Last edition:

Equipment of the Vietnam War, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Dubois Wyoming.

Labels: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 4x4, Aircraft, Armor, Artillery, Automobiles, boats and ships, National Museum of Military Vehicles, The Cold War, Transportation, Vietnam War, Wyoming (Dubois)

OROZCO by SK GUNS and Pascual Orozco himself.

Wow, that's a wild commemorative.

Pascual Orozco was a Mexican Revolutionary who originally supported Madero before falling out with him.  He was of immediate Basque descent, something we tend not to think about in regard to Mexico, which is in fact more ethnically diverse than we commonly imagine.  He was an early recruit to Madero's 1910 revolution, and was a natural military leader, and could be rather morbid.  After his January 2, 1911, victory at Cañón del Mal Paso he ordered the dead Federal soldiers stripped and sent the uniforms to Presidente Díaz with a note that read, "Ahí te van las hojas, mándame más tamales" ("Here are the wrappers, send me more tamales.").

On May 10, 1911 Orozco and Pancho Villa seized Ciudad Juárez, against Madero's orders, a victory which caused Díaz to briefly resign the presidency.  Madero would naively choose to negotiate with the regime, which resulted in The Treaty of Ciudad Juárez allowing for the resignations of Díaz and his vice president, allowing them to go into exile, establishing an Interim Presidency under Francisco León de la Barra, and keeping the Federal Army intact.

Like Zapata, he went into rebellion against the Madero government, which he felt had betrayed the revolution.  He openly declared revolt on March 3, 1912, financing it with his own money and confiscated livestock sold in Texas.  His forces were known as the Orozquistas and the Colorados (the Reds). They defeated Federal troops in Chihuahua under José González Salas. Madero in turn sent Victoriano Huerta against him, who in turn were more successful.  A wounded Orozco fled to the US. After Madero was assassinated and Huerta installed, Orozco promised to support him if reforms were made, and he was installed as the Supreme Commander of the Mexican Federal forces.  As such he defeated the Constitutionalist at Ciudad Camargo, Mapula, Santa Rosalía, Zacatecas, and Torreón, causing his former revolutionary confederates to regard him, not without justification, as a traitor.

He refused to recognize the government of Carvajal after Huerta's fall and was driven into exile again.  He traveled in the US in opposition to Carranza along with Huerta.  In 1915, he was arrested in the US, but escaped.  An unclear incident at the Dick Love ranch in Texas led to claims that he and other like-minded combatants had stolen horses from the ranch, which in turn resulted in a small party of the 13th Cavalry, Texas Rangers, and local deputies pursing the supposed horse thieve with Orozco being killed once the party was holed up.  What exactly occured is not clear.

His body interred in the Masonic Holding Vault at the Concordia Cemetery in El Paso by his wife, dressed in the uniform of a Mexican general, at a service attended by a very larger gathering of admirers.  In 1925 his remains were retuned to Chihuahua.

Why the commemorative?  I have no idea.  He is not an obscure figure in the Mexican Revolution, but not a well known one like Villa or Zapata.  I can't see where he's associated with the M1911 either, a weapon that was brand new at the time the Revolution broken out.  The .38 Super, which is apparently popular in Mexico, wasn't intruduced by Colt until 1929.

February 23, 1919. Villa advances on Juarez

Which is news that would have seemed current a couple of years ago, and then seemed impossible, only to be current again.

Wednesday, January 17, 1917. Joint Mexican American Committee Concludes

 

Mexican refugee entering the United States.  In spite of the caption, his wealth is probably all on this horse.  Part of the tragedy that involved both the United States and Mexico for well over a decade.

The Joint Committee between the US and Mexico concluded its business.  With the agreement of December 24, 1916 having been made, with Carranza having refused to sign it, and with events overcoming the United States that would give Carranza the result he wanted anyway, there was no more work to be done.

 

Porfirio Diaz in full military costume.  The collapse of his rule lead to the long civil war in Mexico.

Some have stated that the mere existence of the Joint Committee was a success in and of itself, and there is some truth to that.  The committee worked for months on an agreement and came to one, and even if Carranza would not execute it as it didn't guaranty the withdraw of American forces, the fact that the country was now hurtling towards war with Germany made it necessary for that to occur without American formal assent to Carranza's demand.  By not agreeing to it, the US was not bound not to intervene again, which was one of the points that it had sought in the first place. Events essentially gave both nations what they had been demanding.

 

 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 some years later. 

Even if that was the case this step, the first in the beginning of the end of the event we have been tracking since March, has to be seen as a Mexican Constitutionalist victory in the midst of the Mexican Revolution.  At the time the Commission came to the United States it represented only one side in a three way (sometimes more) Mexican civil war that was still raging.  Even as Carranza demanded that the United States withdraw his forces were not uniformly doing well against either Villa or Zapata.  Disdaining the United States in general, in spite of the fact that Wilson treated his government as the de facto government, he also knew that he could not be seen to be achieving victory over Villa through the intervention of the United States, nor could he be seen to be allowing a violation of Mexican sovereignty.  His refusal to acquiesce to allowing American troops to cross the border in pursuit of raiders, something that the Mexican and American governments had allowed for both nations since the mid 19th Century, allowed him to be seen as a legitimate defender of Mexican sovereignty and as the legitimate head of a Mexican government.

 

More typically imagined in a sombrero, General Francisco 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 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.

As will be seen, even though the war in Mexico raged on, events were overtaking the US and Mexico very quickly.  The Constitutionalist government was legitimizing itself as a radical Mexican de jure government and would quickly become just that.  Revolutions against it would go on for years, but it was very quickly moving towards full legitimacy.  And the United States, having failed to capture Villa or even defeat the Villistas, and having accepted an effective passive role in Mexico after nearly getting into a full war with the Constitutionalist, now very much had its eye on Europe and could not strategically afford to be bogged down in Mexico.  A silent desire to get out of Mexico had become fully open.  The rough terms of the agreement arrived upon by the Committee, while never ratified by Carranza, would effectively operate anyway and the United States now very quickly turned to withdrawing from Mexico.

 

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.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Related threads:  The Mexican Revolution.

Last Edition:

January 16, 1917. Admiral George Dewey dies

Labels: 1910s, 1917, Civil War, Personalities, Politics, Spanish American War, U.S. Navy

The Punitive Expedition: The fight at San Miguelito Ranch. May 14, 1916

 Cavalryman George S. Patton, in 1918 with a Renault tank.

On this day a motor patrol lead by Lt. George S. Patton engaged in a firefight with Julio Cárdena, second in command to Pancho Villa and the head of his body guard. All three Villistas were killed and all three were shot, at some point, but perhaps not fatally, by Patton, who eccentrically carried the obsolete M1873 revolver.  Patton reportedly carried the M1873 as he had suffered an accidental discharge with the new M1911 while wearing it in his belt.  Patton's party was searching residences of known Villistas but was principally searching for feed for horses.  Patton had the bodies of the dead Villistas strapped to the hood of the cars used by the party.  The group departed just as a larger party of Villistas arrived.

The incident would go on to be well known forming part of the story of Patton, who of course went on to become a famous Second World War general.

Patton was an aide de camp of Pershing's during the Punitive Expedition and was greatly influenced by him in his military career.  He remained in correspondence with him for the rest of his life.  It is often noted that Patton's sister Nita was courted to some degree, although the degree remains uncertain, sometime in the immediate pre Punitive Expedition time frame, but it ultimately went nowhere.  Pershing had been married to Helen Warren, the daughter of Wyoming's Francis E. Warren, who had died in a tragic fire along with three out of the four Pershing children.  Pershing's surviving son, enlisted as a private in the Army in World War Two.  Both of his sons would serve in Vietnam, with one being killed in action there.

The Raid on Columbus New Mexico, 1916

0730  A Villista bugler sounds retreat.  Villistas begin the process of withdrawing to Mexico with their wounded.

Last edition:

The raid on Columbus New Mexico, 1916

Labels: 1910s, 1916, A day in the life, Army, cavalry, Columbus New Mexico, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, New Mexico, Personalities, The Punitive Expedition

The Raid On Columbus New Mexico. 1916

 Villa leading his forces prior to his 1915 defeat at Celaya

0100: Forces under Francisco "Pancho" Villa cross the border near Palomas, Chihuahua to advance on the small town of Columbus New Mexico, which they intend to raid in retaliation for Woodrow Wilson's actions in allowing Carranza's forces to be transported by rail across Texas to be used against Villa's forces in northern Mexico.  

Most are on foot.  Columbus is 2.5 miles to the north of the Mexican border town, where Villistas had been located and recuperating after a recent defeat at the hands of Carranza's forces.

Villa, who may or may not have accompanied his troops that day, commanded approximately 500 men.  His force of horsemen was in disarray after being defeated at the  Battle of Celaya in April of the prior year, from which it had still not recovered.  Villa had gone in that battle with 22,000 men, 8,000 of which were killed, and another 8,000 of which were captured in the battle.  His forces at Palomas, while dangerous, were a shadow of his prior Division del Norte.

Villa believed that nearby Columbus was garrisoned with about 30 US soldiers.  This intelligence was erroneous and US forces in the region were alerted to the possibility of trouble occurring.

Last edition:

Remembering Pancho Villa’s attack on Columbus, N.M.

Labels: 1910s, Army, Columbus New Mexico, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, New Mexico, The Punitive Expedition

The Columbus Raid. Why did it occur?

As I noted yesterday, this week 100 years will pass since Francisco "Pancho" Villa ordered a party of his men across the United States border into a raid on Columbus New Mexico.  Columbus was a little tiny town across the border, but it had come to have an American military presence.  Villa's actions was extraoridinary and the question has always been, why on earth did he do it.

Unlike some historitans,  I think the answer is obvious, and I've touched on it before in our thread  Lex Anteinternet: The Mexican Revolution.  As the anniversary of the event came upon me at a time when work and activities kept me from posting a really new entry here on the episode, I'm linking in, over the course of the week, a variety of items, but this particular item addressed some of these topics.  So I'm basing this post on what I earlier wrote.  Perhaps that's bad form, but none the less I think the earlier entry was pretty good.

I'm not going to repeat all that was there, but let's note that Mexico had slid into revolution, and the US had already intervened in Mexico during that revolution.  Mexico's long standing dictator Porfirio Diaz had fallen in revolution.  In turn, Modero, who overthrew him in the name of liberal democracy, had ruled naively and had gone down in a 1913 military coup that brought Victoriano Huerta to power.  Unfortunately, that coup had the local support of the American ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson.  Mexico erupted into civil war.  That civil war brought the radical Venustiano Carranza into power and soon remaining Mexican revolutionaries took sides with or against him as Mexico descended into chaos.  One of the revolutionary generals opposing Carranza was Pancho Villa with his Army of the North.

We pick up the story after the U.S. first intervened military at Vera Cruz to keep arms being supplied to Huerta.

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.

 

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.

 

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.

And so started an episode that would take U.S. troops deep into Mexico.

This entire episode seems oddly contemporary and from a distant less powerful past for the Americans.  It's hard to imagine ourselves being raided in this fashion, but then perhaps the events of 9/11 were not entirely dissimilar.    And the entire event serves as a cautionary tale today.  Nobody would have foreseen a newspaper interview bringing down Diaz.  Nobody would have seen Modero becoming the president of Mexico.  Nobody would have anticipated a victorious Modero leaving the Mexican army and its officer corps in place following their defeat.  Wilson, for his part, apparently didn't appreciate that he was directly intervening in a Mexican civil war by allowing Mexican troops in that war to be transported across U.S. territory.  Things have a way of working out contrary to our expectations.

Sunday, January 23, 1916. Villa disavows, Outflanked in the desert, Big temperature drop.

Sunday Magazine & Sunday Telegram, January 23, 1916 by Edward Mason Eggleston.  Eggleston was a period illustrator who specialized in fanciful depictions of women which anticipated the pinup era of the 40s and 50s.

Villa disavowed murders.

Racist trash was premiering in Cheyenne.

The Western Frontier Group attacked Senussi's but were outflanked, allowing the Senussi to escape.

Browning, Montana's, temperature dropped 100 degrees in 24 hours on January 23-24, from 44F to a -56F, maybe. 

There's some evidence that this was a bad observation, but the temperature did drop a bunch.

Last edition:

Saturday, January 22, 1916.

Labels: 1910s, 1916, Art

Saturday, January 15, 1916. Russian victory.

It was a Saturday.

Bulgaria was of course at war, most of Europe was.  And there was war news of a Russian victory.

Russian troops broke through the Ottoman defense line at Koprukoy.

Downtown Bergen, Norway, was destroyed by fire.

Three Mexican men were executed for stealing military supplies, photographs of the event were used for postcards.

Mexico remained in U.S. headlines with there being a drum beat for the U.S. to enter Mexico in a war.

Last edition:

Friday January 14, 1916. Collins resigns British employment.

Labels: 1910s, 1916, Aircraft, Colorado, Colorado (Aurora), German Luftwaffe, Ireland, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Michael Collins, Pancho Villa, Royal Flying Corps, Texas, Texas (El Paso), Wolves, Woodrow Wilson

Friday January 14, 1916. Collins resigns British employment.

Michael Collins resigned from his employment in London at the Guaranty Trust Company n order to return to Ireland.  He was already a clandestine Irish revolutionary.

Severe flooding caused dikes to burst at Zuiderzee, Netherlands.

The Royal Flying Corps ordered that reconnaissance planes have an escort of at least three fighters flying in close formation with them, and that a reconnaissance aircraft must abort its flight if even one of the three fighters becomes detached from the formation for any reason, due to highly losses from Fokker Eindeckers.

In the U.S., where they were not worried about Eindeckers, today it seemed that war worries had lessened.

Or maybe they did.

The Rocky Mountain News was also reporting that wolves were active in Aurora.

Last edition:

Thursday, January 13, 1916. Death of Huerta.

Pancho Villa, Santa Ysabel Massacre, Victoriano Huerta, World War One

Thursday, January 13, 1916. Death of Huerta.

Victoriano Huerta, age 65, died in El Paso.  Huera had occupied the position of President of Mexico, illegitimately from February, 19, 1913 to July, 1914.

As a total aside, those dates would place setting for Sam Peckinpah's classic The Wild Bunch prior to July, 1914, which makes for one of the film's inaccuracies, albeit a minor one, in that aircraft are referenced as something that's "going to be" used in the war in Europe.  World War One had not yet quite broken out, but then perhaps this can be rationalized in some fashion.  Gen. Mapache is referenced as being "a butcher for Huerta".

A huge race riot occurred in El Paso on the same day in reaction to news of the Santa Ysabel Massacre, not all of which was completely accurate, even though the accurate news was bad enough.

British troops attacked Ottoman troops under the command of Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz along the Wadi River.

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 12, 1916. War likely.

Labels: 1910s, 1916, Austro Hungaria, German Army, German Luftwaffe, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Montenegro, Pancho Villa, Santa Ysabel Massacre, World War One