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.

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.

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.

Good Friday, April 10, 1914. Villa takes San Pedro.

Villa drove the Federals out of San Pedro, Coahuila, Mexico.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 9, 1914. Drama at Tampico.

1910s, 1914, Aircraft, Mexican Navy, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Tampico Mexico, U.S. Navy, Victoriano Huerta

Sunday, April 5, 1914. Terrorism at St. Martin in the Field's, Villa at Torreon

A bomb exploded in the Anglican St. Martin in the Fields Church in London, causing major property damage.

Suffragists were suspected, but no firm evidence of who was responsible was ever found.

Pancho Villa, still in action at Torreon, in spite of having earlier been reported defeated/wounded/dead, was doing something I assumed was just a movie trope. . . deploying a machine gun from a train in Mexico.

The same issue of the Cheyenne paper advertised women's outfits for Easter.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, April 4, 1914. Sad Sunday in Newfoundland, Newfoundlander reaches Siberian Coast.

1910s, 1914, Arctic, Canada, Canadian Arctic Expedition, Exploration, Hong Kong, Immigration, India, law, Siberia, USSR

Thursday, April 2, 1914 Villista victory at Torreón, Disaster on the ice, Cumann na mBan, birth of Alec Guiness.

It was opening day.

Pancho Villa telegraphed the head of the Mexican opposition,Venustiano Carranza, to report he had retaken Torreón.  He noted his losses as 2,000 killed or wounded, and the Federal dead at 12,000 killed, wounded or captured.

Effectively, he had taken control of northern Mexico.

The U.S. Navy gunboat, Dolphin, entered Tampico harbor in Mexico and presented a 3x21-gun salute to the Mexican flag in remembrance of the April 2, 1867, Battle of Puebla.

It would be the last peaceful diplomatic exchange between the United States Government and the Mexican government of Victoriano Huerta.

Wes Kean, captain of the SS Newfoundland, spotted survivors from his ship that had been trapped on ice floes off Newfoundland for three days during a blizzard. The men had been set out for seals on April 1, with the expectation that if the weather worsened, they could stay aboard the nearby Stephano.  Instead, Wes' father, Adam, gave the men lunch at that point and ordered them back out on the ice.  This left the captains of both vessels under the belief that the men were safe.  While equipped originally with primitive radios, they had been removed prior to the voyage as a cost savings measure, which compounded the error..

Kean, upon spotting the men, alerted the nearby SS Bellaventure.  77 of 132 men who had been lost, died.

The same weather sank the Southern Cross with the loss of all hands.

The Cumann na mBan, or Irishwomen's Council, an Irish Republican paramilitary organization, was founded.  It apparently still exists.

300 Pentecostal preachers and laymen gathered in a general council in Hot Springs, Arkansas to discuss preservation of Pentecostal revivalism.

A train derailment near Tanjung Priok, Indonesia caused by buffalo crossing the tracks resulted in the death of 20 people and 50 more being injured.

Great British actor Alec Guinness was born in Maida Vale, London, England.  One of the greatest actors of all time, he appeared in 62 films, many of which are remembered at least in part for his performance. They include such varied classics as Lawrence of Arabia, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Bridge On The River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, and Star Wars.  His career was interrupted by World War Two, during which he served in the Royal Navy, and during which he formed the intent to become an Anglican Priest.  An experience on a movie set impacted him deeply, and he converted to Catholicism, as did his wife, who only informed him after the fact, in later years, from Judaism.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, April 1, 1914. Villa at Torreón

Wednesday, April 1, 1914. Villa at Torreón

Villa's fortunes in Torreón were improving.

The same paper featured this interesting watch ad:

Note that wristwatches were treated as a female item, which they were until World War One, we we are now in the cusp of in this timeline, changed that.

Last prior edition:

Friday, March 27, 1914. "Any kind of fighting you wish".

Friday, March 27, 1914. "Any kind of fighting you wish".

"Any kind of fighting you wish".  So declared the Cheyenne paper.

Villa scored a victory and recognized Carranza as chief, for at least the present.

And some employers had photographs taken of their employees.

Employees of Augustus Pollack Crown Stogie Factories, Wheeling, W.Va.

The F.A. Ames Mfg. Co., Owensboro, Ky.

Last prior:

Wednesday, March 25, 1914. Villa repulsed.

Wednesday, March 25, 1914. Villa repulsed.

According to the Cheyenne paper, Villa had suffered a set back.

The same paper showed that Wyomingites were slamming Democrats as far back as that, and even earlier.

Also in that issue, some interesting items showing how local agriculture was.

And then there was this interesting item:

The Laramie paper was reporting on the distress in the British defense posture. We know, of course, what they did not, that they were on the eve of war.

Last prior edition:

Monday, March 23, 1914. Doubts about Roosevelt's fate on the River of Doubt.

1900s, 1909, 1910s, 1912, 1912 Election, 1914, Brazil, Exploration, Personalities, Roosevelt–Rondon Scientific Expedition, Theodore Roosevelt

March 21, 1914. Yo acuso

A commission set up by Venustiano Carranza confirmed British rancher William S. Benton had been stabbed to death in Pancho Villa's office by Major Rudolfo Fierro. 

The commission further claimed Villa invented the  court martial story to protect Fierro, who was distantly related to him.

Fierro played the role of Villa's executioner until he died in an accident in 1915, being thrown from his horse and drowning in quicksand.

Anarchist marched in New York City.

Last prior edition:

Friday, March 20, 1914. The Curragh Muntiny

1910s, 1914, British Army, Curragh Mutiny, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Pancho Villa, panoramic, San Francisco California, The American South, The Big Picture, Ulster, United Kingdom

Friday, March 20, 1914. The Curragh Muntiny

The Curragh Mutiny saw British Army officers stationed at Curragh Camp, Ireland resign their commissions rather than face being ordered to resist the Ulster Volunteers, should the Home Rule Bill pass.

It was a rare example of something like this working, in that the British government backed down, and they were reinstated.

"The Sunny South".

Pancho Villa sent 12,000 troops to recapture Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico from 9,000 federal troops stationed in the city.

Panama-Pacific International Exposition--San Francisco, Calif., construction.

Monday, March 9, 1914. Surprising news on Mexico.

Jesús Salgado, a lieutenant of Emiliano Zapata, surrounded Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, with s force of 5,000 men.

Other news of the Mexican Revolution hit the front page of the Laramie Boomerang, including some surprising "facts" about Pancho Villa.

The story on the fire in St. Louis was tragically accurate.

Mexico figured in the headlines of the Cheyenne paper as well.

Prime Minister H. H. Asquith proposed to allow Ulster to vote on whether to join a Home Rule parliament in Dublin.

YMCA Convention, Salina Kansas:

Last Prior:

Sunday, March 8, 1914. International Women's Day, Berlin.

Tuesday, February 24, 1914. Villa, Ulster Unionist, the doomed Canadian Arctic Expedition and Joshua Chamberlin.

Pancho Villa refused to delivery the body of William S. Benton to US and British authorities but stated he's allow relatives to visit his burial site, escorted.

The Ulster Unionist Party distributed posters addressing concerns about the Ulster Volunteer Force attempting to assure that it was formed solely due to its disputes with London, which probably wasn't particularly comforting.

Captain Robert Barrett led the last survivors from the Canadian Arctic Expedition's Shipwreck Camp to Wrangel Island, leaving a note on their whereabouts in a copper drum in case the icebound camp drifted into an area where it could be found.

Robert Peary, meanwhile, speculated in the press that the Canadian expedition had set up camp near the Alaskan coastline.

Famous Maine commander Joshua Chamberlain, who won a Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg, died at age 85.

He had gone on to serve as the Governor of Maine.

While famous for his role in the Civil War, he had started off his adult life with the intent of becoming a Congregationalist minister, which was his mother's desire.  His father had hoped for a military career for him.  Marrying in 1855, he took up a career as a teacher before the Civil War.  He of course served notably in the Civil War.  After the war he served four one year terms as Governor of Maine (what a horrific though to have to run a campaign every year), resumed teaching at the university level, practiced law, and engaged in various business activities.

Monday, February 23, 1914. Villa Justice, Girl Flirts, and Packing heat.

The news was out about the Villista's having executed a British rancher. Villa insisted that it was an act of official justice due, he claimed, the rancher having attempted to pull a gun on him.

The real reason I'm posting this paper, however, is not for that news, although it appears here in the form of an article that the British did not intend to intervene in the Mexican Revolution due to the incident, but rather for its relation to some things we noted earlier this week, specifically;

Legislatures. Back to the future and other diversions?

Here we see the application of laws of the era.  Two young women, ages 18 and 19 respectively, were run out of town in Laramie for leading an "immoral, idle and profligate course of life".  

They'd just arrived there, so they couldn't have had the time to engage in too much immorality, idleness etc.  Indeed, they'd just taken up quarters.

Maybe a person has to read between the lines, perhaps, on this one.

Also, a Union Pacific clerk was fined for carrying a concealed weapon.  You'll commonly hear it suggested that up until recently, everyone was allowed to pack all the time, and in any way they wanted, but that's really not the case.

Related threads:

Legislatures. Back to the future and other diversions?

Packing Heat

September 2, 1920. Changing views.

Lex Anteinternet: Packing Heat

Live by the sword. Some legislators propose to take us back to 1889 once again.

Friday, February 20, 1914. Revolutionary execution.

William S. Benton, a British rancher with Chihuahua holdings, was executed in Juarez by Villistas, after a "court-martial".  He was accused of making an attempt on Villa's life, but his associates claimed he had no views on the Mexican Revolution at all. 

More on this from a Scottish blog:

Pancho Villa murders Keig man

Rosa Luxemburg was tried in a Frankfurt court on charges of encouraging public disobedience and sentenced to a year in prison.  In the Court she stated.

When, as I say, the majority of people come to the conclusion that wars are nothing but a barbaric, unsocial, reactionary phenomenon, entirely against the interests of the people, then wars will have become impossible.

Nice sentiment, but shallow thought.

Luxemburg herself has always struck me as not being too deep. Perhaps I'm wrong as she remains the deluded darling of the far left, and maybe there's more to her than my very limited knowledge is aware of.

James William Humphyrs Scotland made the first cross-country flight in New Zealand.  On the same day, Winston Churchill, serving as First Lord of the Admiralty, flew as a passenger in a Sopwith Sociable.

Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Feb. 20, 1914, one year before opening day. San Francisco.

Legal, Alberta, was founded.

Wednesday, February 18, 1914. Insuring Villa and The Tennessee Walz.

Pancho Villa insured his life for $500,000 as a favor of his wife.  That was a huge sum at the time.

Pee Wee King, co-writer of the classic Tennessee Waltz, was born.

King died in 2000 at the age of 86.

February 5, 1914. Arming Villa.

What could possibly go wrong?

Interesting effort at prohibiting divorce after remarriage as well.  In an era when shacking up was generally illegal, that would have had real implications.

Seems harsh to most, I suppose (although I'm not sure that I don't agree with the proposal, which of course went nowhere, and would go nowhere now).

Prince Abdullah I bin al-Hussein, son of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, met with Herbert Kitchener, British Governor General of Egypt and the Sudan, in Cairo.  While the Great War had not yet arrived, the topic was potential British support against the Turks in response to their moves against Hejaz, which was independent at the time, but which was unfortunately absorbed by Saudi Arabia after World War One.

The British were no committal, but communications were kept open.

Alistair MacKay and three other members of the shipwrecked Canadian Arctic Expedition left their camp with a full stocked sled of supplies in an effort to find land.  They were spotted three days later by Karluk ship steward Ernest Chafe and the Inuit members of the party who were on a return mission from Herald Island.  They had been checking on a four-man scouting team. Thereafter, they were never seen alive again.

Saturday, January 10, 1914. Villa takes Ojinaga.

After delaying his assault, as we reported on a couple of days ago, Villa led his troops into Ojinaga and captured it.  Half of the 4,000 men defending Federal force retreated into the United States.

The victory secured northern Mexico on the hands of the Villistas.

A military court in Strasbourg acquitted Colonel Adolf von Reuter and Second Lieutenant Schadt for illegally appropriating the civilian police to counter a demonstration.

Wednesday, January 6, 1914. Using the camera.

Villa in Ojinaga, a publicity still taken by Mutual Film Corporation photographer John Davidson Wheelan, January 1914.

Pancho Villa delayed an attack on Federal troops at Ojinaga until an American film crew was able to reach his lines.

The film footage would end up in The Life of General Villa, a lost film (sadly) produced by D. W. Griffith and directed by Raoul Walsh.