Showing posts with label Victoriano Huerta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Victoriano Huerta. Show all posts

Sunday, February 18, 2024

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, April 9, 2014

Thursday, April 9, 1914. Drama at Tampico.

USS Dolphin.

Things really begin to go down the tubes between Gen. Huerta's Mexico and the United States when Federal authorities arrested 8 U.S. sailors from the USS Dolphin, assuming for some reason that they were Constitutionalist.

The sailors were released, but U.S. Rear Admiral Henry T. Mayo demanded a 21-gun salute and formal apology from the Mexican government. Huerta gave a written apology instead but refused to have his forces raise the U.S. flag on Mexican soil to provide a 21-gun salute, for which he really can't be blamed.

US cries for intervention in Mexico, immediately followed.

On the same day, Captain Gustavo Salinas Camiña, flying for the Constitutionalists, piloted a Glenn L. Martin biplane loaded with explosives in an attack on Mexican Federal gunboats Guerrero and Morelos, which were blocking Tampico's harbor. Neither plane nor ships were hit.  It was the first aerial attack on ships.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, April 7, 1914. Last spike on the Grand Trunk Pacific

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Friday, February 27, 1914. The River of Doubt.

Mexican strongman Victoriano Huerta promised an investigation into the death of Clemente Vergara while, at the same time, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan announced that the Texas Rangers would not be allowed to cross into Mexico to arrest the suspect Mexican soldiers.

Theodore Roosevelt's and Brazilian explorer Cândido Rondon's expedition team reached Caceres, Brazil, to begin exploration of the Rio da Dúvida, an event from which Roosevelt's health would never recover by the time it was done.

The Vanderbilt Cup race was held.


Locally, the news was asbestos, but not the way it hits the news currently.