Victoriano Huerta

The unofficial nature of John Lind's unofficial mission

John Lind arrived in Mexico as an unofficial ambassador to an unrecognized regime with a letter of introduction from President Woodrow Wilson, addressed “To whom it may Concern”.  Not withstanding, Victoriano Huerta extended every courtesy to Lind, while politely overlooking Lind’s principle objective of inducing him to step down.  Thus, Lind’s official mission was somewhat of a non-starter.   It is more difficult to judge the success of Lind’s unofficial mission of navigating American interests through the rough waters of the Mexican revolution.

Pancho Villa finds himself on the receiving end of weapons left by U.S. troops

The U.S. intervention at Veracruz was only partially successful in cutting off the arms supply to Victoriano Huerta’s federal army, but had a big impact in denying Huerta the revenues from the Veracruz customs house.

By mid-summer of 1914, Huerta decided there was nothing left for him except to save his skin.  After a heart-felt final address to his cronies in Congress where he declared that he had always had the best intentions for the fatherland, he fled Mexico.  The subsequent collapse of the federal army left 4 powers in Mexico: the armies of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata in the north and south respectively, Victoriano Carranza’s Constitutionalist forces commanded by Alvaro Obregon holding the west coast and the center from Guadalajara to Mexico City, and the Americans, ensconced in Veracruz.   When the Americans pulled out in November 1914, there remained 3 scorpions in the bottle.

Nationalist Reaction to April 1914 U.S. Invasion of Veracruz

Carranza shocked Woodrow Wilson with his statement that his Constitutionalists would join forces with Huerta to oppose the Americans, should they extend their occupation out of Veracruz.  

Pancho Villa, on the other hand, told Wilson's agent, George Carruthers

"...all Europe would laugh at us if we went to war with you.  They would say 'that lillte drunken Huerta has drawn them into a tangle at last".   ... Honest, I hope the Americans bottle up Veracruz so tight they can't even get water into it." —The Landing at Veracruz

To Pancho Villa, Lucio Blanco and Alvaro Obregon go the credit for avoiding the terrible catastrophe which would have inevitably occurred if the revolutionaries had joined with Huerta in a war against the United States. This astute analysis of Ivor Thord-Gray in “Gringo Rebel” reveals an aspect of the April 1914 US invasion of Veracruz which has been generally overlooked. Not all the revolutionary leaders were so cool headed, and many fell victim to a nationalistic fever where their hated for the gringo invaders obscured the danger of allowing Victoriano Huerta to consolidate his power.

The opportunity was not lost on Huerta, who in his “sick, alcohol bathed brain”, played it for all it was worth. Zimmerman’s German spy network sprung into action, inciting an already inflamed Mexican nationalism to ravanche for war of 1846.  The situation was confused:

What Wilson knew before the April 1914 U.S. Invasion of Veracruz

Contemporary historians still incorrectly refer to the cargo of the SS Ypiranga destined for Victoriano Huerta’s regime as German arms, so perhaps we might wonder what the senior members of the Wilson administration actually knew at the time.   After all, J.P. Morgan’s control of the Hamburg-American Packet Line, owner of the Ypiranga, was carefully obscured for decades.  The actual nature of the cargo, though, was apparently not a complete secret, as is evidenced by this letter to the editor of the New York Times from South Dakota Representative Charles H. Burke, published 14 months after the U.S. invasion of Veracruz:

Woodrow Wilson on the April 1914 U.S. Invasion of Veracruz

The American public was brought into the plans of policy makers to invade Mexico in a typically round-about way: the offended dignity of America demanded a martial response.

“I therefore come to ask your approval that I should use the armed forces of the United States in such ways, and to such an extent, as may be necessary to obtain from Gen. Huerta and his adherents the fullest recognition of the rights and dignity of the United States”       —Woodrow Wilson, April 20, 1914, message to Congress

Unexpected resistance to the April 1914 U.S. Invasion of Veracruz

Protecting American interests in strategic materials such as oil, rubber, copper and zinc, was, according to the reasonable account of John Mason Hart, the Wilson administration's reasoning for invasion of Veracurz.   The administration sought to bring about a beneficial stability through a policy of regime change.  

However, it wasn't the regime of Victoriano Huerta, targeted for change, that was actual problem for the American holders of Mexican properties, but rather, the expropriations of Pancho Villa.  Texas and Wall Street interests were growing worried as Villa's influence grew in the vicinity of Tampico.    The objective of the Wilson policy was not so much the overthrow of Huerta, but to insure that Venustiano Carranza came out on top.  

April 1914 U.S. Invasion of Veracruz: a cast of characters

The cast of characters engaged in and around the events leading up to the US invasion of Veracruz in April 1914 were:
 

Petroleum interests around Tampico at the time were controlled by Americans, but around Veracruz, it was British, with Weetman D. Pearson, aka Lord Cowdray, representing the British consortium. Pearson  enjoyed the ferocious support Sir Lionel Cardon of the British Consulate in Mexico City, who had represented British interests in Mexico for decades.  Pearson's secretary was J.B. Body and Cardon's secretary was Thomas Hohler.   Cardon will figure big in our story.

WMD's and the April 1914 U.S. Invasion of Veracruz

The US invaded Veracruz, Mexico in April 1914, and interestingly enough, one might still wonder why: nearly a century has passed, and the actual objectives of the war are still rather obscure. The cover story that ran at the time was of a valiant effort to stop weapons of mass destruction (machine guns) from falling into the hand of a dictator. 

Ironically, the reactionary US ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, a holdout from the Taft administration, had given the diplomatic green light for General Huerta to climb over the dead bodies of President Francisco Madero and Vice President Jóse Mária Pino Suarez, to assume the presidency that the Wilson administration sought to bring down.

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