Pancho Villa

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:

Pancho Villa and the April 1914 U.S. Invasion of Veracruz

Shortly after the untimely death of William Benton in November 1913, Pancho Villa seized a mine in Durango, known as El Desengaño.   It was just one of many expropriations made by Villa to support his growing army in the field.   Land reform, was, after all, the principle which unified all of the anti-Huertista forces, and Pancho Villa was, if nothing else, a man of action.    With the demands of raising money to buy arms, Villa was not much of a stickler for legal due process.

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.  

The Benton Case and the April 1914 U.S. Invasion of Veracruz

Pancho Villa’s pal, Rodolpho Fierro, put a bullet in the head of one of Her Majesty’s Subjects, a certain Scotsman named William Benton.   God and his angels must have seen it as just one in a long series of summary executions throughout the sanguine course of the Mexican Revolution, but the British tend to see privation of the life of a Subject as a threat to the hegemony of the empire itself, and are disposed to make a scene, even over such a scoundrel as Benton.

How Lou Carpentier helped win the Battle of Juárez (and didn't even know it)

Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa generally get credit for Francisco Madero’s victory in the battle of Juárez.  It wasn't always so.    They launched the attack against orders, and their irregulars showed remarkable initiative,  tunneling through the walls of houses as they advanced, and raining improvised hand grenades on the surprised federal troops, defeating the federal garrison in three days.

How Guisueppi Garibaldi survived the battle of Juárez

There are a lot of different versions of the first battle of Juárez.   Here is a good overview by Óscar Jáquez Martínez:

The battle of Juárez began very suddenly and without the knowledge of the Federals or Francisco Madero.  Against Madero’s orders a fairly large body of  insurrectos attacked the border city.  The group was led by Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco and was joined by most of the foreign legion.  The insurrectos followed the irrigation ditch leading to Juárez and thus were not detected by General Navarro’s men.  The rebels fell upon the Federals and by the afternoon of May 8 began a general assault on the city.  On the second day the battle was fought almost entirely in the center of the city and by nightfall the rebels held all of Juárez except the bullring, the cuartel, and the church.  On the third day the rebels captured all of Juárez and General Navarro surrendered with five hundred men.  Colonel Garibaldi received Navarro’s sword.   -U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Let's Go With Pancho Villa

Translation is always a delicate topic, and when I first saw Adolfo Arrioja Vizcaino’s biographical work on Ivor Thord-Gray’s service with the Mexican Revolution: “El.Sueco Que Se Fue Con Pancho Villa” – (which literally translates as “(The Swede Who Went With Pancho Villa)”, it struck me as perhaps a little sensational, since most of Ivor Thord-Gray’s service in the Mexican Revolutionary Army was with Carranza, serving under Generals Lucio Blanco and General Álvaro Obregón. 

Pancho Villa and his Swedish Gunner

Adolfo Arrioja Vizcaino wrote in his remarkable book about Ivor Thord-Gray “El Sueco Que Se Fue Con Pancho Villa” (The Swede Who Joined Pancho Villa): “There is a small god-forsaken truck-stop between El Paso and Chihuahua in Mexico called El Sueco - The Swede. The name was given by Pancho Villa, in the same way as he had named other places in Mexico after his comrades in arms” El sueco que se fue con Pancho Villa

Ambrose Beirce, the Battle of Tierra Blanca and The Devil's Dictionary

Ambrose Beirce was a remarkable wit under any account, but the ambiguity of his fate cast a long shadow on history. If we take the most common account, by no means certain, then he was last seen headed in the direction of the Battle of Tierra Blanca, where, if we take Carlos Fuentes conjuring of what might have been, he was an imaginary witness to the actual Ivor Thord-Gray's lucky shot, as he was trying to make the most Pancho Villa's only pair of 77mm canons, as portrayed in the movie "Old Gringo"

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