Venustiano Carranza

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.  

George Weeks on the Death of Emiliano Zapata

A love for Mexico and blind faith in Venustiano Carranza animated the journalism of George Weeks, and so it was that he assumed responsibility as official publicist for the Carranza presidency.

Thord-Gray, Juan Mérigo and the Gray Automobile Affair

Thord-Gray said of Mérigo

“He became a general .. but ended up with a very unsavory reputation.”

This cryptic comment most likely refers to the infamous “gray automobile affair”, as reported here, from the U.S. Congressional record of the sixty-sixth Congress

George F. Weeks and the Calm Before the Storm

Ivor Thord-Gray wrote of American Journalist George.Weeks , along with Timothy Turner, as the men who helped him secure his commission under General Obregon. Thord-Gray said of them: “we became lifelong friends”

For George.Weeks, Mexico was a second chance at life after profound personal tragedy that left him a shattered man: the murder of his son and his son's fiancé in California.  After selling his newspaper, he suffered a nearly fatal battle with tuberculosis and retired to Mexico in his mid 50's. It was in Carranza’s hometown of Cuatro Cienegras that George Weeks was reborn.   Like Tim Turner, George Weeks loved Mexico.  

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