United States involvement in the Mexican Revolution
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The U.S. relationship with Mexico has often been turbulent. For both economic and political reasons, the U.S. government generally supported those who occupied the seats of power, whether they held that power legitimately or not. (President Wilson did condemn Victoriano Huerta's murders of Francisco Madero and Pino Suarez). Twice during the Revolution, the U.S. sent troops into Mexico.The U.S. has helped the Mexicans achieve independence and supported Juárez in his overthrow of emperor Maximilian, but has also supported dictators like Porfirio Díaz, while its ambassador to Mexico, acting without authority, conspired to assassinate Francisco Madero. The United States has also sent troops to bomb and occupy Veracruz and engaged in cross-border skirmishes with Francisco (Pancho) Villa and others.
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A graphical timeline is available at Timeline of the Mexican Revolution |
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[edit] Diplomatic background
During the Mexican independence movement, the U.S. assisted the Mexican insurgents in achieving independence, using the Monroe Doctrine as the justification. In the reign of dictators such as Iturbide and Santa Anna, the U.S.-Mexico relationship deteriorated. When the liberal president Benito Juárez came to power with an agenda for a democratic Mexican society, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln personally commended him and sent supplies to help Juárez overthrow emperor Maximilian. This support during the United States Civil War ended with the upheaval following Lincoln's assassination. After the death of Juárez, Mexico reverted to a dictatorial government under the rule of Porfirio Díaz.
During the Mexican Revolution there was a great migration from Mexico into Southwestern U.S. as thousands, perhaps as much as 10 percent of the total Mexican population, fled the civil war,[citation needed] many going to Texas. Although there was a mix of social classes, the majority were poor and illiterate. They were seen as much-needed cheap agricultural labor. Some of the Mexican exiles living in the United States were intellectuals, doctors and professionals who wrote about their experience under the Díaz government and also spoke out against Díaz in Spanish-American newspapers. In the belief that Díaz was not fit to rule Mexico, many people smuggled publications into Mexico to show support for the Mexicans back home and to encourage the fight.
At the turn of the 20th Century, United States owners, including major companies, held about 27 percent of Mexican land. By 1910 American industrial investment was 45 percent, pushing Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson to intervene in Mexican affairs.
During the presidency of Porfirio Díaz, documents conveyed from the U.S. Consulate in Mexico kept the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C. informed about the Mexican Revolution. The Secretary of State told President William Howard Taft of the buildup to the Revolution. Initially Taft did not want to intervene but wanted to keep the Díaz government in power to prevent problems with business relations between the two countries, such as the sales of oil between Mexico and the United States.
Letters from the U.S. Consulate were supplemented by official documents of the constantly changing government during the Revolution. The Secretary of State received translations of documents stating that after having overthrown Díaz, Francisco I. Madero had declared himself President of Mexico. Along with this document sent were Madero’s ten platform promises for Mexico.
U.S. ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson helped to plot the February 1913 coup d'état, known as la decena trágica, which overthrew Francisco I. Madero and installed Victoriano Huerta. However, he did this without the approval of U.S. President-elect Woodrow Wilson, who was horrified at the murder of Madero and made it a priority to destabilize the Huerta regime.
[edit] Military campaigns in Mexico
The United States engaged in a number of military campaigns in Mexico or on the United States-Mexico border.
[edit] Veracruz, 1914
When U.S. agents discovered that the German merchant ship Ypiranga was illegally carrying arms to the dictator Huerta, President Wilson ordered troops to the port of Veracruz to stop the ship from docking. The U.S. did not declare war on Mexico, but the U.S. troops carried out a skirmish against Huerta's forces in Veracruz. The Ypiranga managed to dock at another port, which infuriated Wilson.
On April 9, 1914, Mexican officials in the port of Tampico, Tamaulipas, arrested a group of U.S. sailors — including at least one taken from on board his ship, and thus from U.S. territory. After Mexico failed to apologize in the terms that the U.S. had demanded, the U.S. navy bombarded the port of Veracruz and occupied Veracruz for seven months; see Tampico Affair. Woodrow Wilson's actual motivation was a desire to overthrow Huerta; the Tampico Affair did succeed in further destabilizing his regime and encouraging the rebels. The ABC Powers arbitrated, and U.S. troops left Mexican soil, but the incident added to already tense U.S.-Mexico relations.
[edit] Mexico 1916-1917
An increasing number of border incidents early in 1916 culminated in an invasion of American territory on 8 March 1916, when Francisco (Pancho) Villa and his band of 500 to 1,000 men raided Columbus, New Mexico, burning army barracks and robbing stores. In the United States, Villa came to represent mindless violence and banditry. Elements of the 13th Cavalry regiment repulsed the attack, but 14 soldiers and ten civilians were killed. Brig.-Gen. John J. Pershing immediately organized a punitive expedition of about 10,000 soldiers to try to capture Villa. They spent 11 months (March 1916 – February 1917) unsuccessfully chasing him, though they did manage to destabilize his forces. A few of Villa's top commanders were also captured or killed during the expedition.
The 7th, 10th, 11th, and 13th Cavalry regiments, 6th and U.S. 16th Infantry Regiments, part of the U.S. 6th Field Artillery, and supporting elements crossed the border into Mexico in mid-March, followed later by the 5th Cavalry, 17th and 24th Infantry Regiment (United States), and engineer and other units. Pershing was subject to orders which required him to respect the sovereignty of Mexico, and was further hindered by the fact that the Mexican Government and people resented the invasion. Advance elements of the expedition penetrated as far as Parral, some 400 miles south of the border, but Villa was never captured.
The campaign consisted primarily of dozens of minor skirmishes with small bands of insurgents. There were even clashes with Mexican Army units; the most serious was on 21 June 1916 at the Battle of Carrizal, where a detachment of the 10th Cavalry was nearly destroyed. War would probably have been declared but for the critical situation in Europe. Even so, virtually the entire regular army was involved, and most of the National Guard had been federalized and concentrated on the border before the end of the affair. Normal relations with Mexico were restored eventually by diplomatic negotiation, and the troops were withdrawn from Mexico in February 1917.
[edit] 1917-1919
Minor clashes with Mexican irregulars, as well as Mexican Federales, continued to disturb the U.S.-Mexican border from 1917 to 1919. Although the Zimmermann Telegram affair of January 1917 did not lead to a direct U.S. intervention, it took place against the backdrop of the Constitutional Convention and exacerbated tensions between the USA and Mexico. Military engagements took place near Buena Vista, Mexico on 1 December 1917; in San Bernardino Canyon, Mexico on 26 December 1917; near La Grulla, Texas on 9 January 1918; at Pilares, Mexico about 28 March 1918; at Nogales, Arizona on 27 August 1918; and near El Paso, Texas on 16 June 1919.
[edit] U.S. military decorations
The U.S. military awarded its troops for service in various Mexican campaigns. The streamer is yellow with a blue center stripe and a narrow green stripe on each edge. The green and yellow recalls the Aztec standard carried at the Battle of Otumba in 1520, which carried a gold sun surrounded by the green plumes of the quetzal. The blue color alludes to the United States Army and refers to the Rio Grande River separating Mexico from the United States.
[edit] American, Canadian and other foreign mercenaries in Mexico
Many adventurers (e.g. Sarah "Wildwoman" Horn), ideologues and freebooters from outside Mexico were attracted by the purported excitement and romance, not to mention possible booty, of the Mexican Revolution. Most mercenaries served in armies operating in the north of Mexico, partly because those areas were the closest to popular entry points to Mexico from the U.S., and partly because Pancho Villa had no compunction about hiring mercenaries. The first legion of foreign mercenaries, during the 1910 Madero revolt, was the Falange de los Extranjeros (Foreign Phalanx), which included Giuseppe ("Peppino") Garibaldi, grandson of the famed Italian unifier, as well as many American recruits.
Later, during the revolt against the coup d'état of Victoriano Huerta, many of the same foreigners and others were recruited and enlisted by Pancho Villa and his División del Norte. Villa recruited Americans, Canadians and other foreigners of all ranks from simple infantrymen on up, but the most highly prized and best paid were machine gun experts such as Sam Dreben, artillery experts such as Ivor Thord-Gray, and doctors for Villa's celebrated Servicio sanitario medic and mobile hospital corps. There is little doubt that Villa's Mexican equivalent of the French Foreign Legion (known as the "Legion of Honor") was an important factor in Villa's successes against Huerta's Federal Army.
