Revolutions - 9.14- The Ten Tragic Days

Episode Date: November 19, 2018

Actually it was more like 13, but who's counting. 

Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. Episode 9.14, The 10 Tragic Days. So we left off last time at the end of October 1912, just as Francisco Madero was celebrating his first anniversary as president of Mexico. That year had been defined by a steady stream of challenges to his fledgling administration, from Bernardo Reyes to Pasquo Rosco to Felix Diaz to Emiliano Zapata and everyone in between, conservative or radical, out in the open or hidden behind secret conspiracies. Everyone seemed to believe that with just a little push, Madero could be toppled. Yet, Madero still stood.

For his unpopular, as his enemy said he was, it had proven nigh impossible to raise a popular revolt against him. Not that people were tripping over themselves to say, oh, Madero is the greatest leader in history. He left a lot to be desired, and the promise of the plan of San Luis had yet to be truly fulfilled. So it was not so much, oh, look at all the good work he's done. So much as, well, look at all the good work he'll probably do, if given a chance. And certainly, this is better than the bad old days of the Porfirio, with its corrupt state government and the petty tyranny of the Hephaes politicos. So 1912 closed out on a high note for the Mataristas. Despite all those rebellions, most of Mexico was mostly stable most of the time.

The army had pretty much stayed loyal. The state governments were in the hands of either Matarista allies or men willing to resign themselves to Matarista administration. Business and industry that had been crippled first by the lingering recession after the crash of 1907 and then the big nationwide upheavals of 1910 and 1911 was bouncing back. Preliminary land surveys and assessments of who should rightly own what property had commenced. These efforts were predictably too radical for the conservatives and too conservative for the radicals, but it wasn't nothing. And then on one tiny front, Madero was quite pleased by the end of the year.

In the United States presidential election of November 1912, the Republicans had split their votes between President Taft and Theodore Roosevelt. This allowed Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats to capture the presidency. Madero not only hoped for a slightly more sympathetic administration in the White House, but the loss of Taft meant that the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson, would soon be recalled. Now, President-elect Woodrow Wilson, would not take office until March of 1913, but come that spring, Madero could look forward to dealing with an ambassador who was not quite so nakedly opposed to his administration. But Madero did not make it to the spring of 1913, and United States Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson was a big reason why. A Henry Lane Wilson had been at his post since March of 1910 after previous diplomatic stints in Chile and Belgium.

He had been an open admirer of Porfirio Dias and the wonderful things Dias had done for Mexico. Certainly, Wilson had no problem with the wise and benevolent steps President Dias had taken to ensure that the ignorant anarchist rabble did not ever seize control of the country. So Wilson watched with light-hearted scoffing at the attempt by this mystical lunatic Madero to unseat Don Porfirio in the, election of 1910, and then when the Matarista Revolution got going, Wilson regularly reported back to his bosses that this rebellion would be quashed any day now, and then any day now after that, and then any day now after that. The defeat, resignation, and departure of Porfirio Dias in May of 1911 was shocking to Wilson. It was as shocking to him as it was to Dias himself. Now, to be fair to the good ambassador, once Madero did take office, he struck a conciliatory and

optimistic note. He was genuinely pleased that Madero seemed to be keeping intact much of the Porfurian apparatus and not undertaking a thoroughgoing purge of the government. But this did not last long. Soon, Ambassador Wilson's reports back to Washington, D.C. were filled with exaggerated criticisms, the wildest of rumors, and personal attacks on now President Madero. The primary note Wilson kept pounding on was that Madero was so wildly unpopular that Mexico would never be stable as long as he was president. And he would later write of Madero, even after all was said and done, that Madero was a man of, quote, disordered intellect,

who, quote, developed all the characteristics of that dangerous form of lunacy, which the best example in ancient times is a Nero, unquote. It's a little harsh. Now, Wilson's hostile attitude towards Madero had been out in the open for a while. After Pasquelle Orozco went into rebellion in March of 1912, Wilson sent back breathless reports that the whole country was being consumed by civil war, and Madero was on the brink of being overthrown. And then when Orozco was defeated, Wilson painted Felix Dias' revolt in Veracruz as a near-feta-complete, and that Medeara would be resigning any day now.

But then no one followed Felix Dias, and Don Porfirio's nephew was thrown into prison. But Wilson did not give up. In late 1912, President Madero's agents uncovered a plot to free the recently incarcerated Felix from his jail cell in Veracruz. When the plot was uncovered, Madero's enemies fed stories to friendly newspapers that the whole conspiracy was actually made up by the Mataristas, that they were going to use a fictitious jailbreak plot as a cover to treacherously execute Dias, which, I mean, talk about ironic, but we'll get into all of that. Now this version of the story was then picked up by the U.S. Consul and Vera Cruz, who fed it back to the State Department, who then instructed a more than eager Ambassador Wilson to go have a chat with Madero and say that the United States would not be happy if Madero engaged in such a concocted and underhanded murder plot.

Now, we don't have Madero's exact reply to this, but he was incensed at the ambassador's condescension that he was being lectured about not doing something that he was never actually going to do. then Madero went back to counting the days until Wilson was removed. But there was a critical little consequence to this incident. Madero decided to move Dias from Veracruz to Mexico City so that they could keep a closer eye on him. Now despite what Ambassador Wilson and the newspaper said, the plot to free Felix Dias from jail was very real. And when the general was moved to Mexico City, the plotting took on a newer and larger dimension. because also still in prison in Mexico City was old Bernardo Reyes, who had been stewing in captivity for a full year since his own attempt at revolt had failed back in December of 1911. Both Reyes and Dias had seen their attempts at popular counter-revolution fail spectacularly, but they were still as hungry as ever to topple Madero.

Maybe if they combined their efforts, they could succeed in their shared goal. They may not have had many popular supporters on the outside, but they had many popular supporters on the outside, but they had much. more than a few powerful supporters on the inside. And the most important of these friends was General Manuel Mondragon. Mondragon was a rock-ribed Porphyrian and now a staunch partisan of Felix Diaz. Mondragon was especially eager to get something going because he was suspected of corruption, self-dealing, and outright theft of government money and was probably on his way to jail himself. Mondragon put himself at the center of a conspiracy to combine the counter-revel into a single group capable of executing a lightning coup, since obviously rallying the people

to support them had been an obvious bust. Dias and Reyes were in different prisons, but it was fairly easy to undertake multilateral plotting if the central conspirators just so happened to be rich, high-ranking generals. Now, one guy that the conspirators were not able to get on board, though, was General Victoriano Huerta. Huerta was back in the capital glowing. from the success of his suppression of the Erosco rebellion up in the north. But even though he hated Madero, and Madero did not really approve of Huerta, Werta declined to join the coup. The prime theory being that he now thought highly enough of himself that he was not interested in playing a supporting role for either Reyes or Dias. And then also, I mean, every other revolt has failed,

what are the chances yours is going to succeed? So for the moment, General Huerta was out. Within a short time, though, the skeleton of a fairly simple plan had been drawn up. Mondragon figured he could rely on about a thousand mutinous cadets and junior officers in Mexico City, most of whom came from the conservative elite families of the old Porfriado and who were eager to restore Mexico's honor. Some of them would spring Reyes and Dias from jail, while another contingent would go to capture the National Palace, which was the seat of the executive branch in Mexico City, though not the president's primary residence. Once the National Palace was secure, they would all convene there and make it a headquarters for the coup. Reyes would address the nation, self-declare himself provisional president, and demand that the usurper Madero resigned from office.

The whole thing shouldn't take more than a couple hours. If they struck fast enough and hard enough, the shock alone would force Madero to resign. The administration was not caught entirely flat-footed, though. Rumors and some circumstantial evidence started to bubble up to the surface. and the various comings and goings around the imprisoned Reyes and Diaz were being monitored. It was enough that Gustavo Madero, still his brother's right-hand man, canceled a planned goodwill trip to Japan to promote the New Mexico. Not New Mexico, but the New Mexico.

Suspecting some units in the city had been primed for mutiny, those units were transferred out of the city. But even though the authorities were on to them, perhaps because the authorities were on to them, Reyes and Dias and Mondragon decided that the coup should go ahead on schedule, and the schedule said that on the morning of February 9th, 1913, the old order would be restored. On that fateful morning, everything started out according to the plan. A company of mutineers arrived at the National Palace at dawn. They disarmed the guards and captured the building.

Meanwhile, General Mondragon led a second force to spring the leaders of the plot from jail. They found Bernardo Reyes awake, dressed, and ready to go meet what he had always felt was his destiny. Felix Diaz, on the other hand, was caught in the middle of his morning shave, and he had to finish up, with a bunch of nervous now rebels getting antsy waiting for him. The weight wasn't that big of a deal, though, because by that point, the plan was already in shambles, even though none of them knew it. When that little group had taken the National Palace before dawn, it had just so happened that A certain General VR, an old-experienced veteran who had chosen to support the Madero government,

was walking to his offices. He saw some cadets dragging a large machine gun towards the National Palace and said to himself, ugh, that doesn't look right. He quickly rang the alarm and mustered some loyal troops, and with the help of Gustavo Madero, they all rushed down to the National Palace, surprised the young mutineers, and retook the building. Then General VR ordered the building fortified. machine guns in the windows, riflemen on the roof. So when Reyes, Dias, and Mondragon, led the rest of the men towards the palace at about 7.30

in the morning, they thought they were about to be welcomed with open arms, but boy, was it ever not open arms that were waiting for them. Now, in classic old history of Rome style, I have two accounts of what happened next. The first is that they sent in one of their fellow conspirators to go in through a side door and make sure the coast was clear. and when that guy did not come running back bearing any bad news, they assumed it was all good. So in this version, when Reyes goes trotting up to the front door, he is going to be shocked by the order to halt. The other version is that they were in fact alerted in advance that the National Palace was not secure. But Reyes and General V.R. were old friends and comrades, and Reyes decided there was no way V.R. would side with Madero over him. So in this version, when Reyes gets the order to halt, he's like, yeah,

but you're not really going to open fire on me. Whichever version is true, Reyes proceeded to mount a horse and lead a small column of men towards the front door of the National Palace. He has described as trotting up there as if he was on parade. He ignored an order to halt. Maybe he was confused, maybe he was overconfident, but he did not stop trotting. Then General VR gave the order to fire, and Reyes' little column was blasted by machine gun and rifle fire. Reyes himself was blown off his horse. His body was among the first to crash on the street. A heavy firefight ensued over the next few minutes, with the exposed column cut down almost to a man,

and their comrades further back taking cover and returning fire as best they could. Under a sustained and surprising attack, Dias and Mondragon ordered their men, boys really, to retreat back to the Ciodadella, the fortified citadel about a mile and a half away. They left behind them 200 dead comrades plus another 200 dead civilians who just so happened to be there and were caught up in the crossfire. Among those dead was, of course, Bernardo Reyes. It's a rather ignoble end for a man who for close to 20 years had believed, as so many others had as well, that he was destined to become president of Mexico. Reyes likely believed that he was on his destined path right up until the very second his body was ripped apart by bullets. History has a sense of humor, though, and Reyes, whose career has always been defined by backing down under pressure, died in the middle of a very out-of-character, reckless charge forward.

So, uh, Sionara, Bernardo Reyes. So now we have bodies on the ground, blood in the streets, the cries of the wounded or mingling with the smoke and the smell of gunpowder. All of it marked the beginning of what is called by history. The 10 tragic days. Madero was at the presidential residence when he got word that an uprising had broken out at about 11 a.m. He immediately mounted his horse and rode into the city with only a light escort. And you can say what you want about the guy, but he was not a coward. When he hit the central city, cheering crowds flocked to him and declared their support.

So even at this ultimately late hour, it's not like Madero is playing the part of one of those hated French kings that the Parisian mobs always seem so eager to decapitate. With sporadic, but active fighting still ongoing, he and his party were forced to take cover in a photography studio near the soon-to-be-completed national theater. It was at this point that they were joined by old General Werta, who appeared out of nowhere. He presented himself to Madero and offered his services should the need arise. Now, it remains a point of contention between historical partisans, whether Werta was already at this point a co-conspirator, or whether his appearance was a mere coincidence. But when Madero found out that General V.R. had been wounded

in the initial firefight, basically his collarbone had been turned into mincemeat and was no longer able to direct a counter-attack. Madero turned to Werta to lead the army in the capital. While Werta went to take command of the forces at the National Palace, Madero scrambled to bring in reinforcements. He ordered a certain General Blancet to bring 1,500 men to the capital from their garrison, which was only about 40 miles away. But it would take Blancet a week to get his men loaded and moving, because though we argue about what Wirtis' position in all of this was, Blancet was totally in cahoots with the conspirators. After sending this order, Madero then hopped on a train and personally went up to Kornavaka to confer with General Anhalis,

who we met last week. Anhalese remained loyal to Madero, and the next day he led either 1,000 or 2,000 men to the capital, depending on which book you happen to be reading. The general historical assumption is that Madero planned to replace Huerta with Anhalis, but this plan was stymied because Anhalis's recent promotion to general had not yet been confirmed by the Congress, and so he was still massively outranked by Huerta. So protocol took precedence even in this dire emergency, and so Huerta, remained in charge in the Capitol.

The whole next day, day two of the ten tragic days, passed without much action. In the end, the conspirators had managed to gather about 1,500 men to their banner, and they were all holed up together at that citadel, the armory. Huerta made no concerted attempt to dislodge them, and they made no attempt to break out. But the next day, February the 11th, the two sides commenced an artillery duel between batteries at the National Palace and at the citadel, which, as I said, were about a mile and a half away from each other. And as with much of the ten tragic days, this duel is the subject of much controversy and debate. Shells started raining down all over the place, blowing up and

killing lots of random civilians. This is in fact one of the core tragedies of the ten tragic days. But it sure seemed like shells were raining down everywhere except their intended targets. And the controversy is, of course, over how much of this artillery duel was a complete sham. Huerta and Dias had more in common personally and politically than either of them had with Madero, that's for sure. And given what's about to happen, the idea that they were already, at least in tacit cahoots, is very plausible. So there remains a strong belief out there that they were intentionally shelling the civilian population rather than each other to create a level of untenable chaotic bloodshed that they could then use to force Madero to resign. ready and willing to help pin all the bloodshed on Madero was U.S. Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson.

Wilson concluded as soon as the bullets started flying that this was all further proof that Madero could not stabilize Mexico. The only way to restore order and end further bloodshed was for Madero to resign. So, rather than report back to his superiors in Washington, D.C., that a small barracks revolt had broken out against a legitimate democratic government that was recognized as, legitimate by the United States, Wilson said, we're all going down in flames here, thanks to Madero being a selfish, incompetent lunatic. Wilson insisted that U.S. policy must be using all of their power and leverage to force Madero to resign. Wilson was not alone in his assessment, though. He conferred with his fellow ambassadors representing the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain, and they too tended to agree that Madero was to blame for all this. Wilson did not bother conferring

with anyone else, though, because what's the point? The British, Germans, and Spanish are the only powers that really matter. So, he ignored the fact that other European powers, like Austria, thought, hey, maybe this isn't Madero's fault. He also ignored the fact that every ambassador from a Latin American country uniformly concluded that this is definitely not Madero's fault. Ignoring all of that, Wilson called the ambassadors of the UK, Germany, and Spain for a meeting at his residence on the night of February the 15th. According to the Spanish ambassador, during this meeting, Wilson, quote, told them for the hundredth time that Madera was crazy, a fool, a lunatic, who could and should be declared incompetent to sit in the presidential office.

Though the others were a bit queasy about the boundaries they might be overstepping by getting directly involved in what was clearly a domestic conflict, the four ambassadors ultimately agreed that the Spanish ambassador should go tell Madero he ought to resign. They couched this in patriotic terms, saying, your people are dying and only your resignation can save them. Madero was outraged at the very suggestion. His attitude was basically, I'm the president, democratically elected, and you as a foreign ambassador have no right to tell me what to do. So get out of my office. And it's not like the whole country was rising up. hell not even Mexico City was rising up. There were no barricades, no angry mobs parading through

the streets. This was a little over a thousand mutineers, who in due course would be defeated and convicted of treason. It was nothing more than that. The plan to pressure Medero into resigning by saddling him with responsibility for the dead was going nowhere. So to get the job done, it was going to take something more direct. And the Cuban ambassador is quoted as saying, and this is a Quote, the revolution was no longer in the Sierraella, but in the spirit of Mr. Wilson. Madero did not have to fear Felix Diaz, but the representative of President Taft. And while this may be true, the representative of President Taft was not the only one Madero had to fear, because he definitely also had to fear General Victoriano Huerta.

On Sunday, February the 16th, Werta and Diaz agreed to an armistice so that everyone could bury their dead. Hundreds, if not thousands, had died so far in the week of fighting and shelling, far more civilians than belligerents. The city had been totally paralyzed. Food was running low, and everyone was basically living under siege conditions. It had been a long, long time since Mexico City had seen violence like this. They had been the safe and comfortable center of the Porfiriado. Even the revolution had played out in the newspapers, not out in the streets. During the lull in the fighting, though, both sides did.

in fact clear up their dead, but also the two quote-unquote opponents, Werta and Dias, got going with final plans to end the conflict, not by one defeating the other, but by teaming up to defeat Madero together. Now people still debate the particulars of Werta's timeline of treason, but the armistice of February 16th is the last day you can credibly claim he was not actively working with Dias to overthrow Madero. As the sun set on February 3,000, The 16th, Werta sent a communicate to Wilson, alerting the ambassador of his intention to resolve the situation. And as Wilson then reported to his superiors, Werta has sent his messenger to say, I may expect some action which will remove Madero from power at any moment, and that plans are

fully matured. On February the 18th, 1911, Victoriana staged a coup. He first invited Gustavo Madero to an early lunch at a restaurant, excused himself to go. take a phone call, whereupon soldiers loyal to Werta rushed into the room and took Gustavo prisoner. Meanwhile, over the National Palace, soldiers swarmed the building at about 2 p.m. and took all the key government officials prisoner, including the entire cabinet. Madero himself and Vice President Pino Suarez were captured after the men guarding them were shot dead. Then the president, vice president, and the cabinet were held in close custody in the National Palace, unsure of what was happening and who was ultimately giving the orders. Gustavo was not so lucky. The details of his

fate come to us third hand by way of the Cuban ambassador, but Gustavo was taken to the citadel and handed over to a company of soldiers who hated the Madero's guts. These guys got a hold of Gustavo, they beat him, tortured him, shot him dead at point-blank range, and then emptied their clips into the body. His body, by the way, was never recovered. It was either dumped in a unmarked grave or incinerated in a fireplace. Now, Henry Lane Wilson did not know the details of the plan in advance, but he knew when it was going to happen and had given his approval. He knew when it was going to happen because though the coup did not actually take place until about two in the afternoon, the ambassador

had already cabled home at noon that the Madero government had fallen. And he now stepped more forthrightly into the picture. Wilson, first of all, agreed to act as Huerta's liaison with the rest of the diplomatic corps to get them to accept the change in government. Then when Huerta and Diaz started arguing over who exactly was in charge of the new government, Wilson invited the two men to the United States Embassy at about 9 o'clock that night to work through their differences. Huerta was asserting his claim to executive authority because he had actually carried out the coup. While Diaz protested and said, hey, wait a minute, I'm the one who went into revolt in the first place. But Werta said, well, without me, you'd be dead by now.

so I should be president. An almost all-night session produced what has been dubbed the infamous pact of the embassy. In this pact, Huerta would indeed become president of Mexico, for the moment. New elections would then be called by the end of the year, and in those elections, Huerta agreed to support Dias' candidacy for president. As a consolation prize for being denied immediate power, the members of the interim cabinet would be largely selected by Dias. This pact of the embassy concluded, Wilson emerged from his offices positively brimming with pride at what a good job he had done.

Now, all that was left to do was dispose of the old government that he had just helped overthrow. The next day, Francisco Madero did what he swore he would not do. He signed a letter of resignation. So did Pino Suarez as vice president and almost the entire rest of the cabinet. They signed these resignations at gunpoint, though for Madero at least, this was more about saving his family than himself. He had already deduced that Gustavo was dead and that he would likely not make it out of this alive. But his wife and mother and children were all there in Mexico City too. So before signing, he managed to secure a promise of safe passage out of Mexico for himself and for Pino Suarez and their families under a diplomatic escort.

And in theory, these resignation letters were supposed to be held in trust by friendly Cuban and Chilean ambassadors until the exiles were safely away. But instead, they were taken straight to Huerta, who took them straight to the Congress for ratification. And they were immediately ratified. Legally, the government had not been deposed. It had resigned, voluntarily, at gunpoint. But not everyone was forced to resign. At the embassy meeting, Wilson, Dias, and Huerta had worked out the constitutional niceties of this very unconstitutional regime change. So unlike everyone else, the foreign minister would not be asked to resign.

Then, when Madero and Pino Suarez did resign, the order of succession would make the foreign minister president. So on February 20th, that guy was sworn into office. He immediately named Huerta, his minister of the interior, and then he signed his life. letter of resignation. By order of succession, Werta now legally ascended to the presidency, and General Victoriano Werta was now president of Mexico. So with the government now legally overthrown, the question became, what do we do with Madera? And to a much lesser extent, his vice president, Pino Suarez. At the pact of the embassy meeting, Ambassador Wilson had been very insistent that Huerta and Diaz let the cabinet go free unharmed.

That was a sticking point for the United States. He insisted on no such thing for Francisco Madero. So then, Werta straight up asked him, well, what should I do with Madero? Should I exile him or toss him in an asylum? And this is when suddenly Wilson was like, oh, geez, it's not really my place to say. That's really none of my business as an ambassador. All Wilson said to Huerta about Madero was, you do what, you do what, you think is best to secure peace in the country.

So Werta said, okay, exile it is then. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more. Now, to get to wink, wink, nudge, say no more. Some charades had to play out. Werta announced the newly prescribed exiles would be taken by train from Mexico City to Veracruz and from there put on a boat to Havana. Yes, that's right.

The boat to Havana is making a reappearance in the shell. but Madero and Pino Suarez are not going to get on a boat to Havana. On February the 21st, at the appointed hour, their families and the ambassadors from Cuba and Chile went to the train station to await their arrival, but the two men never appeared. Then they were told that Huerta had gotten intelligence, that a likely jailbreak would be attempted in Veracruz, so the transfer to the coast would have to wait. There is some suspicion out there that they were actually supposed to be executed en route to Veracruz cruise, but the unshakable presence of the two ambassadors were square to call the trip off.

By now, the families of the two men were begging Ambassador Wilson to give the men asylum in the U.S. embassy, but Wilson never answered. Wilson's very hands-off approach to the fate of Madera was taken by everyone now and then as tacit approval for their murder. And you know what? It was. At about 11 p.m. on the night of February the 21st, Francis, Madero and Jose Maria Pino-Swarres were picked up in two cars from the National Palace and driven to the nearby federal penitentiary. We know this because newspaper reporters were camped out in front expecting them to be moved. The small-armed motorcade, led by Major Francisco Cardenas, sped off, forcing the newspaper men to race after them on foot. But the motorcade did not go through the front gate of the prison.

Instead, it pulled up to a secluded side door. With reporters in earshot, but not eye shot, gunfire rang out, then more gunfire. When the reporters arrived on the scene, they found Madero and Pino Suarez dead on the ground. Their bodies riddled with bullets. The cars they had come in were riddled with bullets. Major Cardinus told them some mataristas had just botched a rescue attempt, that the ex-president and ex-vice president had been, oh so sadly, caught in the crossfire. See, look at all the bullets in the cars.

Now, this was a story designed to be a story. Not a story designed to be believed. What really happened was that Madero and Pino Suarez were driven to a side door. They were ordered out of the car. They were shot in the back. And then their bodies in the cars they had come in were riddled with more bullets to make it look like a firefight. Francisco Madero was 39 years old. He had done the impossible.

He had overthrown the Perfariado. He had introduced democracy to Mexico. He had been president of Mexico for just about 15 months. And for his trouble, he was now dead. No one believed that Madero and Pino Suarez had not been executed in cold blood. Even Henry Lane Wilson was not that naive. But even so, he cabled back to Washington a report that concluded, quote, I am disposed to accept the government's version of the affair and consider it a closed incident.

And so, a cover story that nobody believed became the official story. Wilson remained pleased with himself for having played a central role in ending the revolutionary crisis that had gripped Mexico for two years. A strong hand was back on the tiller. Order and progress were about to be restored. But I might ask of Ambassador Wilson, if that's true, then how come I'm not quite halfway through a retrospective series on the events of the Mexican Revolution? How come this isn't the final episode? Could it possibly be that the counter-revolutionary overthrow of Madera was going to invite chaos, not order? Could it possibly be that the cold-blooded assassination of Madera was going to drive many who had set aside their rifles to pick them back up again?

In the midst of the final ordeal at the National Palace, Pino Suarez managed to write a friend, quote, Will they have the stupidity to kill us? You know they would gain nothing, for we would be greater in death than we are today. life. As it turns out, they were that stupid. And so next week, because Francisco Madero is dead, the Mexican Revolution will come roaring back to life.