Revolutions - 9.15- The Constitutionalists

Episode Date: November 26, 2018

Let us begin Phase II of the Mexican Revolution... Sponsor: harrys.com/revolutions

Hello and welcome to revolutions. Episode 9.15, The Constitutionalists. So we have killed Francisco Madero, bringing an end to the first phase of the Mexican Revolution. So far, the story that we've told has progressed in a pretty straightforward way. The tyrannical Porfirio had become a fossilized pile of authoritarian corruption, and it was challenged by the idealistic upstart Francisco Madero, who led a political reform movement focused on establishing democracy and the rule of law. When that movement was driven into rebellion,

it merged with social revolutionaries like Emiliano Sepata and adventurous ruffians in the north, like Pasquale Erosco and Pancho Villa. This motley alliance toppled the Porfiriotto, and Madera was elected president of Mexico. At this point, you would cue the uplifting music because this is the happy ending to a story of justice, triumphing over tyranny.

But then the story just kept going. and President Madero alienated many of those social revolutionaries and adventurous ruffians who had put him in power. And then last week, the triumph became a tragedy. The forces of reactionary counter-revolution struck back and a click of senior military generals, Bernardo Reyes, Felix Diaz, Manuel Mondragon, and ultimately Victoriano Huerta staged a coup. Madero was overthrown, and then he was shot in the back of the head. The treacherous general Huerta became president of Mexico. and that ended phase one of the Mexican Revolution, call it Madero versus the Porfuriato.

While today we embark upon phase two of the Mexican Revolution, call it the Constitutionalists versus Victoriano Huerta. And who are the constitutionalists? I'm glad you asked. Huerta made a big mistake when he killed Francisco Madero. The military coup that ended the ten tragic days might have been accepted if Madero and his family had simply been driven into exile. But now that Madero was a martyr, an apostle of liberty who had been barbarously murdered in the dead of night, men and women who had been at best lukewarm towards Madero and his policies suddenly woke up ready to make any sacrifice, bear any cost to avenge his murder. There was genuine shock and anger amidst the middle and lower classes of

Mexico. I mean, even if they had spent the last year complaining about Madero, his death reminded them that he was maybe the first honest politician they had ever seen. Certainly the first one who cared at all about more than just skimming cash and living fat on the backs of the oppressed masses. And if you were a villager hoping for land reform or a middle class professional hoping for a political voice, suddenly you were once again staring into the bleak void of an authoritarian dictatorship in Mexico City and corrupt boss rule in the local municipalities. A lot of people refuse to go back. The immediate response of elite opinion to the shocking murder of Madero, though, was the all-important imperative of self-preservation. The members of the National Congress, many of them Matarista partisans, immediately decided on a policy of recognizing Huerta and maintaining their positions.

The most idealistic among them wanted to remain to be a check on Huerta's power, the more realistic just wanted to stay alive. Meanwhile, almost all the state governors who came to power with Madero now faced a difficult choice. Most of them had signaled their support of Madero when he was fighting for his life in the capital, but a week and a half later, Werta was proclaimed president, and Madero was dead. So they all woke up to the frightening reality that their lives were worthless. If Werta was willing to execute Madero, I mean, how safe am I? Every state capital had some kind of federal army garrison, any one of which could stage a little mini ten tragic days any time it wanted. This was all made brutally plain when they heard what happened to Governor Abraham Gonzalez up in Chihuahua.

Unwilling to take any chances with Gonzalez, who was, after all, the most reliable of Madero's allies, governing the state that had served as a Matarista stronghold, where to move quickly to deal with the man most likely to lead a challenge to his regime. On February the 25th, Gonzalez was arrested and thrown in the basement jail of the federal palace in Chihuahua City. The same basement, I am obligated by law to mention, that had once held Father Idago prior to his execution 100 years earlier. On March the 7th, Gonzalez was put on a train to Mexico City, but he never got there. 40 miles outside of town, the train stopped, Gonzalez was dragged out, and he was unceremoniously executed. In the long run, the murder of Abraham Gonzalez gave the coming revolutionaries another martyr. But in the short term, it did have a pretty chilling effect.

Nearly every state governor and prominent politician in Mexico tripped over themselves, cabling Tuerta, and telling him they recognized him as the legitimate president of Mexico. There were only two exceptions. Well, really just one, but it's easier for the moment to say two. Those two were the leaders of northern states. Governor Venusiano Carranza of Coahuila and Jose Maria Maitorena of Sonora. Of the 27 state governors of Mexico, only Carranza and Maitorena refused to recognize the legitimacy of Huerta. And really, it was just Carranza, because while Maitorena was a staunch matterista and was surrounded by a state government and militia officers committed to resisting Werta, Maitorina balked at sticking his neck out too far.

So he dodged the question and said that he was sick and he applied for a six-month leave of absence so he could go convales in the United States. So that left only Carranza standing as the one elected governor opposing Huerta. Now we've mentioned him a few times in passing now, but it is time to formally bring Venustiano Carranza into the picture. Venustiano Caranza was born in Quaulila in 1859. So even though he had just turned 53 years old in December of 1912, if you Google up a picture of him,

his comically exaggerated white facial hair and small round spectacles make him look like a hundred-year-old wizard, and a particularly eccentric wizard at that. When Venustiano was born, the Carranzas were middling landowners, but the family happened to be die-hard supporters of Benito Juarez. So after the expulsion of the French and the triumph of the liberals, the Caranza family were rewarded with tracks of land that transformed them into rich assandados.

Not as rich as the neighboring Madero's, but then again who was. Carranza would remain an accolate of Benito Juarez his entire life. But his doctrinaire liberalism came with a very conservative bent. Karanza happened to share the belief that a strong central executive was necessary for Mexico, as liberal hero Benito Juarez had himself proven. So Karanza did not grow up. up like appalled by Porfirio Diaz, who presented himself, after all, as a liberal whose ability to establish order had led to great progress. Caronzo did have one brief brush with opposition

politics in 1893 when he joined a small revolt of landowners against the very unpopular governor of Coelah. But this was back in Diaz's more nimble days, and Don Perfario cut a deal to replace the governor rather than force the issue. Far from suffering for his part in this little revolt, Carranza made friendly contact with Bernardo Reyes, and after serving in local office, was recommended for a seat in the National Chamber of Deputies. And then in 1904, Caranza was elevated to the National Senate. So at this point, Caranza is a pretty contented, if obscure, member of the Porfarian Order. That all changed with the election of 1909. After President Dias gave the Creelman interview, Carranza received permission to run for governor of Guaulahua.

in what was supposed to be a fair election. But at the last minute, Dias supported Carranza's less popular rival, who then won the election thanks almost certainly to fraud. This infuriated the proud Carranza, and he turned his attention to supporting his old patron Bernardo Reyes for the presidency of 1910. When Reyes dropped out of the race, Carranza then switched his support to Francisco Medero, though Madero, for justifiable reasons, never fully trusted this ex-Perfiorfiorioriorior.

senator and well-known Reista. But as the last opposition candidate in Kuala, Carranza was appointed governor of the state under the plan of San Luis, and then he secured legitimate electoral victory after Madero's victory in 1911. Now, if, instead of getting blasted off his horse, Bernardo Reyes had instead emerged from the ten tragic days as president of Mexico, it is entirely probable that Caranza would not have gone into revolt. But as it stood, the new president of Mexico was General Huerta. Likely sensing the end of his own career for his links to Madero and Reyes, Carranza decided to refuse to recognize Huerta and instead take his chances with armed resistance.

Now, what Carranza had going for him that most other state governors did not, was a local government stacked with Matherista partisans and a pretty well-organized state militia that gave them the nucleus of a rebel army. When Pasquo Orozco had gone into revolt the year before, the governments of the northern states found themselves caught between Orozco's rebels and Werta's Federal Army, and so they organized their own militias to protect themselves and their property. Ostensibly, under the command of Werta's Federal Army of the North, these state militias had maintained a measure of independence all through the fighting in 1912. So having gained experience and a certain esprit of corps,

most of the militia officers were ready to pick their rifles back up to avenge the murder of their countrymen, Signor Madero. Not that they did Caranza much good in the early going. After announcing his opposition to Huerta from the balcony of the statehouse, Carranza led his army out into the field. But in their initial skirmishing against the federal army near the state capital, Carranza's little force of about a thousand men was defeated and forced to retreat north, 150 miles to the small city of Monclava.

There he set up shop at the Asienda de Guadalupe and conferred with a small group of young officers, and it was there that they drafted their plan for rebellion. So that brings us to the famous plan of Guadalupe, which was issued on March the 26th, 1913. The young militia officers surrounding Caranza wanted to model their plan explicitly on Madera's plan of San Luis. But Carranza would not have it. He wanted his rebellion to be narrowly political, even more narrowly political than Madero's rebellion. There would be no call for social justice or land reform, no promises beyond the restoration of constitutional government. Carranza argued that overpromising and under-delivering on social reform was part of why Madero had

fallen. But this was a touch disingenuous, because mostly Caranza has zero interest in social justice or land reform. He didn't want to break up the asciendas. He liked the asiendas. So the very brief plan of Guadalupe focused entirely on a few political points. Huerta is not the legitimate president of Mexico. Any state government that recognizes Huerta is also not legitimate. What they were fighting for was the restoration of the constitution and the rule of law. To drive this point home, the plan even dubbed their new movement. They called themselves the constitutionalists. The plan of Guadalupe then named Caranza as the first chief of this constitutionalist movement, which was frankly

quite a thing to assert for himself, sitting in Monclava with about a thousand men. At this moment, in March of 1913, Venustiano Carranza was frankly a nobody. By the time Madero had issued the plan of San Luis naming himself first chief of a national revolt, he had written an electric bestseller. He had barnstormed Mexico on a speaking tour and then met a popular candidate for president. Carranza was an all but unknown former Porfarian senator, that anyone outside Quaweila, how anyone in Quaweila even knew his name was doubtful. But an unshakable egotism can take you a long way in politics, and Carranza had that in spades, and it would take him very far indeed. But to add a necessary wrinkle to all this,

Though Carranza is more socially conservative than Madero, he would prove far more radically uncompromising in his pursuit of revolutionary power. Now, I think that Carranza was wrong and disingenuous in his stated belief that Madero's failure to deliver on his social platform had been his undoing, because it really wasn't. What had been Madero's undoing was his willingness, his eagerness to make compromises that kept huge parts of the Porfurian political, and military apparatus in place. That is what had gotten him overthrown and killed. And that was not a mistake Karanza planned to make. He believed the

revolutionary army he was about to put together must defeat the federal army in the field and then once defeated, that federal army would be totally dismantled. The same would go for the old conservative Porfurian political apparatus. Carranza planned to defeat them and then purge them.

The lesson Karanza had learned from the tragedy of Madero was that you cannot let your foot up off the neck of your enemy. Carranza was right to take this approach, because it's certainly the approach that the self-installed President Huerta was taking. To secure his own position, Werta adopted two distinct policies. Toward every man who had fired a gun in the last two years of running rebellion in civil war, Huerta offered blanket, no questions asked amnesty. He further offered cash inducements and official positions to senior leaders of various irregular rebel forces if they now agreed to fight for Huerta. This was cynical, ideology-free hiring of guns. But a lot of guys took him up on the offer.

Men who had been fighting for allegedly ideological reasons were now happy to take cash and legal immunity to keep fighting, only now has hired mercenaries for Huerta. The most important of these was Pasquois Orozco, who just six months earlier had been waging a war to the death against an army led by Huerta. Neither man cared much about that now. And at least partially, their shared loathing for Madero moved them into alliance. The exile de Roscoe accepted the offer of amnesty in cash. He returned to Mexico and was deputized into being the leader of an irregular army in Chihuahua,

completing his transition from popular revolutionary hero to reactionary mercenary. But towards the civilians and politicians, Werta took a market. different approach. Despite watching them fall over themselves, recognizing his regime, Werta had no tolerance for Matteras to politicians. He considered them all not just a personal threat, but a blight on Mexico. So in successive waves over the next weeks and months, Werta systematically purged anyone who had come into power along with Madero. No other state governors were straight up killed, but plenty wound up arrested and at least temporarily thrown in jail. others were simply intimidated into quitting office.

This purge extended all the way down to small-time mayors and city councillors. Werta knew you shouldn't try to govern with political enemies inside your own house. And he didn't just fill these now vacant positions with political allies. He filled them with military officers. By July of 1913, for example, 19 of 27 Mexican states had a general serving as their governor. Werta was turning Mexico into a military dictatorship, even more of a military dictatorship than the Porfariato had been. So though no state governors were assassinated, those who resisted or criticized the new regime did have a nasty habit of disappearing. And we're talking here about journalists and local officials, really anyone overheard speaking ill of Werta.

Werta was ruthless. And these people were liable to be pushed into the back seat of a car one night and never heard from again. While he ruthlessly consolidated power, then prepared to face off against Carranza's rebellion in the north, Werta had one major problem he needed to deal with first, and that was the state of Morelos. Werta bore a special grudge against Emiliano Zapata and the rebels in Marelos, who had personally humiliated Werta during his failed pacification campaign in 1911. The general offer of blanket amnesty was offered to them, of course, but this was pro forma. Werta told Henry Lane Wilson that the only way to deal with the Zapatistas was an 18-cent rope and the nearest tree.

Now, a few of the leaders in Morelas did take the opportunity to quit fighting, but neither Sapanta nor any of the principal chiefs believed for one second they could truly trust their old enemy. Werta sent up a little delegation to parlay with the Zapatistas, a delegation that was led by Pasquale Orozco's father, who was now a colonel in the federal army. By way of reply, Zapata arrested the delegation, but then through a little show trial, convicted Huerta and Orozco of conspiring to assassinate the revolution, and then he shot the lot of them. For both Zapata and Huerta, this was a personal as well as ideological grudge match, and showing no intention of offering further mercy, Werta deposed the entire state government of Morelos and appointed as the new governor, General Juvencio, Robles. Now, if that news does not make you go, oh damn, it's because you've forgotten that General Robles was the guy who led the brutal scorched earth campaign of early 1912, the guy who

had set up the concentration camps. Well, he was now coming back to his old stomping grounds with an even freer hand, because whereat his plan, where it's strategy for defeating the Zapatistas, which he was quite open about, was totally depopulating the state. He straight up a meeting of Morelos Ascendados that once the existing population was removed, they could import a new population of workers who had no ties to the land. As for the existing population, they would either be conscripted into the federal army and sent north to fight against Carranza, sent to the infamous labor camps of Quintana Roe, or, well, strung up from the nearest tree with an 18-cent rope.

But though he was given an even freer hand, Robles had zero success in his mission. When army patrols came around, the people just melted away into the hills. There was retaliatory destruction of homes and villages, and when people were caught, there were brutal beatings and rapes and murders. But by the end of April 1913, Robles had rounded up only a few hundred men for conscription or deportation. At this same time, Sepata gave his lieutenants men like De Laot, the green light to wage a wide and continuous offensive campaign. And this was the hottest fighting since before. Meredero's victory up in Juarez. So Werta sent up another 5,000 reinforcements for Robles, but this wasn't nearly enough to hold such hostile territory. Six months earlier, the Zapatista

revolution had been running on life support. Now practically every man, woman, and child in the state was ready to fight to the death. On May the 9th, General Robles ordered the population to concentrate in the city centers, but nobody listened. And then on May the 30th, Sopata is issued a revised plan of Ayala. It had taken him a little while to make this public, but this was the same plan of Iola, except Pasquo Roscoe's name was scratched out as first chief, and in its place was the name Emiliano Zapata.

Critically, Sepata did not, and would never sign on to Carranza's plan of Guadalupe. Zapata himself was now the first chief of his own revolution, a revolution that he and the people of Morelos would fight against, against all comers. As for Robles, the Mercilus general finally just gave up and pulled the old declare victory and leave maneuver. In mid-August, he was led to believe that a large contingent of Zapatis had concentrated in the village of Wautele. Then when Robles and his men got there, they found the place deserted. But Robles was like, ah, I'm done. He destroyed the village and then

invited up some press to see the remains, and he just declared, contrary to all evidence, that he had defeated the Zapatista hordes that they were no more. Then he staged some celebrations in Kornavaka and staged some more in Mexico City. Sapata let Robles have his fun for the time being, as it was far better for the government to think them all broken up than to keep up the relentless fight. But the Zapatista revolution, despite being in the field now for three years, was really just getting going. So while Werta faced rebellions in the north and in the south, he continued to consolidate his position in the center, and specifically he moved against his erstwhile ally Felix Diaz. The pact of the embassy had stipulated that Huerta would start out as president,

and he would call elections and support Dias' candidacy for the presidency. But Huerta was not interested in this at all. Probably he never was. He was just shrewd enough to walk out of the American embassy as president, not as the guy who had an empty promise. that he might one day be president. So initially, men flocked to Felix Diaz as he set up his presidential campaign, and they all expected Don Porfirio's nephew to be the future of Mexico. But by April, Werta began isolating and forcing out cabinet members who were loyal to Diaz, and that included General Mont Dragan, who had orchestrated the barracks revolt and was now

minister of war. He was encouraged to take some time off in New York for his health. While he purged Dias' friends, Werta stocked every position of power with his own men, mostly again loyal military officers, and he still had yet to call for the agreed-upon elections. Dias protested this slowly unfolding betrayal, but it also appears he didn't have much of a stomach for a real fight, because then Huerta made a final move. He appointed Dias' special ambassador to Japan, which may as well be special ambassador to the moon. Playing Bernardo Reyes to Wirtes Porfirio Diaz, Felix Diaz, meekly accepted this political exile,

no doubt suspecting that if he did not, he may wind up shoved in the back of a car one night. So by June of 1913, the pact of the embassy was done, and Felix Diaz was getting on a boat to Japan. Werta's violent seizure of power, his dictatorial methods, his refusal to call elections, all brought him into conflict with the newly inaugurated American president, Woodrow Wilson. Despite his coup being carried out with critical help from Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson during the 10 tragic days, where to soon figured out that Ambassador Wilson had been freelancing for a lame duck taft administration. The new President Wilson, and no, I'm not any happier about it than you are, that these guys are both named Wilson. Meanwhile, it was appalled by the Ten Tragic Days and Ambassador Wilson's role in it.

Woodrow Wilson had genuinely liked Madero, or at least the idea of Madero. A political Democrat with progressive instincts was exactly the kind of leader Wilson thought the Latin American world needed. Now, this belief, as things always are with Woodrow Wilson, came from an incredibly condescending and paternalistic place that like the children of the world need good shepherds. But it's true that Wilson did not like the way Werta had come to power. And he did expect elections to be called. He did expect democracy to be restored in Mexico. Ambassador Wilson had assured him that Werta had promised to do it. But then Werta kept not doing it.

So President Wilson recalled Ambassador Wilson. And then he refused to send a new ambassador. The United States' new official policy was that they were not going to recognize the Werta government. Instead, Wilson sent a guy named John Lynde as a sort of personal emissary, and it was made clear to Huerta that unless he held elections and was not himself a candidate for president in those elections, that the Wilson administration would not recognize his regime. This defense of democracy was all well and good, but there were other crasser motives at work. Werta represented a return of all things Perfurian, including favoring European financial

and business interests over their American equivalents. Werta was nationalistic enough to fear domination by the Americans, and so quite readily renewed Porfurian-era oil and railroad deals, most especially with the British. And the British were eager enough to secure access to Mexican oil that they quickly extended recognition to Werta and the rest of Europe followed suit. Meanwhile, American timber, mining, and especially oil interests went back to feeling shut out of an unfriendly Mexico city. Now, since Woodrow Wilson had been guided to the presidency by Colonel House, a political mastermind

and leader of a cabal of Texas Democrats, well, Wilson's democratic idealism was easily fanned by the ambitions of American businessman. So recognition was withheld from Werta, while friendly lines of communication were opened up with Caranza and the northern rebels. Even if Caranza did not capture the whole country, There was a wild idea floating around out there that he might be able to lead the secession of northern Mexico, a state which could then either be dominated politically and economically by the United States, or, to simplify things, annexed outright.

And that constitutionalist rebellion in the north was actually progressing better than its partisans could have reasonably hoped. But that was not really thanks to Carranza and his little army in Coahuila. Carranza is actually about to be driven out of Guauela. It was instead thanks to two other rebellions that opened up at the same time, both of which signed on, at least nominally, to the plan of Guadalupe. I'm going to pass over the more famous of these two, because we will deal with the rise of Pancho Villa and his legendary Division del Norte next week, a bottom-up insurgency of ruffians and social revolutionaries

who would fight in alliance with, but in marked contrast to, the revolutionaries we are going to spend the rest of today with, and that is the rebellion in Sonora. The state of Sonora, located in the far northwest of Mexico, had not been a major center of activity during the Matarista revolution, but the state had benefited mightily from Madero's victory. The new governor, Me Torrena, was a staunch Matarista, and all the way down the line,

the old Porfurian boss system was pretty well dismantled and repopulated with new men. So the government of Sonora was more thoroughly Matarista than in almost any other state. And so, as had happened with Carranza over in Kwahua, when Huerta toppled Madero, it was not just the people of Sonora who went into rebellion, but the whole state apparatus. And this is critical to understanding the difference between their rebellion and the Vyista rebellion over in Chihuahua, where, after the murder of Abraham Gonzalez, the state government had gone over to Huerta. Now, some of the Sonoran leaders, like Benjamin Hill and Adolfo de la Huerta, no relation,

had risen up and fought for Madero in 1910 and 1911. But plenty of them had sat out that revolution and did not really get their first taste of battle until Pasquale Orozco went into revolt in March of 1912. At that point, Governor Me Torrena, like his fellow northern governors, had raised a large state militia. A year spent fighting together had created an organized and organized and, experienced armed force that had fought to defend President Madero. And these guys were shocked and pissed when Huerta, who had been their commander in the war against Orozco, treacherously murdered Signor Madero. So when the ten tragic days hit, they congregated in Hermesio, the capital of the state,

and urged the government to reject Werta and instead fight him. A governor May Torrena, as I said earlier, hesitated and then took a six-month leave. of absence, but he left as interim governor Ignacio Pescariah, and Pescoria was absolutely ready to lead Sonora into revolt. But Pescarria is a mere footnote next to the man who would emerge as the leader of the Sonoran constitutionalist forces. My friends, it is time to introduce another major piece onto the board. It's time to talk about Alvaro Obrugon. Obrugon was born in Sonora in 1880, and he turned 33 years old one day after Wertes'Coo. He was the youngest of 18 children.

Yes, I said 18 children. And he was born into a family that had once been prosperous, but who had fallen on hard times. Unlike the Carranzas, who had made their fortune supporting Benito Juarez, Obrugon's father had been a business partner of a supporter of the Emperor Maximilian. And so the family lands were confiscated after the expulsion of the French. French. Ruined, his father died shortly after Avara was born, and the boy was raised by his mother and siblings, some of whom were old enough to be his parents. Growing up among the impoverished working classes of northern Mexico, Obrugon worked a variety of jobs to keep food on the table.

He was a lathe operator at a sugar mill. He was a door-to-door shoe salesman. He was a tenant farmer. He was a farm mechanic. He married in 1903 and started a family. And then finally in 1906, he had scraped together enough money to buy a small farm where he grew chickpeas for profitable export. But he was hit with tragedy two years later when his wife and two of his four children died, leaving him an unhappy and depressed widower. But despite these tragedies, his farm did well, and being a bit of a mechanical genius, Obrugone invented a new kind of chickpea harvester, and then he set up a factory to produce them, vaulting him into financial respectability.

By the time Francisco Madero's revolution broke out at the end of 1910, Alvaro Obrugone was a young self-made man on the make, which is probably why he did not join the revolution. I mean, why risk what you have just made for yourself? He later attributed his failure to join Madero's revolution as a kind of cowardice, but probably this is a convenient story. Early cowardice is a fine thing to admit when you have a future military record like Obergoen is about to have. Less comfortable would have been admitting that maybe he never

supported Madero's revolution in the first place. But then Madero won, and Obergoen reaped the benefits. In 1911, he was elected a mayor. And then he later said to make up for sitting out the initial revolution, he joined the Sonoran state militia to fight Orozco's rebellion. Obergoen immediately took to soldiering, and he was soon renowned as one of the most talented officers in the irregular forces serving under General Huerta's overall command against the rebel Orozco. After Obroseco was defeated, Obrugone returned home as a colonel, and probably he never expected to fight again, but just a few months later come the ten tragic days, and Obrugone found himself among those calling for his state to reject Huerta. Out of patriotism, a love of the

constitution, and a regard for the late Senior Madero, he signed on to Cranza's plan of Guadalupe, and he went off to fight a war as part of the new constitutionalist army. Obergaon and the other Sonoran officers took the field with two to three thousand men in March of 1913, and they proceeded to run what was later described as an orderly, efficient, and pragmatic campaign. Unlike the haphazard flailings of Madero's early revolution, or the rural guerrilla campaigns run by the Zapatistas, Obergoen and the Sonorans were well organized. they were fighting as regular military units, and they were engaged in a well-orchestrated campaign.

Starting in the north, they secured border towns and crossings that ensured access to guns and supplies from Arizona. Then they pushed south, picking up ports that would allow for financing and resupply. Only one of these cities wound up holding out for any length of time. By June of 1913, they controlled all the principal cities and railroads in the state, and Obrugone defeated a force of 4,000 Federales trying to come up north from Sina-11. Loa. Things were going so well in Sonora, in fact, that they invited the recognized first chief of the constitutionalist movement, Carranza, to abandon Quaulah, which was by that point almost entirely in federal hands, and combine his forces with theirs here in this new constitutionalist

stronghold. Carranza accepted the offer, and recognizing that he was a mere civilian, he had the good sense to make this journey on horseback through the mountains, rather than a more comfortable train ride. I mean, you've got to get some mud on your boots. So in August of 1913, Carranza entered Sonora, and the constitutionalist army continued to grow. They were probably up to 17,000 by the end of the summer. Still, with ready access to resupply from the United States, and with the whole apparatus of the state government working for them. This was all frustrating for President Huerta, who was then dealt a surprising blow. His continued refusal to hold elections finally became too much for President Wilson. At the end of August 1913, the president and the American

Congress agreed to embargo arms sales to the Mexican government. Up until now, even without diplomatic recognition, Werta had been able to buy all the American guns and ammunition he wanted. But now suddenly he was cut off, and it's tough to run a military dictatorship without guns and ammunition. So probably in response to this, Werta told the diplomatic corps that of course I was planning on holding elections. They are scheduled for October, and of course I won't be a candidate. As if to prove this, the foreign minister, Frederico Gamboa, was nominated from a hastily organized Catholic party that clearly stood for Huerta aligned conservatives. But still, Werta had satisfied the conditions of the Americans, and John Lind signaled approval for the move. Other American

representatives then showed up in Sonora telling Carranza that if an election was held and a new president was elected that that guy would be considered legitimate by the United States, and Carranza could expect no more support, not even tacit for his revolution. They might even have to start cracking down on all the gun running across the border. But having just about-faced, where to immediately about-faced again. And this second about-face was ultimately fatal. With the rebellion in the north advancing. The National Congress had returned from a recess more stridently confrontational than they had been all year. On September the 23rd, a senator stood up and delivered a speech where he straight up fingered Huerta as Madero's murderer. This was incredibly gutsy given Huerta's reputation

for assassinating critics, and even with the whole world watching, Werta couldn't help himself. The senator disappeared. His body was found in a shallow grave two weeks later. In response, the Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution on October the 9th, creating a commission to investigate the murder. But President Werta refused to sign it. In fact, he decided to use this revolution as the excuse he needed to be rid of this opposition Congress. On October the 10th, the Congress was told to withdraw the resolution. They refused. So the 29th battalion surrounded the building and swarmed into the chamber. The officers had with them a list of about 100 names to be arrested. The room was cleared and the men were left. let out in cuffs. Then Werta declared the Congress dissolved. There would be new elections, he said, on October the 26th for both Congress and for the presidency. And oh, by the way, I've decided

to be a candidate for president after all. On October the 26th, 1913, Werta brought back that most infamous feature of the Porphyriotto, the complete sham election. He barely tried to conceal it, and a few foreign ambassadors actually wound up with copies of the instructions he sent out to very state governors and municipal leaders naming the men who were supposed to win, and then telling the officials just do whatever it takes to make sure the right name comes out. Joining the highly militarized state governments, the new Congress that was elected would be filled with loyal army officers. Huerta himself was, of course, declared victorious, and he declared himself now the legitimate

president of Mexico. Standing in defiance of rebels in the south, rebels in the north, and the United States, Toriano Huerta was now dictator of Mexico, and he dared anyone to dislodge him. Next week, the rebels in the South, the rebels in the North, and the United States will take him up on that dare. But we will focus our attention on the most successful of them all. Next week will be the meteoric rise and spectacular early successes of Poncho Villa.