Revolutions - 9.17- The Occupation of Veracruz

Episode Date: December 10, 2018

In April 1914 the United States invaded Mexico.  Get 30% off The Storm Before the Storm: Use 30ROME at Checkout Sponsor Link: audible.com/revolutions  

Hello and welcome to revolutions. Episode 9.17, the occupation of Barracruz. We ended last time with Pancho Villa and his increasingly invincible Division del Norte smashing a federal army at the Battle of Tierra Blanca, forcing the remainder of said federal army to evacuate Chihuahua City. With the city wide open, the Division del Norte moved down at the end of November 1913. and occupied the capital. Poncho Villa, who had started the year sitting in a dingy hotel room in El Paso, Texas,

was then proclaimed governor of Chihuahua by a committee of Revolutionary Generals. With all their enemies on the run, the Ascendados, and the Hephae's Politicos, who had all evacuated with the Federales, Poncho Villa was now the master of Chihuahua, and he had all the resources of the state at his disposal. But he faced an enormous task, made even more enormous by the fact that he and his friends had zero experience running a government. And he had to somehow deliver on the expectations of his people,

manage his alliance with Carranza, calm the fears of the middle-class materista types, who were scared of his reputation as a murderous land-confiscating Bandito, and of course do nothing to upset the Colossus of the North, the United States. Vista's governor was by far the most revolutionary of all the revolutionary governments that had acquired power since 1911, without a hugely sophisticated ideological program, VIA mostly just went about expanding and entrenching his Robin Hood and Avenging Angel routine. The enemies of the people were identified and, when found, they were executed without fuss or apology, and with only the briefest of windows to lobby and appeal. He also confiscated cattle and supplies and sold them to the people at cut rate prices,

but there was now a limit to stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, because what Via was mostly focused on, was organizing Chihuahua Leveon-Mass style to help him win the war. As we discussed last week, Via's program was now to steal from the rich and then put their profitable estates to work for the revolution, and by revolution, Via meant the Division Del Norte. He established an office of confiscated property and sent agents fanning out across the state to take control of ASEANDAS, carefully, of course, exempting American estates, and also middle-class holdings. He did not want to alienate either of those groups,

and so he focused his attention on Mexican oligarchs. As long as the war was on, the state would then operate and exploit the profits of these estates to service the army. But critically, Via did promise land would be redistributed after the war was won. In fact, he had a plan for it. One third of the property would be put to use

compensating veterans, widows, and orphans of the war. one third of it would be given back to villages and colonies that had been encroached upon by the aforementioned Mexican oligarchs, and one third would remain in state hands to generate revenue for the government. But all of this would happen after the war, and the principal beneficiaries would be those who fought in the war. If you sat on the sidelines, VIA promised you nothing. If you didn't fight, then why should you benefit? So not unlike an old Roman warlord promising a parcel of land upon discharge from the army, Via created a massive incentive for men both to join his army and to fight relentlessly for victory.

Via's ascension to power and mass confiscations were very controversial among the more conservative constitutionalists, especially the ostensible first chief, Carranza. Carranza kept trying to put a stop to the confiscation of the Asiendas, but Via kept brushing his first chief off, always with effusive supplication, but brushed off nonetheless. Carranza, for his part, was conscious that he couldn't yet risk alienating Via, so for the moment he didn't press the point too hard. But he did repeatedly make it clear that for governor of Chihuahua, he preferred General

Manuel Chau, former schoolteacher and veteran Matarista. He was the one who had agreed to follow Villa after Villa was literally quicker on the draw. Now, Vian never wanted the responsibility of being governor. He wasn't really a politician. So after he organized Chihuahua to put the state at the disposal of the growing war machine that was the division del Norte, he announced that he was ready to hand the reins of government over to Chau. He wrote a note to Carranza just after New Year saying, oh, Hefe, of course, I will always follow your orders. And you say Manuel Chau should be governor, then Chow shall be governor. I shall resign.

Of course, by that point, Via had already pushed through all. a bunch of decrees making civilian officials subject to military authority, and since Chau was not resigning from his position in the Division del Norte, he himself was still under Via's direct command. So even though he resigned as governor of Chihuahua on January 7, 1914, Ponjovia was still the most powerful man in Chihuahua, probably the entire north of Mexico, including First Chief Carranza. By the time he left office in January of 1914, Poncho Villa was probably the most popular revolutionary leader of any revolutionary leader at any point in the whole revolution.

So much so that Caranza and his entourage in Sonora had already decided Via was as much of a threat as he was an asset, both in terms of the army he controlled and his growing national and international reputation. Because wherever people talked about Pancho Villa, they nodded their heads yes, and said, ah, yes, I have heard of this Pancho Villa, and Poncho Villa is good. And Via knew exactly what he was doing on this score. He knew the image he was creating was powerful, and he understood how media worked, and he encouraged the spread of the legend of Poncho Villa. He now embodied revolutionary machismo. He was a great shot, a great horseman, a great lover,

he was brave in battle. He was also praised as an honest and generous Chaudillo, who took care of his people when nobody else would. And despite the other blacker, legend that his enemies spun wherever they went, that he was a wild man and a bloodthirsty killer, his men were disciplined and careful. That's not to say that Via didn't consider the lives of his enemies to be pretty cheap. Division del Norte policy was executing captured federal officers, and Via did have an explosive temper that could get him into trouble, but he could just as easily be talked down. And wherever he went and wherever the Division del Norte went, people couldn't help but comment on how orderly and rational it all seemed to be.

So, Via's rise to power and the four weeks he spent governing Chihuahua had, of course, turned him into a popular hero, but he was also now seen as somebody that the middle classes could do business with, and American agents were, of course, singing his praises back to Washington. One of the most important assets Via had in this image creation project was a 26-year-old American journalist named John Reed. I bring Reed up because we are going to meet him again. He's one of the connective tissues between the Mexican Revolution and the Russian Revolution. Born in Portland, Oregon and educated at Harvard, Reed emerged from university into the milieu of Greenwich Village radical socialism.

And in the world of American letters, he earned a reputation for himself as a respectable short storywriter. But in 1913, Reed moved decisively to radical journalism, reporting on and participating in the Patterson New Jersey. Jersey Silkworkers strike. And by the summer of 1913, that strike had been defeated, but by then stories had started filtering into the United States about the assassination of Francisco Madero and the re-erruption of the Mexican Revolution. Reed was intrigued at the revolutionary struggle south of the border, and he got himself a commission from Metropolitan Magazine to head down to Mexico and report on whatever he

found. So in December of 1913, Reed crossed the border through federally occupied Ohinaga, dodging a personal death threat from Pasquo Orozco that basically said stay in the United States or I will kill you. Reed then arrived in Chihuahua City just after Via was installed as governor and soon found himself invited in for frequent interviews during which Reed developed an unmistakable attraction for Via. Now we don't have time to linger too much on Reed, but he would spend the next four months in Mexico bumming around, witnessing battles, sleeping with the soldiers, interviewing Villa and Caranza and other generals, and his dispatches home, FASC became the most popular articles of the day.

And though he didn't realize it while he was tramping around dusty Chihuahua, his articles were turning Reed himself into a celebrity. And his glowing takes on via were read approvingly by giants like Walter Lipman and then ultimately by President Woodrow Wilson. These articles were collected later in 1914 into the first edition of a book called Insurgent Mexico, that if you've been enjoying this series, is a great companion. piece, I highly recommend you all read it. From Via's perspective, letting Reed have unfettered access and giving him plenty of interviews was both an amusing diversion, but also part of a larger plan to bolster his image with the

Americans. The other and more innovative part of the plan is the famous deal he made with the mutual film company in 1914, allowing them to embed a moving pictures film crew with the Division del Norte. This deal stipulated that they would be allowed to film via inaction for newsreels, a new form of media that was just then becoming a fixture of American culture. It was also very likely going to be the first time that most Americans had ever seen a real actual battle. Unlike us today, who have piles of documentary footage and fictional reproductions to go from, most humans alive in 1914 had never actually seen a real battle. They had never seen war.

And the Mutual Film Company thought that they had a chance. to make some hit reels, and so they started filming everything. The first big battle the company got to film, and also the first battle that John Reed saw in person, was the battle of Ohinaga, waged just as Via was resigning the governorship. This is where the last pocket of federal resistance in Chihuahua stood, and Via went up there at the beginning of January to take control of the situation and drive them out. The Federal Allied troops, hopelessly isolated and demoralized, broke easily under Via's relentless charge, and he soon captured the city and sent most of the Federals fleeing across the border.

And among this new refugee population was Pasquale Orozco, now murderously bitter after watching his ex-sordinate via run him right out of the country. But this is not the end of Orozco quite yet, though it is the end of the federal presence in Chihuahua. The Mutual Film Company was so delighted with the footage they were getting that they decided to go even further, splicing the footage of the Division del Norte fighting in its real battles with a mostly fictional storyline that turned into an hour-long movie, extremely long for the day, called The Life of General Via.

Naturally, starring Pancho Villa as himself. Now, there are myths floating around out there that the contract stipulated that Villa would only fight during the day when the light was good and that if the crew didn't get what it needed, then Villa would recreate the footage. but this, I think, has been conclusively proved as a myth. What is real, though, is that they didn't like the common clothes that Via habitually wore, and so provided him a proper general's uniform, which remained the property of the company, and which via only wore during filming. Unfortunately, almost the entirety of this film has been lost,

and only extremely decrepit fragments remain. So I know you're all hot to go Google Life of General Via and watch it on YouTube, but unfortunately, it's not going to be there. But at the time, it was a big hit and widely screened in the United States. By recognizing the power of this new form of popular media, Via turned himself into a famous and romantic hero to many Americans. Oh, and he also got a 20% cut of the ticket sales. This little PR blitz was perfectly time to make an impression with the Wilson administration

that was still trying to get a handle on what its Mexico policy ought to be. President Wilson did not like Huerta, and in August had embargoed arms sales to Mexico, essentially recognizing no one in the conflict as a legitimate belligerent. But this was not a long-term solution. This was just a way to leverage Werta out of the presidency. And it's pretty clear that Wilson was ready to accept the 10 tragic days as legitimate if Werta presided over an election that transferred power to a democratically elected successor. If Werta had done this, Wilson absolutely would have accepted

the results, recognized the new government, and disavowed the constitutionalists. But when Werto went rogue in October of 1913, when he dissolved the Congress and got himself elected president in an obviously fraudulent election, Wilson was furious. His emissary in Mexico, John Linn was also furious. And just as Henry Lane Wilson had once developed a pathological hatred of Francisco Madero, Lind now developed a pathological hatred of Werta. Deciding that Carranza represented the only just future for Mexico and that the constitutionalist would not be able to win without American support, Lind pushed Wilson to fully back the constitutionalist rebellion with money and arms and maybe even full-on American military intervention. Wilson was never quite as sold on Carranza as Lind

was, for reasons we'll get to at the end of this episode, but he was definitely starting to like the cut of Poncho Villa's jib, especially because Villas, I'm just a poor boy. boy too dumb to know what from what schick was like catnip to a paternalistic American progressive like Woodrow Wilson. So between Lynn's memos, John Reed's articles, and his own personal antipathy towards Huerta, Wilson approved a major shift in American policy in February of 1914. He decided to lift the arms embargo on Mexico. Now, frustratingly, every single book I have on this refuses to tell me if this meant open selling to all sides, because it's always presented as, now the rebels can buy American guns. But it doesn't tell me if Puerta could also technically

now buy American guns. It's a minor point, though, because dropping the embargo was a massive boon to the rebel cause, and that's what matters here. Even though smuggling arms was more or less an open practice on the Mexican-American border, that was still a far cry from, no, seriously, you can just do this all out in the open. When the Mexican market was thrown open to all comers, American weapons manufacturers flocked to the border, and this is just as Via and Carranza and Obrugone and other constitutionalists had the institutional state wealth to buy everyone's inventory out, lock, stock, and barrel.

They were now able to gear up for a huge offensive campaign that would carry the war south. The constitutionalist strategy for the spring of 1914 then became a third, three-pronged March South. An army of the northeast, led by a guy named Pablo Gonzalez, would come down the Atlantic coast towards Monterey and then the oil fields of Tempico. Obrugone's army in the northwest would make its way down the Pacific coast and then turn east towards Guadalajaro when they got into Halisco. But on the right, Pablo Gonzales was not a particularly great general. And on the left, though Obrugone was a great general, he was badly slowed by a lack of railroads, and he was doing a lot of this marching on full.

on horse and using mule trains. So it's not like Obrgon was like racing down the coastline. That meant that both sides recognize Via's Division del Norte, plunging down the central railroad line of Mexico as the key to this whole war. The army that Via led South numbered, depending on the source, somewhere between 10 and 20,000. But that was just the men of fighting age, the actually enrolled soldiers and officers of the Division del Norte. But it wasn't just them who were now on the move. Also present and perhaps numbering an equal number were women, children, and various hangers-on, like the film company

or journalists like John Reed. The Division del Norte was really a huge family affair. Now, Vian himself was never keen on it, but men often brought their families along with them on campaign, and other women just volunteered all on their own. Via put these women to work as medics and cooks, smugglers, and messengers, and any other job he could think of. But he was a macho-Mexican man, and that machismo made him blind to the fact that women could also fight, and Via always resisted putting them into the field. But plenty of women did fight. They just picked up a rifle when it was time to go into battle and dared anyone to stop them.

These women formed a part of a larger movement inside the Mexican Revolution, called the Soldaderas, who proliferated throughout the armies of Revolutionary Mexico. Now, it's hard to say exactly how many women fought because their stories were often forgotten and ignored, especially in the official histories of the Mexican Revolution. So even though generals like Via thought that women were flowers to be protected rather than strong-willed and tough fighters, there are plenty of accounts of Salderas inside his own army that proved him quite wrong. Another key addition to Via's forces that was just now joining him was General Felipe Anhalis. Now, I know what you're saying.

Felipe Angelis, I know I've heard that name before. And indeed you have. Angelus first appeared in episode 9.13 as the last of that little revolving door of general sent up to contain the situation in Morelos. His predecessors had been all about violence and beatings and literal concentration camps. Anhalis came up with a good cop touch, dramatically ratcheted downstate offensive tactics, and was probably on his way to bleeding the air out of the Zapatistas when the 10 tragic days breathed new life into the revolution.

Then in episode 9.14, we saw Madero call on Anhalis to lead the government forces during the ten tragic days. But the president was overruled by the officer surrounding him, who insisted it would be a provocative breach of protocol for the junior Anhalis to be put in charge of officers who were senior to him in command. It should be said, though, that many of the officers giving Madero this advice happily joined in Weertes coup, while Anhalis did not. Unlike many of the other senior commanders of the Porfirian military,

Anhalis had come from an educated middle-class family, and he fancied himself something of an intellectual. He was certainly enough of an honest freethinker that after he joined the army, he did not 100% gel with the corrupt and stagnant Porfarian officer corps. He was actually in Paris on an extended mission to get him out of the country when Madero's revolution hit, and Anholas was pointedly not called back.

When Madero won the revolution, though, Annalis did return, and free from any taint of the previous months of fighting, he was able to meet the new president with fresh eyes, and the two wound up becoming actual friends, and Annalis himself was in favor of much of Madero's political platform and sharing his desire for some social reform, though of course similarly hesitant about top-to-bottom social revolution. Anhalis was considered enough of a loyal materista that after where to betrayed Madero and seize power, that Anhalis was quickly arrested and thrown in jail himself. He was not shot, though, and after a couple of days was told that it was time for him to go back to Paris, for his health.

But upon arriving in Paris, Anhalis made contact with an agent of the new constitutionalist rebellion, and he offered the rebels his services. This made him one of the few, and by far the highest ranking, officer from the Federal Army to walk across the lines. When he arrived in Sonora, in late summer 1913, Caranza was delighted and immediately made Felipe Angelus minister of war. But this irked General Obrugone and the other Sonoran leaders who did not entirely trust this ex-Federala, and were certainly not happy that they now had to take orders from him. So, facing a little mutiny, Caranza backtracked and demoted Anhalis to assistant minister of war, a job that had few responsibilities and no power.

As I said when I first introduced Anhalis, though, he was, one of the most ambitious generals in the federal army, and he thought of himself as something of a great man. So seeing his path blocked with Carranza, he met with Via and talked Via into allowing him to transfer over to the Division del Norte as head of the artillery. Via had fewer doubts about Anhalis than the Sonorans did, and mostly he needed somebody who knew how to make the artillery work. So in March of 1913, just as the Division del Norte was preparing to move south, Anhalis came over. beginning an enormously fruitful and mutually loyal partnership with Pancho Villa. Anhalis provided not just immediate artillery expertise that Via badly needed,

but he was also brought into the inner circle, crafting strategy, suggesting tactics, helping organize the growing army. Thinking of himself as a philosopher's soldier, Anhalis also spent time crafting a coherent ideological umbrella for the Division del Norte to fight under and to give VIA a platform to stand up on. And for sure by this point, Anhalis could see a divide opening up between Via and Caranza, and decided to stand shoulder to shoulder with Via. Via, meanwhile, saw an Anhalis military acumen, sure,

but also the potential for a national political leader that he could support. The alliance with Caranza had always been uneasy and necessitated by circumstances, one of them being that there wasn't really anybody else plausible that Via could put into the presidency upon victory. but Anhalis was a very plausible alternative, and Anhalis made sure Vian knew it. Okay, so with Anjolus now by Via's side, the Division del Norte, in total numbering as many as 50,000 people, equipped from the United States and controlling plenty of trains, were ready to roll south. Their first target would be the all-important city of Torrean. Torreon, as we talked about last week, had been captured by Vio once before, but after he pulled out, federal four. forces reoccupied the city. As many as 10,000 federal troops now stood in Via's way.

And the men and officers in Torreone actually had pretty high morale. They figured they would be able to defeat Via's rabble easily. His previous victories, they chalked up to either luck or bad commanders on the federal side. But as at the first battle of Torreon, Villa employed an aggressive strategy of night attacks on the federal positions, capturing first the very well-fortified city of Gomez Palacio that left a thousand men dead and three thousand wounded. Then he pressed on to Torreone to commence further withering charges and demoralizing night attacks. And this was coupled with more precise artillery bombardments thanks to the presence of Anhalis. Vasing a far better armed and organized army than they thought, federal soldiers and officers went from thinking this is going to be

a cakewalk to wondering how they were going to get out of Torayon alive. Well, Via gave them away. Rather than encircling the city. He left the road east to Saltio open. So, you know, if you want to run for it, be my guest. So on April 2nd, the federal army took him up on this obvious offer and ran for it, evacuating the city and allowing Via to capture it without having to fight street by street. Via's victory at Torrean was a massive blow to President Huerta's fortunes, as the cause in the north was now all but lost, and Via was preparing to drive even deeper into Central Mexico. It had now been just over a year since the ten tragic days. And initially, things had looked pretty good for Huerta.

The army was with him, the old Porfurian oligarchy was with him, most of the European diplomatic corps decided to recognize his regime, and he successfully outmaneuvered his internal rivals like Felix Diaz and installed loyal military officers in every state governorship. Even the Northern Rebellion at first seemed like it was going to be easy. Caranza and a few banditos running around. It was going to be more like a fox hunt than a war. But by the fall of 1913, things were looking not good at all.

His relationship with the United States had deteriorated and led to an arms embargo, forcing him to rely on guns imported either from Europe or from Japan. Then the revolutions in the south and in the north just kept going and getting stronger, and soon Sonora and Chihuahua and other points north were lost, cutting his regime off from both tax revenue and the produce of all those assyendas. In response, Werta decided to go double or nothing on the dictatorship, dissolving the Congress and getting himself elected president in a fraudulent election. But he also started raising other taxes to make up for the shortfalls in his budget,

and he suspended payments on the Mexican national debt, which ran him afoul of his European supporters. So by the time Vio was being installed as governor of Chihuahua in December of 1913, where to supporters were starting to think maybe they've backed the wrong horse here. Werta was supposed to mean order and profits, I mean progress, and instead it was all chaos. And on a personal level, Wirta's alcoholism raged just as bad as ever. So John Lind was able to report gleefully back to Woodrow Wilson that Wirtta's political base in Mexico City was cracking up. People were whispering that defeating the constitutionalist challenge might mean dumping Werta for some kind of compromise interim president.

This then brings us to the climax of today's episode, which was not the death blow to Huerta, but it was the proverbial kick in the balls that made possible the final death blow to Huerta. After a great deal of Hemming and Hawing, President Woodrow Wilson decided in April of 1914 to invade Mexico. The pretext for this invasion was a little misunderstanding called the Tampico affair. What happened is that the United States had, since the 10 tragic days, quite a few naval ships in both the Atlantic and Pacific just kind of hanging out in international waters off the coast of Mexico, you know, just in case. The U.S. Navy and Mexican Army garrisoning the various Mexican ports were mostly on decent terms. And on April 9th, the captain of a gunboat, the USS Dolphin, which was hovering outside of Tempico, sent nine guys ashore to pick up some gasoline. But at that moment, Tempico was being besieged by part of the constitutionalist army of the northeast,

and things were pretty tense inside the city. And the depot, these guys were headed towards, was right near one of the main skirmishing lines at a very critical bridge. So these guys go into the depot in a small boat with their U.S. flag flying. Two sailors stay on the boat. The other seven start loading barrels. Now, this had all been approved in advance, except that a company of federal soldiers who didn't know what was happening were awfully jumpy and they converged on the Americans with rifles raised shouting at them to stop. Now, of course, none of the U.S. sailors spoke Spanish because that's exactly what you want to do

when you're sending guys into a city that is under rebel siege. It's to make sure they can't communicate properly when jumpy soldiers are waving guns and shouting. So the nine soldiers are rounded up, including the two still on the U.S. flagged both. That's an important detail. And they were marched down to the federal army headquarters to get some answers. Now, really, this was a a big misunderstanding, and the commander of the federal forces cleared it up immediately. He apologized to the sailors and he sent them on their way inside of a half hour. What takes this from little misunderstanding to the Tampico affair is that the American Admiral in charge of the U.S. fleet decided that the apology and release were not good enough, especially because

Mexican soldiers had arrested U.S. servicemen while standing on a U.S. flagged ship, which he took as tantamount to an invasion of U.S. soil. He demanded the Mexican Army. apologized by hoisting the American flag and firing a 21 gun salute. This demand wound its way up the chain of command to Werta, who categorically refused to raise the American flag on Mexican soil. Negotiations then went on for a few more days, with both the Americans and Werta digging in their heels. Meanwhile, John Lind was at that moment back in Washington, D.C., telling Wilson that the U.S. needed to now intervene to pry Huerta out and give the constitutionalist the boost they needed to get rid of this guy. And Wilson finally agreed. But since there were logistical

difficulties with occupying Tempico, Wilson instead asked Congress for authorization to seize and occupy the all-important port of Veracruz. And the other reason for targeting Veracruz was that a German ship loaded with weapons for Huerta was fast approaching. So Wilson decided to go for it. And on April the 21st, he ordered the invasion and occupation of Veracruz. After getting his orders at about 8 a.m. on April the 21st, the commander of the U.S. fleet notified the commander of the thousand-man federal garrison in Veracruz that the Americans were coming. This gave the Federal Army commander plenty of time to clear out of town, unless, of course,

he wanted to get blasted into smithereens by big Navy guns. So the commander pulled his men out. At about 11 a.m., 500 Marines and 300 sailors landed in Veracruz, and fanned out, occupying all the key buildings along the waterfront that you want to occupy when you're capturing a port. They took the customs house and the docks, the railway station, the telegraph office. Then they set up a headquarters in a central hotel, and so far faced no resistance at all. But the citizens of Veracruz were not thrilled about this invasion, nor were the cadets at the Naval Academy, who took it upon themselves to defend Mexico's

honor. Some light skirmishing around sunset led to American fears that there was actually a much larger force in the city than they thought. So they waited nervously through the night. Then at 4.30 a.m. the next morning, additional waves of Americans landed, bringing their total up to about 3,500 men, and the complete occupation of Veracruz was ordered, not just the key points near the docks. But as these guys were marching in parade order down the main streets of Veracruz, they were hit by armed civilians and sniper fire from the windows. The Americans were not at all prepared for this and fell back. So then the Navy brought their heavy guns to bear, and they started shelling hotspots, especially around the Naval Academy. Spiratic fighting and shelling went on for two more

days, though by the end of April the 22nd, the city was basically pacified, leaving 19 American dead and 72 wounded, with 170 Mexican dead and close to the same number of wounded. But Veracruz was now under American occupation. The occupation of Veracruz came as a huge, huge shock to all of Mexico, and it played a critical, though not necessarily decisive all on its own, part in both the looming fall of Huerta and the future course of the Mexican Revolution. Werta, though, initially thought that this temporary setback of being cut off from his most important port would be more than offset by the patriotic outrage it was sure to trigger. Everyone in Mexico was deeply offended by the invasion, and Huerta thought that this was his chance

to actually bolster his regime. His officers immediately used it to gin up further recruitment for the army, and they started sending feelers out to rebel leaders suggesting that they may have to put aside their differences to expel the Americans, a suggestion that many rebel leaders were willing to entertain. Now, Zapata, for his part, rejected any attempt at a patriotic alliance, but he did say that the American presence in Veracruz made his blood boil, so there was deep anger about this.

The occupation also opened up a wider divide between Via and Carranza. Caranza and the Sonorans were deeply nationalistic, especially about things like Yankee exploitation, and Carranza issued a strong letter to Wilson condemning the occupation and demanding the Americans to withdraw. They were proud and patriotic Mexicans. They did not want Americans sitting in their country. This shocked and peeved Wilson because he expected Caranza to be grateful for the help. But the only rebel leader who was, was appreciative was Pancho Villa. Via told an American agent, yeah, go ahead and hold Veracruz.

I don't care. Hold it so tight, not even water can get to Huerta. And he sent his own letter to Wilson saying Caranza is not speaking on behalf of everyone. And when Caranza and the Sonorans found out they were furious, not just that Via was freelancing foreign policy, but also because they were now suspicious, Via was in fact a puppet of the Colossus of the North, and that if he was allowed to emerge from the war victorious, that he would happily sell them. all out to the Yankees. So as I said, the occupation of Veracruz had major repercussions, both for the immediate conflict between Werta and the Constitutionalists, but also for the growing breach between

factions inside the rebel camp. And next week, we will cover both. As Werta's regime continues to collapse, the rebels continue to advance on their way to becoming the latest victims of the entropy of victory. Now, before we go this week, I must tell you that we are running a a special Saturnalia promotion for the storm before the storm on Amazon. If you order the paperback from Amazon.com, you get an additional 30% off the customer price by entering the promo code 30 Rome at checkout.

That's the number 30-30-R-O-M-E. That again, it's 30% off the paperback by using the promo code 30 Rome at checkout. This is a great way to save yourself from money while you buy all of your friends and family, the storm before the storm for Saturnalia, which I figured you were going to. to do anyway. This is a wow supplies last offer, though, so please don't procrastinate. And I'll end by saying that next week, we will be back for a new episode, but then I will be taking three weeks off for Saturnalia and adjacent family activities, and we'll be back again after the new year. So next week, we will end phase two of the Mexican Revolution, and then I will be back on January

the 13th for phase three, Via and Zapata against the world. Thank you.