Revolutions - 9.18- The Fall of Huerta

Episode Date: December 17, 2018

In the summer of 1914, the armies of Obregón, Villa, and Zapata drove Huerta into exile. 

and welcome to revolutions. Episode 9.18, the fall of Huerta. In May 1914, the regime of President Victoriano Huerta was tottering on the brink of collapse. Since his decision to seize the presidency and turn Mexico into a straight-up military dictatorship back in October of 1913, things had just gone from bad to worse.

The constitutionalist forces in the north had steadily advanced, and the federal army had been expelled from Sonora and Chihuahua and Durango, and everywhere else were in retreat. General Alvaro Obrugon's constitutionalist army of the northwest had pushed into Sinaloa, and they were on their way to Halisco. General Pablo Gonzalez's army of the northeast took Monterey practically without a fight in April and was now besieging Tampico. And of course, in the center, Pancho Villa's division del Norte had captured the critical city

of Torreon. Then the Americans had gone and occupied Veracruz at the end of April, and if you were in Despite the brief wave of patriotic indignation that followed, that wave soon dissipated, and Werta's fortunes continued to collapse. The rank and file of the Federal Army were unhappy conscripts, now deserting or defecting in droves. The officers maintained a pretensive professionalism, but were now focused on securing a settlement

that would allow them to live through the conflict without either dying in battle or being captured and executed by the constitutionalists. Meanwhile, in Mexico City, where to's backers among the old Porfurian oligarchy and the foreign diplomatic corps were also now looking for a negotiated settlement. Hopefully, modeled on Madero's very accommodating Treaty of Juarez in 1911, that in exchange for Huerta's resignation, everybody else would basically be able to keep their political and social positions.

But they were going to find the constitutionalists quite a bit less accommodating than Madero had been, partly because of what had happened to Madero as a reward for all his accommodations. The war in the north, however, was not the only war Werta was waging. He was also still grappling with Emiliano Zapata and the war in the south. Now, our focus on events in the north has taken us away from Morelos for the past two episodes, but that does not mean the Zapatistas were just sitting around doing nothing. So remember, that after Werta took power, he sent the brutal general Juvencio Robles back to Morelos. Far from pacifying Morelos, Robles' brutality helped turn the,

the entire population of Morelos into Zapatistas. So great was Robles' failure that he was forced to declare victory and just leave the state at the end of summer 1913. And that's basically where we were the last time we checked in with Zapata. Well, after Robles left, the Zapatistas were actually facing a dire emergency because word was going around that Werta was going to hold elections in October and hand power to a successor. If that happened, the United States would recognize the new regime dealing a terrible blow to the the revolutionary cause. But luckily, where to blew it. He instead dissolved the Congress and elected himself president at the end of October in a sham election, and so the revolution

in Morelos rolled on. Going into the winter of 1913, 1914, the federal forces in Morelos numbered about three or four thousand. But as we've seen often in the course of this series, these troops were holed up in the six municipal capitals, the troops getting drunk, while the officers and bezzled as much money as they could get their hands on. No longer waging an offensive war, they mostly left the villages and rural areas to the Zapatistas. With this advantageous stalemate in place, Sapana got more ambitious,

and he started expanding his influence over a wider arc, hoping to bring all of South Central Mexico under the banner of the Plano Viala. So he spent these months traveling around and corresponding with leaders in the neighboring states of Guerrero and Puebla, and through a combination of personal, magnetism, moral rectitude, the death of key rivals, and a general bandwagon effect. By the end of 1913, Sepada was not just leading one faction of rebels among many factions in Marelos.

He was the acknowledged chief of a large coalition of forces spanning multiple states, and they all stood perched in the rugged mountains just south of Mexico City, filling the respectable residents of the capital with fear and dread. But the geographic and social realities of the Zapatista states hindered Zapata's ability to carry the war beyond the Zapatista states. For one thing, they were landlocked and forever hindered by supply issues. Unlike the constitutionalist in the north, who had open lines to the United States, the only way the Zapatistas could rearm themselves was by capturing stuff from the Federales. This is partly why Sapata so rarely attempted major assaults on urban areas.

It was calculated that it took 200,000 bullets for 4,000 men to conduct a five-day siege of a city. So Zapata had to be more careful about his operations because every bullet was a precious bullet. And there was also a social factor at play. Because unlike the constitutionalists who were waging an aggressive war of expansion, the Zapatistas were always waging an insular war of defense. And this was a defense not just of their villages, but a defense of the past. As much as it is described as a revolution, the Zapatistas are more fully involved in a restoration than a revolution, the restoration of their ancient rights, a rejection of ostendado modernization. This was the basic moral principle upon which they all staked their lives, to have it go back to the way that it was.

So thanks to limited supplies and the very nature of the men's motivations to protect my village, Sopata would always be waging limited garage. campaigns. All of this meant that if Sapata wanted to ensure that the plan of Ayala spread to all of Mexico, which is what he wanted, he was going to need allies. But as we've already established, Zapata did not and would never sign the plan of Guadalupe. He did not and would never recognize Carranza as first chief. Sepata was now firmly in the territory of fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. As we discussed at length in episode 9.13, Zapata felt personally betrayed by Signor Medero, and he vowed to never let it happen again. And Sapata was right to not sign on to Caranza's plans. Caranza considered the Morelos Revolutionaries' barbaric,

barefooted heathens who would eventually have to be crushed once he became president of Mexico. But Zapata did need revolutionary allies in the north, and it was just here near the end of 1913, and he started hearing good things about this Poncho Villa character. But while some perked up when they heard VIA was a great general, or that Via was Robin Hood, or that VIA maintained orders in the cities he captured, Sopata perked up when he heard that Via was actually confiscating property. Not just saying he would confiscate property, but actually doing it. And as Via's legend grew, and more stories started filtering down from the north, Sopata wondered if maybe Vio wasn't somebody he could actually work out a mutually beneficial alliance with.

To check on the rumors, Sapata dispatched his close friend and Zapatista ideologue Ildardo Magagna to sound VIA out. Why Magana? Well, mostly because the last time we saw Magna was a year earlier when he was sharing a prison with Via and teaching him the finer points of Zapatista agrarian ideology. So in November of 1913, Magana went on a very roundabout trip north, eventually coming back into Mexico through the United States to have a face-to-face meeting with Via. And when they did meet, Maganya was thrilled to report back to Sapata that it was all true. Via was confiscating Asienas. This was not talk.

This was action. And Zapata, much like Via, preferred action to talk. Thanks to the length and the difficulty of the communication lines between North and South, Villa and Zapata were only able to open up a limited correspondence. but they did get the ball rolling on something of a mutual admiration society. Via confirmed that his commitment to seizing property on behalf of the people was sincere, as was his desire to rid Mexico of the corrupt oligarchy. It was, in fact, one of his driving passions.

Sapata liked the sound of all that, so he warned Via not to trust false friends who might pretend to share his ideals, but who will betray them at the first opportunity, all but pointing the finger at Carranza and saying, that's the guy I'm talking about. In so doing, Sopata agreed that it was critical to purge Mexico of its corrupt elements. His own analysis of Madero's fall, which I agree with obviously, is that Madero trusted his enemies and ignored his friends, which brings me to one of my favorite bits, at least in terms of how it connects the Mexican Revolution all the way back to the heady days of the French Revolution. Writing about the fate of Madero and the first

plan of San Luis Revolution, Sopata wrote quote, The same would happen now if some kind of 93 did not take place in order to purify this corrupt society. The 93 is specifically referencing the French Revolution and the reign of terror, because somebody is now feeding Zapata radical Jacobin history and encouraging him to think like an agrarian robespierre. The possible alliance between Villa and Sapata was now hanging out there, with Zapata clearly hinting an active coordination with Via in a way that he would never, actively coordinate with the other constitutionalists. In fact, this active coordination would,

in all likelihood, be against the other constitutionalists. And by April of 1914, this had gone far enough that Zapatista spokesman in El Paso were saying to the press that they did not recognize Carranza. They only recognized Pancho Villa as the legitimate leader of the revolution in the north. So in the spring of 1914, Sopata was ready to go back on the offensive. His liberating army of the South had hoarded enough bullets to prepare for this offensive in late March 1914. Launching a broad and pretty well-organized campaign in Guerrero, they captured the capital city of Chopencingo on March the 26th. And then, just as they were consolidating their hold over this additional territory, they got the sensational news that the United States had invaded

and occupied Veracruz. As I mentioned last week, Sepata said that the U.S. occupation of Veracruz made his blood boil, but boy did it ever make his job easier. Because in response to this invasion, Werta pulled thousands of men out of Morelos in case he needed them to fight the Americans. This left only two garrisons left in the state, one in Hohutla and the other in the capital of Kornavaka. All other cities were just evacuated, including Kwautla. When the federal forces evacuated, they were joined by all the remaining ostendados and their managers, friends, behefe's politicos, all of them fled the state for good, leaving Morelos almost entirely in Zapata's hands. So facing no other opposition at the end of April, Sopata was able to

concentrate his forces around that poor garrison trying to hold Hojula, demoralized and surrounded, they just gave up, many of the conscripts defecting to the Zapatistas, bringing all their weapons and supplies with them. The only federal redoubt left in Morelos was Kornavaka. The rest of the state was in the hands of Emiliano Zapata. Just as Sapata was consolidating his hold over South Central Mexico, Poncho Villa was getting ready to plunge into north central Mexico. Their two armies, the Division del Norte and the Liberating Army of the South, combining to crush Huerta and install a new, truly revolutionary government in Mexico City

was fast becoming the most likely scenario. And this scenario scared the hell out of Caranza, and so Caranza did everything he could to hinder, hamstring, hobble, delay, and any other synonym you care for, to hold back the Division del Norte. For starters, Carranza moved his constitutionalist government to Juarez in April of 1914. Via did not do anything to stop Carranza from moving up to Juarez, but he was aware that Carranza now stood between the Division del Norte and their American supply lines. Carranza also subtly undertook the cultivation of Villa's subordinates, stroking their egos and encouraging them to think and act independently of Via,

and that as first chief of the whole war, Carranza was in a position to support them if they decided to turn their backs on Via. Carranza, though, knew he was no general, and that if he was going to permanently stymie Via's ambitions, that he was going to need someone who could match Via's military acumen. And from the very beginning, he had identified and cultivated as his most important ally, no not any of the chiefs from Chihuahua, of course,

they were all a bunch of drunken bandits. I am talking about Avar Obregon. Obergon and the Sonorans had been Carranz's saviors in the opening months of the constitutionalist rebellion. Not only had they waged the most successful early campaign of the war, but they were politically sound, which meant they were not fighting for social revolution. Now, as we go forward, we will be able to discuss at length that Obergoen did have a reformist streak. But during this phase of the revolution, he's quoted as saying, we have no agraristas here, thank God. Carranza identified Obrugone as indispensable to winning the political rebellion without

it devolving into a social revolution, and he did everything he could to not alienate Obrugon. So, for example, when Carranza made Felipe Anjalis, minister of war, it was Obrugone and the other Sonoran officers who objected, and Carranza quickly backtracked. When the United States invaded and occupied Veracruz, Carranz's response was an uncompromised denunciation of the Americans, in part because Obrugone and the Sonorans were patriotically nationalistic. In Caranza's estimation, Obrugone was the one who could save Mexico from the horrors of Yismo and Zapatismo, and of course, get Caranza elevated to the presidency. Now, for his part, Obrugone's support for Caronza was one premised on mutual gain, rather than like, oh man,

Carranza, you're a prophet, I love you. It's actually one of the mysteries of the Mexican Revolution and how Carranza winds up as first chief. Because even Obrugone thought him cold, aloof, and dogmatic, which was the description used by practically every other constitutionalist who ever came into direct contact with the first chief. And it really does seem to come down to the fact that by being the first and only governor to declare his opposition to Werta, that Carranza claimed real estate at the top of the revolutionary pyramid and then when other people showed up, he was just like,

oh, no, this is my place. Don't get me wrong, Carranza was a clever guy. But in the long history of charismatic revolutionary leaders leading through force of charisma and imagination, men like, I don't know, Via and Zapata, Carranza's just not in their league. But he had Obregon. And as long as he had Obrugon, he was good, because Obrugone was in the same league as Via and Zapata. So as we've already established, Obrugone and the Sonorans had swiftly taken control of practically their whole state within a month of the ten tragic days. By the fall of 1913, they had moved south into Sinaloa, but were hampered by both supply

issues and a lack of good railroad infrastructure. But then, like everyone else on the constitutionalist side, the lifting of the American arms embargo in February of 1914 was a boon to their fortunes, and Obrugone's comrades on the border were able to start importing all kinds of stuff from Arizona. So in preparation for the broad constitutionalist push now made possible by the American supply lines. Obergaon started recruiting more men, especially among the Mayo and Yaqui tribes, promising that they would benefit from land reform once the revolution was won. He then focused on drilling and training his soldiers and improving supply and communication lines, while

Obrugone himself spent a great deal of time reading military history and campaign reports from various recent wars, trying to glean any tactical or strategic ideas that he could employ in the war he now found himself leading. Obrugon basically walked off his chickpea farm in March of 1911 with no military experience whatsoever, and then he self-taught his way into becoming one of the outstanding military leaders of his generation. So in the spring of 1914, his army of the Northwest was professional, orderly, and efficient. Now, this army was never as large or as aggressive as the Division del Norte, though, and Obregon pushed south along the Pacific coast with what historian Alan Knight calls Fabian

caution. Hopefully everybody gets that reference now. But though he was cautious, Obregone was not without cunning. And when, for example, he captured the city of Tepique, he did it by ordering his men to stamp up a huge dust storm that would conceal how small their numbers really were. From Tepique, Obregone pushed south into Halisco, and it was just about this moment that he started getting notes from Caranza that Via is dangerous and you have to get to Mexico City before he does. Obrigon, of course, agreed. But the railroads in northwestern Mexico were not nearly as developed as they were in the central corridor. And if Obrugan was going to win the race to Mexico City, Carranza was going to have to figure out a way to slow VIA down.

So the next objective for VIA was the city of Sakatecas, which was truly the gateway between northern and central Mexico. Once Sakatecas was captured, it really was all downhill to Mexico City. So to stop Via from rolling downhill, Carranza ordered him on a sideways detour. The federal forces that had evacuated Torreon at the end of March had linked up with the last remaining garrisons of Quaweila around the state capital of Saltillo. Carranza ordered Via to go finish them off. Via protested that this meant diverting his forces hundreds of miles to the east, and besides Pablo Gonzalez's army of the northeast was much, much closer.

But Carranza insisted, and the unanimous consensus of historians is that this had nothing to do with military necessity and everything to do with delaying Villas move south. The less unanimous, but thoroughly plausible further, further assumption, is that if troops were going to get killed and wounded capturing Saltillo, that Carranza preferred them to be Via's troops to further weaken the Division del Norte. Now, if Via disobeyed this order, it would be rank insubordination and rupture the constitutionalist co-oest. So, rather than risk that rupture, Via did as he was ordered, and he diverted his men hundreds of miles to the east. Via first led an 8,000-man cavalry charge against the city of Petardone, and sent the Federal allies there flying in all directions. Then, as he approached the capital of Salteo from the north, the federal garrison just broke and fled before Via even arrived. And when he showed up on May the 20th, for the second time in his career, Via just

waltzed into a state capital without firing a shot. But he did not hold Salteo. He did not want to, and he instead handed it over to agents of Caranza, and shortly thereafter, the first chief moved south and retook up residence in the capital that he had been forced to abandon at the outset of the constitutionalist rebellion. While Via was thus diverted, Carranza met with another rebel leader, a guy named Panfilo Natera, who had been a subordinate of Vias and was now operating his own little auxiliary army. Natara brashly told Karanza that he could go get Zacatechus without via's help. And Karanza said, great, and he issued a decree forming a new army of the center and put Natera in charge of it. But of all the cities that the constitutionalist had faced,

Zacatechus was by far the best offended. An old mining colony situated in rough mountainous terrain, the city lay at the foot of a couple of steep peaks that were heavily fortified with federal artillery. And since everyone knew it was the gateway to central Mexico, the garrison stood at a robust 15,000 men. So the newly created army of the center rolled in and spent two days flinging themselves uselessly against the federal defenses before Natera gave up and cabled back to Caranza that it was no good. Now, the obvious thing to do here is for Carranza to say, well, I'm just going to have to give the job to Via and the Division del Norte. There's just nothing else to be done. But Caranza was now at least as interested in weakening Via as he was

in defeating Huerta. And so instead, he cabled Via and said, I need you to detach 5,000 men from your army and transfer them to the army of the center. Via was, of course, outraged, as were his fellow generals. Caronzo was clearly ordering this troop transfer to undercut Via. I mean, otherwise, you just order Via to go do it. The Division del Norte is thus far nearly undefeated in the field. Via was so incensed that he barked, I am done with this man, and said he was going to ride to Saltio and hang Caranza from a tree. And it was at this moment, we're now in mid-June, 1914, that Via finally understood that there could be no accommodating Caranza, that Caranza was as much his enemy as Huerta, maybe even more so. So Via cabled back on June the 12th and said, this is crazy. First and foremost, because if you give these 5,000 men to Natera, he's just going to get them all killed, and we still won't hold Sakateka.

So just order me to go do it and I'll do it. But Carranza cabled back, do as you're ordered, send the 5,000 men. So Via took a drastic step. On June the 13th, he dramatically cabled Carranza. I resign. Even Via's own inner circle didn't quite know what was going on as Via suddenly started packing up his stuff to leave. Felipe Anhalis came in and was like, dude, what's happening?

And Via basically said, I'm done, I'm out, I'm going home. This is stupid. So Anhalis sprang into action. For the sake of Via, for the sake of Anhalis's own ambitions, for the sake of the other officers, the men under their command, for the sake of the revolution, and for Mexico, this cannot happen. Anhalis tried to get things sorted out, and he cabled Carranza,

and said, you don't know what you're doing. If you accept Via's resignation, the Division del Norte will either revolt or dissolve, and that would be catastrophic. But Carranza really thought he had played this perfectly, and that he had maneuvered Via into quitting the field voluntarily. He knew there were plenty of chiefs, quote-unquote, under Villa,

who had been unhappy playing a subordinate role, and he now expected them to come forward and say, yep, see you later, Poncho Villa. But the last nine months had taught those generals that their combined strength was far greater than their individual strength. And besides, Via had never let them down, he had always led them to victory, and those who wanted spoils and riches and special accommodations,

Via always gave them that. And now Carranza, who none of them really knew, was giving them this stark choice. It's either him or me. And they also saw Via packing his bags and said, well, him, obviously. We don't know you, but he is quite indispensable. So they came to Via as a group and insisted he remained in command. And then the general signed a communique, probably drafted by Anhalis, saying that we continue to recognize Via as our chief. And they said to Carranza, quite bluntly, we know you're only doing this to get rid of Via. And we think that that stinks. They signed off by saying, we're going to Zacatechus whether you like it or not. So, with Via talked back into leading the Division del Norte, they boarded their trains and rolled south just a few days later. The Division del Norte, not minus the 5,000 men Caranza had just

tried to take away, now numbered as many as 20,000 soldiers and officers, and it was going to take every single one of them to capture Zacatecas, still garrisoned by at least 12,000 and maybe 15,000 men and still incredibly well fortified and defended. Recognizing that mere bravado and guts was not going to carry the day, Via assigned Anhalis, the task of drawing up a more professional plan of attack. The key, of course, would be taking out the federal guns perched high above the city. But the Division del Norte now had a formidable artillery unit of its own, and they were brought to bear on the federal positions to back up what was going to be a hard and bloody infantry slog up the slopes.

The rest of the army, meanwhile, encircled the city. And at 10 a.m. on June the 23rd, 1914, Via ordered a massive simultaneous offensive, leaving on Hollis behind to manage the affair from headquarters, while he personally led one of the elite cavalry columns into the city. The fighting was the most intense of the war. But the brigades, given the unenviable task of capturing the hills, did their work well. And within a few hours, the first peak fell, followed a few hours later by the second. This sent the federal soldiers into a fit of chaotic panic as Via's men swarmed into the city taking no prisoners. The chaos worsened as a general who was about to lose the ammunition depot decided to blow it up, taking himself with it rather than surrender.

This huge explosion set most of the central city on fire. But unlike at Torrean, when Villa had left an opening for a retreat, Zacatechus would be different. All routes out of the city were plugged up. and the main road to Aguos Calientis in particular was blocked by thousands of troops manning a wall of machine guns. A large group of about 1,500 federal soldiers with their wives and girlfriends tried to flee down this road, and they ran right into the wall of machine guns, and it was just a slaughter. By the end of the day, 6,000 federal soldiers were dead and about 3,000 wounded, plus who knows how many civilians.

Via lost about 1,000 dead and 3,000 wounded. It was the bloodiest battle of the war, but he had won. The Division del Norte captured Zacatechus, and nothing could stop them from taking Mexico City. This was an intolerable state of affairs for Carranza. Not only had Via attacked Zacatechus without orders, but Obregonne had still not managed to get out in front of the Division del Norte. But Via could not move his trains without coal, and the coal. supply came from Quaweila, and so Caranza embargoed all coal shipments to the Division del Norte. Via made an advance in the direction of Aguos Calientes, but then he had to stop.

He was out of fuel. And then American policy suddenly shifted again. After Veracruz, they had gone back to being stringent about armed shipments to Mexico. They closed arm sales on the Mexican-American border and only allowed imports into Tempico, which had recently fallen into Caranza's hands. Now, this weirdly narrow policy was obviously aimed at disrupting VIA and strengthening Caranza, which is strange because not six weeks earlier, President Woodrow Wilson was clearly well disposed towards the Via and none too happy with Caranza. The shift in policy is generally explained one of two ways. It either reflects divisions among Wilson's advisors, and that business interests friendlier to Caranza were now ascendant, and they warned Wilson

about what would happen if Via got a hold of Mexico, all of Mexico. The other explanation is that there was actually a consistent American policy here that emphasized making sure no one faction got too strong so that American weight could tilt the post-war settlement in the most pro-American direction possible. And with the Division del Norte, probably the single, strongest land army on like the whole continent at the moment, Wilson decided to bleed off some of Via's momentum. So with Via stalled out, his trains unable to move, Obrugone and the Army of the Northwest, now consolidating into a cohesive unit of about 15,000 to 18,000 men, made a left turn and moved into the Bahiao and were driving hard at Guadalajara.

All of Cranza's machinations were working. Via was being held up long enough that Obrugone was moving between the Division del Norte and Mexico City, and would be the general that Mexico City would now most likely fall to. With things basically going how he wanted now, Caranza decided he could be a bit more magnanimous towards Via. Victory was now on the horizon, and the post-war settlement would have to be worked out. Caranza had pushed Via right to the brink of open revolt, and now wanted to pull back. So he invited Via to Torreon for a conference on July the 14th, 1914. At that meeting, Via and Carranza made a public show of patching things up. Via reaffirial. Via reaffirial.

that Caranza was first chief and leader of the national revolution. But he extracted some concessions from Caranza in exchange, that his supply lines would be opened back up, that he would have far more autonomy and latitude in areas that were controlled by the Division del Norte, and most importantly, that when the war was won, a national convention of all the rebel leaders would convene to jointly craft a future for Mexico. Unlike after Marrero's revolution, when the quote-unquote respectable politicians had gone off to Mexico City and stopped returning the phone calls of all their soldiers, Via insisted that his men have a real voice. So the constitutionalists emerged from the Torrean Conference, ostensibly united, on the brink of victory, and with an agreement to hold a

convention after their common enemy was defeated. Meanwhile, what was left of the old Werthe government was trying to save itself. The senior officers of the army, the Porfugian oligarchs, their foreign backers, were desperately trying to find someone, anyone who would be willing to cut a deal similar to the deal Madero had cut back in May of 1911, to accept ditching Huerta in exchange for keeping the army and the other elements of the regime intact. But no one would accept this offer. After the Americans occupied Veracruz and the writing was on the wall for Werta, the ABC powers, that is, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia, offered to host a conference, in Niagara Falls, Canada, attended by the United States, emissaries of Huerta's regime,

and the constitutionalists, the object being to negotiate an end to the fighting. But remember, one of Carranza's great insights was that no compromise was possible, that surrender must be unconditional, and he refused to send anyone to this Niagara Falls conference, and the guys who were sent to represent Huerta were noted at this conference as being loyal to Mexico but not to Huerta, who was already considered totally disposable. The object of all the representatives at the Niagara Falls Conference was to get some kind of deal in place before the rebels won, but it wrapped up at the end of June, having accomplished nothing. By the first week of July, the noose finally got too tight for Huerta.

Obergoen was now making rapid, unimpeded progress towards Mexico City, and in Morelos, the Zapatistas finally forced the last federal army to evacuate Kornavaka, and Zapata had led his army into the federal district itself. The question was now no longer how to win, but how to lose. With no friends left, Victoriano Werta decided to call it quits. On July the 9th, he appointed Francisco Carbajal, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, to be the new foreign minister. And then, on July the 15th, 1914, Werta submitted his resignation to the Chamber of Deputies. His life now obviously very much in danger, Werta and a few close hours. their families and a load of cash, jewelry, and gold, headed for the small port of Puerto,

since obviously Veracruz was still occupied by the Americans. Werita's resignation and flight came amidst negotiations with various diplomatic legations about how he was going to get out of the country, with the Germans, finally, reluctantly, accepting that they would transport Werita and his family, but no one else, on a cruiser called the Dresden, which was bound for Jamaica. There, he would get on a British liner to Europe. And it's kind of funny how, at this late hour, we're now just on the eve of World War I. Both the British and Germans are trying to get the other to take responsibility for Werta's safety,

knowing it would make that country very unpopular with the new incoming regime. And boy, is there ever a lot of oil in Tampico that sure would be nice to have in case like a war breaks out between us. But Werta got on the Dresden and he sailed away. He had been president of Mexico for 17 months and would then spend his exile in Barcelona. But we are not quite done with Victoriano Huerta, just as we are not quite done with Pasquo Rosco. And those two will link back up for one last hurrah. Werta's resignation did not quite end the war, as the new president, Carball, was still trying to assert his right to serve as provisional president, just as de la Berra had done back in 1911. But this wasn't 1911.

The leaders of the Federal Army, meanwhile, were promising to surrender to any general who would allow them to attach conditions to that surrender, including an offer to surrender to Zapata. But no one would accept this offer. Again, this was not 1911. Surrender must be complete and unconditional. Despite all their ideological and personal differences, all the revolutionaries agreed that the future of Mexico required root and branch purge of the Porfarian conservative. So Carball didn't wait around. He abandoned the capital and followed Werta to exile. By that point, Obergaon's army had advanced all the way to Teoloyucan, maybe 25 miles north of Mexico City.

Carranza joined Obergoon on August the 11th, and they reiterated that unconditional surrender was the only option. And so two days later, the federal army formally surrendered to Carranza and Obergoan. The terms of the resulting Treaty of Teololokan stated that all federal soldiers in Mexico City must withdraw east towards Puebla, leaving all weapons and ammunition behind. The only federal forces allowed to stay in place would be those manning the line facing south towards Morelos. Those troops were to stay in place until constitutionalist units could relieve them, making it clear again that Carranza considered the Zapatista's not a friend to be invited

into the capital to celebrate, but an enemy to be kept at bay. On August the 15th, 1914, Overdegone led his army into Mexico City. The constitutionalists had won. The victory of the constitutionalists ended phase two of the Mexican Revolution. And when I returned from my break, we will launch phase three, defined by the conflict between the constitutionalists and the conventionists. And if that means nothing to you, well, that's fine. When we come back, I'll explain to you all about it. As I said at the end of last week, though, this break will be three weeks long, so our next new episode will be on January the 13th, 2019. In the meantime, I will be taking a little vacation, spending some time with my family, and commencing some heavy work on

Citizen Lafayette. As you wait patiently for my return, and even more patiently for Citizen Lafayette, please remember that Amazon is running a Saturnalia special for the Storm before the storm. It's 30% off the paperback when you use the code 30 Rome at checkout. That is 30ROME. I want to thank everyone for their support, for continuing to listen to the show. And I will see you all back here next year when we will finish the Mexican Revolution and then get started with an open-ended run on the Russian Revolution.