Revolutions - 9.21- Death To The Gringos

Episode Date: January 27, 2019

In November, 1915 Pancho Villa declared death to the gringos.  Sponsor link: audible.com/revolutions

And welcome to revolutions. Episode 9.21, Death to the Gringos. Since the beginning of Francisco Madero's revolution back in 1910, Mexico had been consumed by five years of civil war and chaos. But the geopolitical landscape had actually been kind of stable and consistent. There was always someone claiming national authority holding the center of the country, facing off against rebels and revolutionaries operating in either the rugged south-central interior or off in the northern periphery. First, it was Porfirio Dias in the center, with Madero in the north and the Zapatistas in the south. Then it was Madero in the center, with Pasqual Orozco in the north

and the Zapatistas in the south. Then it was Huerta in the center, with Carranza, Via and Obrugon in the north, and the Zapatistas in the south. Only once, for a very brief moment, was this basic geographic structure of the revolution altered, when Via, Sopata, and the conventionists had united north and south and captured the center, and then stood against those islands of constitutionalism. But that did not last very long. Following Obrugan's victories in the spring and summer of 1915, the revolution returned to its natural state, with Carranza and the constitutionalist retaking control of central Mexico, while Via retreated north, and Sopata hunkered down in the south. But then something unprecedented had happened.

For the next five years, not only did the basic geographic alignment hold, but so too did the center. Caranza is not going to be dislodged any time soon, and this filled some with hope and others with dread that maybe the revolution was ending, and a New Mexico was about to be born. Now that doesn't mean that there weren't some out there trying to bring the old Mexico back, and before we get on to new business, we need to wrap up some old business. First, we must mark the death of Porfirio Diaz, who had spent the first. the last four years living in a not completely uncomfortable life in Paris. Despite his age, infirmities, and political realities, Dias never stopped loose talk of how he could come back to Mexico.

And as he monitored the situation in his country, he felt all of his predictions had come true. And he was more convinced than ever that holding on to power all those years had been justified. I mean, just look, the minute he left the presidency, Mexico had been consumed by civil war and chaos. just as he always told everyone it would be. But he never did make it back to Mexico. Porfirio Diaz died in Paris on July 2nd, 1915 at the age of 84. He died depressed about how things had ended, but at least secure in his belief that he had been right all along.

No one in the old conservative Porfurian elite really thought that bringing back Porfirio Diaz was a good idea. But they did want their country back. With many of these guys now living in exile in the United States, they hatch schemes to try to reimpose order and progress. One scheme was sponsored by American business and political interests and involved staging a coup to make Eduardo Iterbide president. Itterbide was a descendant of the First Emperor of Mexico, but the plan was scotched as unfeasible and counterproductive by President Wilson. Another plot that got a little further along was hatched by German intelligence and a clique of old Porfurian oligarchs. Their plan was to bring back General Werta.

After close to a year in Spain, Werta came to New York in April of 1915 and jumped at the chance to return to the presidency and avenge himself on his enemies. The Germans promised to finance an arm, Werta's return to power, and in exchange, Werta promised to wage a patriotic war against the United States that would prevent the Americans from, joining the Allies in World War I. By June of 1915, this plot was far enough along that Werta and a group of co-conspirators and followers planned a rendezvous in New Mexico. Among those co-conspirators was our old friend Pasqual Orozco. Like Werta, Orozco was eager to get back into action and avenge himself against, well, just about everybody. But this little reactionary conspiracy and its German backers had been closely monitored by the United States Secret Service.

Both Werta and Orozco were arrested while they were on their way to the rendezvous point. Werta wound up in custody at Fort Bliss, while Orozco was put under house arrest in El Paso, from which he managed a very quick escape. It ended well for neither man, though. Orozco met up with some other conspirators, and these guys proceeded to have an altercation at a nearby ranch, where, depending on what version you hear, Orozco was either a cruel jerk who tried to rustle some horses. he was intentionally set up by his enemies to make it look like he was rustling some horses, or he had gone to the ranch to retake possession of some horses that had been rustled from him years earlier.

Whichever version is true, the result was the same. The American rancher went and got a posse of U.S. Cavalry and Texas Rangers to go hunt down a gang of horse thieves, intentionally not telling this posse that the target was the Pasquo Orozco, famous Mexican rebel and currently wanted by federal authorities. So instead of bringing Orozco in, the posse surrounded Orozco's ban and gunned them all down. Pasquale Orozco, the man who had won Madero's war for him and then been one of the most powerful Cardios in the north in the early stages of the Mexican Revolution, now lay dead. He was only 33 years old. General Huerta, meanwhile, never got out of jail.

He died in U.S. custody in January of 1960. was some suspecting that he was poisoned, but it was just as likely liver failure from a lifetime of alcoholism. Okay, so that is the end of old business. Dias and Orozco and Huerta are all dead. They are not coming back. The old order is not coming back.

Whatever else happened next, it was going to move Mexico forward, not backward. And what that new order would be was of great interest to President Woodrow Wilson, who still wanted a negotiated peace between all the revolutionary factions. With Pancho Villa now reeling from a string of defeats, Wilson issued a statement saying that the United States stood ready to help Mexico help itself by hosting a summit in Washington, D.C.

That was meant to do what the previous Niagara Falls Conference had failed to do. Bring all the factions together with representatives of the ABC powers, who I was alerted, the last time I mentioned these guys, that I said it was Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia. It's not Colombia, of course, it's Chile. But the idea was to all come together and negotiate a settlement. Coming off, his string of catastrophic defeats, Pancho Villa was all for this conference. And it was important enough to him that he sent Felipe Anhalas personally to represent the Vistas. Anhalas had long been a supporter and facilitator of friendly relations between Via in the United States,

and he had a lot of American friends. But like the previous Niagara Falls Conference, this summit in Washington, D.C. in August of 1915, came to nothing. Carranza refused to send a representative. He rightly suspected that any quote-unquote compromise would revolve around pushing Caranza out of the picture. And he was not going to be pushed out of the picture. And there was a proposal to try to elevate some former member of Francisco Madero's government to provisional president to maintain some kind of constitutional chain of legitimacy. But there wasn't much support for this idea even at the conference. Besides down in Mexico, the victorious constitutionalist didn't care. much about constitutional chains of legitimacy anymore, because they were already deciding that Mexico was going to need a whole new post-revolution constitution. While Carranza settled himself in the presidential palace, from which he would refuse to budge for the next five years, the once-mighty Poncho Villa sat in Chihuahua City, taking stock of his dismal situation. The news was all bad. He only had now about 15,000 men under his command,

discipline was bad and morale was in the toilet. Now back in episode 9.16, we talked about how Via was able to rise to power after starting out with eight followers, nine horses, nine rifles, 4,000 cartridges, two pounds of coffee, two pounds of sugar, and one pound of salt. First, he had built his reputation as part Robin Hood and part avenging Angel. Then, once he had gathered an army, his ability to always pay his men on time and keep them fed and armed had promoted enthusiastic discipline in the ranks that earned plaudits from military and civilian observers and attracted additional recruits.

Once the division Del Norte was formed and really got rolling, then Via's string of victories had built up a reputation for invincibility. But having ascended to the summit, he now came tumbling down the mountain. His reputation for invincibility was destroyed by this run of cataclysmic defeats. Then when Via got back to Chihuahua City, he found his economic base in shambles. They had sold all the cattle. The mines had mostly closed down, and he was getting reports that it was going to be a bad harvest. For the first time, Via had trouble paying his men and his creditors.

These financial problems then brought out the meaner and more extortionist side of Via. There was no more stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. There was no more generous magnanimity. It was now loans forced at gunpoint, with resistors being tossed in. jail or just shot dead. The longstanding promises of land for his men once they won the war now rang extremely hollow. This led to discipline slipping as unpaid men became uncontrollable. The once precise strikes of VIA as the avenging angel gave way to indiscriminate murder and theft. So men started deserting, officers started defecting, and civilian supporters

started looking for ways to flee this sinking ship. One of the most significant departures was Felipe Anhalas. Anhalis had gone to Washington, D.C. to represent Via, and he had done what he could, but to no avail. When he returned to Chihuahua at the beginning of September, he found himself very much out of favor. Via was now proposing to move the whole campaign to Sonora and start again from scratch, and Anhala said, that's crazy. It's never going to work. Via ignored Anhalis, as he now did routinely, and he resented Anhalis, constantly contradicting him and trying to tell him what to do. And if I could insert a bit of armchair cycle analyzing here, I suspect that Vio was a

little bit pissed at Onhalus in part because Vian knew if he had listened to Anhalis, they wouldn't be in this current mess. With Anhalis, clearly now on the boss's bad side, other Vista generals who had never much liked him, he was a superior bastard, an ex-federal officer who had wormed his way into Via's tent, they started getting awfully menacing. And it seemed very likely that one of them was going to put a bullet in Anhalis's head. By the end of September, Anhalis was in Juarez, and after one last attempted reconciliation failed,

he regretfully turned his back on Via and crossed the border into the United States. Anhalis would spend the next few years trying to make a go of it as a medium-sized farmer, but his fortunes did not exactly prosper. Despite all of this, though, Anhalis remained loyal to Via. He was truly loyal to Via,

and Villa later apologized, blaming himself for driving Anhalus away. rather than blaming Anhalis for running out on him. And come 1918, Anhalis will be practically the only senior officer from the original Division del Norte to rally back to Via for one last campaign. But that is for the future,

because first, we have to get back to Via's last ditch campaign right here and now with what was left of the original Division del Norte. Via's plan was now to move the whole show over to Sonora. Now, at this moment, that is the late summer and early fall of 1915, Via believed he still had a strong ally in Sonora in Governor Maitorena, who had long been Via's ally in the general fight against the constitutionalists. But Matorina had taken Via's losses as proof that the whole thing was breaking down. And instead of preparing to fight on, Maitorena skipped out of the country. This was the second time he had skipped out of the country rather than fight. and before he left, he instructed his senior officers not to cooperate with Via.

But Via didn't know any of this, and in late September, he led his army on a tough march through the mountains from Chihuahua to northern Sonora, and there were no trains now, no luxury cars and parties, just grim trudging on horseback and on foot. When Via arrived in Sonora, he discovered Maitorana had fled the state, and the army he commanded was inert and uncooperative. He also discovered that Obrugan had managed to dispatch two constitutionalist armies into the state, one by land and one by sea. Undeterred, forever undeterred. Via kept going. His plan was to first capture the border town of Agua Prieta, which had been a constitutionalist stronghold and their principal source of supplies from the United States going back to the very beginning of the rebellion against Huerta. Via had been told the constitutionalist garrison was only about 1,500 men, certainly no more than 3,000,

and he believed it would be possible to take the city and then use it as a source of revenue and supply as he rolled slowly south. He said as much in a letter to Sepata, where Via still insisted that it was just a matter of time before they rid Mexico of all their enemies. But events beyond his control were now moving faster than Via could ride. Because while he was off in the wild north and cut off from the latest news, he did not know that he had been dealt a political body blow. On October the 19th, 1915, the United States extended de facto recognition to Carranza's government. For President Wilson, recognizing Caranza was now simply the least bad option. It appeared that Caranza had decisively won the Revolutionary Civil War, and what Wilson wanted now above all was peace and stability on the southern border, as it was becoming likely that the Americans would eventually get sucked into World War I.

Once Caranza gave assurances that American lives and property would be protected, Wilson gave the go-ahead for recognition. Now, it would be another couple months for formal legal recognition to come through. But with de facto recognition, Caronzo got two major immediate bonuses. All American arms sales to Mexico now had to be made two agents of Caranza and no one else. And he was promised a loan of five. $500 million to fund his government and start rebuilding Mexico. For the United States, this was the first time there had been a legitimate government of Mexico since February 1913, and everyone else in the world followed their lead.

Most of the other Latin American countries, as well as almost all the European powers, extended recognition to Caranza. American recognition of Caranza was the final death blow to the short-lived conventionist government that had been claiming for itself, sovereign national authority since the Aguas Calientis Conventionist Convention was held on October the 10th, and after they disbanded for the day, they never reconvened. The Vistas headed back north, while the Zapatistas retreated into Morelos. But though the Convention Coalition was dead, the Zapatistas were never going to quit. They were even more stubborn than Via, and frankly, they figured that Caronza would not last long. They had successfully staged rebellions against Dias and then Madero and then Werta, and there was no reason to think that Caronzo

would be any different. So, Zapata led his men back out into active campaigning in the fall of 1915, and they ran skirmishing lines all along the border with the federal district. But they had difficulty pushing any further than that line, and Caranza was now offering amnesty to any chief who wanted to take it. And plenty of chiefs, especially along that main northern skirmishing line, we're ready to say, what are we even fighting for anymore? I'll take the amnesty and I will go home. But the hardcore zapatistas of inner Marelos were never going to take that deal, and they issued a new manifesto to the nation on October the 26th

that outlined a litany of revolutionary reforms, and most especially called again for the death of all the ascendados. It was a fiery denunciation of the old order. But the problem was they weren't fighting the old order anymore. The old conservative ascendados weren't the issue, and Carranza's agents in the press were able to quite accurately point to all of Caranza's very similar reforms and promises, including a pledge to redistribute land. Now, whether it was cynical co-option or sincere belief that reform was needed, Caranza had relentlessly positioned himself as no less a reforming revolutionary than anybody else. So support for the hardline, uncompromising radically agrarian Zapatista program was increasingly, scarce. Most people wanted peace. But you know who didn't want peace? Pancho Villa. Instead, he was up in

Northern Sonora, planning what he thought would be the first stage of his grand comeback. And instead, it would be the final stage of his grand collapse. The leaders in Agua Prieta knew Via was coming, and they had fortified themselves with the now proven to work anti-Via cocktail of trenches, barbed wire and machine guns. Via surveyed all of this and figured, well, what the heck? I'll just go to one of my most famous moves, the night attack. You can't shoot what you can't see, right? Except that the guys in Agua Prieta knew that trick, too.

And as soon as Via launched this attack on November 1st, the whole battlefield was lit up with massive floodlights, and Via's men were once again mowed down. And on top of that, Agua Prieta was swarming with more like 6,000 constitutionalist soldiers. Where had all of these reinforcements come from? After Via's army endured its now depressingly routine massacre, Via ordered a retreat, and only later did he find out what had gone wrong. Out marching in the middle of nowhere, he had not heard of America's recognition of Carranza,

and he did not know that the United States had granted a request from Carranza to ferry reinforcements from far off Quaulila to AguPriata on American trains on the American side of the border. Via was floored when he got this news. He still believed there was a chance that the Americans would stick with him. He was, after all, the one who had gone out of his way all these years to protect them and their property. And he had allies in the United States who had assured him that they wanted Via to win, that they did not like Carranza. And now, here Caranza and the Americans stood in active alliance against him. He had been double-crossed.

This was a massive betrayal, and Via now burned with a sort of cold fury. And he told an American doctor, I will devote my life to the killing of every gringo I can get my hands on, and the destruction of all gringo property. Via now completely flipped his strategy, where once he had gone out of his way to protect Americans and curry favor with the Wilson administration, he would now attack them wherever and whenever he could.

He would use American recognition of Caranza as proof that Caranza was the enemy of Mexicans everywhere. This new orientation was made plain in Via's own manifesto to the nation, which he published on November the 9th, 1915. In this manifesto, he denounced Caranza for making a secret pact with the Americans to sell Mexico out to the Yankees. And he made these accusations in very specific terms. Among other things, he accused Caranza of promising the United States could build a naval base in Magdalena Bay and give them control over Mexico's oil fields and railroads. He also said Caranza had given the Americans authority to name Mexico's finance, interior, and foreign ministers. Now, none of this was actually true.

Carranza never made a secret pact with the Americans on terms anything like Via was accusing him of. But in his anger and in his sense of betrayal, Via sincerely believed all of this. He then made one last futile attempt to carry out his plan for a war in Sonora by attacking the capital of Hermesio, but he was once again repelled and forced to quit. By the beginning of December, Villa was marching back towards Chihuahua City, his men more depressed and demoralized than ever. When this last remnant of the Division del Norte entered Chihuahua City, it was with a great deal of dread and foreboding,

rather than the wild cheering that had usually greeted them. Via was in a foul mood, and his men seemed mostly intent on bagging a last few spoils or killing each other or the residents of the city, in drunken arguments. Obeder Gone was now said to be personally leading an army north, and the city braced itself to be the sight of a great battle. But that battle never came.

Via brought his last 27 generals together and said, Okay, well, let's raise more men and plan our campaign. And the generals basically said, Sir, we have no men. We have no money, and we are out of ammunition. And rage that they were letting their cowardice get the better of them, Via gave them something to be really afraid of. He said, fine, I quit.

I won't be your leader anymore. Now, this gambit had worked back in June of 1914, and they had all rallied to him and begged him to stay. But this time, they did not. Via stormed out of the room, but then no one came to talk him out of it. No one came to beg him to stay. Most of the generals were probably relieved. For the first time, Via realized that the good old days were well and truly over.

So he called the generals back together and he said, okay, I release you from your oath of loyalty. The Division del Norte would disband. His officers then made contact with Obrugone and worked out terms of surrendering the city. Obergoen promised amnesty to all but a small handful of names on a list, of which Poncho Villa was, of course, at the top of, but everyone else would be able to go free. And on top of that, the rank and file soldiers would be mustered out with pay and a discharge bonus. So in December 1915, the Division del Norte, dissolved. 40 generals, 5,000 officers, and 11,000 men went home. A couple of hundred hardcore loyalists elected to stay with VIA. And though he was not going to get amnesty from Obergoon,

he had been offered asylum in both the United States and Cuba. But he was not going to take asylum. He was not going to depart for exile. He swore that he would never leave Mexico. Instead, he was going to go to the mountains and keep fighting. From his new base in the mountains, VIA was now contemplating what seems at first glance to be a completely insane new plan. He was going to invade the United States. Many observers then and now really do chalk this up to a kind of insanity, that VIA was now completely irrational and driven by wild rage and hate and no longer motivated by anything but revenge. And certainly when this pops up as a trivia question, you know, when was the last land invasion of the United States, United States and the answer turns out to be Poncho Villa and a couple of hundred guys. You're like,

wow, that's adorable. What a crazy idiot. But this isn't true. Via wasn't crazy. Via had a plan. He was going to invade the United States to hopefully provoke an American invasion of northern Mexico. Now, wait a second, you might say. I thought you just said he wasn't a crazy idiot. And he's down to a couple of hundred guys and he's going to try to bring the U.S. Army down on his head. That kind of sounds like being a crazy idiot. But look, an American invasion of Mexican of Mexico. would put Caranza in a very tough spot. If Caranza followed his own nationalistic impulses, he would denounce and protest the violation of Mexican sovereignty, and this would open up a rift between him and the Americans. On the other hand, if Caranza did nothing or supported the American

invasion, he would be exposed as the Yankee puppet Villa now accused him of being. Either way, Karanza's legitimacy would take a major hit. Via also remembered that after the American invasion, of Vera Cruz, federal army officers and constitutionalist officers had communicated across the lines about how they might have to team up and form a patriotic front to fight the foreign invaders. So a second American invasion might provoke the same kind of cross-factional patriotic reaction. In fact, it might reorient the political map enough that Via himself would go from hunted outcast to highly valuable asset and leader. His popular support would surely rebound if he was out there leading his armies against foreign invaders, and he could reemerge as a popular hero.

Now, was some of this about vengeance for Agua Prietaa and other insults and slights from the United States? Yeah, of course, Via was super pissed. But he was not crazy like a rabid dog. He was crazy like a sly fox. Just a few weeks later, though, it seemed like VIA might not even need to invade the United States to get them to invade Mexico, thanks to the massacre at Santa Isabel. A view was nowhere near the scene of this massacre, but an officer operating under his command found out that a group of American mining engineers would be heading south on a train to reopen an American mine in Chihuahuanza had been in touch with the owners of the mine and assured them that he was in control of Mexico now and it was safe to come back. The overconfidence on

Carranza's part was such that he did not even order guards or soldiers to accompany this passenger train as it ferried, along with its regular Mexican passengers, 18 Americans. On January the 10th, 1916, this train lurched to a stop near Santa Isabelle. The mystery of the abrupt stop was the worst-case scenario for the Americans on board. A company of Vistas were there and specifically there to target the Americans. Assuring the Mexicans on board the train that no harm would come to them, the Vistas entered the car carrying the Americans, and along with a torrent of taun. and verbal abuse proceeded to beat them and then ordered them to strip naked.

We know all of this because an Italian was in their midst. And when he protested that he was Italian, the Vistas left him alone and basically said, oh yeah, okay, you're cool. You're not a gringo. The American miners were then ordered off the train, and as they stepped off, they were executed one by one. Only one of the Americans managed to survive. He and a few others had gotten out when the train had stopped to see what was the matter,

and so did not get trapped in the train car. When the shooting started, these guys broke and fled in different directions. His two companions were gunned down, but this one guy managed to get away. The massacre at Santa Isabelle instantly became an international incident. Newspapers in the United States, particularly Hearst Papers. Hurst was, after all, a major owner of Timberland in northern Mexico, started clamoring for American revenge and intervention. Now, later, the Vista commander said,

that they did not mean to kill all the Americans and that things just got out of hand when they started trying to run away. But that doesn't really quite jive with other eyewitness accounts. Now, Via did not specifically order this massacre, but it is on his head. And any subsequent American intervention would also be on his head,

exactly as he wanted. Just a week after the massacre, Via prepared to follow up and was ready to do this insane thing of actually invading the United States. On January the 18th, he led a couple of hundred men north to the border with a plan to cross and attack the town of Presidio, Texas. But the men left under Via's command were not thrilled about the idea of attacking the Colossus of the North, and each morning dawned with a few more men having deserted overnight.

There was in fact so much angry and fearful grumbling that Villa was prevailed upon to call the operation off. Now, he was not going to quit his plan to invade the United States. He was just going to have to set it up differently. So he spent February building his forces back up and forcing old soldiers and officers from the now decommissioned Division del Norte back into service. The pain of not answering the cheese call would be death. Then having built himself back up a bit, VIA led maybe 500 to 1,500 men. It's really hard for anybody to settle on a number.

But as they started marching north on February the 24th, VIA pointedly did not tell them where they were going or what they were doing. Via was now traveling at night to avoid detection and lying to his men to avoid desertions. This is a far cry from his heyday on a huge noisy caravan of railroad trains rolling south in broad daylight, with Via himself surrounded by 50,000 soldiers and officers, artillery, horses, doctors, women, children, reporters, film crews, and the eyes of the whole world. Those days were over. After two weeks, Via's forces, you can hardly call it an army, camped about three miles south of the border across from Columbus, New Mexico,

a town that had been planted in the 1890s and was at that point little more than a collection of shacks. It only had a few hundred permanent residents. A variety of theories have been thrown out there to try to explain why Via chose Columbus, New Mexico of all places, including that this was a personal vengeance trip against an American named Sam Ravell, who had taken money from Via to buy ammunition, but who had kept the money and not delivered the ammunition. But the most likely reason is that also in Columbus there were non-permanent residents, specifically a garrison of the 13th cavalry regiment. They had a camp just south of town. This garrison was small enough that Via would be able to defeat it, but large enough that the United States would not

be able to ignore the attack. Unfortunately for Via, his spies had told him the garrison was only about 50 men, when in reality it was 12 officers and 341 men. Now, the commander of the Columbus garrison had been alerted by multiple sources that Villa was in the area, and he sent out additional patrols along the border and beefed up the guard post at the actual legitimate crossing site, so only about half the garrison was in Columbus on March the 9th. The reports this commander got, though, were also contradictory, with one saying that Via was actually there to quit Mexico and accept the offer of asylum.

So nothing seemed really credible or definitive. And besides, even if Via was menacing the area with hostile intent, it's not like he was literally going to cross the border and attack the U.S. Army. At midnight on March 9th, 1916, Poncho Villa led about 500 men across the border to attack the U.S. Army. He divided this force into two columns. One would hit quote unquote downtown Columbus, which is an extremely generous way to describe the area where some buildings happened to be clustered. The other column would hit the army camp itself,

which was just south of town. Via himself took a couple dozen men up to a nearby hill to observe the attack. At about 4 a.m. when it was still dark, the Vistas crashed into Columbus. With whoops of Viva Villa and Vexico, they ran around shooting off their guns and kicking down doors. The whole town was asleep, so this was a big, loud surprise attack that had them falling. out of bed. In the army camp, the few officers rallied their men to the lockers where they kept the machine guns and hastily made a defensive line. Luckily for them, Via Scouts had misidentified some stables as a bunkhouse, and so the Vistas focused a lot of time, attention, and bullets, murdering horses while the U.S. soldiers were able to collect themselves. Elsewhere in town,

looting and home invasions were met by civilians with their own rifles and shotguns, and for the next 90 minutes or so, Columbus was in the throes of a running gunfight. Then Via ordered the retreat bugle sounded, and his men skedaddled out of town. When they left, the U.S. cavalrymen mounted their horses and took off in pursuit, now completely ignoring the invisible line in the desert that demarcated the border between Mexico and the United States. They chased the Vista's at least five mile south into Mexico and engaged in four subsequent firefights with Via's rear guard, before they ran out of ammunition and they were forced to turn around. When the cavalrymen got back to Columbus, they found the dazed residents emerging into their

ruined and smoldering little town, now littered with about a hundred dead bodies. 70 or 80 of those bodies were Vista and about 20 American, evenly split between soldier and civilian. Via lost even more men in the subsequent firefights surrounding the escape and men dying from wounds that they had suffered in the days that followed. I've seen his total dead estimated at a low of 90 and a high of 170. In terms of tactical value, the attack on Columbus, there was no tactical value. Via had wasted at least 100 lives and God knows how many bullets for no discernible gain. They didn't even make it out with some magic cash of gold or weapons. But in terms of strategic value, this is practically Via's greatest victory, and it did exactly what he hoped it would do.

It awakened the colossus of the North. It sent the Americans into their own irrational rage and provoked them into violating Mexican sovereignty for the second time in as many years. Via had done what he had come to do, and next week, the Americans will invade Mexico. Whether this was all going to work out for him in the long run, was up to. to the gods of revolution.