By Gregg Thompson
The cards just kept coming up aces for Pancho Villa.
By early 1915 the legendary Mexican bandit and folk-hero was winning every hand in the political poker game being played out in a Mexico convulsed by desperate revolution.
Recruits, mainly cowboys and miners, flocked to join his 20,000-man Division of the North, which controlled large chunks of northern Mexico. His cash flow was excellent, as “taxes” paid directly to Villa by blue-chip American mining and cattle interests in Chihuahua state filled his bank account. Villa had already sat (briefly) in the President´s chair in the National Palace. The “glam” photo of Villa taken there with fellow revolutionary Emiliano Zapata had hit the world´s most influential front pages.
Villa seemed the type that could draw a Royal Flush at will. In 1912 the tough-talking, 32-year-old sharecropper´s son had narrowly escaped execution before a firing squad (for insubordination). He went to prison instead, where the fortunate Villa learned to read and write before escaping to Texas.(One of his texts was Cervante´s “Don Quixote”). Even in love Villa´s winning streak seemed inexhaustible - his last wife was reportedly his 26th.
Villa was born Doroteo Arango in 1880. He worked as a miner and muleteer and rustled cattle on the side. Mercurial and macho, his undisciplined emotions got him into trouble early - he shot a man in the foot for hassling his sister.
His personal valor was unquestioned and he possessed extraordinary powers of leadership and command; in 1915 he led the most successful military force in Mexico.
All this Villa achieved through good luck and charisma, but there was more - he had powerful friends north of the border.
Some of Villa´s best buddies in America were media people; US newspaper correspondents and film-makers were frequent visitors to the revolutionary´s camp. While his instincts were base, Villa understood the possibilities of good public relations. The American press loved the enigmatic and colorful guerillero, portraying him, with only the slightest margin of truth, as a Latino Robin Hood, ignoring his record of brutality against Chinese mineworkers and the fact that his troops were rapists. Motion picture producers rushed eagerly to film the cavalry charges Villa staged for their benefit; the wily caudillo might have known the images would terrify the opposition.
Villa was so well connected that he had his picture taken with John “Black Jack” Pershing, the only US Army general ever to wear six stars, and the man who eventually would be tasked with executing the “dead or alive” warrant issued against Villa.
Villa´s reputation shimmered even in the White House of President Woodrow Wilson. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan once reportedly called Villa Mexico´s Sir Galahad. Although he had seized haciendas from the rich and distributed lands to the poor, Villa was no left-leaning ideologue. He kept his rhetoric light while other Mexican politicians routinely bad-mouthed US policies towards Mexico. The puritanical Wilson may have liked Villa as much for this “flexibility” as for the fact that the robust commander neither smoked nor drank.
Washington´s policy objectives south of the Rio Grande in 1915 were to protect American investments and property rights in a dangerous and turbulent Mexico. Woodrow Wilson was looking to back a winner below the border and Villa, in 1915, was winning the civil war in Mexico. Large-scale US-Villista arms deals (guns for cash and cattle) marked America´s confidence in Villa and in his Division of the North. But the arrangement couldn´t last - opportunism had yet to play its hand.
Villa was not the only revolutionary with presidential ambitions in Mexico. When his two closest competitors, Venustiano Carranza and Álvaro Obregón joined forces in early 1915, Villa was left outnumbered and vulnerable.
The inevitable clash between contenders came quickly; the three-day battle of Celaya in April was the most violent battle of the Revolution. Using defensive tactics developed on Europe´s Western Front, Obregón used machine guns and barbed wire to foil Villa´s marauding cavalry. The Division of the North was decimated; casualties amounted to 9000, half its effective strength. Villa fled north towards the U.S. border, pulling up the rail line behind him.
Washington, seeing its Mexico policy disintegrating with every mile of Villa´s retreat, acted expediently; Villa was dropped like a lead ball. Critically, the Villista arms link with US suppliers largely disappeared. Soon after, troops loyal to Obregón were allowed passage across US territory to pounce victoriously on Villa´s Division of the North at Agua Prieta, Sonora.
Completing its isolation of Villa, the Wilson administration recognized the Carranza regime in October, 1915. Villa´s luck had run full circle; he was back where he had started five years before - a mere bandit in the Sierra Madre mountains.
Writer Alan Riding describes Mexican machismo as “a world of fantasy where pride, idealism and romance can safely flourish, and passion dominates reason.”
For the macho, betrayal is the gravest offense and vengeance the sole response, and it is impossible to imagine a man more bent on vengeance, more dominated by passion than reason, than was Pancho Villa after his betrayal by the US.
The Spanish colmar el plato (lit. fill the plate) expresses the idea of aggressiveness leading to violence. The Yankees had filled Villa´s plate; retribution would empty it.
Villa first lashed out at America in January, 1916, when his forces abducted 16 US mining engineers from a train in Chihuahau and shot them through the head one by one.
Two months later, 500 mounted Villista crossed into the United States and raided the town of Columbus, New Mexico, killing 18 and burning much of the town. It was the first attack on American soil by a foreign invader since the War of 1812.
US Army commanding officer Major General Funston, cabled Washington that “unless Villa is relentlessly pursued and his forces scattered. he can make his preparations and concentrations without being disturbed, (and) can strike at any point on the border.”
American Secretary of War Newton D. Baker the next day authorized a punitive expedition into Mexico to seek out, capture or destroy Villa and his band. “Black Jack” Pershing was put in command.
The tricky part was getting the Mexicans to agree to a US incursion. It didn´t help that in 1916 there was a lot of bad blood between Mexico and its northern neighbor. Just two years before, American Marines had landed in force at the Mexican port of Veracruz. In the fighting 200 Mexicans had been killed, mostly civilians. Carranza, the new Mexican president, would take enormous risks sanctioning a repeat American military intervention - his political position was already tenuous. Territorial integrity to Mexicans was as sacred to Mexicans as property rights were to Americans - inviolable.
Woodrow Wilson, campaigning for re-election in the US, took a tough line with Mexico over Villa. The US had recognized the Carranza regime; it was now time to return the political favor — US troops must be allowed into Mexico. Carranza, realizing he could appease the Americans and have them finish off Villa at the same time, finally gave permission for US forces to cross the border. But they would operate under stringent conditions, thus preserving Mexican “sovereignty.”
What followed was the largest mobilization of American troops since the Civil War, and the last great cavalry operation of the U.S. Army.
Pershing entered Mexico on March 15th, 1916 (his aide-de-camp was a young lieutenant by the name of George S. Patton) while 100,000 National Guardsmen rushed to seal the US-Mexico border. Pershing would eventually have 8,000 horses, 600 vehicles and 12,000 soldiers on the ground in Mexico.
But it was all to no avail - the 11-month campaign, which reached 400 miles into Mexico, never did find Pancho Villa. Contacts with Villista units were few and small scale, mere skirmishes, while major opposition to the US presence came from Carranza´s federal Mexican army. At Parral, American forces clashed with Mexican troops, killing 40. At Carrizal, a company of US cavalry was nearly exterminated by Mexicans “defending sovereignty.” Villa watched it all from the hills, knowing that Pershing had underestimated not only the tactical difficulties of campaigning in the desert, but also the depth of support and respect that he, the “Centaur of the North” would always enjoy amongst Mexicans.
”There is no other personality in the history of Mexico that is so surrounded by myths as Villa,” claims his recent biographer Friedrich Katz. “Villa continues being a personality with enormous prestige.”
The 1910-1920 Mexican Revolution claimed the lives of at least one million Mexicans; most died from malnutrition and disease. November 20th, “Day of the Revolution,” commemorates that tragic time and celebrates the lives of revolutionary folk-heroes whose spirits live on in the hearts and minds of Mexicans. Thousands of schoolchildren form up to parade on November 20th, sporting bushy black moustaches, bristling bandoliers and cardboard cut-out rifles.
There´s not one of them couldn´t tell you a thing or two about Pancho Villa.
Gregg Thompson has lived in Mexico for six years and is an avid reader of Mexican History. Now living in Zihuatanejo with his wife and family, Gregg is an English teacher and English/Spanish translator with his company, English Language Consultants. He can be reached by e-mail at gregg_30@hotmail.com.
November 2001
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