Once Diaz and Huerta were removed in 1914, the Revolution lacked any national goal.
John S. D. Eisenhower, 199372
In an attempt to resolve the question of who should head the government that was to replace the Huerta dictatorship, a convention was called at Aguascalientes, midway between Mexico City and
Villa’s Chihuahua bastion. It opened on October 10, 1914, with representatives of the armies of Obregon, Villa, and Carranza declaring the Convention sovereign and beholden to none of the leaders who had sent representatives. Delegates then invited the Zapatistas to Aguascalientes. Each group’s uniforms clearly indicated their social background. The Constitutionalists’ uniforms were neatly pressed and had shiny buttons. The Villistas wore dirty, sloppy rural clothes. The Zapatistas’ attire was similar, but in worse condition.73
While they lacked snappy uniforms, the Zapatistas brought what the Convention was seeking— a political program. Their Plan of Ayala, as limited in scope as it was, at least provided a blueprint, and the Convention accepted the provision for taking one-third of each hacienda for peasants. During the Convention, the most revolutionary, popular, and democratic debates of Mexican history occurred. Issues such as women’s rights and an activist, interventionist state were seriously considered for the first time in Mexican political history.74
The Convention chose as its President Eulalio Gutierrez, a former mine foreman who had joined Madero in 1910. Although he had later fought with Carranza and become a skilled dynamiter of railroad trains, he was a neutral figure who did not threaten any of the revolutionary leaders. Earlier in 1914, he had served as provisional governor of San Luis Potosi.
While the Convention was meeting, Villa and Carranza continued to build up their forces. Carranza moved reinforcements from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to Mexico City. Late in October, Villa began to mass his troops around Aguascalientes. Instead of letting the Convention run its course, both leaders ordered troops to approach Aguascalientes in an attempt to influence the Convention’s deliberations.75
The Convention resolved that Villa and Carranza should resign their commands simultaneously. Villa agreed to resign, but was challenged by Carranza, who questioned whether he had actually relinquished command of his forces. Carranza refused to recognize the Convention’s authority and recalled his representatives. Gutierrez, in the only major decision of his presidency, declared Carranza to be in rebellion and reinstated Villa as head of the Northern Division. With his mantle of legality restored, Villa advanced on Mexico City.76
The Convention failed to impose its will on the two recalcitrant rivals and could not overcome personal ambition and regional and class interests. Both Villa and Carranza share blame for the Convention’s failure. Most directly, Villa used his troops to threaten the Convention while Carranza never relinquished his command and only agreed to send representatives to the Convention when it appeared that the United States was backing Villa and that Obregon was uncommitted. Whether
Either leader would have yielded power if they had felt their rival was doing likewise is open to Question.
To avoid Villa’s forces, Carranza transferred his army from Mexico City, where he had been ruling by decree, to Veracruz. This left a political vacuum in the capital. Despite having driven the oligarchy from power, Villa and Zapata failed to take power for themselves. They just bided their time and finally turned power over to the middle-class leaders of the Convention. Each of these peasant leaders wanted to leave national politics to the Convention while retaining control of their home areas. Carranza, in contrast, viewed himself as the leader of the entire Mexican nation.78
Following Carranza’s withdrawal, Mexico City was occupied by the armies of Villa and Zapata in the legal role of representatives of the Convention government. On December 4, 1914, Zapata and Villa met at Xochimilco on the outskirts of Mexico City. They could only agree to leave the Convention in power. The possibility of an effective military alliance between the two was diminished since Zapata’s guerrilla force, virtually unbeatable on its home turf, lacked the ability or the desire to project force long distances to help Villa. While they discussed land reform, they failed to consider the working class or relations with the United States and other nations. After the meeting, Villa and Zapata decided to abandon the center of the country and return to their own regions whose limited horizons they had never been able to overcome.79
Figure 153 Francisco Villa and Emiliano Zapata Source: El Paso Public Library, Aultman Collection, photo #A 5648
This decision not to advance on Carranza is one of the most important of the Revolution. Villa’s army numbered roughly 40,000, Zapata’s 25,000, and another 20,000 or 30,000 were loyal to the Convention. These troops far outnumbered those serving under Carranza.80
At this stage, the urban population, especially in Mexico City, was largely uninvolved in the Revolution. Its experience with the Revolution had been to witness the indecision of the Convention government. It saw the Convention’s representatives govern using the tactics of guerrilla warfare. For example, when Villista General Tomas Urbina needed operating funds, he kidnapped wealthy individuals and held them for large ransoms, rather than taxing them. Similarly, Villa responded to his critics, especially Huerta supporters, by having some 150 of them assassinated. When Convention President Gutierrez tried to act independently, Villa ordered his execution. Gutierrez then fled Mexico City and, powerless, made peace with Carranza.81
Within a week of Carranza being declared in rebellion by the Convention, almost all the important military leaders of the northwest and northeast, including Obregon, had joined him. Most of these men were up-and-coming entrepreneurs and public officials. Obregon probably joined Carranza because: 1) he was socially and ideologically closer to him than to Villa and Zapata; 2) he harbored resentment against Villa resulting from their previous encounters in Chihuahua; 3) most of his commanders would not have followed him if he had joined Villa; and 4) Carranza, but not Villa, was willing to allow him to maintain a regional power base in Sonora.82
Carranza was hemmed in on the Gulf Coast without a political base. However, he had a world view that was both national and international in scope. During the respite provided by the failure of the Convention army to pursue him, Carranza reorganized. He had access to income from Veracruz customs duties, the sales of Yucatan henequen, and Gulf Coast oil—revenue sources that would not run short as did the revenue Villa obtained from selling cattle to the United States.
Carranza’s first major move was political. On January 6, 1915, in a complete reversal of the non-ideological stance he took during the anti-Huerta campaign, Carranza announced his own land reform. Carranza’s land reform differed from Zapata’s Plan of Ayala in that it called for the reform to be implemented by local, regional, and national agrarian commissions, not peasants themselves— a difference that proved to be fundamental.83
After arriving in Veracruz, Carranza created a civilian cabinet, bringing in distinguished men, mainly from the middle class, who represented various regions and activities. Key states, such as Jalisco, Puebla, and Chihuahua, were all represented. The Constitutionalists showed an attention to administrative detail sorely lacking with the representatives of the Convention—who were known as Conventionists. Examples include vaccinating for smallpox and sending teachers for training in the United States. Constitutionalists, though lacking a written manifesto such as the Plan of Ayala, envisioned a modern, capitalist, secular, outward-looking state that would bring Mexico into the modern world.
The Constitutionalists’ former allies, the Conventionists, sought autonomous, locally controlled communities carrying out reforms to reinforce traditional patterns of life. They were less involved with organized labor and industry and did not share the Constitutionalists’ anti-clericalism. Any analysis of the Conventionists, as well as that of the Consitutionalists, is complicated by each faction’s being composed of various, constantly changing groups.84
Once they had reorganized in Veracruz, the Constitutionalists launched a military offensive. In late January 1915, Obregon moved west and occupied Mexico City, left practically defenseless by Villa’s withdrawal to the northwest.
Obregon upstaged Villa and Zapata by passing out food to the urban poor, something the Convention government had failed to do. In addition, merchants were ordered to sell their goods to the poor at reduced prices. In contrast to the ineffective Convention government, Obregon ruled Mexico City by decree, which both offended and impressed Mexico City dwellers and provided far more decisive governance.85
Obregon then advanced northwest to fight Villa, once again abandoning Mexico City to the Zapatistas. By this time, Carranza had established an appreciable following. In addition to a formal alliance with the organized working class, he was supported by many members of the middle class who saw him as a promoter of economic development. Similarly, many hacendados and wealthy city dwellers, feeling that Carranza was their best bet, lent support to the Constitutionalists.
Carranza drew peasant support in many areas where Villa and Zapata were seen as far removed from local affairs and lacking a land reform program such as Carranza’s, the “legality” of which was constantly emphasized. (“Legality” meant it was in written form to guide authorities.) Carranza astutely played on Villa’s failure to distribute land. He claimed that he himself was the real revolutionary and that he would distribute land “during the struggle.”86
The impending conflict between Obregon and Villa would result in a qualitatively different type of warfare—that of professional armies in conventional battles. Charisma counted for less, and there was no guarantee the most popular leader would win. The Villa—Obregon struggle has been compared to a cockfight, where the only question is who will win, not the issues involved.87
In three months of fighting, Obregon advanced 150 miles from Celaya to Aguascalientes. Villa suffered his greatest losses at Celaya where he repeatedly ordered his cavalry to charge Obregon’s force, which was protected by elaborate barbed-wire networks and the then-novel machine gun. In these battles, more than 50,000 men were involved on both sides, and 20,000 were killed or wounded. Cool generalship triumphed over elan and charisma. After a final defeat at Aguascalientes, the remaining elements of Villa’s force straggled back to Chihuahua, where they reverted to guerrilla warfare.88
Villa’s defeat resulted from several mistakes. He ignored the advice of his professional military advisor, Felipe Angeles, to pursue Carranza to Veracruz before he could regroup. Villa also failed to concentrate his forces to defeat Obregon. At the time of the battle of Celaya, his forces were divided and off fighting for control of territory in other areas. Finally, Villa failed to draw Obregon further north, which would have enabled him to sever Obregon’s supply lines, which stretched back to Veracruz.89
With Villa’s army out of the picture, Obregon began occupying territory, and by October 1915 he controlled most of northern Mexico. The Constitutionalists permanently occupied Mexico City. Then they turned their attention toward Morelos, where events had gone almost unaffected by the Carranza-Obregon-Villa struggle.
The Zapatistas had been driven back to the south as Obregon passed through Mexico City in pursuit of Villa, whom he judged to be the greater of his enemies. The Zapatistas correctly felt they had little in common with Carranza. Historian John Womack Jr. commented on how Carranza differed from Zapata, “Rebel and revolutionary he might now be, but in another world—an
Established and civilized world of clean linen, breakfast trays, high politics, and ice buckets for Wine.
While the Constitutionalists were fighting the Villistas, the Zapatistas turned inward and began to create the society they had long envisioned. After Gutierrez fled Mexico City, the Zapatistas administered Morelos as they saw fit. Reforms went far beyond the Plan of Ayala. Entire haciendas were expropriated without compensation. As soon as the remnants of the old government upheld by Diaz, Madero, and Huerta were swept away, each village in Morelos carried out land reform On its own.
In March 1915, Zapata reported: “The agrarian question has been solved for once and for all. On the basis of their land deeds, the various villages in the state have taken possession of the land in question.” While Mexico City verged on starvation, people in Morelos were evidently eating more food than in 1910—and paying less for it. This resulted from shifting land from sugar production to food crops that supplied not only villages but guerrilla forces.92
By 1916, the contrast between Morelos and the rest of Mexico was too glaring for the Constitutionalists to ignore. With Villa’s forces defeated and scattered, Carranza ordered his forces into Morelos, with the support of the organized working class, industrialists, the middle class, and hacendados who wanted to reclaim their land. In April 1916, the Constitutionalist advance began. The 30,000-man army advancing into Morelos differed little from Diaz’s army of the previous decade. Its troops came not to liberate, but to conquer the local population, which at best were treated as prisoners of war.93
By July 1916, all towns in Morelos were occupied, and the Constitutionalist commander reported the campaign concluded. Once they had assumed control, the Constitutionalist officers systematically looted Morelos. They took everything they could possibly move to be sold on the black market in Mexico City, including bathtubs from hotels in Cuernavaca and sugar mill equipment to be sold as scrap iron.94
Due to their lack of preparation, the Zapatistas could offer little resistance during the first half of 1916. However, later in the year they regrouped and again waged effective guerrilla warfare, despite their constant currency and ammunition shortages. The Zapatistas fought with the aid of the entire population, who served as observers, informers, and suppliers of food and shelter, as well as combatants who would take up arms for a battle and then return to their farms.
The government responded with mass assassination. Guerrillas in turn stepped up attacks on railroads, sugar mills, factories, and the southern limits of the Federal District itself. By December, the 30,000-man Constitutionalist army that had occupied Morelos was demoralized and disintegrating. By year’s end, Carranza’s army had been forced to evacuate Morelos.95
Even though the Zapatistas continued to control Morelos, after Villa’s defeat Carranza was without political commitments and free of opponents who threatened his regime. The Constitutionalist leader differed from Madero in that he felt that Mexico would not progress until it modernized economically. This was a major departure from Madero’s call for “Effective suffrage” and “No re-election.” In order to overcome backwardness, Carranza sought to eliminate those opposing change. Despite his being ambitious, there is no doubt that he sincerely felt his government would lead to progress for Mexico and a better life for its people.96
The year 1916 saw the end of major combat and the implantation of a coherent national policy by the triumphant Constitutionalists. Once he no longer faced military threats, Carranza halted his reforms. He returned confiscated property to the Porfirian elite (with the exception of very visible enemies such as Huerta’s widow, Felix Diaz, and former president De la Barra, who had served as Huerta’s foreign minister). The Constitutionalists crushed strikes and allowed land reform to endure only in those states where governors had already committed themselves to such policies, certainly a tiny minority nationwide. In 1916, General Francisco Mugica wrote, “When I was in the capital of Mexico in February of this year, I saw that the Villistas, Zapatistas, and members of the Convention were persecuted far more than the supporters of Huerta. . .”97
The new Constitutionalist administration began to rebuild a centralized state—a task that required decades. Mexico City seethed with dissatisfaction, and services were interrupted. Elsewhere in the country, crop failures led to widespread food scarcity. Transportation was uncertain, and, in many areas, government authority was lacking. Bands of disgruntled, leaderless revolutionaries marauded the countryside.98
To implement Carranza’s policies, Constitutionalist officers, who overwhelmingly came from northern Mexico, assumed governorships and other top posts throughout central and southern Mexico. Often these northern officers were viewed not as liberators but as carpetbaggers attempting to impose unwanted, alien values. Anyone who opposed or openly questioned them was branded a “reactionary.” Carranza’s northern officers so widely abused their positions that a new term was coined, carrancear, meaning to sack, pillage, confiscate, and rob. Unfortunately, such personal enrichment was also prevalent among the officers of other revolutionary groups, including the Zapatistas.99
Historian Luis Gonzalez y Gonzalez described how these raids played out in San Jose de Gracia:
Parties of rebels often came to visit their friends in San Jose, either to rescue the girls from virginity, or to feast happily on the delicious local cheeses and meats, or to add the fine horses of the region to their own. . . They summoned all the rich residents and told them how much money in gold coin each was to contribute to the cause. In view of the rifles, no one protested.100
To consolidate and legitimize his power, in September 1916 Carranza called for a constitutional convention to provide a legal foundation for his government. The convention met and promulgated a new constitution on February 5, 1917. In March 1917, elections were held to select Carranza as president.
World History
