Wednesday 28 November 2018

Continuing with things that required American troops on the Border. From Zapata to Obregon and beyond

The Border:  Deployment, Posse Comitatus, Villa; Carranza, Columbus, and other such forgotten realities is the brother article to the one included below.  One would be well advised to review that article for some salient information concerning the the turbulent period from 1910 to 1919.  It can be accessed by scrolling down only two articles, and voila'! …the reader will be at the appointed place.

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addenda - a necessary snippet for the discerning reader…. (29 November 2018)
5 August
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General John J. "Blackjack" Pershing (pictured above) in El Paso, 1914. About one year after this was taken, Pershing's wife and three of his children died in a fire in San Francisco. Only Pershing's young son survived. Pershing himself never completely recovered. Pancho Villa, who had befriended Pershing, sent the General a condolence message. Six months later, Pershing was chasing Villa in Mexico. Pershing went on to serve as a mentor to a generation of generals who led the United States Army in Europe during World War II, including George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley, and George S. Patton.
     John J. Pershing had the nickname of "Black Jack" because he proudly served at the head of cavalry and infantry groupings that incorporated the famous, competent, and heroic Buffalo Soldiers.   These men were almost exclusively Cavalry of the 9th and 10th Regiments, which were incorporated into Pershing's overall command.  They went into Mexico and suffered significant dead  and wounded in their ranks, in what would turn out to be a failure on the part of the White House to play the Villa - Carranza dispute card correctly.   The soldiers were not wrong or deficient, the Command was not really incompetent, it was purely the fault of Woodrow Wilson for having made the wrong choice among the possible combinations of political / military powers in Mexico during the period of Wilson's service as President and Commander in Chief.
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     We start again, but from a different beginning, so to speak.  Those seeking deep seated roots in the matter of Mexican relations with Texas and the United States must contend with the labyrinthine twists and turns of the social, political, and business / labour intertwining without become lost in the fog.  This is especially true of Mexico, and it is especially true once the turn of the Century occurs in 1900.
     If the reader permits, especially those who have read the pertinent previous submission to this entry, we should like to start in the middle.   We should start at the Battle of Celaya (sei - LA - yah) involving on one hand, General de la Division del Norte, Francisco Villa, head of the Forces of the "Convention", a populist assembly of left and right, rich and poor and middle class people.
   General Alvaro Obregon, head of the Army of the "Constitutionalists" and loyal to Venustiano Carranza, had as his mission the establishment of a permanent and solid governing Constitution for Mexico and the permanent installation of Carranza on the Presidential Throne.   That document was, in fact, passed into law by the Congress in 1917.

      The Battle of Celaya was mostly conducted during the month of April of 1915.  It would be fought in three stages, each of which Francisco Villa lost. Part of the folklore of the surrounding Villa was that he was like a "cucaracha" (cockroach), in that he was impossible to kill.  The song "La Cucaracha" has many verses and stanzas, some made up as the entertainers sing, but it has long been associated with Doroteo Arango (the baptised name of Villa).   After that particular month of April, however Villa, as a political and military force, was essentially dead in the water.   
      As an aside, another tale possibly had some validity, that being the one about Villa pointing out a school down the grade a waysabout 600 yards.  Villa said, "I want you to fire on that elementary school down there."   The cannoneers informed the General that it was a primary school and there might be children there.  Villa responded, "A Gringo general said one time that War is  Hell.  Destroy the school!"   Promptly the soldiers complied and landed a projectile bomb right in the middle of the primary school.
     After a long, silent pause, while the soldiers cleaned and prepped the cannon, Villa came over to the soldiers at that gun and said,"You are good soldiers…and the children were removed from the school three days ago."
General Alvaro Obregon
Still gallant, but missing the
lower part of his right arm due
to getting a little too close to
the action in Leon


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     All very noble and romantic, but to the victors belong the spoils, and in the greater scheme of things, and after three engagements, Obregon's army garnered the blue ribbon.  Of 15,000 effectives (almost all infantry) and 12 or 13 large cannons he had lost about 650 dead and about the same number wounded, or about a 10 per cent debilitation of his forces.


   Villa on the other hand entered the fray with 22,000 effectives, about 60 per cent infantry and 40 per cent cavalry.  Estimates were fairly accurate at that time, but the Obregonistas assumed (inflated) that Villa lost about 80 per cent of his army wounded, killed, and captured.              
 Including captured effectives we would estimate 9,000 combatants were gone from Villa's Division of the North during the month of April, or a bit  more than 4o per cent.
     The count as rendered by the Obregon side was that Villa had lost 5,800 dead, 5,000 wounded, and 6,500 captured.  Most other tabulations had it at considerably lessbut still devastating to Villa.   Obregon was quoted as saying that the battle was won because Villa led his troops into battle, "It helped immensely."


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     So, why are we making a big deal about all of these little battles that during the War Between the States would have been considered "significant skirmishes"?   One reason is because this particular battle is the largest engagement of belligerents in the history of all Latin America until the Falkland Islands War between Argentina and United Kingdom.
    Also, the defeat of Pancho Villa deflated much of the resistance to
Jose Doroteo Arango Arambula
(Pancho Villa)
aka - The Centaur


 1878 - 1923

Celebrating the expulsion of Pres. Gen.
Victoriano Huerta in the ceremonial
Castillo Chapultepec.  The man to the
left of Pancho Villa is Gen. Emiliano
Zapata who controlled much of the
Indian areas of Southern Mexico.

The year is 1914.

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Venustiano Carranza, the wealthy rancher and hacienda owner from Cuatro Cienegas, Coahuila who had essentially placed Francisco Madero into the Presidency. 

   After Madero's assassination in 1913, Carranza then deposed Gen. Victoriano Huerta, the provisional President after Madero's "departure", leaving Huerta to a life as a bartender in El Paso, Texas.
    José Doroteo Arango Arambula of Río Grande De San Juan Del Río, Durango, Mexico, (Pancho Villa) led a wildly divergent group of wealthy interests, a loose confederation of the various Indian groups and conservative businessmen,  agricultural co-ops, and sole proprietors, as well as leftists who were generally more  associated similar to those of Emiliano Zapata's in the South of Mexico.   Both Villa and Zapata had been most successful in the  cobbling together of that eclectic group.


Chapultepec Castle(Hill of the Crickets)
Occupied by Emperor Maximilian and his
 Empress Carlotta and still used in these days as
 a place of reception of notables and diplomats
 as 
well as heads of State.   Built originally in
1785 by a French aristocrat 
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     The picture to the left shows the  nature of the right-wing Villa and the Indian / leftist leader Zapata, of the revolutionary groups in the South of Mexico.  Villa was essentially pure Caucasian and Zapata was probably 15/16ths Zapotec Indian.  Both were also pure, unadulterated, natural born geniuses and leaders.   All these nice folks are celebrating inside the still  extremely elegant and regal Castillo de Chapultepec.

  One will notice the mixture of the lieutenants and advisors, ranging from Mormons and Mennonites, Indians, Saxons, young students, country people, Spanish-blooded people…and they talk about diversity in the Obsolete Press.
   It should be of interest that the number one University or College that graduated the most ROTCs that wound up in Villa's Division of the North was Texas A and M.

     While most of the folks in the picture look pretty well lit-up, please remember that Pancho Villa never drank alcohol of any kind…save for one sip at this event…and even then his secretary came and relieved him of the crystal   wine goblet…still almost full.   Emiliano only drank within small, very close- friend type groups of three to seven people, maximum…and then only rarely.

On the left is the National Cathedral, supposedly
 the heaviest Church building in the World.
  On the right is the Presidential Palace, which
 is
 both for function of the executive and for 
formal events involving the President or
 Secretaries of one governmental department
 or another.

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     Villa is literally sitting on the Presidential Throne (ceremonial) inside Chapultepec Castle that would normally be used when receiving visitors of great import, especially from foreign countries.
                
  After sitting there for about five minutes, he rose and said, "This throne is too big for me.   Let's go outside and gaze at the stars."   And he never returned to sit on that throne or the Presidential Palace's presidential throne,  downtown on the Zocalo in the administrative Presidential Palace.   To be sure, Villa's star was at its apex during those hours at Chapultepec.   But, neither he nor Zapata were interested in the presidency or any grand or high office.  They were, in fact, just fighting for a better Mexico, in my opinion.


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An example of Villa's one-peso .902 silver
coin.  It was issued under the auspices of the
 Bank of Chihuahua, a private institution, and
there denominations, in silver, of lesser and
greater assigned value.  The exchange back
then was 1Villa peso for 1 American dollar.
   Villa went back to the north of Mexico, moving around to round up new recruits and solidify his assets and financing.  He literally had enough gold and silver to mint dimes and 20 cent pieces, as well as pesos of different denominations, along with gold-backed paper money and even some gold in coin form.
     Almost all of that lucre was snapped up after Villa's death in 1923 due to the probable increase in numismatic value that it would have in the future. There was an older gentleman, along with his mentally retarded son and his 92 year old father who worked on a ranch some distance outside of Rio Grande City, Texas who showed us his discharge papers from the Division del Norte, supposedly with Don Francisco's signature, along with a tube that was complete with 5 pesos of Villista silver dimesas part of the "soldier's" pay.  The discharge showed that the gentleman had attained the rank of sergeant of cavalry, and it listed four or five major engagements in which he had participated.  In 1961, old Desidario the Sergeant had turned down 200 American dollars for his tube of memories.

THE FOLLOWING DEALS WITH A STORM THAT HAS OCCUPIED EL GRINGO VIEJO'S MIND SINCE HIS MID-TEENS.  OUR MAJORDOMO AUGUSTIN SALINAS GARZA (1868 - 1958) OF MIER, TAMAULIPAS, SERVED IN THE DIVISION OF THE NORTH AND WAS A SOLDIER OF PANCHO VILLA'S ARMY.  DURING THE GROVE CARE DAYS (1936 - 1956) HE WAS THE RIGHT HAND MAN OF MY FATHER.  MY ASSOCIATION WITH HIM AND MY LATER STUDIES COLOURED MY CONSIDERATIONS.

      My eldest brother (11 years my senior) knew Don Agustin a bit better, obviously, because he encountered him sooner.   So, be aware, some of the lore associated with this massively interesting personality came from my eldest brother…who worked on the citrus-care projects, our farming projects, and essentially worked night and day at anything that would pay 25 cents an hour or more.  My brother was at least as interesting as Don Agustin. He died a Ph.d among many other things. Don Agustin died in the mid-1960s, in Mier, Tamaulipas.

     So, please understand that my studies, my listening to my brother's stories about Agustin's stories, and also by listening to Agustin's stories as a four to ten year old, my illusions and understanding of these things about Villa may well be coloured.
    But, I also know that truth is truth, and the Truth shall make us free.

    To begin, Pancho Villa (Dorotea Arango) never attacked a place on the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo) on the Texas side.  He did attack Ciudad de El Paso de Juarez in 1911and successfully.   He converted from being a bandit (1901 - 1902) although his supporters will point out that he was harassed for having shot and killed the son of a wealthy hacendado (hacienda ownerusually quadrillionaires in to-day's terms)…because the son of the hacendado had raped Dorotea Arango's (Pancho Villa's) younger sister  (She was 12 or 13 at the time).

     Now, moving on.
   In any regard, Villa had developed his resources, manpower, animals, and other necessary materiel to consider a bold move against the forces of Carranza and his General Obregon, for either of two different purposes.  One would have been to establish a political subdivision of Mexicoperhaps Mexico Norteor a Republica de Chihuahua, that would fold in three or four of the northern Statesthere were many rumours and notions.

     Such an action would require,  in any regard, the destruction of Carranza's allies in the western part of northern Mexiconorthern Sonora, and perhaps even Tijuana and Mexicali.  Villa may have decided to attack his old enemy Gen. Benjamin Hill, who was a big cheese in that territory.   He might have  directed a relatively small force to make its way through the Mennonite and Mormon territory (which was tolerant, and at times supportive of Villa), and the great ranches for which Chihuahua and Sonora States were famous, and lay siege to the pro-Carranzista  fort in Agua Prieta, Sonora.

Odd things are occurring at this time. For Instance:

     It is known that Agents of Carranza telegraphed immediately to William Jennings Bryan (Secretary of State - USA) and the White House that Villa had remilitarised and was marching en force to Aqua Prieta, and there would be great carnage without quick delivery of Mexican military force.   No proof was offered.  Nothing was said about Villa accompanying the "march".
    The message also included the offer of remaining neutral in the matter of the war with Germany, and included the request for massive rail transport from Eagle Pass, Texas to Douglas, Arizona for 5,000 members of heavy infantry of Carranzista soldiers.  The locomotives, passenger cars, and personnel would travel from San Antonio, Texas…taking some Carranzista officers with them, and then picking up the awaiting soldiers in Eagle Pass, Texas.
     
     So, if it were an episode of Amos and Andy on the radio, it might go like this.  Amos says, "Let's see here Andy…this Carranza fellow wants to have German machine guns and Mauser rifles by the boatload, along with the munitions, even while Carranza is asking Wilson and Bryan to give his (Carranza's) soldiers a nice train-ride to Douglas, Arizona to destroy Villa when Villa is kinda pro-Gringo.  Right?"
    Andy studies the words and the loops of logic, and then declares,"I gots the answer!"
     Amos is overjoyed and even Lightning comes to listen to the solution.  Andy explains, "Carranza, Wilson, the Kaiser, even Villathey is all one type of politician or n'other.  And mine is not to reason why!!"

     And folks, Andy is correct.  Carranza would have sold his granddaughter's grave in order to hitch a ride on the Southern Pacific line, but he bought it for nothing beyond a railroad lease - freight rate.  An adjunct line running between the Southern Pacific line and Douglas, Arizona  switched cars in and carried the soldiers to Douglas, from whence they formed-up and marched to Aqua Prieta, Sonora where they dug in and awaited the assault by one of Pancho Villa's smaller contingents.   The distance of the march was something like 3 miles, which was nothing to Mexican infantryman.

     None of the story about the period after the assault on the fort at Agua Prieta (dark waters) under the control of the Carranzista government in Mexico City adds up to a reasonable interpretation.   There are analysts who have postulated that there is immensely more evidence that the battle at Aqua Prieta was a movie sham or some other kind of deception.

     El Gringo Viejo has become one of many analysts and students of the period  who has come to the conclusion that the Agua Prieta battle was, essentially and totally, a smoke and mirrors magician's trick.   It required, as one might imagine, the investment in...or at least the gullibility of the major American press organs of the day.
    As far as the Mexicans might be concerned, almost all of the actions took place in the early dawn or in the dead of night.  Would people  really be killed and wounded.  The answer is, "Yes".
     Would the soldiers involved have any idea whom they were fighting or why?  Quite possibly, "No".  The vast majority of the rank and file were simple people who were more valiant than discerning. Dressing out recruits in the makeshift garb of Villa's Division of the North would cause almost everyone to assume that they were Villistas, when encountered  after a battle.
   There were five men captured at Columbus after the fighting ceased.  In fairly short order they were hanged for murder.  No forensic investigation, no proof of anything about being militia under orders…just hanged.  There were those who said that the men told them that they were Carranzistas who had been told to shout "Viva Villa!" repeatedly during the attack on Columbus.  Myth?  Unsupportable testimony?  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.

    Another problem was that many people declared that most of the empty shell casings found on the ground in "downtown" Columbus were rounds for a Mauser-type rifle, not the Winchester 30-30 carbine used by Villa's Division of the North for both cavalry and infantry.  

(1)   Villa would normally have been in the City of Chihuahua or in his home in Hidalgo de Parral, Chihuahua or in El Paso, Texas during these moments.   No one saw him at Columbus. 

(2)   Villa did not have the necessary ammunition, medical supplies,  soldiers, horses, mules, and other accoutrements of battle necessary to carry out an attack on the small fort of Aqua Prieta, Sonora that far away from his bases.   His destruction in the Celaya - Leon affair had been more than substantial.

(3)   The attack on the nearby American village of Columbus, New Mexico was, therefore probably engineered and orchestrated by Carranzista elements under the control and command of Brig. Gen. Benjamin Hill and/or his subordinatesco-ordinating closely minute by minute telegraphically with Venustiano Carranza and his lackeys back in Mexico City. 

(4)   If a Villista force of three or four hundred men had shown up in Agua Prieta, knowing with their excellent reconnaissance resources concerning the 5,000 federal troops being transported by the Gringos to reinforce the "fort" in Agua Prieta, there would have been little or no fighting in Agua Prieta.  Shooting and cannons and machine-gun fire, yes…but little fighting.  It would have been ridiculous for Villa to have attacked a "destacamiento" of nearly 6,000 relatively good and really excellent infantry.

(5)     To complete the circle then, it was apparent that the White House was of the opinion that it wished to work with the literate and considered upper class Carranza and not some illiterate yea-who who only wanted women and adoration from a class of people who pertained to a time that had passed 50 years before.  Listen to the echoes of diplomatic / military insanity:


     According to Wilson, who was entering dementia at these hours.."Germany desires to keep up the turmoil in Mexico until the United States is forced to intervene; therefore, we must not intervene.
Germany does not wish to have any one faction dominant in Mexico; therefore, we must recognize one faction as dominant in Mexico . . .".    (?????????????)

     "It comes down to this: Our possible relations with Germany must be our first consideration; and all our intercourse with Mexico must be regulated accordingly."   (?????????????)

    AND THEY CHOSE CARRANZA! A GRINGO-HATING, UBER-WEALTHY, DICTATOR-IN-WAITING WITH MASSIVE GERMAN INVOLVEMENT AGAINST THE DUMBO, RURALIST, PEON (Dorotea Arango) WHO ONLY WANTED HIS COUNTRY BECOME MORE LIKE TEXAS and WHO WAS ODDLY PRO-GRINGO IN THESE MATTERS!!!

     There is some irony that both Villa and  the  Wilson /  Bryan duo  had determined that the Germans wanted to open another diplomatic / military front and that would be in the New World.   It would try to insert Germanic population to penetrate the herds with the stronger horses in Latin America, those being Argentina and Mexico.  Villa had brutalised hacendados, industrialists, and ranchers of the Gringo persuasion but it was almost always for specific, personal insults. At first, William Jennings Bryan urged Wilson to be considerate of the nature of Villa because many people in Texas thought of him as a "liberator". 
    
   The problem is that at each turn, Wilson was certainly quick to blow up a third-part of Vera Cruz, Vera Cruz when Huerta offended him for the least slight.  He was the first one to not shake hands with Booker Taliaferro Washington in the White House because he did not want to be contaminated by the touch of a Negro.  Wilson was a slug who made truck with people like Margaret Sanger and the Ku Klux Klan.  He was also a one-worlder, Progressive, disciple of George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells and the whole panoply of elitists "democratic socialists" who believed in the elimination of all the inferior races and defective people…like Mexicans, Negroes, and mongoloids, etc. 

  Wilson was quite a contrast from the invitation by Nathan Bedford Forrest (Robert E. Lee's most admired General, when was asked after the War) to his favoured Negro slaves to join him in the fight for the South.
  They joined, became his Pretorian  Guard, and all survived the War, even after over 20 serious skirmishes and several major Battles. They never shrank from desperate combat, waging destruction upon the Blue Coated Wave.    They had all gained their manumission at the half-way point of the War…but each remained at the side of their leader until the very  end.  Thus saith the truth. And this tale puts the lie to the superiority of the "Progressives".  The "progressives" were, are, and forever will be elitists who demean humanity. They are hypocrites of the highest order.

     
CLASSIC PHOTOGRAPH

  (L) Alvaro Obregon, (C) Pancho Villa, and

  (R) Maj. Gen. John (Black Jack) Pershing
 outside of the Hotel Texas and its famous
 saloon  and  excellent restaurant.

  The ghosts will say unto the last day, that
 they knew  that Pershing and Villa were
 bothers of' the soul from another time.

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   Wilson sent Pershing to chase Villa, in what was termed the Pershing Incursion, although Pershing and Villa were friendly if not friends.  After riding and driving through most of Chihuahua State and finding almost no one who would give accurate information about the whereabouts of Pancho Villa, it was apparent that the brief excursion Mexico to bring back a bloodthirsty maniac war criminal, was turning into a debacle.   They were fighting little cells of Villistas and larger cells of  people who were Carranzistas.
   Villa remained elusive to the end, perhaps knowing that his friend would not truly try to find him and have him brought to a cover-up trial.

To wit:  According to this account at the time, this is what was actually going on…
  
     In June, Pershing received intelligence that Villa was at Carrizal, in the state of Chihuahua. He selected Captains Charles T. Boyd and Lewis S. Morey to lead approximately 100 soldiers from Troops C and K of the 10th Cavalry to investigate.  They encountered 400 Mexican Army troops (Carrancistas), instead of Pancho Villa’s men. The Mexican soldiers told the Americans to turn back northward.
    Captain Boyd refused and ordered his men south through the town anyway, which caused shots to be fired. Both sides suffered large losses. Captain Boyd and 10 soldiers were killed and another 24 were taken prisoner. Twenty-four Mexican soldiers were killed, including their commanding officer General Felix Gomez, and 43 were wounded.

   General Pershing was furious at this result and asked for permission to attack the Carrancista garrison at Chihuahua. President Wilson, fearing that such an attack would provoke a full-scale war with Mexico, refused. The Battle of Carrizal marked the effective end of the Pershing Incursion, which failed in both its missions. Pancho Villa survived. And small raids on American soil occurred while the expedition was in Mexico, almost all conducted by Carranzista cells and units.   At times, these incursions were led by Carranzista military officers.


   Loose supervision and command, frankly on the part of Black Jack Pershing caused the troops to suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of Carranzista regulars and then Wilson sent Pershing to execute the War in Germany in 1917.  It makes no sense, when it was well known that Carranza was fully willing to turn to the Germans in order to re-establish all or part of the American Southwest to Mexican governance.  Many people have come to the conclusion that Wilson wanted to degrade Pershing in the public perception so as to diminish his value as a Republican conservative candidate for the Presidency or other office. 

    We must consider the reality which was stated in this observation of the time shortly after the Death of the President:

    "During his last year in office, there is evidence that Wilson’s second wife, Edith Bolling Galt, may have served as acting president for the debilitated and bed-ridden president who often communicated through her. In March 1921, Wilson’s term expired, and he retired with his wife to Washington, D.C., where he lived until his death on February 3, 1924. Two days later, he was buried in Washington’s National Cathedral, the first president to be laid to rest in the nation’s capital."

     The fact is Wilson was becoming non compos mentis back in 1915.  He would have lapses, almost of catalepsy, where he would sit and stare blankly for three or four hours.  After the death of his first wife, and his relatively hasty marriage to the second, rumours swirled about poisonings and shenanigans.   But, at this point, what difference could it possibly make?
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     We have stuck our necks out on something that has eaten at my gall bladder for sixty years.   My great-grandfather said, my father said, my oldest brother said, Agustin said, and I studied and analysed and researched this off-and-on for years and my verdict is, before the public and the OROGs…who will have first look at this laborious condensed analysis…will be the first to see this…because it will be published  to-morrow morning…that I believe that Villa did not attack Agua Prieta nor Columbus.   It was bad theatre, and the culpable party was the arrogant and extremist Venustiano Carranza who was to blame for the entire sham.

     Tomorrow, we shall move through the convolutions of the 1920s,  some of which passes straight through the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre and the Hacienda de la Vega.   It is less trying emotionally, the data is clearer, and it is another of the episodes in Mexico that reminds people that no birth is easy.


We rest.  This has been a mental ordeal and a tax upon my soul.   I appreciate especially the special choir of OROGs, and certainly to those who follow us.
El Gringo Viejo
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Thursday 22 November 2018

On Watch: Exposing Mainstream Media Lies About the Illegal Alien Invasion

The Border: Deployment, Posse Comitatus, Villa & Carranza, Columbus, and other such forgotten realities (with addenda 24 November 2018)


To the reader:   This entry into the blog is very detailed and includes information that, while true, is not commonly known.  We have followed one line to build an understanding of Mexico and Texas during the time just before and during the Mexican Revolution of 1910 - 1917.   There is, of course, a vast amount of equally important, directly, and indirectly relevant material that accompanies this period that must be included to further the understanding of those times.   We shall publish on the 25th of November, 2018 a further advanced primer concerning those times.   
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     This submission is made in order to address the matter of the "caravanas" of "migrants" who are trudging up to the Mexico / United States frontierjust searching for a better life (?).  This article will tend to be among the longest and most detailed we have submitted to the OROG community and other visitorsnow found in over forty foreign countries.
     The level of understanding by the American Obsolete Press edges up to the point of pointlessness.  Their best work has been in the area of providing purposeful misinformation and pro-marxist, anti-American propaganda.  Their allies in the various Spanish language networks, both Mexican and Americn like UniVision and such, have been complicit by outright lying about the nature of the "Caravana" and the composition of the participants.
     For instanceand it is a valid example of the entirety of the reporting, a Univision reporter explained to a FOXNews anchor that the "migrantes" were "all women pushing baby strollers,  just looking for a better life…".   This was in spite of the fact that any dolt with a negative IQ could tell that the broad mass…very broad mass…from beginning to end, has been composed of males, aged 15 - 35, unaccompanied by anything that looked like a "family" with baby strollers or the like.
     Mexican and American authorities have concurred that they have identified some 750 individuals, up from Honduras, who have criminal precedents and, in many cases, wants and warrants in the United States and/or Mexico.   The number of young females have been interviewed who very frankly state that their quest is to arrive into the United States before "my time" so as to deliver the baby in the United States.   It is known that the baby becomes the magic key to AFDC, Section 8, food stamps, Medicaid, etc. etc. etc.
     We have stated this many, many times and perhaps to some who do not believe or do not wish to believe that this is a reality.  Believe it.

      The tales of South of the Border and such are, perhaps, an almost incomprehensible jumble of wars, intrigues, corruption, violence, and disorder.  And, do you all know what?  Much of it is very true.   However;   Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras…combined…have a total Gross National Product of a little less than 200,000,000,000 (two hundred billion) dollars.   The population of the three nations is right at 33,000,000 (thirty-three million) souls.
      Mexico has a little more than ten times the Gross National Product and a little less than four times the population of the three Central American nations being herein considered.   One can consider readily what the level of social comfortability might be when comparing the one nation to the other three.  Also, even with the obvious problems Mexico has had with "Cartel Violence", the other three countries make Mexico look like a Convent during quiet hours…although Guatemala is considerably less violent and anarchistic than Honduras and El Salvador.

     So, here we go.  We shall have to walk back to the past…nearly to the year 1900…and write a little bit about knowledge, conception, misconception, and ignorance about the Mexican - American - Texas Frontier during recent and not-so-recent times. 
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BORDER TROUBLES - 1900 through 1920

Don Porfirio Diaz Mori
This, I 
believe, was the last official
photograph of Porfirio.  He was,
obviously, nearing the end  of
his service to Mexico in May
of 1911.
     Ask any reasonably informed South Texan or Texan about border problems between Texas and Mexico and, lamentably during these times, one will receive a response that ranges from "What means border?" to, "Yeah, my grandad told my father about Pancho Villa riding in and shooting everything up and stealing all the cows."

    It seems reasonable, but…it never really happened that way.

    Towards the end of the rule of Mexican President Porfirio Diaz Mori, who served from 1884 - 1911, the left-wing movements around the world gradually seeped into the Mexican political and social construct.   We might mention that the estimable Don Porfirio also served an earlier term from 1876 through 1880.  He placed a puppet, Manuel Gonzalez (a good president in any regard), to serve for one term, up until Don Porfirio's re-election, essentially by national acclamation in 1884.  This means, of course that Don Porfirio's presidential service to Mexico totalled 30 years.

     As the days grew short for Don Porfirio's service, activists such as Cipriano Ricardo Flores Magon and his two brothers,  Enrique and Jesus were committed anarchist / socialist / marxists.  They were active especially in the mining districts of northern Chihuahua State in the north of Mexico and even in places like the fabled Real de Catorce, from whence 15% of all the silver that went to Spain during the colonial period was extracted and refined.
     These three men, along with various intellectuals and small newspaper / bulletin publishers numbering into the hundreds joined to damn Don Porfirio to blazes and to support an upper-class hacienda owner (as a family member) from Paras de la Fuente…an oasis of grapes, cotton, and fine vegetables within a rocky desert.  The name? Don Francisco Madero, a scion of one of the top ten most wealthy, influential, and capitalist families in Mexico…and perhaps in the top 100 families in all the Americas in terms of wealth, influence, and agricultural / industrial proficiency.
      Don Francisco, well-travelled and learned in France, England, and the United States (Berkeley  of all things), quite brilliant and industrious, had also converted to a religious philosophy known as spiritism.  He communicated with everyone from Benito Juarez Garcia (the first and only Indian President of Mexico, dead before Francisco's birth) to his four year old deceased brother who guided him daily during times of indecision.   Madero became more involved in State-wide as well as local politics, learning by failures and successes.
     Finally, making connections with leftist intellectual powerhouses in Mexico such as Luis Cabrera Lobato,  and especially Aquilas Serdan and Jose' Vasconcelos there came that moment in time when Francisco received his "inner calling" to run for election to the Presidency of Mexico. When 1910 arrived, Francisco would make certain his name would be on the ballot for Presidente.

       As one might imagine, President Diaz decided that 'just one more term' would be enough.  In late 1908 an article was published by a noted reporter by the name of Creelman, a Brit, that indicated Diaz was speaking of retirement and such, "...if it appears as though the Mexicans are prepared to govern themselves".   The publication of this very lengthy interview, along with the rise of two large factions of a Mexican leftist imperative began a political domino effect that would have repercussions that affect affairs even unto this date.
   Intellectual leftists who opposed even the merest existence of the Mexican "hacienda aristocracy"also levelled their ire against the Roman Church as well as the stable Mexico City  Central Government.   The leftists also detested the State governments and their "Rurales", famous and ruthless rural policewell trained, paid, and frequently brutal.  They were noted for being tough but dependable and responsible in a strange way.    All those forces and dynamics came together in a kind of Death Match of the Serpents in 1910.

     To show the nature of the risk being taken by Porfirio Diaz in stretching his "service" to Mexico for another four years, we include a brief paragraph concerning an historic, difficult, and complex Meeting of the Presidents.  To wit:



       In a show of U.S. support, Díaz and William Howard Taft planned a summit in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua for 16 October 1909, a historic first meeting between a Mexican president and an  president of the United States of America.   It would also be the first time a U.S. president would cross the border into Mexico.
      At the meeting, Diaz told John Hays Hammond, "Since I am responsible for bringing several billion dollars in foreign investments into my country, I think I should continue in my position until a competent successor is found." The summit was a great success for Díaz, but it could have been a major tragedy. On the day of the summit, Frederick Russell Burnham, the celebrated scout, and Private C.R. Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol along the procession route and they disarmed the assassin within only a few feet of Díaz and Taft.

     The combined crowds, along with 4,000 American and Mexican soldiers, almost 300 reporters, scores and scores of police of various types, totalled over 100,000 souls before the events were done.
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The statue commemorates the Spanish
king, Carlos IV found on the elegant
Paseo de la Reforma Boulevard
that runs through the middle of
Mexico City.
  The revellers are celebrating the
 arrival of the new President,
 Francisco Madero
1911

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     As Mexico went into election mode, it was apparent that this could not be another sham election wherein the electorate would vote 1,134,000 to 429, nationwide, and Porfirio Diaz Mori would be declared the winner.   While the results were not as bad as above stated, there was still a wide gap between credibility and possibility.  Various interpretations, at there closest, show Diaz defeating the "ghost talker" Madero by a 9 to 1 margin.   Too many people knew too much, however, and disorders of  the first order began almost overnight.  In remarkably short order the "Presidente Permanente"became the "Adios, Sr. ex-Presidente Diaz", and he was deported to Spain.

Two images of Cavalry deployed at Fort Brown (top)
outside of Brownsville, Texas and (lower) a unit stationed
in Rio Grande City, Texas at Fort Ringgold.  At that time
there were several score thousand personnel deployed on
the Border.
 
     Everything seemed great, wonderful, and hopeful.  It lasted almost 12 months.  Large factions with very divergent positions, wants, and requirements trundled into various offices of the new government that were staffed either with firebrand socialists or Harvard, Yale, and Mexico City educated snoots or engineers and agriculturalist big-wigs.   An agreement here in this office would be overturned in that officeand neither Madero not his very capable Vice-President Jose Maria Pino Suarez could keep putting the pieces back together again before another bunch of angry petitioners would arrive to demand This and ThatRIGHT NOW!!!
     There was no general platform.  There had been no construction of a small set of major objectives.  During these stressful times, Francisco Madero would telephone his father.   Upon arrival in the Presidential Palace (Chapultepec), Francisco had ordered and obtained a direct telephone connection from the Palace to his father's home in Parras de la Fuentefar, far, far away in northern Mexico's Coahuila State.  He would take counsel from his ever domineering fatherthe older man who came from a mindset that was from two centuries past could not provide for a son who needed much more than consolation via long-distance telephone.
    He needed the advice and direction from his Vice-President Pino Suarez, who had served as Governor of the Yucatan and had been highly admired by all sectors in that wildly divergent State. Before long, it would make no difference.  The populace was quickly turning on Madero.  The very bloody and capable General Orozco and other military units were marching on the way to Mexico City.  A month or two turned into a few days which turned into a matter of hours and then it turned into the incarceration of both Madero and Pino Suarez. 

     Quickly, from February 9th through February 19th of the year 1913, bad things happened.  There was even a bit of collusion on the part of the United States State Department, although the Ambassador to Mexico denied it, as well as the venerable Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan.
This photograph shows President Fransisco Madero (short
with cane) and Vice-President Pino-Suarez (to Madero's
right, also with cane) with various authorities in the 
Presidential Palace in downtown-most Mexico City.
The two politicians have been arrested and are awaiting a
transfer 
to a holding jail, from whence they were to be
taken to the train station on the 19th of February
and
 transferred to Vera Cruz and then banished
from Mexico in perpetuity.   Unfortunately, such
 was not to be the case.  The manat furthest right
 is the Clerk of theCongress and he is holding the
 Congressional Order of Expulsion from Office.
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        On the morning of the 19th of February 1913,  Madero and Pino Suarez were put in an automobile and, with a considerable but discreet guard, were being conducted to the train station, about 25 blocks to the northwest of the Presidential Palace.  Before much distance had been covered a group of men began shooting with pistols at the auto with the two detainees inside.

     There are so many stories about how this unfolded, but suffice it to say that Madero and Pino Suarez were put out and in short order, they both had been shot to death.  Before the episode was over, some ninety people had been killed, along with numerous police and Army mounts.   Many of the dead were innocent civilians, male and female.

      Now we begin to move into the matters that begin to affect not just Mexico, but rather Texas and the general frontier Mexico shares with Texas.   Other issues would come into play all along the international boundary before these matters played out.   The disorders begin more or less around 1908 and gradually build to a peak of activity in 1916.  

     During these times, starting with the Cananea Mine Strike and civil disorder in northern parts
President (Gen.) Victoriano Huerta
of the northern State of Chihuahua, miners at first struck, and then milled around, and finally just left in fairly large numbers.  The strike, a rarity in Mexico, had not been passive.  Many had been hurt and there were a number of dead.   The strikers were demanding 5 pesos per day plus certain emoluments (medical, retirement, vacation time, etc.).   The leaders of this particular strike were the Flores Magon boys we referenced above.  It should be considered that the disorders began in 1908 and steadily became worse as the election of 1910 caused all kinds of upheaval in terms of the socio-political order.   It became steadily worse as various elements vied for the Presidential Throne, either by force or by another (and very improbable) election.

Cipriano Ricardo Flores Magon
Labour leader,  brilliant
thinker, but marxist

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     Unemployed miners drifted into Chihuahua City and Cd. Juarez up on the border.   From other mines, more in the middle of Mexico's highlands, more miners were experiencing arbitrary layoffs and unpleasant working conditions.   Some of these men went up to Monterrey and others thought about crossing over into Texas where they had heard of men being paid two dollars per day, doing irrigation canal building, tending crops of cotton and vegetables and at times the citrus.
    There were people all along the border, on both sides, disposed to take advantage of ethnic and/or racial comfortability that the social environment tolerated.  As one who grew up in this type of social and cultural environment, albeit forty or fifty years later…it was the same in many ways.  One could generalise that about 80 per cent of the Latins could speak English and about 15 per cent of the "Anglos" could speak Spanish…with quality ranging from proficient to eloquent.
 Madero and his wife
 shortly after taking the oath of office
and settling in at a relatively modest
"downtown flat".   Both Madero and
Sara Perez de Madero were very,
very wealthy.  Very kind people
but no children.

     Because of the disorder brought on by the Madero administrative failure and the rising tide of banditry and, in some places anarchy, there were more and more people coming towards Texas to seek refuge and also to seek booty.  There was an abundance of men who were willing to join bandit gangs which at times espoused political and/or philosophical motivations, but who were actually committed to rustling, stealing, shake-downs, and other nefarious activity.
     The border on the Texas side was not an idyllic monument to clean and honest government.   It seems as though the sprouting towns…Donna, Weslaco, Edinburg, McAllen, Ed Couch, Elsa, Mercedes,  and other smaller places did pretty well with their administrations and internal politics. The County government, however, always seemed to be contaminated, especially by favouritism, pilfering of treasury, covering friends through favours by the Sheriff, and a hundred other sins of commission and omission.


The Vera Cruz Incident:
     One of the most troubling and stunning events during this time was caused by a minor incident involving a small bunch of insects being allowed to grow into an 1,800 pound gorilla.   The American Navy would dock in the Panuco River harbourage, adjacent to downtown Tampico.  This was fine and convenient, except that there was a "decent district" with nice saloons and restaurants where many of the upper-drawer people from Tampico and the area would dine, listen to nice live music, perhaps dance a little, and have a monster smorgasbord of a seafood platter and then go home.
    The problem is that American sailors on shore leave, at times, seem to misplace their book of etiquette at times.   There was some kind of discord, and a couple of the sailorssix were in attendancehad a bit of an accident when they threw their beer mugs and rum bottles into the 6 X 20 foot special order mirror that backed up the bar.   Many bottles of mediocre and fine liquor, along with the mirror, were lost.  The police came, the sailors went to the lock-up downtown, save for one who was to go and inform the officer of the guard on the American warship in port that the comisario would  like to speak to an officer concerning some of the sailors of the said ship.
     To make a four day story as brief as possible, the American counsel came, declaring that Washington was very distressed that American sailors were imprisoned for no known reason, and that there would be no blackmail paid for their release.   An American naval officer of said ship then spoke to the counsel to advise him that everyone present that evening, Mexican and foreign, were certain that the six American sailors had acted violently without provocation.  Finally, the President of the United States of America sent a declaring that money had been secured to cover the damages, and that he demanded the return of the sailors, post haste.   Also, the President demanded that General Victoriano Huerta, provisional President of Mexico, would be required to fire a cannon salute to the ship's flag as it left harbour.
     Huerta telegraphed the White House declaring that all matters had been complied with, except that it would require that the American ship fire a military salute to the Mexican flag that flew over the Harbour Master's Headquarters, first.   Everyone in Washington, D. C. was furious.

     Some days later, an American flotilla pulled into Vera Cruz's harbour.  There was one battleship, and two destroyer class ships, and various other ships under American flags.   In fairly short order, the centre of the city of Vera Cruz had been reduced to rubble, with many buildings, even from the colonial era, destroyed and left as heaps of rock, brick, and cement and plaster dust.  The number of dead and wounded…mostly civilians…was significant.  In the many hundreds.
     The American ships then extracted a German cargo ship from the harbour, and off loaded a score thousand of German Mausers and tonnes and tonnes of ammunition and other necessities that were bound to the Armies of General Victoriano Huerta to aid in his fight against Villa and company.
     Please find a copy of the book, "A Diplomat's Wife in Mexico" by Edith O'Shaughnessy.   It recounts the days immediately after the assassination of Madero and Pino Suarez and the Bombardment of Vera Cruz and a million other glimpses into life in Mexico City and Mexico "during Revolution".  It is not the work of a hysterical woman or activist.  She is solid as a block of copper.  (the book is truly worth purchasing)     
     

The Plan de San Diego:
     This is where the Past begins to speed up and becomes Prologue.  With the disorders in Mexico and the fervour some, perhaps many, Mexicans had concerning everything from the loss of Texas and the American Southwest to real and imagined mistreatment by the Gringos, a cauldron was put to boil, and it began to spill over fairly quickly.
     We shan't burden the reader with the names of a hundred principals that might still pertain to families living in or around the Lower Rio Grande Valley.   It must suffice to say that Mexican and Mexican American radicals wrote up a "Plan" that initially called for the assassination of all Anglo American males, aged 16 or more residing in Texas and other "territories annexed by the Imperialist Yanquis".   People to be spared would be women and children, and all Mexican people except those Mexicans who sided with the Anglo element.   Also, Negros and Indians were to be exempt from these reprisals.
     During the early part of 1915 it is estimated that between 90 and 140 people were murdered by activists taking the measures required in the "Plan".  That document was essentially a Declaration of War by people who did not have legal standing or authority from any source.   While the extreme lower Southern tip of Texas bore most of the carnage, there were assassinations up to Del Rio and Eagle Pass, as well as San Antonio, Karnes and Kenedy cities southeast of San Antonio, and in the ranch country north of McAllen / Brownsville and west of Corpus Christi.
     Excesses and over-reaction brought on an ugly period in the history of the Lower Rio Grande Valley's four counties (Hidalgo, Cameron, Starr, and Willacy) specifically and southernmost Texas generally.  The State of Texas sent down 90 Texas Rangers, only about a third of them qualified, astute, and intelligent enough to determine who was a "bad" Mexican, a "good" Mexican, an itinerate Mexican, or an American citizen Mexican.   The other two-thirds were essentially white-trash, big-badge and big belt-buckle thugs…known as "Special Rangers".

     Governor Jim Ferguson was a real pill, and came late to the party in terms of the goings-on on the Border.  He also had legal challenges and problems with the State Legislature that would result in his impeachment and removal from office (in perpetuity) in 1916.  During all of this, Texas's two United States Senators and the legislature petitioned the United States Army's infantry and cavalry units to be pressed into service along the border.   They wanted, at a minimum, coverage from the mouth of the Rio Grande to the twin cities of Laredo…about 165 miles of badlands, rattlesnakes, and danger.
Scene from the area around Tlaxcalantongo, Puebla,
truly a wondrous place.  This scene is at or very near
where Carranza either was slain by his own guards,
or where he took his own life after fleeing the train
taking him to Vera Cruz, and then to forced exile in

 Cuba.   His ultimate destination was to be Spain.
_________________________________
     Couple that with the fact that there was actionable information that the Germans, co-ordinating with President Venustiano Carranza had circulated a note recommending an insurgence by Mexican people against the "occupiers" of previously Mexican territory.  Many analysts to this day believe that there is a certainty that the Germans wanted to establish a full alliance with Carranza's government…encourage him to make bellicose postures against the Americans…and also be supplied with all necessary armament and materiel.   That would tie down a large portion of the American military and weaken any possible joining of the Americans with British forces on the Continent during World War I.

    The "Plan de San Diego (Texas)" was, in fact, the document / movement that caused the folks in Washington, D.C. to mobilise many thousands of infantry and cavalry, both Regular Army and National Guard units, to the Lower Rio Grande Valley, the San Ygnacio area between Fort Ringgold in Rio Grande City and Laredo, and other places on the border, in Texas.   An example of exercises and parades can be seen photographs we have provided up a few paragraphs.
     Before that deployment was  done, there would be around 100,000 personnel and they would have had numerous minor but significant engagements, with casualties on both sides.  Although many already know this fact, my own father served in the 1st Army, 12th Regiment (mounted) for apparently about four years, leaving the service in 1933.  He spoke little about his service but did indicate that it became a bit rough at times because of the anarchists, Russian and German spies, and Italian and other European anarchists and saboteurs.  He thought it was fascinating that they could receive information from informants in Mexico and get the word down to an "end of the world"place like Rio Grande City in such a manner as to frequently make a detention.
     In those years, the mescaleros (liquor transporters) were also arrieros (donkey and mule load bearers), and they would go from the border to San Antonio…some 200 miles by trail to deliver liquor to speak-easies in San Antonio.   Sometimes the liquor was not up to snuff and a lot of folks came down with damage to their systems…some even died.
     But the Cavalry maintained and mounted and large mission up to and including 1935, built around the 12th Regiment and other elements.


____________________________ 



The famous Zimmermann note.   Please
take note that it was routed through
Galveston, Texas


________________________
   The famous "Zimmermann Note" is actually pictured to the right.   It detailed propositions to the Mexican high command and, if need be, to the Mexican Nation in toto.  It is said that Pancho Villa was given this note by one of his spy / informants when it came out in 1917.  Villa had already noticed a considerable increase in the number of Japanese folks in the central and western parts of Mexico.  Germans had always been around, especially during the time of Porfirio Diaz, who had specialised in bringing Euro-technology and money into Mexico, especially for the exploitation of the oil riches in the east and south of the Republic.  The Japanese began a brewery that morphed into what would later become "Corona" after several reincarnations. 
     In spite of the melodrama of "Black Jack" Pershing's chase after Villa in Chihuahua, Villa was essentially an Amerophile and had been heard several times explaining that he simply wanted his homeland to be more like Texas.  How much of that was to please the Gringos, I do not know.  But what is known is that Villa was very comfortable around them and he even considered "Black Jack" Pershing to be his friend.

     Another  point that seems salient when considering affairs of the day and of the place, is that Carranza's army had greater reliance on German arms and munitions, while Villa's armaments were primarily American and British.
     Also, the note was forwarded in 1917, and with the Americans going in to fight, it was improbable that anyone in the Mexican power panoply would have wanted to take the risk of letting the Germans use Mexico as a floor mat and bullet catcher. 


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    What we have tried to do with this missive is to demonstrate the complexities of what led up to putting Military people, en force, on the bordernot by a  few hundred or two thousand disarmed National Guard specialists.   Eighty years ago the deployments were in the scores of thousands and  they consisted of Regular Army and very competent National Guard units from Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania.
     As is normal for your humble servant, we shall probably decide to "extend our remarks" concerning these times and other times that might be relevant to the interests of our readers.   Until that moment, perhaps to-morrow or the day after, I shall begin that process.

     In a subsequent post, we shall reach back just a bit, and fold in more supporting information concerning this post, and include a bit about the "magical disappearing Presidents and Heroes" syndrome that lent an air of cultural depression throughout Mexico for two generations. 

As usual we deeply appreciate the interest and time each reader invests with us.
EL GRINGO VIEJO
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