Victorian Orchard
José Victoriano Huerta Márquez (Colotlán, Jalisco, March 23, 1845-El Paso, Texas, January 13, 1916) was a Mexican politician, engineer, soldier, and dictator who served as as president of Mexico from February 19, 1913 to July 15, 1914 after a coup known as the Tragic Ten.
He began his military career during the presidency of Porfirio Díaz and, during the democratically elected government of Francisco I. Madero, managed to rise to general in the first phase of the Mexican Revolution. In February 1913, he led a conspiracy against Madero, who entrusted him with the defense of Mexico City during an insurrection started by generals Bernardo Reyes and Félix Díaz known as the Trágic Decena, where after several days of combat within the city, both Madero and his vice president, José María Pino Suárez, were deposed, arrested and later assassinated. The coup was supported by the German Empire and the United States, during the presidency of William Howard Taft. However, the government of President Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize the new regime and allowed the distribution and sale of arms to rebel forces. Many of the great powers of that time recognized the coup regime, but before the triumph of the revolutionary forces against Huerta, they ended up withdrawing their support, due to the threats of the Wilson government.
Finally, Huerta was forced to resign in July 1914 and fled into exile after just 17 months in office, after the surrender of the Federal Army. He was arrested in 1915 by US authorities for trying to negotiate with German spies in the framework of of the First World War (1914-1918) and died in prison.
His collaborators during the Mexican Revolution were known as Huertistas. To this day, the soldier continues to be despised for his role in Madero's death, and has come to be known by the nicknames El Chacal or El Usurpador .
Youth and education
According to the records in the books of the Colotlán Parish Notary, José Victoriano Huerta Márquez was born on December 22, 1850 in the town of Colotlán and was baptized the following day (other sources indicate that he was born on December 23 March 1845 in the ranch of Agua Gorda). His parents were Jesús Huerta Córdoba, originally from Colotlán, Jalisco, and María Lázara del Refugio Márquez Villalobos, originally from El Plateado, Zacatecas. His paternal grandparents were Rafael Huerta Benítez and María Isabel de la Trinidad Córdoba, the first originally from Villanueva, Zacatecas and the second from Colotlán, Jalisco and his maternal grandparents were José María Márquez and María Soledad Villalobos. Huerta identified himself as indigenous and his parents were registered as Huichol, although his father is said to have referred to himself as mestizo. Huerta learned to read and write at the municipal school run by the local parish priest, which made him one of the few people capable of doing so in all of Colotlán. From a very young age, Huerta had resolved to pursue a military career as the only way to escape the inherent poverty of his town. His opportunity came when he was 15 years old., when in 1869, General Donato Guerra visited Colotlán and expressed his desire to hire a private secretary. Huerta decided to volunteer.
As a reward for his services, he was recommended and awarded a scholarship to study at the Military College, where he obtained outstanding grades that earned him special recognition; President Benito Juárez, the first indigenous person to become president, praised him during his visit to the school to present the cadets with the following words:
Of the Indians who are educated like you, the homeland awaits a lot.
During his time as a cadet, Huerta was an especially outstanding student in mathematics, which led him to major in artillery and topography.
Military Management
After graduating from the Military College in 1877, Huerta was commissioned into the Corps of Engineers. After receiving the rank of lieutenant within it, he was placed in charge of the forts of Loreto and Guadalupe in Puebla, and the castle of Perote in Veracruz. In January 1879 he was promoted to the rank of captain and assigned to the officer corps of the 4th Division in Guadalajara, within the engineering area. The officer in charge of the 4th Division was General Manuel González Flores, compadre of President Porfirio Díaz and President of Mexico from 1880 to 1884. During this time, González took Huerta under his wing and his career prospered. In Mexico City, Huerta married Emilia Águila Moya, whom he met during his service in Veracruz, on November 21, 1880. The marriage produced a total of 11 children. The names of her living children at the time of Huerta's death in 1916 were Jorge, María Elisa, Víctor, Luz, Elena, Dagoberto, Eva and Celia. Huerta participated in the "pacification campaigns" in Tepic and Sinaloa, where he distinguished himself for his role during combat. He was known for always making sure that his men received their pay on time, even when it meant doing so through questionable and harsh acts. complaint made by the Catholic Church that Huerta ordered the looting of a church to sell all the gold and silver it contained to pay his troops, Huerta justified himself by saying that "Mexico can live without priests, but it cannot live no soldiers". On another occasion, after a complaint made by a bank, alleging that Huerta emptied one of its branches at gunpoint to pay his men, Huerta argued that he left a receipt promising to pay the bank for what was stolen. when he received the necessary funds from Mexico City. The next 9 years, Huerta spent his military career conducting topographical surveys in the states of Puebla and Veracruz. His position allowed him to travel to various parts of the republic on a constant basis. During the Porfiriato years, the French influence on Mexican culture was very strong and Huerta was no stranger to this current, since his hero was Napoleon. Huerta he unconditionally supported Díaz, considering that he was the closest to the Napoleonic ideal, believing that Mexico needed "strong leadership" to achieve prosperity.
By the year 1890 Huerta had reached the rank of colonel and for the following years (from 1890 to 1895) Huerta had his residence in Mexico City, becoming a frequent visitor to the presidential residence inside Chapultepec Castle, and as part of Díaz's entourage. Although Huerta was appreciated within the Castle for his behavior as a correct and efficient officer, who treated his subordinates with discipline, and his superiors with courtesy, during those years he began to suffer from insomnia and severe alcoholism problems. In January 1895 he led an infantry battalion against a rebellion in the state of Guerrero led by General Canuto Neri. The rebellion was appeased after Díaz managed to negotiate successfully with Neri, who surrendered in exchange of the promise to remove the unpopular governor of that state. During the fighting, Huerta displayed a reputation as a ruthless officer who refused to take prisoners. and that he continued to fight Neri's followers even after Díaz had obtained a cessation of hostilities. In December 1900, Huerta led a successful military campaign against the Yaqui Indians in Sonora. During the military campaign, which nearly It was one of extermination, when Huerta was not directing his forces against the Yaqui, he was also busy using his knowledge of topography to map the Sonoran terrain. From April 12 to September 8, 1901, Huerta was also in charge of to put down, ruthlessly and violently, several indigenous rebellions in Guerrero. In May of that same year, he was finally promoted to the rank of general. During 1901 until 1902 he also fought the Mayan Indians in Yucatán and Quintana Roo. During the campaign, he led a total of 500 men and fought a total of 79 military actions during the course of 39 days.After the military campaign concluded, Huerta was promoted to brigadier general and awarded the Military Merit Medal; as well as being promoted, at the request of his friend, General Bernardo Reyes, former governor of Nuevo León and Secretary of War and Navy, as a member of the Supreme Military Court of the Nation. In May 1902 he was promoted to commander of the federal forces in Yucatán, and in October he reported to Díaz that the territory had finally been pacified.During his stay in Yucatán, he became increasingly dependent on alcohol and his health began to fail. deteriorate. In addition to being forced to wear sunglasses, claiming that he could not stand the sun's rays, Huerta developed episodes of tremors and his teeth began to decay, causing him severe pain. In August 1903 he was commissioned to direct a committee charged with reforming the Federal Army uniforms. In 1907 he retired from the army citing poor health, after developing cataracts while in the jungles of the southeast. He then wanted to apply his technical knowledge by taking the position of Chief of Public Works in the city of Monterrey and beginning to plan a new street layout, and even in the construction of the Ancira Hotel.
The Madero revolution
On the eve of the Mexican Revolution called by Madero against the Porfirian regime, Huerta was living in Mexico City, teaching mathematics. After the rebellion began, Huerta rejoined the army with his old rank, but did not participate in any of the initial actions of the revolt. However, after Díaz's resignation, Huerta was in charge of escorting his presidential convoy to the port of Veracruz that took him into exile in May 1911.
During the interim presidency of Francisco León de la Barra and the subsequent election of Madero to the presidency in November 1911, Huerta carried out a bloody campaign in the state of Morelos to put down the forces of Emiliano Zapata. Among the actions carried out by Huerta was the burning of various towns related to the Zapatistas and the subsequent extermination of their inhabitants. These actions led to his being accused of insubordination by Madero, who was trying to negotiate with the Zapatistas for a cessation of hostilities. Huerta already had a history of opposing the revolutionary forces and taking part in political intrigues against Madero, and the military's actions were decisive in causing a break between Zapata and Madero, which would lead the former to rebel against the new Madero government with the proclamation of the Plan de Ayala.
Although it was thanks to the efforts of the revolutionary troops that the revolution called by Madero was able to triumph against Porfirio Díaz, Madero agreed with the interim government of De la Barra that the revolutionaries should hand over their weapons and that the Army Federal would still be active. Huerta declared his loyalty to President Madero and took it upon himself to lead the federal forces to appease all those who refused to follow the demobilization order, such as Pascual Orozco. During the actions against Orozco, Huerta had an altercation with the revolutionary commander Francisco Villa, who was also persecuting Orozco. Huerta alleged that Villa had refused to return some horses that his men had stolen from Huerta's troops. Enraged, he had him arrested and ordered to be shot. President Madero's brothers intervened and Villa was only imprisoned for a few days in Mexico City, which angered Huerta. Upon returning to the capital, he reaffirmed his loyalty to President Madero and while undergoing cataract treatment, Madero did so. resign.
As the Orozco rebellion became a serious threat to the Madero government, the Madero government was forced to reconsider its position and once again sent Huerta to fight the insurgent forces and put them down one way or another. Under his command, Huerta had troops from the Federal Army and irregular troops under Villa's command who had joined the contingent in April 1912. Huerta offered Orozco's followers (called Orozquistas) amnesty, before the increasingly weakened that they were of troops and capital. Huerta's forces finally defeated Orozco's forces at Rellano in May 1912. Following that victory, Huerta "had suddenly become a highly regarded national hero".
The Betrayal
As Madero lost support, various internal and external groups conspired to remove him from the presidency. The best known of all was the one carried out by Porfirio Díaz's nephew, Félix Díaz, together with generals Bernardo Reyes and Manuel Mondragón, ultimately known as the Tragical Ten, which took place on 9 to February 19, 1913. The coup leaders had hoped to invite Huerta since January, but he declined their offers for fear of only being used and decided to wait for how events unfolded, considering that Félix Díaz was expected to succeed Madero after the triumph. of the blow However, on the first day of the confrontations, on February 9, General Reyes was killed in combat and General Lauro Villar, in charge of the defense of the National Palace, was wounded. After Reyes' death, Huerta was appointed by Madero as the new defense officer. This decision, according to historian Friedrich Katz, "would be one for which [Madero] would pay with his life." Having secured that key position, Huerta secretly joined the conspirators and continued negotiations. behind the president's back. His objective was to weaken Madero militarily without revealing his own complicity in the conspiracy.
Within a few days, however, Huerta was discovered by Madero's brother, Gustavo A. Madero, who arrested him and accused him in front of the president. Madero, once again, did not believe the versions and released him. The US ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson, was one of those most involved in the conspiracy to oust Madero and the architect of the Embassy Pact, also known as the Pact of the Citadel. Wilson believed that Huerta would not have been able to carry out the plan if he did not have the certainty that the United States would recognize the new regime. After several days of fighting inside Mexico City between the loyalist forces and the insurgents, Huerta had Madero and Vice President Pino Suárez arrested and kept them in custody. prisoners inside the National Palace on February 18, 1913. In accordance with the agreement in the Embassy Pact, Madero and Pino Suárez were to go into exile and Huerta would assume the presidency.
At first Félix Díaz was surprised by the news, since the initial plan was that he would occupy the presidency when the rebellion triumphed. However, Huerta managed to convince him to let him govern on an interim basis to pacify the Maderistas. On February 22, 1913, Madero and Vice President Pino Suárez were escorted overnight to the Lecumbérri prison where, after being taken to the back of the building, they were cunningly executed.
Period of usurpation
To give some semblance of legitimacy to the coup, Huerta had Foreign Secretary Pedro Lascuráin assume the presidency on a provisional basis; according to the Constitution of 1857, the Secretary of Relations was found as the third in the line of succession, behind the vice president and the President of the Supreme Court; although he had also been dismissed after the coup. Lascuráin appointed Huerta as Secretary of the Interior, making him next in line for the presidency. After just under 45 minutes in office, Lascuráin resigned and turned power over to Huerta. In an extraordinary session that took place in the middle of the night, in a Congress that was surrounded by troops loyal to Huerta, legislators approved the appointment. Four days later, Madero and Pino Suárez were executed.
The Huertista government was quickly recognized by all foreign powers, but the administration of U.S. President William Howard Taft refused to recognize the new government, as a way of pressuring the Mexican government to resolve a border dispute at El Chamizal in favor of the Huerta government. of the United States, in exchange for recognition of the Huerta government. However, the new US president Woodrow Wilson, who had a greater inclination for democratic governments and a clear dislike for Huerta, who had assumed power through a coup and was implicated in the subsequent assassination of Madero, he was willing to recognize the new government as long as it was ratified at the polls. Félix Díaz and the rest of those involved in the coup saw Huerta as a transitional leader and proposed calling elections, hoping that they would be won by Díaz and his Catholic and conservative platform, however they took a surprise surprise to discover that Huerta had no intention of handing over the presidency.
Huerta moved quickly to consolidate his power and began negotiations with the rest of the governors. He also approached Pascual Orozco, whom he had previously fought on behalf of the Maderista government. Since Orozco still retained command of a considerable number of forces in Chihuahua and part of Durango, Huerta considered it essential to enlist his support. Orozco had rebelled against Madero and Huerta, having removed him, saw the possibility of getting his support. During a meeting with the representatives of the Huerta government and the Orozquista forces, Orozco established a series of conditions in order to declare his support for the new government. First, Orozco asked for the recognition of the services of his soldiers against Madero and that they be used as rurales . Huerta agreed to the terms, and Orozco publicly declared his support for Huerta on February 27, 1913. At the same time, Orozco sought to negotiate with Emiliano Zapata to make peace with the Huerta government. Until then, Zapata held Orozco in high regard as a fellow revolutionary who had rebelled against the Madero regime. However, for Zapata, Orozco's support for Huerta was inexcusable, saying that "Huerta represents betrayal of the army." You [Orozco] represent the betrayal of the Revolution."
Huerta tried to further consolidate his government, and the middle class of Mexico City was able to achieve important gains before being suppressed by the new government. For example, the particular case of the Casa del Obrero Mundial. The House had called several demonstrations and strikes, which were initially tolerated by the Huerta regime. However, as time progressed, the new government suppressed the mobilizations, and also arrested and deported some of the leaders, eventually destroying the building that housed the headquarters of the Casa del Obrero. Huerta also sought to suppress all agitation provoked in favor of agrarian reform, which had its main focal point in the state of Morelos, by the forces of Emiliano Zapata. One of the intellectual voices in favor of agrarian reform was that of Andrés Molina Enríquez, who in 1909 published a book entitled Los grandes problemas nacionales in which he denounced the poor distribution of land that took place during the years of the Porfiriato. Molina Enríquez had joined the Huertista government as part of the Ministry of Labor. Although he had denounced the coup against Madero, he had seen the new Huerta government as a necessary evil that he believed the country needed: that of a strong military leader capable of imposing the social reforms that Mexico needed, to the benefit of the masses. However, despite the internal support within the Huerta regime for reforms, Huerta opted for a growing militarization of his government, for which Molina Enríquez decided to resign.
In Chihuahua, Governor Abraham González refused to support the new regime and Huerta had him arrested and later executed in March 1913. However, the most important challenge came from Coahuila Governor Venustiano Carranza, who proclaimed the Plan of Guadalupe, calling for the formation of a Constitutionalist Army (evoking the spirit of the Constitution of 1857) and ignoring the usurping government and calling for the restoration of constitutional order. Some revolutionary leaders who joined the plan were Emiliano Zapata, who also remained loyal to his own Plan de Ayala; and the northern revolutionaries Francisco Villa; and Alvaro Obregon. However, Pascual Orozco himself decided to unite in favor of Huerta against the new rebels. Over the course of the summer of 1913, four legislators were assassinated for criticizing the Huerta government. Without popular support, Huerta decided to turn the United States' refusal to recognize his government into an example of US interventionism in the internal affairs of Huerta. Mexico, organizing various anti-American mobilizations in the summer of 1913, hoping to win popular support.
The English historian Alan Knight wrote that: "The constant political current followed by the regime, from beginning to end, was that of militarization: the growth and subsequent dependence on the Federal Army, the incorporation of military personnel into posts publics, the preference for military solutions over political ones, the militarization of society in general". Huerta, according to Knight, "came pretty close to turning Mexico into a fully militarized state". In principle, Huerta's main objective was to return to the time of "order" of the Porfiriato, but his methods were far from those used by Díaz, who knew when to negotiate; seeking the support of regional elites, relying on both technocrats and army officers, former guerrilla leaders, caciques, and provincial elites to sustain his regime. While Huerta relied entirely on the army to sustain himself in power, giving to officers all the key positions in the administration, regardless of their talents, as he sought to rule the country with a strong hand, believing that only military solutions were enough to control all problems. For this reason, Huerta was even more hated than Diaz himself; even the Zapatistas, who had a certain respect for Díaz and saw him as a patriarchal leader who had the good sense to resign the presidency with dignity in 1911, saw Huerta as a barbarian who had Madero killed and sought to terrorize the country through of force. Huerta also hated meetings with his cabinet, and issued orders to his ministers as if they were officers in his army; revealing a sense of autocratic rule.
As the Huerta government gradually evolved into a harsh military dictatorship, United States President Woodrow Wilson became openly hostile to the new government, removing Henry Lane Wilson from his post as ambassador and demanding that Huerta his resignation to make way for new elections. In August 1913, Wilson imposed an arms sales embargo on Mexico, which forced Huerta to approach European countries and Japan to obtain weapons. Huerta's government, Chiapas senator, Belisario Domínguez, distributed copies of a speech he was unable to deliver in the Senate, accusing Huerta of starting a new civil war, of "covering the entire national territory with corpses" in order not to abandon the presidency, and to provoke a conflict with the United States, while calling on Congress to remove Huerta before he sends the country into the abyss. Domínguez knew that he was risking his life by publicly denouncing the regime. Huerta supporter and sent his wife and children away from the country before distributing copies of his speech. Domínguez was immediately arrested by two policemen, in addition to Huerta's son and his son-in-law, and taken to the Xoco cemetery in Coyoacán where he was bloodily tortured. assassinated for speaking out against President Huerta. His naked body was buried in a tomb that his assassins had already prepared beforehand. On October 10, 1913, when Congress had announced the start of an investigation into the disappearance of Senator Domínguez, Huerta ordered his soldiers to dissolve the session to later arrest a total of 110 senators and representatives, of whom 74 were accused of high treason and sent to forced labor. Some of the political prisoners included the future president of Mexico Pascual Ortiz Rubio.
By the time Huerta assumed the presidency, the Federal Army numbered between 45 and 50 thousand troops. Huerta dedicated a good part of his government to strengthening the army, issuing a decree for the recruitment of 150,000 men in October of that same year; yet another to recruit 200,000 in January 1914, and a final one to reach 250,000, in March 1914. Neither of these goals was achieved because most of the men joined the ranks of the newly created Constitutionalist Army of Carranza. Between the troops of the Federal Army, the rural ones and the state militias, Huerta had approximately 300,000 men, that is to say around 4% of the total population, fighting under his orders at the beginning of 1914. Due to the reluctance of the population to join his ranks, Huerta resorted to the forced conscription of homeless people, criminals, captured rebels, political prisoners, and indigents to serve in the Federal Army. In Veracruz, workers who were returning home after the evening shift were captured and forced to serve in the army, while in Mexico City, poor people who were in hospitals or in welfare houses were forcibly recruited. Noting that the Indians were particularly docile and submissive, the levy was applied most forcefully in southern Mexico, where the majority of the population was of Indian descent. Hundreds of thousands of Juchitecs and Mayas were forced to fight in the north, over issues they felt were none of their business. A visitor's testimony from Mérida wrote of the "heartbreaking scenes" in which hundreds of Mayan women went out to say goodbye to their husbands, loaded with chains, who had been forced to board the trains that would take them to fight to the north.
The men recruited through the levy turned out to be ineffective soldiers, prone to desertion and mutiny, so Huerta decided to follow a defensive strategy of keeping the army concentrated in large towns, since if they were in open field, they could desert or go over to the side of the rebels. During the years 1913 to 1914, the Constitutionalists fought with a ferocity and courage that the Federal Army could never emulate. In Yucatán, 70% of the army consisted of in people recruited from prisons, while a battalion of "volunteers" it was made up of captured Yaqui Indians. In October 1913, in the town of Tlanepantla, the 9th Regiment, which was reportedly under the influence of alcohol and marijuana, mutinied, murdering its officers, and joined the side of the rebels. To get volunteers, Huerta appealed to nationalism and anti-Yankee sentiments in the fall of 1913, telling pro-regime press stories and rumors about a possible US invasion, and asking patriots to defend the country. This propaganda campaign attracted some volunteers from the middle classes, but they were immediately disappointed to learn that they would be fighting their own compatriots instead of the Americans. In rural Mexico there was hardly any sense of nationalism Mexican among the peasants. Mexico for them was an abstraction that meant nothing and most were loyal only to their own towns (their "patrias chicas"). Given this, it can be concluded that the Huerta's patriotic campaign to recruit volunteers was a resounding failure. Another way Huerta tried to recruit volunteers into the army was to allow landowners to raise their own armies, under the guise of being state militias, but few Peons offered to fight, let alone die, for the government of General Huerta, since the Constitutionalists proposed an agrarian reform if they were to win against the usurping government.
When Huerta refused to call elections, and with the situation even more critical due to the Tampico incident, President Wilson ordered the invasion of the port of Veracruz.
After the continuous defeats inflicted on the Federal Army by Álvaro Obregón and Francisco Villa, which culminated in the capture of Zacatecas, Huerta finally gave in to both internal and external pressure, resigning the presidency on July 15, 1914.
Exile and death
Huerta went into exile, first traveling to Kingston, Jamaica, aboard the German cruiser SMS Dresden. From there he headed for the United Kingdom, arriving at the port of Bristol on August 16, 1914, on the British steamer HMS Patia of the United Fruit Company. She then traveled to Spain (Barcelona and Madrid) and arrived in the United States in April 1915.
Once the First World War began in Europe, Huerta was contacted by officials of the German Empire who offered him financial support to try to return to power. He returned to America in April 1915, arriving in New York with his family, where he managed to meet with Captain Franz von Rintelen, a German espionage naval officer, who promised him money and weapons to attempt a coup in Mexico and, after Instead, the Huerta regime had to commit to launching a war against the United States, hoping that this would interrupt the sale of ammunition that this country made to allied countries. These meetings took place at the famous Manhattan Hotel, which were monitored by Secret Service agents, at the same time that Huerta's telephone conversations with von Rintelen were continuously intercepted and recorded.
After contacting his old rival Pascual Orozco and recruiting him into his conspiracy, Huerta traveled to El Paso, Texas, to meet him and several followers with the goal of returning to Mexico and starting an uprising, but on June 27, In 1915 he was arrested by the US authorities at the Newman, New Mexico train station, along with Orozco himself, being charged with sedition as well as violating neutrality laws for conspiring together with a belligerent power, because by then the Although Wilson tried to prevent the entry of the United States into the Great War, he maintained sympathies towards the Triple Entente. Huerta was initially incarcerated at the Fort Bliss military prison in Texas; After paying bail, he was allowed to leave the military prison and go under house arrest due to his very poor state of health, but upon trying again to enter Mexico he was imprisoned again by the US authorities.
According to the death certificate (Folio 1137, Record No. 364) Huerta died at the age of 63 in Providence Hospital in Fort Bliss El Paso County on January 13, 1916, a victim of cirrhosis liver disease, diseases caused by his known habit of abusing the consumption of alcoholic beverages, especially cognac, which he consumed in enormous quantities. He was buried at La Concordia Cemetery until his remains were interred at Evergreen Cemetery in El Paso. Although it was maintained that the cause of death was cirrhosis, there were also strong suspicions that he might have been poisoned by the United States.
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