Wednesday, July 15, 1914 — Headlines • Victoriano Huerta resigns the presidency of Mexico and leaves for Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz. On the eve of the 1910 Revolution against the long-established Díaz regime, Huerta was teaching mathematics in Mexico City. He applied successfully to rejoin the Federal Army with his former rank. He did not play a major role in the early stages of the Revolution, although he commanded the military escort which gave Díaz safe conduct into exile. Huerta initially pledged allegiance to the new administration of Francisco Madero, and he was retained by the Madero administration to crush anti-Madero revolts by rebel generals such as Pascual Orozco. However, Huerta secretly plotted with United States Ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson, cashiered general Bernardo Reyes, and Félix Díaz, Porfirio Díazs nephew, to overthrow Madero. This episode in Mexican history is known as La decena trágica (Ten Tragic Days). Following a confused few days of fighting in Mexico City between loyalist and rebel factions of the Army, Huerta had Madero and vice-president José María Pino Suárez seized and briefly imprisoned on 18 February 1913 in the National Palace. The conspirators then met at the U.S. Embassy to sign el Pacto de la Embajada (The Embassy Pact), which provided for the exile of Madero and Pino Suárez, and Huertas takeover of the Mexican government. To give the coup the appearance of legitimacy, Huerta had foreign minister Pedro Lascuráin assume the presidency. Under the 1857 Constitution of Mexico, the foreign minister stood third in line for the presidency behind the vice-president and attorney general; Maderos attorney general had also been ousted in the coup. Lascuráin then appointed Huerta as interior minister—constitutionally, fourth in line for the presidency. After less than an hour in office (some sources say as little as 15 minutes), Lascuráin resigned, handing the presidency to Huerta. At a late-night special session of Congress surrounded by Huertas troops, the legislators endorsed his assumption of power. Four days later Madero and Pino Suárez were taken from the National Palace to prison at night and shot by officers of the rurales (federal mounted police) who were assumed to be acting on Huertas orders. Huerta established a harsh military dictatorship. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson became hostile to the Huerta administration, recalled ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, and demanded Huerta step aside for democratic elections. When Huerta refused, and with the situation further exacerbated by the Tampico Affair, President Wilson landed U.S. troops to occupy Mexicos most important seaport, Veracruz. The reaction to the Huerta usurpation was Venustiano Carranzas Plan of Guadalupe, which called for the creation of a Constitutional Army to oust Huerta and restore constitutional government. Supporters of the plan included Emiliano Zapata, Francisco Pancho Villa and Álvaro Obregón. After repeated field defeats of Huertas Federal Army by Obregón and Villa, climaxing in the Battle of Zacatecas, Huerta bowed to pressure and resigned the presidency on 15 July 1914. • The Rural Guard is disbanded. The Guardia Rural was established as a federal constabulary by the Liberal regime of Benito Juárez in 1861. This mounted rural police force became best known during the long rule of President Porfirio Díaz (1877–1911). As originally constituted under Juárez the Rurales lacked the numbers and organisation to effectively control the banditry widespread in Mexico during the 1860s and 1870s. The concept of an armed and mobile rural police organized on military lines was derived from Spains Civil Guard (Guardia Civil). Established in 1844 the Spanish Guardia had quickly won a reputation as an effective but often oppressive force. President Porfirio Díaz had expanded the Rurales from a few hundred men to nearly 2,000 by 1889 as part of his programme of modernization and (eventually) repression. Initially some captured bandits were forcibly inducted into the Rurales, as had been the case under Juárez. The system of recruitment however subsequently became a more conventional one of volunteer enlistment. Officers were usually seconded from the Federal Army. The Rurales were heavily armed, carrying sabers, carbines, lassos and pistols. They were divided into ten corps, each comprising three companies of about 76 men. After the overthrow of Díaz in 1911, the Rurales continued in existence under Presidents Francisco I. Madero (1911-1913) and Victoriano Huerta (1913-1914). Madero left the force essentially unchanged, although introducing legislation intended to prevent corpsmen, other than senior officers, from carrying out summary executions without due trial process. In practice the induction of large numbers of Maderista fighters on a temporary basis while awaiting discharge simply diluted such efficiency as the corps had retained. Huerta saw a more central role for the Rurales and used a detachment to murder Madero after the Ten Tragic Days of 1913. He then proposed to expand the existing units into a field force of over ten thousand men serving alongside the regular Federal troops. Recruiting and desertion problems prevented this ever becoming a realistic project. The remains of the Guardia Rural were finally disbanded in July 1914 along with the old Federal Army when Huerta fled into exile.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 15:43:05 +0000
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