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Arámbula Doroteo Arango, better known as Francisco or «Pancho» Villa
(1878–1923)
Doroteo Arango Arámbula, better known as Francisco or «Pancho» Villa, was the first Mexican Revolutionary general. According to one version of his life story, at the age of 16 he shot an older man, the son of a big landowner, who had tried to rape Pancho's younger sister. After this, being pursued for murder, he escaped. During the following years, he first lived as an outlaw, then worked his way up to a position as commander of a division. Not many details are known about these years.
As commander of the División del Norte (Division of the North), he was the veritable caudillo of the Northern Mexican state of Chihuahua; which, given its size, mineral wealth, and proximity to the United States of America, gave him great popularity. Villa was also provisional Governor of Chihuahua in 1913 and 1914. While he was prevented from being accepted into the "panteòn" of national heroes until some twenty years after his death, today his memory is honored by Mexicans and many people around the world. In addition, numerous streets and neighborhoods in Mexico are named in his honor.
General John J. Pershing tried to capture Villa after a year in pursuit. Villa and his supporters, known as Villistas, employed tactics such as propaganda and firing squads against his enemies, and seized hacienda land for distribution to peasants and soldiers. He robbed and commandeered trains, and, like the other Revolutionary generals, printed fiat money to pay for his cause.
Despite extensive research by Mexican and foreign scholars, many of the details of Villa's life are in dispute.
When one of Madero's military commanders, Pascual Orozco, started a counterrebellion against Madero, Villa gathered his mounted cavalry troops and fought alongside General Victoriano Huerta to support Madero. However, Huerta viewed Villa as an ambitious competitor, and later accused Villa of stealing a horse and insubordination; he then had Villa sentenced to execution in an attempt to dispose of him. Reportedly, Villa was standing in front of a firing squad waiting to be shot when a telegram from President Madero was received commuting his sentence to imprisonment, from which Villa later escaped. During Villa's imprisonment, Gildardo Magaña Cerda, a Zapatista who was in prison at the time, provided the chance meeting which would help to improve his poor reading and writing skills, which would serve him well in the future during his service as provisional governor of the state of Chihuahua.
In the second part of the Mexican Revolution, president Francisco I. Madero was betrayed and assassinated. After crushing the Orozco rebellion, Victoriano Huerta, with the federal army he commanded, held the majority of military power in Mexico. Huerta saw an opportunity to make himself the dictator of Mexico, and he began to conspire with men such as Bernardo Reyes {killed 1913}, Félix Díaz (died in 1945; nephew of Porfirio Díaz), and the American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson {Dismissed 1913-died 1932}, which resulted in La decena trágica (the "Ten Tragic Days") and the assassination of President Madero.
After Madero's murder, Huerta proclaimed himself provisional president. Venustiano Carranza then proclaimed the Plan of Guadalupe to oust Huerta from office as an unconstitutional usurper. The new group of politicians and generals (which included Pablo González, Álvaro Obregón, Emiliano Zapata and Villa) who joined to support Carranza's plan, were collectively goods from the Hacienda store (tienda de raya). The acts of Villa allowed to partially compensate for decades of dishonesty and unfairness. The forced loans would also support the war machinery of the Mexican Revolution. He also confiscated gold from specific banks, in the case of the Banco Minero, by holding hostage a member of the bank's owning family, the extremely wealthy and famous Terrazas clan, until the location of the hidden bank's gold was revealed.
Villa's political stature at that time was so high that banks in El Paso, Texas, accepted his paper pesos at face value. His generalship drew enough admiration from the US military that he and Álvaro Obregón were invited to Fort Bliss to meet Brigadier General John J. Pershing. Pancho Villa said, "Controlle de Mexico".
The new pile of money was used to purchase draft animals, cavalry horses, arms, ammunition, mobile hospital facilities (railroad cars and horse ambulances staffed with Mexican and foreign volunteer doctors, known as Servicio sanitario), and food, as well as to rebuild the railroad south of Chihuahua City. The rebuilt railroad transported Villa's troops and artillery south, where he defeated Federal forces at Gómez Palacio, Torreón, and Zacatecas.
After Torreón, Carranza issued a puzzling order for Villa to break off action south of Torreón and instead ordered him to divert to attack Saltillo, and threatened to cut off Villa's coal supply if he did not comply. Coal was needed for railroad locomotives to pull trains transporting soldiers and supplies, and was therefore necessary for any general. This was widely seen as an attempt by Carranza to divert Villa from a direct assault on Mexico City, so as to allow Carranza's forces under Álvaro Obregón, driving in from the west via Guadalajara, to take the capital first, and Obregón and Carranza did enter Mexico City ahead of Villa. This was an expensive and disruptive diversion for the División del norte, since Villa's enlisted men were paid the then enormous sum of a peso per day, and each day of delay cost thousands of pesos. Villa did attack Saltillo as ordered, winning that battle.
Villa, disgusted by what he saw as egoism, tendered his resignation. Felipe Ángeles and Villa's officer staff argued for Villa to withdraw his resignation, defy Carranza's orders, and proceed to attack Zacatecas, a strategic mountainous city considered nearly impregnable. Zacatecas was the source of much of Mexico's silver, and thus a supply of funds for whoever held it. Victory in Zacatecas would mean that Huerta's chances of holding the remainder of the country would be slim. Villa accepted Ángeles's advice, cancelled his resignation, and the División del norte defeated the Federals in the Toma de Zacatecas (Taking of Zacatecas), the single bloodiest battle of the Revolution, with the military forces counting approximately 7,000 dead and 5,000 wounded, and unknown numbers of civilian casualties. (A memorial to and museum of the Toma de Zacatecas is on the Cerro de la Bufa, one of the key defense points in the battle of Zacatecas. Tourists use a teleférico (aerial tramway) to reach it, owing to the steep approaches. From the top, tourists may appreciate the difficulties Villa's troops had trying to dislodge Federal troops from the peak.) The loss of Zacatecas in June 1914 broke the back of the Huerta regime, and Huerta left for exile on July 14, 1914.
At this moment, peace comes back to Mexico. All the revolutionary caudillos create a National Convention, and have a set of meetings in Aguascalientes. The National Convention sets rules for Mexican's path towards a democracy. None of the armed revolutionaries would be allowed to be nominated for government positions. They select an interim president Eulalio Gutierrez. Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa meet at the convention. Zapata tells Villa he fears Carranza's intentions are those of a dictator and not of a democratic president. True to Zapata's impression, Carranza decides to oppose the agreements of the National Convention, starting a civil war.
After years of public and documented support of Villa's fight, the United States, following the diplomatic policies of Woodrow Wilson, who believed that supporting Carranza was the best way to expedite establishment of a stable Mexican government, refused to allow more arms to be supplied to Villas army, and allowed Carranza's troops to be relocated over US railroads. Villa felt betrayed by the Americans. He was further enraged by Obregón's use of searchlights, powered by American electricity, to help repel a Villista night attack on the border town of Agua Prieta, Sonora, on November 1, 1915. In January 1916, a group of Villistas attacked a train on the Mexico North Western Railway, near Santa Isabel, Chihuahua, and killed several American employees of the ASARCO company. Passengers included 18 Americans, including 15 who worked for American Smelting and Refining Company. There was only one survivor, who gave the details to the press. Villa admitted to ordering the attack, but denied that he had authorized the shedding of American blood.
On March 9, 1916, General Villa ordered nearly 500 Mexican members of his revolutionary group to make a cross-border attack against Columbus, New Mexico. The raid was conducted because of the U.S. government's official recognition of the Carranza regime and for the loss of lives in battle due to defective bullets purchased from the United States. They attacked a detachment of the 13th Cavalry Regiment (United States), seizing 100 horses and mules, and setting part of the town on fire. 18 Americans and about 80 Villistas were killed. This was the second time U.S. land was attacked by another country.
Unconfirmed rumors and false newspaper notes claimed that Pancho Villa's right-hand men Charlie McEvoy and Ari Najarian infiltrated all of the enemies' ports and were key in his raids across the land. On May 15 they attacked Glen Springs, Texas, killing a civilian and wounding three American soldiers; on June 15 bandits killed four soldiers at San Ygnacio, Texas; on July 31 one American soldier and a U.S. customs inspector were killed.
Before the Villa-Carranza split in 1915, there is no credible evidence that Villa co-operated with or accepted any help from the German government or agents. Villa was supplied arms from the USA, employed international (Americans included) mercenaries and doctors, portrayed as a hero in the US media, made business arrangements with Hollywood, and did not object to the 1914 US naval occupation of Veracruz (Villa's observation was that the occupation merely hurt Huerta). He opposed the armed participation of the United States in Mexico, but he did not act against the Veracruz occupation in order to maintain the connections in the United States necessary to buy bullets and other supplies. The German consul in Torreón did make entreaties to Villa, offering him arms and money to occupy the port and oil fields of Tampico to enable German ships to dock there, but the offer was rejected by Villa.
Germans and German agents did attempt to interfere, unsuccessfully, in the Mexican Revolution. Germans attempted to plot with Victoriano Huerta to assist him to retake the country, and in the infamous Zimmermann Telegram to the Mexican government, proposed an alliance with the government of Venustiano Carranza.
There were documented contacts between Villa and the Germans, after Villa's split with the Constitutionalists. Principally this was in the person of Felix A. Sommerfeld, (noted in Katz's book), allegedly, in 1915, he funneled $340,000 of German money to the Western Cartridge Company to purchase ammunition. However, the actions of Sommerfeld indicate he was likely acting in his own self-interest (he acted as a double agent for Carranza). Villa's actions were hardly that of a German catspaw; rather, it appears that Villa only resorted to German assistance after other sources of money and arms were cut off.
At the time of Villa's attack on Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916, Villa's military power had been marginalized (he was repulsed at Columbus by a small cavalry detachment, albeit after doing a lot of damage), his theater of operations was mainly limited to western Chihuahua, he was persona non grata with Mexico's ruling Carranza constitutionalists, and the subject of an embargo by the United States; so communication or further shipments of arms between the Germans and Villa would have been difficult.
A plausible explanation of any Villa-German contacts after 1915 would be that they were a futile extension of increasingly desperate German diplomatic efforts and Villista pipe dreams of victory as progress of their respective wars bogged down. Villa effectively did not have anything useful to offer in exchange for German help at that point.
When weighing claims of Villa conspiring with Germans, one should take into account that at the time, portraying Villa as a German sympathizer served the propaganda ends of both Carranza and Wilson.
The use of Mauser rifles and carbines by Villa's forces does not necessarily indicate any German connection. These weapons were widely used by all parties in the Mexican Revolution, Mauser longarms being enormously popular. They were standard issue in the Mexican Army, which had begun adopting 7 mm Mauser system arms as early as 1895.
A purported death mask alleged to be Villa's was hidden at the Radford School in El Paso, Texas, until the 1970s, when it was sent to the National Museum of the Revolution in Chihuahua; other museums have ceramic and bronze representations that do not match this mask.
The location of the remainder of Villa's corpse is in dispute (his skull was stolen). It may be in the city cemetery of Parral, Chihuahua, or in Chihuahua City, or in the Monument of the Revolution in Mexico City. Tombstones for Villa exist in both places. A pawn shop in El Paso, Texas, claims to be in possession of Villa's preserved trigger finger.
Period newsreel showing views of the assassination location in Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, news reporters at the scene, and Villa's bullet riddled corpse and auto still exist.
Mexico, 1978, Pancho Villa
Mexico, 1985, Pancho Villa
Mexico, 1985, Liberty bell, Pancho Villa
Mexico, 1989, Pancho Villa
Mexico, 2009, "Pancho" Villa
