Victoriano Huerta

“Mexico can do without her priests, but cannot do without her soldiers”

José Victoriano Huerta Márquez, more commonly known as simply Victoriano Huerta, or by his nickname El Chacal , or “The Jackal” was a Mexican General who presided over a brutal, albeit short lived, regime as President of Mexico on the eve of the Great War.

Born around 1850 in the central Mexican town of Colotlán, Huerta was the child of members of the Huichol indigenous people, and grew up in poverty. He was educated by a Catholic priest, which resulted in Huerta becoming not only one of the few literate people in Colotlán at the time, but also developing a talent for mathematics and organization, leading to a desire to join the armed forces in order to escape the village and his own social status.

Mexican soldiers in formation

Huerta accomplished his goal in 1869, when he was accepted into the Colegio Militar in Mexico City to be trained as an officer, where his aptitude for mathematics pushed him toward a career in the Artillery Corps. He graduated and was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Mexican Army, and began his career working on improving several aging fortifications in Mexico before being assigned as a staff officer under General Manuel Gonzales, a close associate of President Porfirio Díaz. It was this connection to the dictator that allowed Huerta to begin to rapidly advance, and he served in several campaigns against the enemies of the Diaz regime. It was during these campaigns he gained a reputation for caring for his soldiers, as well as a general contempt for civilians, even resorting to robbing Mexican civilians to pay his troops when funds from Mexico City were delayed.

His rise continued, and soon he was a regular presence at Chapultepec Castle (the presidential residence in Mexico City), and it was here that he also began to gain a reputation as a drunkard. He would later be sent by Diaz to put down rebellions of the Maya population in the Yucatan, declaring to the President in late 1902 that the region had been pacified. A promotion to Brigadier General had not hampered his drinking, and he had begun to show signs of severe alcoholism by the end of the campaign. Huerta would subsequently retire from the Army on medical grounds in 1907, taking a job with the municipal government of Monterrey.

Huerta (right) with Emilio Madero and Pancho Villa

When revolution came to Mexico in 1910 Huerta left retirement and was reinstated as a general in the Federal Army, although he played no major part in the defense of the Diaz regime. After Diaz fled the country, the new president, Francisco Madero, retained much of the old governmental structure, including the Federal Army, thus also retaining Huerta. One of Huerta’s first tasks after the fall of Diaz was to fight the rebel forces of Emiliano Zapata, which had refused to stand down when ordered to by the new government. The subsequent campaign was brutal, with Huerta’s forces attacking and destroying civilian targets who they believed to have associated with the rebels, and when Madero formally took office later in the year Zapata continued his rebellion. Desiring a peaceful solution to the Zapata issue, Madero recalled Huerta in 1912, sending him north to deal with a different threat.

Huerta was later placed in command of the formerly revolutionary División del Norte, which had been integrated into the Federal Army, following that force’s defeat at the hands of Pascual Orozco’s rebel forces. Huerta drove hard against the rebels, known as the Oroquistas, as he had earlier against Zapata. It was during this time that he attempted to have a rival, General Pancho Villa, executed by fabricating a charge against him, necessitating the direct intervention of President Madero to prevent Villa facing a firing squad.

After this, Huerta was able to defeat the Oroquistas in late spring of 1912, returning to Mexico city to take a position as Chief of Staff of the Mexican Army.

General Huerta in uniform

As Huerta was positioned closer to Madero, the situation continued to deteriorate for the new President. Things came to a head in early February 1913, when imprisoned General Felix Diaz, nephew of the ousted President of the same surname, was broken free by a group of cadets from the Colegio Militar and proceeded to join with the also freed General Bernardo Reyes in marching on the Palacio Nacional. As they approached they were fired on by the guards there, killing Reyes and scattering the rebel troops, and in the ensuing fighting the commander of the pro-Madero forces was also incapacitated, leaving the President to appoint Huerta to lead his troops in Mexico City. This move would prove a mistake, one which would cost Madero dearly.

Despite rejecting earlier advances, Huerta now quietly allied himself with the anti-Madero forces, using his position to undermine the response of the government to the crisis. Also complicit in this plot was the US ambassador to Mexico, who quietly assured that a new Mexican regime could count on American support, although whether or not Washington was aware of this is a matter of debate.

Regardless, the fighting continued for a few days, with Huerta ordering Madero’s forces into impossible positions in order to weaken them and remove loyalists, until he finally acted on February 18th, 1913, his men arresting President Madero and other officials at two o’clock that afternoon. Following the arrest of the President, Huerta met with Diaz and the American Ambassador Henry Wilson to discuss plans for a new government. The Foreign Minister assumed the Presidency, and after appointing Huerta Vice President (as Interior Minister) resigned after less than an hour, leaving Huerta as head of state.

Federal troops under Huerta’s new regime

An emergency session of the legislature was called that night, surrounded by Huerta’s troops, where his ascension to office was endorsed formally, leading Mexico into a new period of dictatorship. Days afterward, Madero was shot by Huerta’s troops.

Despite the promises of the US ambassador, recognition never came for the new regime, as President Taft had been replaced by Woodrow Wilson, whose pro-democracy stance made him diametrically opposed to the coup and new authoritarian regime of General Huerta. The new President lost no time in betraying Diaz as he had Madero, as he had no intention of stepping aside for him, instead posting him as ambassador to far flung Japan. He would also form an alliance with his old enemy Pascual Orozco to consolidate his power in the north of Mexico, although attempts to do the same with Zapata in the south were less successful as the war there dragged on.

His Federal Army took control of almost all aspects of society, with officers appointed to cabinet positions as well as various government offices, and the soldiers themselves served as enforcers throughout the country when they weren’t battling rebels. Even the legislature was not safe, as when a member was shot “trying to escape” the army stormed the Palacio Nacional and arrested more than half of the Senate, most of whom were arbitrarily sentenced to forced labor.

A great admirer of Napoleon, Huerta viewed himself as a similar military strongman, who would do what was necessary to bring Mexico to greatness, and this was to be achieved exclusively via a hypermilitarized society. He quickly instituted mass conscription, ballooning the Federal Army with men taken from vagrant camps, prisons, and even hospitals, although desertion rates were extremely high. Many had no love for Huerta, and quickly rallied against him when the next phase of the revolution began.

Despite an attempt to placate the population with labor and land reform laws, Huerta was a heavy handed dictator who would arrest and execute anyone who opposed him, even so far as state governors. The situation began to deteriorate by the summer of 1913 as calls mounted for the formation of a Constitutionalist Army to overthrow Huerta and restore the republic, and substantial forces were mobilizing against his regime across Mexico. Attempts to appeal to nationalism were unsuccessful, and soon the Federal Army was again fighting against the forces of Zapata and Villa along with other rebel groups, leading Huerta to clamp down even harder.

As 1914 began the war raged across Mexico, and Huerta’s government was losing. A major blow came in April of 1914, when US forces landed in and occupied Veracruz, with the Federal Army unable to defend the city effectively or retaliate to a foreign incursion, greatly weakening Huerta’s already collapsing public standing. In late June the Federal Army was decisively defeated by Villa at the city of Zacatecas, and Huerta was forced to resign and flee the country on July 20th, 1914.

Huerta in New York City after his downfall

Following the fall of his regime he was evacuated by the Imperial German Navy on the cruiser SMS Dresden, moving to exile in Spain. He would stay there for some time, but as Europe fell into the Great War he made preparations to return to the Americas, sailing to New York in 1915, after meeting with a German intelligence officer who promised to support his return to power in Mexico, in order to keep the US distracted with regional affairs and out of the European conflict. Huerta’s time in New York was tumultuous, as he was under observation by spies from several different Mexican factions as well as British and American intelligence as he met with German representatives, although publicly he was generally accorded courtesy as a former foreign head of state.

The Germans proposed to purchase weapons and munitions to support a return of the Huerta government, and began allocating funds and purchasing ammunition to be delivered to staging areas in southern Texas, with Huerta himself moving to El Paso. It was here that he was arrested by US authorities, where he would be held for the remainder of his life, being moved between civilian and military custody. The planned return of Huerta as a player in the Mexican revolution thus never materialized, and his warehouses of weapons and munitions were seized by American authorities.

His health deteriorating rapidly, Huerta was allowed to move to the El Paso home rented by his family just after Christmas of 1915. The former dictator underwent several surgeries during this time, but he was still considered too weak to appear before the Grand Jury in San Antonio on January 12, 1916, and he died the following evening. He had been indicted on charges of conspiracy to violate US neutrality law the day before.