For Wilson, the month of March 1916 brought troubles in the proverbial threes. The first had been having to beat back the congressional revolt over travel on belligerent ships. The last would be the most dangerous round yet in the submarine dispute. In between, the violence in Mexico spilled over into the United States. In the predawn hours of March 9, Pancho Villa led a force of several hundred Mexicans in an attack on the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. Their main target was Camp Furlong, a U.S. Army garrison, which was caught by surprise because commanders in the area had discounted warnings of a possible raid. At the garrison, Villa and his men mistook the stables for the barracks and killed a number of horses. Their mistake gave the Americans time to set up machine guns and bring the Mexicans under heavy fire. Falling back, the marauders rampaged through the small, ramshackle town of Columbus. Yelling “Viva Villa!” and “Viva Mexico!” they shot wildly into houses and at any civilians they saw and set the town’s hotel on fire. Within an hour, a detachment of U.S. cavalry arrived from another post and chased the raiders back across the border. The fighting lasted less than three hours. It left eight American civilians and seven American soldiers dead and two civilians and five soldiers wounded; sixty-seven Mexicans were killed, and seven were wounded and taken prisoner.28
News of the attack reached the White House within two hours. Wilson immediately decided to send a military force across the border in pursuit of Villa and his band. Lansing informed the diplomatic representative of the Mexican Constitutionalists of the president’s intention, and messages went out to the department’s agents who were assigned to keep in touch with the Constitutionalist leader, Carranza. The cabinet met the following day and discussed the incident; everyone present supported the president’s decision, although there was discussion of asking Carranza’s permission to enter Mexico—an idea that was rejected. After the meeting, Wilson had Tumulty issue a two-sentence statement to the press: “An adequate force will be sent at once in pursuit of Villa with the single object of capturing him and putting a stop to his forays. This can and will be done in entirely friendly aid of the constituted authorities in Mexico and with scrupulous respect for the sovereignty of that Republic.”29
That statement captured the dilemma Wilson faced. On the one hand, this was an attack on American soil—the first one since the War of 1812—and it had to be answered forcefully. Outrage predictably flared on Capitol Hill and in newspapers across the country, but Wilson did not wait to gauge opinion when he told reporters that he was sending troops. Immediately after the cabinet meeting on March 10, an order went out from the War Department for a force under the command of Brigadier General John J. Pershing to pursue the marauders who had attacked Columbus. On the other hand, even a limited invasion, which was the way Mexicans of all persuasions would see Pershing’s pursuit, might ignite a nationalist backlash. That was Villa’s main motive behind this provocation—to foment outrage among his countrymen in order to strengthen his hand in his fight with Carranza. For Wilson, such a reaction would undo his months of restraint in the face of demands for intervention and his low-keyed encouragement of democracy and order in Mexico, for which Carranza’s side seemed to offer the best hope. References to “constituted authorities” and “scrupulous regard” for sovereignty in the War Department orders were meant to reassure the Constitutionalists.30 Likewise, Pershing’s orders forbade any clashes with Carranza’s forces and stipulated withdrawal as soon as Mexicans could deal with Villa.
What followed was a frustrating and nerve-racking year of diplomatic and military controversy. Once more, there was danger of full-scale war between the United States and Mexico. The flash point lay not with Villa but in relations with Carranza, who proved as difficult as ever to deal with. At the outset, it looked as if he might refuse to sanction American forces entering Mexico. Yet despite his lofty talk about Mexican sovereignty, Carranza put up no real resistance. After all, the Constitutionalists would profit from Villa’s death or capture so long as they themselves did not appear to be American puppets. General Pershing’s force of, initially, 4,000 officers and men, which came to be called the Punitive Expedition, crossed the border on March 15 and quickly drove deep into Mexico.31
The deeper the expedition penetrated, the more Mexicans suspected that the dreaded Yanquis were bent on conquest, thereby increasing the chances for clashes with civilians or Constitutionalist troops. An incident occurred early in April when a mob attacked a cavalry unit in the town of Parral. In the ensuing melee, two Americans were killed and six wounded, while somewhere between 40 and 100 Mexicans died. For a while, it looked as if Pershing might fight with Constitutionalist forces in the area. A month later, a band of Mexican irregulars crossed the Rio Grande and attacked two settlements in Texas, killing a boy and taking two prisoners. American cavalry units pursued those raiders 180 miles into Mexico and killed some bandits. The most frightening incident took place on June 21 near the town of Carrizal, when two U.S. Cavalry units attacked Constitutionalist troops and were beaten back. Fourteen Americans were killed and twenty-three captured, and thirty Mexicans died and forty-three were wounded. The situation was growing intolerable. At Wilson’s initiative and with Carranza’s concurrence, a mediation commission was appointed, consisting of three representatives of each country. The mediators met first in New London, Connecticut, and later in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, New Jersey, for eight months of fractious, wearying negotiations. At long last, early in 1917, those negotiations led to withdrawal of the Punitive Expedition and diplomatic recognition of Carranza’s government.
The pursuit of Villa turned into a farce. Many Americans viewed him through the distorting lens of an ethnic stereotype: Pancho seemed to personify the lazy but wily, capriciously violent but slightly comical Mexican bandido later featured in innumerable Hollywood films; actually, for all his criminality and cruelty, he was a serious revolutionary leader. An American force that eventually numbered more than 7,000—equipped with the latest in military technology, including motor vehicles and airplanes—chased Villa through northern Mexico for months and never caught him. He regrouped his forces and captured the capital of Chihuahua in September 1916 and did not begin to lose his power until Carranza’s forces inflicted a decisive defeat on his forces in January 1917. Villa lived on until 1923, when he met the fate of most of the leaders of Mexico’s revolution, including Carranza—assassination. The best that can be said for the Punitive Expedition is that it provided the U.S. Army with timely experience in the field and that its commander, the obdurate Black Jack Pershing, kept his reputation intact and remained in line for higher command.32
Wilson resisted intense pressure to go to war in Mexico. On March 15, the day the expedition crossed the border, Tumulty told him that members of the cabinet did not believe he was acting forcefully enough. Wilson answered, “I shall be held responsible for every drop of blood that may be spent in the enterprise of intervention,” and he told Tumulty to say to those cabinet members “that ‘there won’t be any war with Mexico if I can prevent it,’ no matter how loud the gentlemen on the hill yell for it and demand it.” He was not going to send “some poor farmer’s boy, or the son of some poor widow” to fight “unless I have exhausted every means to keep out of this mess.” He also worried about the Mexicans, who were fighting “the age-old struggle of a people to come into their own. … Poor Mexico, with its pitiful men, women, and children, fighting to gain a foothold in their own land.” As for talk about valor, he maintained, “Valour is self-respecting. Valour is circumspect. Valour strikes only when it is right to strike.” Tumulty’s recollection almost certainly embellished what Wilson said, but those remarks—with their echoes of “too proud to fight”—captured Wilson’s state of mind as American forces went into Mexico.33
The armed clashes in Mexico did not change his thinking. On May 11, after the raid in Texas and the ensuing war scare, he talked off the record with the journalist Ray Stannard Baker, who noted, “He said his Mexican policy was based
upon two of the most deeply seated convictions of his life: first his shame as an American over the first Mexican war & his resolution that while he was president there should be no such predatory war; Second upon his belief … that a people had the right ‘to do as they damned pleased with their own affairs’ (He used the word ‘damned’).” He also felt ashamed over the part played by the American ambassador in the overthrow of Madero in 1913 and thought the worst source of trouble lay with Americans “who wanted the oil & metals of Mexico & were seeking intervention to get them.” In addition, he gave Baker a novel reason not to go to war with Mexico—namely, that he “[d]id not want one hand tied behind him at the very moment the nation might need all its forces to meet the German situation”—and he believed that pacifying Mexico would take at least half a million troops.34
When he talked to Tumulty and Baker, Wilson was airing his views in strict confidence, but he also voiced such thoughts publicly. Speaking in New York at the end of June, after the Carrizal incident, he charged that “a war of conquest in Mexico” would bring no glory and any “violence by a powerful nation against this weak and distracted neighbor” would add no distinction to the United States. He observed that the letters he was getting contained “but one prayer … ‘Mr. President, do not allow anybody to persuade you that the people of this country want war with anybody.’” He related that when he got off the train that had brought him to New York, the engineer had said to him, “Mr. President, keep us out of Mexico.” He also noted that Napoleon had once said that force never accomplished anything permanent.35
Those convictions and the resolve to stick to them prevented the Mexican situation from escalating into war. In the upcoming presidential campaign, Democrats would trumpet the slogan “He kept us out of war.” Many people at the time and nearly all interpreters since then have assumed the slogan referred to the war in Europe. In fact, campaign material would mention Mexico more often, and Wilson did deserve credit for staying out of war there. He may have let his domestic progressive prejudices get out of hand when he saw only nefarious financial influences behind agitation for intervention, but he did not mistake how strong and widespread popular opposition was. In New York, when he asked whether war with Mexico would bring glory to America, his listeners—more than 600 journalists and businessmen—shouted, “No!” In coming days, a flood of approving letters and telegrams swamped the White House mail room. Contrary to what critics such as Roosevelt charged, Wilson’s reluctance to go to war did not spring from any trace of timidity or tinge of pacifism. He believed it took more courage to stay out of war than to go in, and no pacifist could have said valor meant striking “when it is right to strike.” House noted that Wilson’s “determination not to allow Germany to force him into intervention in Mexico could account for this.”36 The comment to Baker also showed that he was thinking along those lines, and at the same time that he was reluctant to go to war in Mexico, he came close to risking war with Germany.
On March 24, a German submarine torpedoed the Sussex, a French steamer carrying passengers and cargo in the English Channel. Though heavily damaged, the Sussex did not sink and was towed into port at Boulogne. Eighty people were killed or injured, including four Americans who were hurt. On a much smaller scale, the incident was eerily reminiscent of the Lusitania. Wilson greeted the news with the same outward show of calm as he had shown earlier. He and Edith played golf together on Saturday morning and went for a long automobile ride in the afternoon. On Sunday, the president attended church, took another drive with the First Lady, and had dinner at her mother’s house.37 Newspapers also carried the news that his daughter Jessie had given birth to her second child, a daughter, who was named Eleanor Axson Sayre.
The major difference in the way Wilson approached this crisis—besides having Edith openly and constantly at his side—lay with his advisers. In place of Bryan’s implacable inclination toward peace now came peremptory advice from Lansing to follow a course that would lead to war. “I do not see how we can avoid taking some decisive action,” he told the president. “We can no longer temporize in the matter of submarine warfare.” House was on the scene too, as he rushed to Washington to try, in his softer way, to push in the same direction. He countered Wilson’s worries about war by offering to go to Europe again to coordinate planning with the Allies for the peace settlement; Wilson seemed “visibly pleased at my suggestion and I believe will now be more inclined to act.” The colonel again overestimated his influence. As usual, Wilson kept his own counsel. Lansing drafted a diplomatic note that had a harsh tone and presented two alternatives: severing diplomatic relations at once or threatening to do so unless the Germans abandoned submarine attacks against all merchant ships. When the cabinet discussed the situation two days later, everyone reportedly agreed that an ultimatum was called for. After taking an overnight cruise with Edith on the Mayflower, Wilson worked all weekend—including again, unusually for him, on Sunday—to produce his own draft. He softened Lansing’s language but still condemned sneak submarine attacks as inhumane and contrary to international law, and threatened to break relations unless such attacks ceased.38
This draft sparked almost as much internal dissension as the first Lusitania notes had done, but with the opposite slant. On April 11, House met with Wilson and Edith and objected to the draft as only opening the way for more argument with the Germans. Wilson stood firm, but he cut out a sentence about hoping for an amicable outcome and added the word immediately to the demand for cessation of submarine attacks without warning. According to House, Edith also thought the draft was weak. Wilson denied that it was, and he reminded them that he had promised Senator Stone that he would not break relations without informing Congress first. Lansing likewise tried to inject a more threatening tone, and he again resorted to his old tricks. He did not pass on to Wilson a message from the German foreign minister to Bernstorff that hinted at conciliation, and he did not tell Wilson about a meeting at which the ambassador was conciliatory.39
At the same time, the president had to deal with Congress and the public. On April 13, he gave a Jefferson Day speech to Democrats in Washington. Again, mindful of “too proud to fight,” he stuck mostly to domestic matters, sounding a strongly progressive note, and touched only once, cryptically, on foreign affairs: “God forbid that we should ever become directly or indirectly embroiled in quarrels not of our own choosing. … But if we should ever be drawn in, are you ready to go in only where the interests of America are concerned with the interests of mankind and to draw out the moment the interest centers in America and is narrowed from the wide circle of humanity?”40 Yet he knew he had to be more specific with Congress. He honored the letter of his promise to Stone, though just barely. The diplomatic note to Germany was sent at the end of the day on April 18, and at ten o’clock the next morning he met with Stone, Congressman Flood, and the ranking Republicans on their committees to tell them the contents of the note.
At noon on that day, Wilson went to the Capitol and delivered a sixteen-minute address to a joint session of Congress. Comparing the attack on the Sussex to the sinking of the Lusitania as “singularly tragical and unjustifiable,” he declared that he had regretfully decided to threaten to break relations because he recognized “that we are in some sort and by the force of circumstances the responsible spokesmen of the rights of humanity, and that we cannot remain silent while those rights seem in process of being swept utterly away in the maelstrom of this terrible war.” The assembled senators and representatives sat in silence throughout the speech, and only at the end was there a little applause, mostly from Democrats. In view of the earlier congressional agitation over travel on belligerent ships, the subdued mood seemed strange. Bryan again came to Washington to rally anti-war congressmen and senators, but he departed after only a day, in a mood of resignation. Predictably, Roosevelt blamed the current crisis on Wilson’s previous weakness in dealing with the submarine threat.41
Everything now depended on what the Germans decided
to do. To nearly universal surprise and relief, they backed down. Heated debates raged within imperial, military, and naval circles. The chancellor, who favored conciliation, threatened to resign. The head of the navy unexpectedly weighed in against unrestricted submarine warfare. He argued that the time was not yet ripe for an all-out campaign and that coming to terms with the Americans would cause trouble for the British blockade. Germany replied with two notes: the first, on May 4, dealt with submarine warfare, and the second, on May 8, apologized for the Sussex attack. The first note pledged to limit submarines to established rules of warfare, which forbade attacks without warning, but it equivocated by stating that the United States should help to get the British to modify the blockade and by reserving the right to resume submarine attacks if that did not happen.42
Many Americans objected to the haughty tone of the German response and its conditions, but Wilson responded to the positive signals while downplaying the unsatisfactory parts. Again breaking his rule of not working on the Sabbath, he spent Sunday, May 7—the anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania—drafting a reply to the May 4 note. The president expressed his government’s “satisfaction” at the Germans’ decision, and he added that the United States took it for granted that Germany’s new policy did not depend on American negotiations with other nations. Lansing got him to remove the word satisfaction and tone down the reply to a bald statement.43 This version of the reply went to Germany on May 8 and was released to the press the next day. The Germans acquiesced, and the yearlong submarine crisis was over—for the time being.
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