by Frank McLynn
However, this analysis overlooked the many areas where Villa and his movement were decidedly weak. At a personal level Villa was losing his touch, was careless of his image, showing increasing signs of autocratic behaviour, failing to consult his intellectuals and advisers, making policy on the wing and alienating the middle classes by the lawless behaviour of his troops during their occupation of Mexico City. It was true that Villa and Zapata were crowd-pullers and Carranza was not - there were no laudatory corridos, no Cucarachas about the bearded one - but charismatic machismo carried its own price tag. Villa attracted far more personal envy, spite and jealousy than Carranza; hundreds of local caudillos and bandit chiefs wanted to be Villa; no warlord wanted to be Carranza.
Villa's parochialism was also a drawback. The situation in the southeast made it a ripe fruit ready for his plucking, but he was uninterested and did nothing. It is also a remarkable fact that the Division of the North seemed to lose form when campaigning outside Durango and Chihuahua, and in this respect the contrast with Obregon's longmarching (over 8,ooo kilometres) army could hardly be clearer. As many historians have pointed out, all Villa's great victories were `home wins' and his `team' proved unable to win away. The Division of the North was an improvement over Zapata's army in that it was able and willing to cover a wider sweep of the ground, and it was more professionalised than the zapatistas, but at the same time it was outmatched by Obregon's forces, which were even more professional and capable of fighting anywhere.
Carranza, too, proved more talented at drawing new recruits to his standard. It was Obregon's brainwave to build an alliance with the urban working class, promising them improved conditions in the future in return for support now; to this end he organised his famous `Red Brigade' in the slums of Mexico City. Obregon liked to humilate the rich and the clergy and to truckle to the proletariat. While fleecing the Church and big business of millions, he produced this typical piece of demagoguery for his working-class followers: `If my children had no bread, I would go out and look for it with a dagger in my hand until I had found it.'
Yet Obregon was able to recruit the proletariat without antagonising the middle classes. A particular pathway of opportunity, taken by the carrancistas yet neglected by Villa, was provided by the new middle-class diaspora. The Revolution blasted many of the bourgeoisie out of their comfortable eyries into contact with the lower classes and even with Indians. They were forced to diversify from land into commerce and industry and even into the armed forces, where Alan Knight compares them to `the samurai of Meiji Japan or Pirenne's medieval deracines'. Alongside this development, heralding a breakdown of the old conquistador contempt for manual work and commerce, was another parallel one - an effect of the first - as a glut of domestic servants was released on to the market with the impoverishment of their masters. The eagle eyes of Obregon and Carranza spotted the new situation, but Villa did not.
Villa also progressively lost the propaganda war. The Carranza organs successfully portrayed Villa as a bandit who was the puppet of reactionaries; why else would the bandit have changed his name from Doroteo Arango except to conceal his history of brigandage? Angeles was targeted as an agent of Huerta, hired by the ex-dictator to subvert the Revolution. Carranza's ideological offensive contained promises to return villagers' land to them, a pledge to abolish debt peonage, and lavish inducements to urban workers. Villa's propaganda was never as effective. His principal organ Vida Nueva tried to build a personality cult of Villa and plugged away at the insane personal ambition of Carranza, but by early 1915 both themes were old hat.
Perhaps the single most damaging thing for Villa in the war of words was that Carranza's propaganda was radical and his practice conservative, but with Villa it was the other way round. The one way for Villa to cut the Gordian knot and underline clear ideological differences between himself and Carranza was to play up the issue of agrarian reform, but his statements on this were as vague as Carranza's. Each side said the other's agrarian policies would cause anarchy and chaos, but said nothing in detail either about what those enemy policies were or indeed what their own were. All attempts made by radical villistas to undercut Carranza on land reform were stymied by the opposition of the conservatives in the movement, principally Angeles and Maytorena. Villista mouthpieces faithfully echoed the leader's line that land could be redistributed only after a military victory, for otherwise the soldiers, absent from their homelands, would lose out; it was also important not to alienate the United States over the land question until victory had been achieved. Besides, revenues would shrink if peasants began practising subsistence agriculture on confiscated land instead of cash crops for the market.
In general villista propaganda fell into every trap laid for it by the carrancistas. Villistas went on record as opposing workers' rights to strike or form trade unions and denying Indians' right to suffrage on the grounds that most of them were illiterate. Carranza was giving considerable hostages to fortune by taking on the USA and the Catholic Church at the same time, but Villa failed to capitalise on carrancista anticlericalism. Instead, by persecuting Spanish priests, he alienated the Church, which increasingly adopted a `plague on both your houses' posture. Increasingly, too, intellectuals became disillusioned with Villa and switched their allegiance to Carranza. Only a man with no political nous would have acted as Villa did to Jose Vasconcelos and others in his circle. Angeles was used to having his superior insights set aside because of Villa's whims, but Angeles was exceptional, and few other intellectuals were prepared to give Villa the benefit of so many doubts.
Even the objective circumstances that seemed to favour Villa turned out to be illusory. The benefits expected from his popularity in the United States did not materialise, partly, though not wholly, because of the outbreak of war in Europe. Villa still had access to the US market in arms and munitions, but found he was having to pay far more than the 1914 price because of competition from buyers representing the belligerent powers in Europe. In January 1915 i,ooo rounds of ammunition cost US sixty-seven dollars, as against US forty dollars in January 1914. The problem was compounded by the venality of Villa's purchasing agents. When the corrupt Felix Somerfeld displayed open contempt by supplying poor-calibre weaponry for top-dollar prices, Villa fired him, but found that his other agents, his brother Hipolito and Lazaro de la Garza, were just as money-grubbing. In addition, Villa was being cheated by his agent de la Garza, who signed a contract with the Western Cartridge Company for fifteen million cartridges. Having sent the first 700,000 to Villa, de la Garza then `gazumped' him twice, first with the carrancistas and then with an agent for the French.
At the same time Villa was suffering from a shortage of exportable cotton and cattle, and US traders proved increasingly reluctant to accept his inflated paper currency. Irritated, Villa concluded that his entente with the USA was one-way traffic: he had to respect their property and interests in Mexico while reaping no special benefits from his friendliness, except to be rudely informed that he, like anyone else, was subject to the disciplines of the market place. Even though Woodrow Wilson favoured Villa, the only concrete thing he had done recently - pulling the Marines out of Veracruz - had actually benefited Carranza. More and more Villa became aware of a gap between pro-Villa rhetoric from the Americans and pro-Carranza actions.
Gradually Villa's enthusiasm for the United States dwindled as he reflected dolefully that Wilson had let him down once too often. On the surface, though, he was still conciliatory. When Wilson's envoys suggested leasing the oil port of Tampico and taking over Baja California, Villa wrote to Zapata to ask him what he thought. Zapata replied that Villa should feel free to come to whatever arrangement he thought fit - again the Zapata apathy about anything not directly concerned with the patria chica. It became clear that the Americans, who disliked Carranza's anti-gringo jingoism, wanted to inveigle Villa into endorsing a `safe' (i.e. pro-American) Mexican president. Villa became more and more disillusioned. He was disgusted by the shady manoeuvrings and underh
and business deals brokered (or attempted) by Wilson's ubiquitous special agent Leon Canova, and he came to feel that all Washington really wanted was to make Mexico its colony. Where once he had believed in Wilson, he now saw him as a forked-tongue humbug.
Villa's perception was valid and the situation has puzzled historians. There were even occasions during 1915 when Washington was embargoing arms to Villa but not to Carranza. The villain of this particular piece seems to have been Wilson's special representative in Mexico, John Lind, who favoured Carranza, but Wilson cannot be absolved from responsibility. Essentially he decided to cut and run from Veracruz leaving it as a prize to whichever army was in the hinterland, which turned out to be Carranza's. More generally, Wilson was cynically pursuing a policy of divide and rule in Mexico. Preoccupied by the Far East and the war in Europe, he wanted no trouble on his doorstep, especially as Mexico was fertile ground for German agents.
Long-term, too, it seemed as though Carranza held the important cards. He controlled most of Mexico's export ports, especially those in the Gulf. The two key points were the ports that featured in the 1914 crisis with the USA: Tampico and Veracruz. To Veracruz went the coffee of Chiapas and the henequen of Yucatan and to Tampico was pumped Mexico's black gold: oil. The world scarcities resulting from the First World War sent the international price of oil and henequen through the roof, so that Carranza generated three times the revenue from his truncated slice of Mexico than Villa did from his green pastures. The price of oil and sisal hemp kept pace with the accelerating cost of arms, but the price of cattle and cotton plummeted. Since the former were Carranza's products, and the latter Villa's, the consequences were obvious. This financial and economic preponderance by Carranza would make itself felt in the months to come.
For all that, the villista military campaign got off to a good start, with Angeles achieving striking success in the north-east. Planning carefully, executing meticulously, never disfiguring his triumphs with gratuitous bloodshed, he outclassed Carranza's generals Antonio Villareal and Maclovio Herrera, who opposed him in Pablo Gonzalez's old haunts. Feinting brilliantly, Angeles sent Emilio Madero on a march to Saltillo, while he himself took nineteen trainloads of troops to Estacion Marte in the opposite direction. When the enemy massed to meet him there, he left Boo troops to fight a holding action while doubling back to Saltillo, which he took without a shot, having captured the important town of General Cepeda on the way.
Angeles then proceeded to threaten Monterrey, Mexico's third city and a key industrial centre. The carrancistas made their stand just outside, at Ramos Arizpe and there, on 8 January 1915, a notable but farcical battle took place in thick fog. In the ensuing comedy of errors Raul Madero was twice captured and released by the enemy, who did not recognise him; the villistas meanwhile supplied their foes with ammunition in the thick mist and the carrancista artillerymen bombarded their own headquarters. During an interval in the fog Maclovio Herrera had a high-noon shoot-out with a former comrade and killed him. However, the end result was total victory for Angeles. Carranza's army fled, leaving behind 3,000 prisoners, fourteen locomotives, nineteen wagons, 2,000 cartridges and ii,ooo artillery shells. Angeles did not execute his prisoners, but released them after taking their word of honour that they would not fight again; needless to say, many of them, including most of the officers, broke their word.
Angeles proved hugely popular in Monterrey, for the carrancistas had made themselves unpopular by gutting the railway line. His moderate policies - no large-scale confiscations, no anticlericalism, guarantees of human rights - won him many friends, but Villa undid the good work when he arrived two weeks later by exacting a forced loan of one million pesos. Pleased that he could now supply his trains from the coal fields of Coahuila, Villa was indifferent to the plight of Monterrey, whose people suffered death by famine; severe food shortages were caused by the carrancista control of the hinterland. Once again Angeles urged him to stop chasing shadows in the form of Gutierrez and concerning himself with sideshows in Sonora, about which Villa continued to fret. Angeles warned Villa that he was pursuing monkeys while the organ-grinder went free. `Those jefes are like hats strung from a hatband that is Venustiano Carranza.'
Villa hardly needed to come in person to Monterrey, but his presence was needed in Guadalajara. Calixto Contreras and Fierro lost an initial engagement with the enemy there, and Fierro indulged his fury in typical fashion. Passing one of his wounded troops groaning in agony, Fierro bawled at the man, `What's the matter with you?' `I'm in pain, General,' the wounded man replied. `I'll soon fix that,' said Fierro, who drew his pistol and shot him dead. The repulse proved the villista armies were far from invincible, and Villa, feeling his credibility was at stake, stormed down to Guadalajara and won the battle of Sayula with one of his famous cavalry charges. It was to be his last victory on a pitched battlefield.
When he occupied Guadalajara, Villa was infuriated to find that Calixto Contreras and Fierro had been extraordinarily incompetent in getting themselves routed, for the carrancistas had thoroughly alienated the locals. There had been corrupt deals in wheat, oppression of the working class, anticlericalism and persecution of the clergy, plus looting and indiscipline by the troops. When Villa entered Guadalajara, he was hailed as a liberator; new recruits flocked to him and he held a formal military triumph. The mood soon turned sour when Villa exacted a forced loan of one million pesos and began alarming the rich with talk of land reform. He particularly offended the hacendados in the state by closing the loophole whereby the landowners nominally `sold' their properties to foreigners to avoid taxes. Villa at once outlawed such deals under pain of death and turned the tables on those hacendados who had made a low declaration of the value of their properties to avoid tax: he announced that all compensation would be at the declared (low) price.
Having dominated in the war of movement in Jalisco and Michoacan, and achieved such success in the north-east that only the border towns of Agua Prieta, Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo remained in Carranza's hands, Villa decided that his next objective was the oil port of Tampico. He sent 15,000 men under Chao and Urbina to assault a heavily outnumbered enemy, but after two months the villistas were as far from success as ever; Chao and Urbina simply launched mindless frontal attacks against heavily defended positions, where the attackers were eaten up by machine-gun fire.
Obregon was worried, however, that Tampico might fall and with it would go half of Carranza's financial powerhouse; the only way to prevent this was to attack Villa. Carranza meanwhile urged Obregon to pull out of Mexico City, retreat to the south and tempt Villa to fight there - potentially disastrous advice, as Obregon would then have fallen foul of Zapata. Diregarding the First Chief, Obregon moved out of Mexico City at the end of March, but headed north and based himself at Queretaro, tempting Villa to come and fight him in the Bajio. The zapatistas then moved back into Mexico City. All now depended on whether Villa would take the bait and attack Obregon on grounds of the latter's choosing.
Obregon was as much a student of human nature as of the art of war. On the one hand he had read Clausewitz, which meant he did not mind abandoning Mexico City to Zapata as long as he could thereby compass the destruction of the enemy armies. On the other, he knew Villa's psychology and thought he could outwit him. It seemed to him that Villa's strategy was seriously defective in two areas. He had dispersed his superior strength in too many arenas simultaneously - Villa in the Bajio, Angeles in the north-east, Contreras and Fierro in the west, Urbina in Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosi - and had thus offended against the principle of concentration of force. On the other hand, if Villa fought in the Bajio, he would be i,ooo miles from his primary supply base. Tactically, Villa relied overmuch on the cavalry charge, and close study of events in the trenches of France had convinced Obregon that even the most massive cavalry attack could be broken up by defenders with machine-guns, heavily dug in behind barbed wire.
On 4 April Obregon moved up from Queretaro, where the emperor Maximilian had been e
xecuted forty-eight years before, to the town of Celaya. The countryside was flat, striated by canals and ditches dug for irrigation, and Celaya lay in a plain by a river. Here Obregon dug in, with 6,ooo cavalry, 5,000 infantry, eighty-six machine-guns and thirteen field pieces. Angeles at once spotted Obregon's game and warned Villa on no account to engage him at Celaya; instead he should retreat, encouraging Obregon to advance, thus lengthening his lines of communication until Villa could cut them. The arrogant Villa contemptuously rejected this good advice. He later explained that he feared morale would dip if he retreated, that Obregon would pick up more recruits on the advance, and the reputation of the villistas would suffer. As he saw it, his prestige required a battle at the earliest possible moment.
The one weakness in Obregon's strategy was that he had to be supplied by rail from Veracruz. If Zapata were to move against Veracruz and sever this supply line, Obregon would face a serious shortage of ammunition. However, Obregon's spies in Mexico City reported that Zapata was no longer collaborating with Villa, that he had no intention of moving against Veracruz and perhaps even lacked the ability to do so. On 5 April Obregon's political aide Fortunato Maycotte assured him that all railway tracks had been repaired and the supply line from Veracruz was open and unimpeded. Obregon was optimistic. He knew his man and knew that Villa would not be able to resist the chance of an early offensive.
The battle of Celaya began at dawn on 6 April. Obregon started operations by sending an advance guard of 15,000 to occupy the hacienda of El Guaje, to cut the railway line to Celaya and reduce Villa's mobility. Obregon's first action was a blunder, for he thought the bulk of Villa's forces were at Irapuato when they were in fact already at El Guaje. The consequence was that Obregon's vanguard ran into a hailstorm of bullets and came close to annihilation. Hearing of the debacle, Obregon boarded a troop train and rode up to El Guaje, trying to deflect attention from the vanguard with a hastily improvised probe. As he covered the retreat of the beleaguered advance guard, it occurred to Obregon that he might be able to coax a euphoric Villa into pressing his advantage and pursuing him back to Celaya.