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LESSON 5 Intervention!: The United States and the Mexican

Revolution, 1913 – 1917 pp 1 - 41

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The Tampico Incident Throughout the first fourteen months of the Huerta regime, the U.S. government had been diplomatically correct in all dealings with Mexico. Admittedly, Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson had overstepped his bounds during the Ten Tragic Days of February 1913, but his actions had never been sanctioned in Washington, and the manner of his removal reflected Washington disapproval. And President Woodrow Wilson, though incredibly presumptuous in trying to foist his own ideas on the Mexican government, had never been guilty of overt interference. Even his periodic imposition and removal of arms embargoes against one or the other of the Mexican groups had been technically within Wilson's rights-and ineffective Up to the spring of 1914, American lives and American commercial interests did not seem threatened by any of the factions fighting n Mexico. All the revolutionaries, even Pancho Villa, had been careful to protect the citizens and property of their powerful neighbor across the Rio Grande. That situation came to an end at Tampico, a Mexican Gulf port in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. There the interests of the Huertistas, the revolutionaries, and the Americans clashed for the first time. The danger signal sounded in late March I914, when the Constitutionalists of the northeast under the command of Pablo Gonzalez began laying siege to the federally controlled Tampico. Taking that port, next to Veracruz the most important in Mexico, would represent the first step in their drive to control the entire Gulf coastline. Tampico would serve as a base from which to launch an attack toward Veracruz, three hundred miles down the coast. Veracruz was the ultimate objective of the revolutionaries, at this time still out of reach. Historically, Tampico played a secondary role to Veracruz, being father from Mexico City. Nevertheless, Tampico's importance had grown dramatically since the early 1900s, when great oil resources were discovered nearby and when the world was just beginning to convert from coal to oil as a source of energy. By 1914 Tampico's population had reached thirty thousand, and its foreign colony, mostly Americans, ranked second in size only to that of Mexico City itself. Railroads linked Tampico to Monterrey by way of Victoria in the north, and to San Luis Potosi in the west. Pipelines from nearby oil fields led into the city, where the crude was refined. The American Standard Oil Corporation was one of the major concerns concentrated around Tampico.

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As General Pablo Gonzalez moved his Constitutionalist forces toward Tampico, the commander of the Federal garrison, General Ignacio Morelos Zaragoza, realized that his position was precarious. The town of Tampico itself was indefensible, for it sat on low ground to the north of the Panuco River, nine miles from its mouth. Ideally, Morelos Zaragoza should have defended the heights to the north and west of Tampico, but he had only two thousand troops, including national guardsmen. Defending along the ridges would spread his troops too thin. He therefore kept his entire force bottled up in the city, depending on the firepower of his gunboat Veracruz to discourage the Constitutionalists from leaving their dug-in positions in the hills. Against Pancho Villa, such a tactic would have been suicide; against Pablo Gonzalez, it had a reasonable chance. “As we continued up the river," wrote the reporter Jack London, "more and more terminals and tank farms lined both banks. . . . This was the Coronal terminal, and that was the Aguila on both sides, and adjoining were the huge solid buildings of Standard Oil. There was the National Petroleum, there the Waters-Pierce, the Gulf Coast, the Mexican Petroleum, the Texas, the International Oil, the East Coast oil-- and thereat I ceased taking account of the companies." London, "Our Adventures at Tampico," Collier's, 27 June 1914. Any fighting in or around Tampico would place foreign lives and property at great risk. The protection of American and foreign lives therefore became the preoccupation of Admiral Henry Thomas Mayo, the dynamic fifty-seven-year-old commander of the Fifth Division, U.S. Navy. Mayo commanded the strongest naval force at Tampico two battleships and two cruisers-so other nations looked to him for protection. The German Dresden and the British Hermione were also present in the Tampico harbor, but their firepower was small compared with that of Mayo's battlewagons. Mayo's task was difficult and complex. The sandbar at the mouth of the Panuco River prevented him from taking his battleships upstream. Furthermore, the' foreigners whose lives he was there to protect were difficult people to deal with. Mayo therefore determined to keep in close personal touch with events in Tampico. He made the gunboat Dolphin his flagship and lived aboard her on the river, inside the sandbar. He kept in contact with the battleship Connecticut, his usual flagship, by courier service. Mayo had no radios powerful enough to reach the United States, even by relay. So in order to communicate with Washington, he had to go through the communications net of Rear Admiral Frank F. Fletcher, his counterpart at Veracruz. Mayo and Fletcher, coequal commanders, were on excellent terms. However, despite Fletcher's cooperation, Mayo's communications with Washington were slow, to say the least.

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The Tampico Incident

On March 26, General Gonzalez's Constitutionalists seized a small town only about one mile up the Panuco River from Tampico. The lives of the foreigners in Tampico were therefore placed in great jeopardy. Not only was the danger of gunfire serious; even more frightening was the possibility that exploding shells would ignite oil fires among the refineries. Nevertheless, many Americans in Tampico ignored Admiral Mayo's pleas and warnings; they even refused to allow their women and children to be evacuated. The psychology of "it can't happen here" was too strong, and Mayo had no authority to give orders to American civilians. By the end of the first week of April the Constitutionalist rebels had penetrated into the outskirts of Tampico, and the lines between them and the Federals stabilized temporarily at the Iturbide Bridge, located at the northern boundary of the city. On the next day, many of the foreign civilians, now thoroughly frightened, consented to be evacuated to the cruisers and subsequently to the battleships-only to be returned to Tampico because of a storm approaching from the Gulf. The heavy weather put a damper on military action in Tampico, but the situation remained tense. On the cool, gray Thursday morning of April 9 a whaleboat from the USS Dolphin, commanded by Assistant Paymaster Charles C. Copp, headed up the Panuco River with a crew of eight sailors. It was a routine errand. Copp and his men were bound for a warehouse about ten miles up the river. The German proprietor had offered to sell some gasoline to propel Admiral Mayo's launch. Copp caught a tow from a passing launch and just before noon arrived at his destination. The men prepared to load up the gasoline. The river at Tampico was a scene of confusion. Smoke poured from burning oil tanks, and Federal gunboats on the Panuco River were lobbing shells over the city into rebel lines. Nevertheless, the port was officially open to U.S. naval forces. Since the Americans did not expect to be molested, none of the sailors with Copp were armed. Unbeknownst to the Americans, the part of the river where the warehouse was located had been declared by the Federals to be a forbidden zone, as it was only a few hundred yards below the critical Iturbide Bridge. Being concerned only with his loading, Copp failed to notice the Mexican patrol boat that was chugging down from the bridge and signaling to a squad of Mexican troops onshore. To Copp's surprise, Mexican sailors and troops converged on the whaleboat from the land and the river.

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The Mexicans spoke no English, and Copp spoke no Spanish. But by gestures, the Mexican officer made it clear that the Americans were to drop their work, leave the whaleboat, and come with him. Two of the sailors, still in the whaleboat, ignored the order until they found themselves staring down the muzzles of Mexican rifles. Upon a nod from Copp, they also disembarked, and a Mexican officer marched all nine Americans a few blocks up the Calle Altamira to the Mexican regimental headquarters. The German merchant, who witnessed the incident, returned hastily to the Fiscal Wharf, where the Dolphin was moored. Admiral Mayo dispatched an emissary toward Tampico to demand the bluejackets' release. Even before Mayo's messenger arrived, Hinojosa was explaining the error to Copp. The Federals were expecting a rebel attack, he said, and the recent actions at the bridge had put the troops in a state of tension. Hinojosa insisted that the Americans had no business in that area, but he released them almost at once. On being freed and reaching the dock, Copp reboarded the whaleboat and returned to the Dolphin, where Mayo was waiting impatiently. There the Tampico incident should have ended. General Morelos Zaragoza immediately arrested Colonel Hinojosa for negligence and sent a word of verbal apology to Admiral Mayo. Morelos Zaragoza considered the affair over.

The Tampico incident, however, was far from over; it was just beginning. Admiral Mayo considered Morelos Zaragoza's oral apology totally insufficient to atone for the indignity done to the American flag. Mayo was one of the U.S. Navy's outstanding officers, the commander of the Atlantic Fleet in World War 1. But April 9, 1914, was not his best day. He reprimanded Assistant Paymaster Copp for surrendering the whaleboat and then sent an officer, formally attired in dress uniform, with a stern message to General Morelos Zaragoza. Taking men from a boat flying the American flag, the message began, was a "hostile act, not to be excused," even by ignorance. In retribution for this act, Mayo levied a draconian penance: I must require that you send me, by suitable members of your staff, formal disavowal of and apology for the act, together with the assurance that the officer responsible for it will receive severe punishment. Also that you publicly hoist the American flag in a prominent position on shore and salute it with twenty-one guns, which salute will be duly returned by this ship.

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Mayo gave Morelos Zaragoza until 6:00 P.M., April 10, twenty-four hours, to reply.

That afternoon, Mayo sent Admiral Fletcher a brief message describing in general terms what he had done. Fletcher, a bystander in the affair, transmitted Mayo's message to Washington without comment. It was received by the Navy Department early on Friday, April 10 twenty-four hours after the incident. But as the weekend was just beginning, nobody in authority was on hand to process it. The Navy Department forwarded the message, again without comment, to the State Department that afternoon at five. In Mexico City, U.S. Charge Nelson O'Shaughnessy learned of the Tampico incident from one of his friends in the Mexican Foreign Office on Friday morning, April 1O.The Mexican official had received word through local reports and, like O'Shaughnessy, was inclined to discount the importance of the incident. The information that O'Shaughnessy received from U.S. sources was a terse message from Admiral Fletcher. O'Shaughnessy, a canny diplomat, soon sensed that the incident was serious, even a potential cause for war. He therefore left the American embassy and set out on one of his frantic wild-goose chases, to which he was becoming accustomed, to find President Victoriano Huerta. O'Shaughnessy found nobody at the National Palace; it was Easter weekend. A junior official advised him that the president was taking a siesta and was not to be awakened. A suspicious O'Shaughnessy, however, drove off to check out Huerta's favorite bars and other haunts. Still unable to locate Huerta, he returned to the palace just in time; Huerta was about to leave. Huerta invited O'Shaughnessy to accompany him and a Mexican foreign service officer in his car. O'Shaughnessy accepted quickly. Huerta's first reaction, on hearing O'Shaughnessy's version of the Tampico incident, was to dismiss it with a wave: he would simply apologize. However, as O'Shaughnessy went on describing Admiral Mayo's demands of General Morelos Zaragoza, Huerta balked. The demand for a formal salute as well as an apology was too much. At that point, the foreign service officer in the front of the car put in his contribution: it would be derogatory to the national honor to render the salute. Huerta stiffened. The first effort to defuse the situation had failed. Huerta apparently had second thoughts, however, for at 6:00 P.M., he sent a seemingly conciliatory note to O'Shaughnessy, now back at the American embassy. "An investigation," Huerta's note stated, "will be made to establish the responsibility of Colonel Hinojosa," adding, "The Government of Mexico deplores what has occurred.;' The case was one of "a mistake of subordinate officials." General Zaragoza had placed Colonel Hinojosa under arrest, and he promised strong punishment should the investigation "develop greater responsibility on the part of Colonel Hinojosa."

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After O'Shaughnessy transmitted Huerta's message to the State Department, he handed a copy of it to the press. The next morning, the New York Times interpreted Huerta's statement as an apology, calling the matter "serious but not 'critical, an apparent misunderstanding." The Times added, however, that Mayo's demands were generally regarded in Mexican circles as "outrageous." It predicted that the affair would go no further, "unless the United States is looking for an excuse to start trouble.” The incident could have concluded again at this point. Back at Tampico, Admiral Mayo extended the deadline for the Mexican salute and awaited further orders. The Tampico incident was now a diplomatic matter, no longer a military one. In Washington, however, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan reacted strangely when he received Mayo's message on April 10. Though an avowed pacifist, Bryan seemed to sense nothing untoward in Mayo's saber-rattling. He consulted briefly with Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels and then transmitted Mayo's message to the White House with the notation "I do not see that Mayo could have done otherwise." And to the press he said, "I am inclined to believe that Admiral Mayo, who after all has the matter in his own hands, will regard the apology as sufficient." At the White House, President Woodrow Wilson was preoccupied. He was taking his ailing wife, Ellen Axson Wilson, for a long Easter weekend at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, for a family gathering. Mrs. Wilson had been in declining health for some time, although the seriousness of her kidney disorder was not generally admitted. The outing, Wilson hoped, would do her good. At White Sulphur Springs, Wilson passed a leisurely weekend. He played his usual Saturday round of golf, and on Sunday he accompanied his daughters and others at religious services in the little hotel chapel. The president then spent an entire hour inspecting the old registers of the White Sulphur Springs hotel. That afternoon he took Mrs. Wilson for a buckboard drive with two of their daughters, Margaret and Jessie, with Jessie's husband, Francis B. Sayre. Wilson was determined to avoid showing any concern over the Tampico matter in front of the press or his family.

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Despite his public protests that he had "no interest in the [Tampico] situation," Wilson was secretly worried. He had received Mayo's report while engaged in his Saturday golf game. His first reaction was sober: "I have known for months that some such thing could happen-it was inevitable, in fact.” But his real feelings were less detached. All through Sunday, he later told Daniels, he was "oppressed with the thought that he might be the cause of the loss of lives of many young men." Nevertheless, he insisted in public that he had come to White Sulphur Springs to rest and that he would not discuss any official business. On Tuesday, April 14, Wilson was back in Washington. At a cabinet meeting that morning, all the news was gloomy. Nelson O'Shaughnessy had forwarded the Mexican government's refusal to meet Mayo's demands since "carrying courtesy to that point would be equivalent to accepting the sovereignty of a foreign state to the derogation of national dignity and decorum." Huerta had told O'Shaughnessy that he, Huerta, feared serious anti-American outbreaks throughout the countryside should Mexico submit to "the humiliating terms of the United States." Two other incidents, small ones, also aroused interest. At Veracruz, the U.S. consul, William W. Canada, reported that a mail orderly from the battleship Minnesota, though wearing uniform, had been arrested and jailed by a policeman at the orders of a Mexican soldier. In addition, an American diplomatic courier had been detained in Mexico City by a blundering Mexican censor. Neither of these incidents should have constituted crises. In the case of the mail orderly, the local political chief had released the American and had jailed the Mexican soldier; Admiral Fletcher had declared the matter to be "without significance.” And in Mexico City, Nelson O'Shaughnessy had cleared up the matter of the delayed telegram "in two minutes.” Nevertheless, Wilson's cabinet, especially Wilson himself, attached considerable significance to both matters. By Tuesday evening, April 14, President Wilson had come to a drastic decision. He ordered the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, under the command of Vice Admiral Charles T. Badger, to sail from Norfolk to Tampico. Bryan notified O'Shaughnessy that seven battleships, two cruisers, and the troopship Hancock were to depart without delay. The Hancock was carrying a regiment of marines. "The battleships were the Michigan, Louisiana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Arkansas, Vermont, and New Jersey. The cruisers were the Tacoma and Nashville.

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INTERVENTION On Wednesday morning, April 15, the press reported that support for the president's action was virtually unanimous in the Senate. "No senator," the New York Times crowed, "questioned the right of the United States to occupy Tampico or Vera Cruz. . . and all agreed that a firm course must be followed. . . .” Democratic members of the Senate, restive with Wilson's policy of "watchful waiting," were relieved to see some action taken. The Republicans were delighted. The redoubtable Republican senator William Borah, the Lion of Idaho," admitted that ordering the fleet to Vera Cruz looked like intervention, but the idea did not offend him. "If the flag of the United States is ever run up in Mexico," Borah declared, "it will never come down. This is the beginning of the march of the United States to the Panama Canal!" With such support from Congress, Wilson felt even more emboldened. Notified by O'Shaughnessy that Huerta was preparing to send a message to the Mexican Congress, Wilson decided to preempt him. On Saturday, April 18, Wilson officially declared that Huerta must accede to Mayo's demands by 6:00 P.M., Sunday, April 19. Assuming that Huerta would refuse, Wilson did not wait for the Sunday evening deadline to announce that he would address the Congress on Monday, April 20. After that announcement, Wilson played his Saturday round of golf at the Congressional Country Club and departed by train that evening for White Sulphur Springs. ., President and Mrs. Wilson spent Sunday at White Sulphur driving and strolling. At the same time, the president was keeping in touch with a nearly frantic Secretary of State Bryan back in Washington. That Sunday evening, the Wilsons returned to Washington. The Wilsons arrived back at the White House early Monday morning. Wilson began his schedule by consulting with Bryan and then met with his cabinet. By now, Wilson was showing signs of nervousness and fatigue. His secretary of agriculture later described him as "profoundly disturbed" over his "terrible responsibility." At one point, Wilson told the group, "If there are any of you who still believe in prayer, I wish you would think seriously over this matter between now and our next meeting.” The president thereupon left the cabinet meeting and met the press outside the door. In that moment his demeanor changed. The issue, he said cheerfully, was only between the U.S. government and "a person calling himself the Provisional President of Mexico.” "In no conceivable circumstances," Wilson went on, "would we fight the people of Mexico."

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At 2:00 P.M. that Monday, President Wilson received four influential members of Congress, two from each party, in the Executive Offices of the White House. By now, he had decided on the thrust of the statement he would make to Congress that afternoon, but he needed converts to his cause. The issue did not revolve around intervention as a matter of principle-that was universally supported but views differed regarding the justification for taking such an action. Wilson's key target for persuasion was Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the ranking Republican member of the Foreign Relations Committee. The Democrats in Congress could be counted on to support the president; it was the Republican side that needed convincing. Lodge was a formidable man, a student of history and the author of several books on government, politically conservative. Philosophically, he was inclined to support Wilson's position, for he strongly believed in national unity during times of foreign crises and worried about the protection of American lives and property abroad. But Lodge protested when he read the text of the president's proposed statement, contending that Huerta's refusal to salute the American flag was a "weak and insufficient" excuse for taking action against Mexico. Lodge also disliked Wilson's specifying Huerta personally as the target for military action. Wilson should justify his request on the basis that the lives and property of American citizens in Mexico had to be protected, Lodge insisted. At this point, Wilson took the four congressional leaders into his confidence. He had just received a message from William Canada, the U.S. consul in Veracruz, advising that a large cargo of arms, destined for Huerta, would soon arrive in that port aboard the German freighter Ypiranga. Huerta, Wilson declared to the senators, must never receive those arms; he planned to intercept the shipment. However, Wilson did not wish to disclose this new development to Congress; he wanted congressional authorization for intervention, but he wanted it granted without revealing his secret reason for the haste. And Wilson considered "protection of Americans" as too broad a basis for requesting authority to act. Such a proclaimed objective, he said, would widen the issue and possibly lead to war. Senator Lodge, like the others, was sobered by this latest news from Veracruz, but he continued to press his arguments. Risking war, he insisted, was a secondary issue, since the United States, if it seized Veracruz, would be committing an act of war by that very action. And Lodge threw in a new consideration, the attitude of Germany. By international law, the United States could not legally intercept a foreign ship (in this case German) unless a state of war existed between Mexico and the United States.

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INTERVENTION Lodge had other objections, but Wilson was finished. He handed each senator and congressman a copy of his proposed resolution and left. He was due to speak at the Capitol in only a few minutes. In his appearance before Congress at 3:00 P.M. on April 20, President Wilson ignored Lodge's objections and stuck to his original argument that "our quarrel was with Huerta, not the Mexican people.” The United States, he said, was being "singled out . . . in retaliation for its refusal to recognize the pretensions of General Huerta to be regarded as the Constitutional President of the Republic of Mexico.” He assured the Congress that "the present situation need have none of the grave complications of interference if we deal with it promptly, firmly, and wisely." The weakness of his logic in depicting the United States as being "singled out" was emphasized when Wilson buttressed it with the trivial matters of the captured mail orderly back on April 10 and the short delay of the diplomatic message in Mexico City. Nevertheless, Wilson was an eloquent and persuasive speaker, and the standing ovation he received was sincere. The speech was only halfway successful. After Wilson left for the White House, the House of Representatives passed his resolution overwhelmingly, but the Senate, led by Lodge, refused to be railroaded. Its Foreign Relations Committee unanimously rejected the idea of naming Huerta as the target of military action. Lodge then drew up a substitute resolution incorporating his own ideas. The Democratic senators at first tended to join the Republicans in protesting against singling out Huerta as the target for intervention. But that afternoon a group of them were invited to the White House to visit the president, and they returned with their support for his position strengthened. Therefore, the Senate accepted only part of Lodge's resolution, and debate continued through the evening and into the next day. Though President Wilson had refrained from mentioning the Ypiranga in his address to Congress, he had already decided that Veracruz, not Tampico, would be the target of any U.S. action. Accordingly, Secretary Daniels passed up the joint session of Congress, going instead straight to the Navy Department. Even while Wilson was speaking in Congress, Daniels sent an urgent message to Admiral Mayo. Mayo was to leave Tampico for Veracruz with all his vessels except the Dolphin and to be ready to land troops, if necessary, on his arrival.

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Rear Admiral Frank F. Fletcher, at Veracruz, had not expected military action. His "Detached Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet" had been sent to Veracruz at the request of Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson during the Ten Tragic Days, and it had remained there during the intervening fourteen months. His duties had been peaceful. Veracruz was a friendly place, and aside from the task of interrogating émigrés leaving Mexico, his duties involved largely public relations. The small booklet he had just issued for the guidance of the officers and men of his command covered such matters as relations with the local Mexican citizens, policies for shore leave, and the entertainment of visitors aboard U.S. warships. It had outlined policies for tennis, swimming, boating, and fishing parties-even the season's schedule of boat races. Hardly a primer for immediate combat action. All that was now changed. Fletcher faced a combat situation with a very small force. His flotilla included two battleships, the Florida and the Utah, which carried heavy firepower. But aside from them he had only the old gunboat Prairie, with a provisional marine battalion aboard. These limited resources would not provide much by way of a landing force. When Admiral Badger arrived with the Atlantic Fleet on April 22, the United States would have considerable strength, but events might not wait for Badger's arrival. So Fletcher knew that through April 2 I at least, he would be on his own. Still, a landing at Veracruz might not be necessary, and so long as Fletcher's mission was limited to preventing the Ypiranga from landing, he had little cause for concern. And that was all he had been warned to prepare for. At II: 00 P.M.of April 20, Fletcher thus notified Washington confidently, "Have sent USS Utah outside [the breakwater] to intercept and confer with Ypiranga." At the Navy Department, however, Secretary Daniels was becoming frantic. Though President Wilson had appeared to ignore Senator Lodge's warnings about the seriousness of intercepting a foreign vessel in open water, Lodge's words had affected him and Bryan-and Daniels. At midnight, therefore, Daniels sent Fletcher a message hedging on his previous instructions: "Use every possible persuasion to prevent the landing of arms and supplies by Ypiranga. If you cannot persuade ship not to land stores, endeavor to secure delay until Congress will act Tuesday evening." During the next hour, Daniels hit on a possible solution to the problem. Perhaps an interception of the Ypiranga,at sea could be abandoned in favor of seizing the cargo at the Veracruz customhouse after the ship had docked. In that way, the United States would be offending only Mexico, not Germany. At 1:00 A.M., Daniels sent Fletcher another warning order: “Be prepared on short notice to seize customs house at Vera Cruz. If offered resistance, use all force necessary to seize and hold city and vicinity.” But that was only a warning. No decision had yet been reached.

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INTERVENTION Daniel's order sending Mayo to Veracruz never reached either Mayo or Fletcher. Thus Fletcher learned of it only when his radio operator intercepted a message sent from Daniels to Badger. Fletcher was confused. Here was a message instructing Mayo to prepare for a landing at Veracruz, and he, Fletcher, had not yet received any such orders. Since the Navy Department refused to clarify the matter, Fletcher and Mayo decided simply to consult each other. They concluded that Mayo should send Fletcher only the cruiser San Francisco, a ship in excess of Mayo's needs. Aside from making that transfer, they delayed doing anything else pending clarification from Washington. In the early morning hours of Tuesday, April 21, Consul Clarence Miller, at Tampico, received a note from Admiral Mayo asking him to attend a conference aboard the Dolphin. When Miller arrived on Mayo's flagship, he found that the admiral had assembled his staff, the captains of his vessels, and his marine officers. The message that Secretary Daniels had sent nine hours earlier ordering him to Veracruz had finally arrived, superseding his informal agreement with Fletcher. Every officer aboard the Dolphin, Miller later reported, was downcast, appalled at the prospect of depriving the American citizens in Tampico of naval protection. The Tampico incident had aroused so much anti-American feeling among the Mexicans in that seaport that Miller, like Mayo's officers, considered such a move "inconceivable." Mayo, "almost in tears," was demanding confirmation of Daniels's message. Miller did the only thing he could. He returned to shore and sent a message to the secretary of state "earnestly and vigorously" protesting Mayo's orders for departure. Miller never received an answer. As the Senate continued its debate throughout the night of April 20, Wilson conferred once more with Bryan, Daniels, Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison, and the military chiefs of the army and the navy. He ordered that detailed plans for the occupation of Veracruz be drawn up, in case they should be needed. The meetings over, Wilson went to bed. At 2:00 A.M., the White House telephone rang. When Wilson was awakened, Bryan and Daniels were on a three-way hookup. Consul William Canada, in Veracruz, had just received word that the Ypiranga had left Havana and would arrive at Veracruz the next morning. Three railroad trains were waiting at the dock to speed her cargo of arms to Huerta in Mexico City. Bryan recommended that the navy be directed to prevent the landing.

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"What do you think, Daniels?" the president asked. "The munitions should not be permitted to fall into Huerta's hands," Daniels replied. "1 can wire Admiral Fletcher to prevent it and take the custom house. I think that should be done. “Wilson hesitated and, after a few more words, said, "There is no alternative but to land. “At 8:00 A.M., April 21, the radio operator aboard the battleship Florida brought Admiral Fletcher an emergency message from the Navy Department: "Seize custom house. Do not permit war supplies to be delivered to Huerta government or any other party."

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10 The Landing at Veracruz

When Admiral Frank F. Fletcher first received Secretary Daniels's order to seize the Veracruz customhouse, he was tempted to wait a day. It was early on April 21, 1914, and Admiral Charles J. Badger, with the bulk of the Atlantic Fleet, would arrive the next day. Daniels's order did not specify a time for the landing, and it occurred to Fletcher that the real objective was to prevent the arms aboard the Ypiranga from reaching Huerta's armies. If he could accomplish that end without landing, Fletcher might be able to argue that he had not violated his orders. In accordance with his warning orders, Fletcher and his staff had organized a landing party of twelve hundred officers and men. Half of these men, however, were seamen with important duties aboard ship, so sending them ashore would affect the functioning of the crews on his vessels. Fletcher estimated that this force of twelve hundred, if so used, would be opposed by some six hundred Mexican regulars, who could be quickly reinforced with two or three thousand other troops in the area. In addition, Fletcher had heard that the Mexican commander, General Gustavo Maass, had freed a large number of prisoners from the dungeons of Fort San Juan d'Ulloa, pressing at least some of them into service. Maass was capable of meeting a landing with strength; whether he would resist or accept a "peaceful" occupation of the customhouse was completely unknown. Daniels's order, however, carried a note of immediacy, and any delay, no matter how well justified by local considerations, and would probably not be understood in Washington. As Fletcher pondered his dilemma, a turn in the weather made his decision easy. At 10:00 A.M., "the breeze suddenly shifted to the north, increasing in force with all the appearances of an approaching 'norther' which would preclude the landing.” That was it! Old sea dog Fletcher decided to land his force at Veracruz immediately. Fletcher was as well prepared as could be expected. He had thought the matter through and hoped to accomplish his task with a minimum of bloodshed and destruction-ideally with none. He had therefore ruled out supporting the landing with heavy naval gunfire. He could have destroyed the whole city in short order by employing the great twelve-inch guns of the battleships Utah and Florida, each of which carried ten of these monster weapons. But Fletcher sought

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to avoid wanton destruction by acting quickly and presenting the Mexicans with a fait accompli. By limiting his advance to the customhouse and treating the Mexican civilians with respect and consideration, he might be able to avoid a tragic fight. The layout of the Veracruz harbor favored Fletcher's efforts. The space inside the breakwater was very limited the end of Pier Four, .Fletcher's projected landing point,was only five hundred yards across the water from the wall of the fortress San Juan d'Ulloa. The troopship Prairie, carrying the marine battalion, was lying at anchor only about three hundred yards off the end of the pier. This meant that the bluejackets and marines would be on the water, exposed to hostile fire, for only a limited time. Reassuring the citizens of Veracruz about American intentions was also important if the people were not frightened, Fletcher reasoned, their resistance .might be minimized. During the previous days, therefore, he had kept the American consul, William Canada, well informed on everything that was happening. On Fletcher's request, Canada had notified General Maass that the Americans intended only to prevent the Ypiranga from unloading her cargo of arms at Veracruz they would go no farther. Canada, of course, was already aware that tensions were building for days he had been flooded, with foreign refugees from Mexico City. He had placed many of them aboard two chartered Mexican liners, the Esperanza and the Mexico. The Mexico was occupying a slip at Pier Four; the Esperanza was any lying at anchor in the inner harbor. In anticipation of Daniels's order, Fletcher was already waiting his with the force commanders aboard the Florida. All had received their instruction: Captain W.R. Rush, the hard-driving Captain Rush the marine regiment would be led by Lieutenant Colonel W. C. ("Buck") Neville, USMC, a man with much experience in This kind of operation. The total landing force would come to 787 I officers and men, made up of the seaman battalion from the Florida and the marines from the Florida, Utah, and Prairie. The seaman battalion from the Utah would remain aboard that ship awaiting developments; the Ypiranga was expected soon.

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The Landing at Veracruz Until the order arrived, however, Fletcher had to be ready to go either way. So he held the Utah, commanded by Commander H. I. Cone, ready to (1) intercept the Ypiranga at sea or (2) send her seaman battalion to join the landing party. Fletcher also sent an officer to alert Admiral Sir C. G. F. M. Cradock, aboard the HMS Essex, and the captain of the Spanish ship Carlos V. Another officer paid a visit to the commander of the fortress of San Juan d'Ulloa. The Mexican commander was unperturbed. "Mexican honor would necessitate my re- [1, he turning fire in case I am fired upon," he said. Otherwise, he would take no part in any action that might occur. At 9:45 A.M., Fletcher took a courageous step. On his own responsibility, he told Admiral Mayo to keep the Connecticut, Dolphin, Des Moines, Solace, and Cyclops at Tampico. Only the Chester, with her marine battalion, was to come under full speed to Veracruz. At the American Consulate in Veracruz, William Canada had a ringside seat for the events of the day. His second-floor office afforded a close view of all the locations critical to Fletcher's plans: Pier Four, the main wharf, lay almost under his nose, just beyond the Terminal Hotel, on his immediate left. And down to the right, barely discernible at about four hundred yards, stood the customhouse and the’s re- customs warehouse, the ultimate objectives of the American landing. Below Canada's window, between the customs area and Pier Four stood the Veracruz post office and the telegraph station. He sat in suspense waiting.

17

18

The Landing at Veracruz At 10:15 a.m., Canada noted the liner Mexico pulling away from its berth at Pier Four with her load of American and foreign refugees. She had been ordered out by the Mexican authorities to provide room for the Ypiranga. At 11:00 A.M., the U.S. occupation of Veracruz began. As Canada watched and made notes, American sailors and marines began clambering over the side of the Prairie, loading into whaleboats. He then saw tugboats, each towing several whaleboats, heading slowly across the water toward Pier Four. The same scene unfolded at the Florida and the Utah, outside the breakwater. Canada reached for a phone to call General Maass. When Gustavo Maass came on the telephone, Canada read off his prepared list of things to say. The Americans intended to seize the customhouse, the telegraph office, and the railway yards but would go no farther, he read. They would not fire unless first fired upon. Finally, Canada urged Maass to remain on hand and lend all the assistance in his power to keep order in the city. II The American forces were "overwhelming," he claimed, and Admiral Fletcher trusted that no resistance would be offered. Canada was surprised at General Maass's strong reaction. Despite the previous warnings, Canada had given him, Maass cried out, No! It cannot be! The Mexican then slammed the phone down. Canada heard no more. He fared no better in his attempts to secure cooperation from other Mexican officials. The collector of the port, like Maass, became highly agitated. He begged for time in which to warn his subordinates, to lock up the office, and to return home to his family. Canada then reached the chief of police, who declared that he would remain and help keep order-but then disappeared like the others. His calls completed, Canada returned to his window view of the harbor. By now, a long string of landing boats headed unmolested toward Pier Four. At 11:30 A.M., Canada made a note that all the landing parties-sailors and marines- were ashore. They had brought with them some machine guns and a three-inch fieldpiece. As each boat landed, the men hurried down the pier toward their objectives, and in a few minutes, the Americans occupied the railroad terminal, the adjoining Terminal Hotel, and the cable office. Bluejackets soon stood guard outside the consulate. So far, all was going according to plan.

19

INTERVENTION The Veracruz port area in 1914 was a little over half a mile in length. The waterfront street, on which the Terminal Hotel, the American Consulate, the post office, and the customhouse stood, ran roughly north-south, with the railroad terminal and Pier Four on the north. This waterfront street was named Calle Morelos in the northern part and Avenida Zaragoza in the southern. One block west and running parallel to Morelos-Zaragoza ran the Avenida Independencia, and one block still farther west ran the Avenida Cinco de Mayo. On the south end of Cinco de Mayo, on the opposite end of town from Pier Four, stood the military headquarters, La Galera military prison, and a small secondary railway station. General Gustavo Maass, in command at Veracruz, was an easy man for Americans to underestimate, for certain of his eccentricities seemed comical. As General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna impersonated the emperor Napoleon during the nineteenth century, so Maass seemed intent on emulating the German kaiser in 1914 by sporting "imperial" mustaches and plumed helmets. But despite his oddities, Maass was a patriotic Mexican determined to make the Americans pay for their aggression. He did not await orders from Huerta before taking action, and his response would frustrate American hopes for a peaceful occupation of the Veracruz waterfront. The force with which Maass intended to defend Veracruz consisted of two "regiments" of regular infantry, the Eighteenth and Nineteenth, whose total strength came to about a thousand men small by conventional standards but stronger than Admiral Fletcher had anticipated. In preparation for this kind of development, Maass had also organized and trained a second group, of over three hundred volunteers, who called themselves the "Society of Defenders of the Port of Veracruz." He had issued Mauser and Winchester rifles to the members of the society the day before the American landing. The rumors that Fletcher had heard regarding Maass's releasing prisoners from Fort San Juan d'Ulloa turned out to be correct. These unfortunate wretches, freed from unbearable conditions, were not the kind of troops a commander might want to rely on, because most of them had originally been imprisoned for evading the military draft; but many were at least willing to act as guerrillas in support of the ,regulars in order to protect their city from the Yankees. Immediately after his brief telephone conversation with Consul Canada, General Maass dashed across the street to the military barracks. There he encountered an officer of the Nineteenth Regiment and ordered him, with about a hundred regulars, to march up the Avenida Independencia toward Pier Four. Since this street ran a block inland from the waterfront, it was protected from the threat of American naval gunfire. Maass also ordered the commander of the Eighteenth Regiment, General Luis Becerril, to arm what civilian vQlunteers he could find, including the inmates of the nearby LaGalera prison. Soon motley crowds of

20

The Landing at Veracruz citizens and prisoners were straggling up the Avenida Cinco de Mayo. Maass then sent a messenger to the nearby radio station to notify the minister of defense, General Aurelio Blanquet, back in Mexico City, what had happened. Blanquet answered quickly, ordering Maass not to oppose the American occupation with his small force. He was to withdraw the Mexican troops to the small town of Tejeria, about ten miles inland on the secondary railroad line, and there to await further developments. Blanquet's orders, however, came too late. The troops and civilians that Maass had sent up the Avenida Independencia and the Avenida Cinco de Mayo could not be recalled. . At the other end of Veracruz, the American landing party, unaware of Maass's activities, began preparing to defend the waterfront installations it had occupied. At 11:50 A.M, April 21, Captain Rush reported to Fletcher that he had established his headquarters in the Terminal Hotel, with signalmen sending wigwag messages back to the fleet from the top of the building. On Rush's right, north of the city, Colonel Neville's marine battalion pushed five blocks inland from the railway terminal, effectively cutting Veracruz off from possible reinforcement at the northern end. Rush now occupied the railway terminal, Pier Four, the consulate, the customhouse, and the sanitary wharf on the south. All remained quiet at first. The Mexican citizens stood along the waterfront watching curiously. The American civilians still in the city gathered in the Terminal Hotel. These Ame'ricans had long been urging the United States to occupy Veracruz, and they cheered every move that Rush's men made. At around 12:30 P.M., however, something changed. Merchants began closing their stores and children began hurrying home: from school. Squads of Mexican soldiers appeared in the side streets that opened into the Avenida Independencia. The Mexican soldiers could be seen lying in firing position, though at first remaining quiet. Then a shot rang out. It came from the direction of the railway yard. A navy signalman who had been flagging messages atop the Terminal Hotel fell dead. Almost at once, other shots followed from other pans of the city: the plaza, the nearby Benito Juarez lighthouse tower, and the Plaza Constitucion, a block south on Independencia. Captain Rush immediately ordered the bluejackets and marines to fire as necessary in self-defense. A battle was on. Captain Rush signaled to Admiral Fletcher that "a thousand men with machine guns" had been reported in his vicinity and asked Fletcher to "hurry Utah's troops." Fletcher responded. He signaled the Utah, "Send your battalion ashore; urgent; you may steam in closer." At 12:41 P.M., Rush reported the first American casualties.

21

INTERVENTION

The Americans went no deeper into the city that day. Even the positions they had taken were not secure; they soon discovered that they had bypassed pockets of resistance within the areas they now occupied. On the north, the marine regiment caught the brunt of the first heavy fire and was soon heavily engaged at the northern end of the city. Since this peaceable landing now promised to degenerate into a drawn-out battle, Admiral Fletcher transferred his flag from the distant battleship Florida to the close-in troopship Prairie, where he could personally direct land operations. The fighting eventually quieted down for the landing party on the waterfront, but the ships' gunners still had work to do. The guns on the Prairie fired at some mounted Mexican cavalry that had been spotted in the sand hills west of the city. The Florida, out in the harbor, poured fire from its five-inch guns into the Benito Juarez lighthouse, silencing the snipers who had been picking off Americans along the Avenida Morelos. Heroic acts were performed that day. Some of them went largely unsung, such as the dedication exhibited by the signalmen atop the Terminal Hotel. After the first shot of the day had killed the bluejacket sending messages, others stepped up to take his place. Three of the seven men assigned to the signal detachment were killed or wounded while wigwagging messages, but communications between Rush and Fletcher were never interrupted. The most touted feat of heroism was performed by Chief Boatswain McCloy, the petty officer in charge of three picket boats unloading supplies at Pier Four. Early in the fighting, McCloy's detachment came under the fire of sharpshooters located in the Mexican Naval Academy building, down past the customhouse. On his own initiative, MaCloy took his boat away from Pier Four and fired on the school building with his one-pounder guns. His small cannon did little damage, but the action drew retaliatory fire, and the puffs of smoke from the Mexican rifles gave away the snipers' positions. The Prairie's three-inch guns then fired over the heads of McCloy and his picket boats, silencing all the enemy fire from that section of the city. McCloy was wounded and one of his men was killed After the street fight had been under way for-about an hour, a lookout aboard the Utah spotted smoke far, out on the horizon; it was the Ypiranga. Immediately, Fletcher instructed Commander Cone to take the Utah out to meet her. When the battleship intercepted the Ypiranga, Cone found the German captain the soul of cooperation as he welcomed Cone aboard. The courtesies finished, Cone advised the captain that Admiral Fletcher would permit the Ypiranga to enter the Veracruz inner harbor but would not allow her to leave with her cargo of arms on board. The German was not perturbed by this turn of events, and he produced his bill of lading for inspection. Cone was surprised to see that the shipment had originated not in Hamburg, as presumed,

22

The Landing at Veracruz

but in New York. Huerta's agents had purchased the arms directly from the Remington Company and routed them by way of Hamburg to mask their origin. In the light of Admiral Fletcher's warning, the German captain decided to drop anchor outside the breakwater. There the Ypiranga, the trigger for the fighting at Veracruz; remained during the night of April 21-22. During the early afternoon of April 21, Consul William Canada received an unexpected visitor. Admiral Fletcher's chief of staff, Captain H. M. Huse, had made his way through the sniper fire to solicit Canada's help. The firing in the streets of Veracruz must be brought to a stop, Huse said, and he asked Canada to try again to reach some Mexican officer who had the authority to order a cease-fire. If resistance continued, Huse added, Admiral Fletcher would consider stem measures. He would, though he hated to do so, destroy the city by shellfire. Canada immediately sent a messenger under a flag of truce toward the center of the city. When the man failed to return after a reasonable time, Canada sent a second one, named Julio Franco. Franco proved to be more fortunate than the unnamed first messenger- at least he came back with his life-but he was also unsuccessful. On his return, Franco claimed that he had gone to the mayor's residence only to find it locked up. He then climbed to the roof of an adjacent house and dropped into the courtyard of the mayor's house. The mayor, barricaded in his bathroom, was in no mood to help. Franco also claimed that he had tried in vain to find the chief of police before returning to the American consulate. In the meantime, General Maass had obeyed his superiors' orders to leave Veracruz, and nearly all the regular Mexican forces had left for Tejeria by train during the afternoon. As they chugged out, Maass put out demolition parties to destroy the tracks behind them. From that time on, resistance in Veracruz came almost solely from the 'irregular elements of the streets. Veracruz was relatively quiet by 4:00 P.M services such as the cable office's were functioning. Since cable was a far more efficient means of communication than relay radio, Admiral Fletcher used it to send a succinct message to Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels:

23

INTERVENTION In face of approaching norther landed marines and sailors from Utah, Florida, Prairie and seized customs house. Mexican forces '.did not oppose landing but opened fire with rifle and artillery after our seizure of the custom house. Prairie shelling Mexicans out of their positions. Desultory firing from housetops and streets. Mayo reported critical conditions at Tampico and directed him to remain there with Connecticut, Dolphin, Des Moines, Solace, Cyclops. Ypiranga arrived Vera Cruz two p.m. anchored in outer harbor and notified he would not be allowed to leave port with munitions of war on board. Holding custom house and section of city in vicinity of wharves and Consulate. Casualties two p.m. four dead twenty wounded. In the early evening of that Tuesday, April 21, President Wilson sat down in the upstairs office of the White House with Secretaries Bryan, Daniels, and Garrison. Wilson feared trouble. A message had come in from Canada reporting that there had been firing around the Veracruz consulate, that the landing parties were now "simply defending themselves," and that Fletcher was contemplating bombardment of the city with his big naval guns. This starling chain of events was not the scenario that Wilson had expected when giving the order to land early that morning. John Lind had assured him that the Mexicans would never resist, and others had backed him up. Occupation of Veracruz, they had all insisted, would be simply a "gesture:" But during the meeting, Wilson learned

~ the worst. An aide entered and gave him a slip of paper: "At this time reported four of our men killed, twenty wounded." The next day, as Wilson faced the press, one reporter noticed "how preternaturally pale, almost parchmenty, Mr. Wilson looked when he stood up there and answered the questions of the newspapermen. The death of American sailors and marines owing to an order of his seemed to affect him like an ailment. He was positively shaken." When dusk fell on Veracruz the night of April 21, organized resistance to the American landing subsided. The Mexican regulars had left the city hours earlier, and nearly all the citizens who had turned out to repel the invaders had returned to their homes. But the electric system was out, and the streets were dark. Groups of drunken and noisy men disturbed the quiet. Some of the thugs who had been released from prison fired their weapons into the air; others looted the stores; some took occasional shots at each other. None, however, seriously molested the Americans. Fletcher's men took little heed of those disorders; they had much reorganizing to do after the day's fighting. The American dead and wounded had to be removed to the dock and then taken out to the aid station aboard the Prairie. Medical facilities were taxed by the unexpected number of wounded, so doctors from the British cruiser Essex and the Spanish, cruiser Carlos V volunteered their services, earning Fletcher's gratitude. The men on shore needed resupply. During the night, the Utah and the Florida kept their searchlights trained on the

24

The Landing at Veracruz waterfront to discourage any serious hostile action while whaleboats plied from ship to shore. Early in the morning of April 22, Admiral Charles T. Badger, with the battleships Arkansas, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, and New Jersey, arrived in the outer harbor of Veracruz. At 2:45 A.M, Admiral Fletcher boarded the Arkansas to explain the tactical situation to Badger in person. Badger approved of Fletcher's handling of the landing and decided to leave Fletcher in command of the operation ashore. He placed his own contingents of seamen and marines at Fletcher's disposal, and those landing parties, numbering about three thousand men, debarked at 4:00 A.M. Upon landing, they moved out to their preassigned sectors of the city. Sniper fire began as soon as they stepped ashore. Fletcher's forces had thus far taken only the waterfront and the railway yard, specific facilities located on the eastern and edges of Veracruz. Fletcher had planned to go no farther, but Mexican snipers located in the unoccupied areas of town persisted in shooting into his positions, endangering the lives of his men. Fletcher therefore decided to clear out every house in Veracruz. It was not a pleasant prospect-street fighting would inflict more casualties, both Mexican and American. But the decision was inevitable. Before resuming his attack, however, Fletcher asked William Canada one last time to find some Mexican authority with whom to negotiate terms of truce. Canada tried but was unable to do so. Fletcher therefore sent word to Rush at 8:00 A.M. “Advance at your discretion, and suppress this desultory firing, taking possession of the city and restore order, respecting as much as possible the hotels and other places where foreigners are lodged." Half an hour later, Rush informed Fletcher that the advance had begun. He asked that Mexican military positions in Veracruz be shelled by the American warships. Clearing out the entire city of Veracruz entailed searching every one of its houses. Possibly to keep the sailors closer to the shore-and possibly because the marines had experience in city fighting-Rush first employed the two seaman regiments to clear a narrow strip, the two blocks adjacent to the waterfront. Then the first and third provisional marine regiments, using the Avenida Independencia as a line of departure, attacked westward to clear the rest of the city. Local resistance turned out to be heavier than expected. Determined groups of Mexicans-some volunteer soldiers, some civilians- sniped from the flat-topped buildings. Neville's marines employed the techniques they had developed in such places as Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. They methodically hacked their way from house to house, blasting holes in successive walls to avoid the streets. After entering each building, they cleared out the top floor. Those were the same methods that the armies of Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott had employed

25

INTERVENTION

during the U.S. invasion of Mexico during the 1840s. The methods were effective; casualties among the marines were light. The men of the second seaman regiment were not so fortunate. Their commander, the handsome and much admired Captain E. A. Anderson, captain of the battleship New Hampshire, had never fought on land even though his career had spanned thirty-two years. Overconfident, Anderson refused to send out scouts when his regiment turned in to the gigantic flat area between the New Lighthouse and the edge of town. He also felt it unnecessary for his men to spread out into skirmish line. Suddenly, a heavy volley burst out from the Naval Academy building, four hundred yards away. Some forty Mexican naval cadets and citizens were shooting from behind barricades of mattresses and pillows that they had piled in the windows. Anderson's men could not pinpoint targets, and panic hit them. The bluejacket ranks temporarily disintegrated as the leading companies retreated headlong for safety. Anderson himself stood his ground with a few of his men around him. As soon as the first shots rang out from the Naval Academy, however, the three-inch, four-inch, and five-inch batteries of the Chester, Prairie, and San Francisco opened fire as one. Resistance in the Naval Academy ceased, and Captain Anderson was soon able to reorganize his companies and resume his march. Some fifteen Mexican naval cadets had been killed; among the mortally wounded was Lieutenant Jose Azueta, the son of the prominent Mexican naval officer Commodore Manuel Azueta. The younger Azueta, one of the student leaders, was immediately made a hero. He would be "extolled," in Canada's words, "in the same category as the Chapultepec cadets who fought against the Americans in 1847." Despite their determination to resist the Yankee invaders, the Mexicans in Veracruz were generally considerate of the American citizens who, remaining behind, had been caught in the crossfires of the streets. In the Hotel Diligences,. for example, the forty Americans, most of them women, were unharmed. These women voluntarily acted as nurses, caring for the Mexican wounded as they were dragged into the hotel. But casualties were heavier on that second day of fighting than they had been on the first. Eventually, the total came to 17 Americans killed and 63 wounded. A navy surgeon estimated the Mexican dead at 126 and the wounded at 195. '

26

The Landing at Veracruz The tragedy had its wryly amusing aspects. As the Medal of Honor had recently been authorized for issuance to officers as well as enlisted personnel, a total of fifty-five Medals of Honor were awarded, thirty-seven to officers and eighteen to enlisted men. All the members of the command team, from Fletcher, Anderson, and Rush to Major Smedley Butler, USMC, were awarded. None of the seventeen dead were included in the list of recipients. Butler later tried to return his medal but was given direct orders not only to keep it but to wear it. Lowell Thomas, Old gimlet Eye (New York, 19331,p. 180 By 11:00 A.M., April 22, Fletcher's force controlled the whole city of Veracruz. In Washington, President Wilson was shocked when he grasped what . a catastrophe the occupation of Veracruz had turned out to be. Wilson continued to feel his own role deeply, "1 cannot get it off my heart," he mused to his aide Joseph Tumulty. "It was right. Nothing else was possible, but I cannot forget that it was I who had to order these young men to their deaths." Secretary Bryan had more-immediate concerns. He quickly concluded that Admiral Fletcher had exceeded the bounds of international law by intercepting the Ypiranga and denying her captain permission to depart with her cargo. So Bryan scurried over to the German embassy to pay a call on the ambassador, Count Johann H. von Bernstorff. Fletcher's action, Bryan said, had been the result of a "misunderstanding." Fletcher, he promised, would be instructed to apologize to the ship's captain. The matter of the Ypiranga was thus set aside for the moment. But the military threat to U.S. forces in Veracruz was not yet over. Fletcher's brigade, not designed for sustained ground warfare, was at least perceived as being in a perilous situation, for General Maass, wrote a reporter in the New York Times, was concentrating a force of about sixteen thousand Mexican troops twenty miles west of Veracruz. Such a numerical superiority on the ground-about three to one-could make the brigade's very survival doubtful. Fletcher's force would be most vulnerable to night attack, when the big guns of 'the American battleships would be practically useless. The occupation of Veracruz was expected to last a while, and that required a larger ground force. Wilson's cabinet was alarmed. The president's strategists reportedly urged him to call up as many as 400,000 reservists. He was not prepared to go that far, but he did approve sending an army occupation force of about 5,200 men to Veracruz, prepared for a long stay. Some reservists were called up, and popular songs fanned the flames of excitement: Goodbye sister, goodbye sweetheart, Goodbye mother too;- Don't be grieving for I'm leaving Neath the dear old red, white and blue.-

27

INTERVENTION Hark! I hear the bugles calling, Kiss me, I must go; to my country I'll be true; Think of me, I'll think of you, I'm off for Mexico. ~

On the night of April 19, the commander of the U.S. Fifth Infantry Brigade, located at Houston, Texas, received a phone call from headquarters, Second U.S. Infantry Division, in Texas City. The Fifth Brigade was to march to nearby Galveston" prepared for action at Veracruz. Tentage and trains were to be left behind; 'five days' rations were to accompany all troops; and each regiment was to take only a skeleton allowance of twenty-two mules. By April 24, the brigade, under Brigadier General Frederick Funston, was on the high seas. Admiral Fletcher's task now was to tighten his hold on the city of Veracruz. To do so, he established strong outposts beyond the city limits to warn of any impending attack and to secure the water supply at EI Tejar. To get the city functioning normally, he first had to evacuate all wounded civilians to the local hospitals and to clear the streets of dead. That clearance proved to be no easy task; the heat and workload made it impossible to bury all the corpses. Many had to be burned, right under the gaze of the public. To restore normal living, Canada requested all citizens to carry on regular business. At the same time, Fletcher himself called upon all municipal officials to resume their duties. The American authorities, he promised, would not interfere with local administration-provided that peace and order prevailed. The response was mixed. The hotels and cafes opened immediately; the commercial houses, a little more slowly. The city officials, however, refused to remain at their posts. A draconian Mexican law of 1867, originally directed toward Mexicans who had served under the emperor Maximilian, was still in effect: it decreed severe punishment for any Mexican serving a foreign government. The local authorities would therefore have been afraid to cooperate with Fletcher, even had they desired to do so. That disappointment, plus the continuation of sporadic shooting, led Fletcher, on April 26, to issue a proclamation putting Veracruz under martial law. Martial law required that the U.S. flag be flown over any territory under military administration, and that provision now applied to Veracruz. At 2:09 P.M., April 27, therefore, Fletcher's naval brigade formally raised the American flag over the headquarters at Veracruz. The brigade paraded through the streets, the bands playing "The Star- Spangled Banner."

28

The Landing at Veracruz

Tragic and unnecessary though the occupation of Veracruz was, any raising of Old Glory touches the heart of its soldiers. As Colonel John A. LeJeune, USMC, later recalled, "there was scarcely a dry eye among the Americans who participated in it or witnessed it. President Huerta had declined to hoist and salute the American flag, but we had forcibly seized his principal maritime city and had ourselves wiped out the indignity which had been put upon our country

29

11 The Clouds of War

Shortly before midnight of Monday, April 27, 1914, the U.S. Army transports Kilpatrick, Meade, Sumner, and McClellan appeared outside the breakwaters at Veracruz. They were carrying the Fifth Infantry Brigade, commanded by Brigadier General Frederick Funston. The feisty, redheaded Funston-just five feet five inches tall had taken command of the brigade only four days earlier, as a result of the previous commander's poor health. The forty-nine-year-old Funston, a brigadier general for thirteen years, was considered to be the army's foremost field commander, just the man to cope with an uncertain situation in Veracruz. Funston was the youngest brigadier in the army, a remarkable fact considering that he had not even entered active service until the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, in 1898. At that time, he raised a regiment of Kansas volunteers and came in as a volunteer colonel, probably expecting to return to civilian life when the war was over. In the bloody Philippine Insurrection (1898-1901), Funston distinguished himself. In 190I, after the insurrection had dragged on for three years, Funston conceived, planned, and personally executed daring and difficult mission designed to capture General Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine insurgents. Funston's scheme succeeded, and he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was also commissioned as a brigadier general in the regular army, mentioned as a presidential candidate in 1904, and lauded by Theodore Roosevelt himself, at that time, Funston was thirty-six. On the morning after his arrival at Veracruz, Funston went ashore to confer with Admiral Frank Fletcher about the changeover of the command from the navy to the army. Most matters were easily disposed of, since Funston agreed to take over the tactical positions already occupied by Fletcher's men. And Funston accepted Fletcher's choice of an American civilian, Robert J. Kerr, for appointment as mayor of the city, since Funston preferred to retain only the title of Commander, U.S. Forces Ashore. On one matter, however, the two men disagreed. Since Funston's brigade strength came to only about four thousand officers and men, he needed to retain Colonel John A. LeJeune's marine regiment with his brigade. Fletcher saw the validity of Funston's request and agreed that LeJeune should stay. But Fletcher could not bear to give up titular command of LeJeune's regiment, and he insisted that LeJeune continue to report directly to him, aboard ship. Funston refused to accede to that arrangement, and

30

INTERVENTION the matter was soon settled in Washington, in Funston's favor. The disagreement caused no ill will. LeJeune was temporarily attached to Funston and reported to him just as he would have reported to Fletcher. Complete arrangements for the army's relief of the navy took three days, during which Funston's men waited aboard their crowded transports. On April 3D, the two commands formed up on the Veracruz waterfront to formalize the changeover from one branch of service to the other. The ceremony has been described as a "family affair," at which good will flowed freely. After the soldiers, sailors, and marines had passed in review, the cheering began. In the course of it, an army captain from the Twenty-eighth Infantry jumped up on a bench and led a cheer for the navy. The bluejackets responded with a cheer for the army. When the band played "Auld Lang Syne”, the few Mexican spectators mistook that solemn refrain for the American national anthem, so they stood up and removed their hats. And as the naval brigade marched to the fiscal wharf, some of the girls from the red-light district recognized old acquaintances. A few rushed out and threw their arms around the embarrassed bluejackets. All the witnesses had a good laugh. The ceremony was an auspicious beginning. Despite the exuberance in Veracruz, the political leaders in Washington were fretting. Wilson, Bryan, Daniels, and Garrison were becoming concerned about the long-range consequences of the Veracruz occupation. The United States had committed an act of war against Mexico-no doubt about that-but would a hill war actually result? And if it came, would the United States be able to count on support from any of the civil factions fighting among themselves in Mexico? To answer that knotty question, President Wilson needed to sound out the attitude of Venustiano Carranza once again. As early as the night of April 21, just after the landing, Secretary of State Bryan sent a message to George C. Carothers, the consul in Chihuahua, where Carranza was now located. Carothers was to approach Carranza and explain President Wilson's "position." Carothers finally secured an audience with Carranza and made the familiar point that the Veracruz landing was simply "American redress for a specific indignity perpetrated by Huerta." At the same time, he again emphasized the friendship that Americans felt for the Mexican people. Carranza refused to respond orally to Carothers's presentation. Instead, he composed a long written reply that called the U.S. invasion a violation of Mexican sovereignty that threatened to "drag [Mexico] into an unequal war." He demanded that the United States immediately evacuate Veracruz and submit all complaints regarding the Tampico incident to Carranza, not to Huerta. After the United States had complied with these conditions, he wrote, the First Chief would consider the matter "in a spirit of elevated justice and conciliation."

31

The Clouds of War

On the same day, however, the New York Times carried a message that Carranza had previously sent to his representative in Paris: "It must be perfectly understood that in no case will we make common cause with Huerta, whom we consider an usurper, traitor, and assassin.” Pancho Villa received the news of the landings while at Torreon; which he had recently recaptured. He had accepted an invitation from his old friend General Hugh Scott to meet on the border between EI Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Chihuahua. Villa recognized that he could use that conference to drive a wedge between Washington and Carranza. On the afternoon of Tuesday, April 22, Villa appeared in Juarez carrying in his baggage train a hundred woven wool rugs, which he intended as a gift for Scott. Before he met Scott, however, Villa met the press. "Mexico has trouble enough of her own," Villa declared expansively, "without seeking a war with a foreign country, especially the United States." Smiling broadly for the photographers, he threw his arm around the shoulder of a bewildered George Carothers and exclaimed, "Why, all the European powers would laugh at us if we went to war with you. They would say, 'that little drunkard Huerta has drawn them into a tangle at last.'’” Villa then invited Carothers to join him for dinner in a public place. Between mouthfuls, he exclaimed that the Americans could "keep Veracruz and hold it so tight that not even water could get in to Huerta!" He and his men wished "only the closest and most friendly relations with our neighbors to the north." Bryan and Wilson were delighted to receive this expression of approval from a powerful Mexican leader, whom they termed a "high minded and noble citizen of Mexico." Bryan wrote to Carothers and exulted that Villa showed "a comprehension of the whole situation that is greatly to his credit." The reaction of nearly all the other Latin American republics, however, resembled Carranza's, not Villa's. A series of anti-American demonstrations immediately broke out in Uruguay, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and elsewhere. Word arrived that anti-American rioting had erupted in Lower California, and the monitor USS Cheyenne was dispatched from San Diego to protect Americans in that region. In the United States, the bulk of the public reaction reflected dismay and a desire for peace. There were exceptions. A small group of Republican senators, led by Senator Lodge, attempted to push through Congress a bellicose resolution giving the president authority to intervene anywhere in Mexico. But most Americans agreed with Cyrus L. Sulzberger, a prominent businessman and Jewish leader, who asked, "Why must we back up the admiral? Who charged

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him with the responsibility of our international relations? The people of the United States elected Woodrow Wilson to attend to that job. . . . If the President must back up every admiral, there is no reason why we should not get into a war with every country having a seaport" Opinion in Europe generally followed that in Latin America. Londoners had always viewed Wilson's reaction to the Tampico incident as ridiculous, and the London Economist expressed the general sentiment: "If war is to be made on points of punctilio raised by admirals and generals, and if the Government of the United States is to set the example for this return to mediaeval conditions it will be a bad day for civilization. " Victoriano Huerta, of course, made the most of American discomfiture. He leaked word that he was preparing to demolish the railroad between Veracruz and Mexico City as a safeguard against invasion, and the world began to fear that the United States and Mexico were' at the brink of war. Newspapers in Mexico City reinforced that impression. "Federal bullets will no longer spill brothers' blood," the Independiente screamed, "but will perforate blond heads and white breasts swollen with vanity and cowardice." Huerta's "official" statement was a bit more ambiguous: "In the port of Vera Cruz we are sustaining with arms the national honor. The offense the Yankee government is committing against a free people . . . will pass into history-which will give to Mexico and to the government of the United States the place each merits." In the American embassy, in Mexico City, Edith O'Shaughnessy was distraught. Since Huerta was breaking relations with the United States, she and her husband, Nelson, would have to leave. She was also frightened by the strident reaction of the Mexican press. In the late afternoon of April 22, Edith O'Shaughnessy went down the stairway to her private drawing room, there to receive the streams of visitors coming to pay their sad farewells. After the guests had departed, Edith sat down alone with the German minister, Admiral Paul von Hintze, conjecturing on what would happen next. A detachment of Mexican soldiers came to the door of the embassy and demanded entry; let in by Edith O'Shaughnessy, they quickly removed 250 rifles, two machine guns, and 85,000 rounds of ammunition from the basement. Then, at about 7:30 P.M, a Mexican officer appeared and announced that President Huerta was coming for a visit. Von Hintze quickly disappeared, and Edith O'Shaughnessy went down to the front door.

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The Clouds of War Huerta was dressed informally, in a gray sweater and soft hat, not in his usual top hat. After he had climbed the steps to the geranium-scented veranda, Edith O'Shaughnessy invited him to sit in the drawing room. Following some awkward chitchat, Huerta got around to the reason for his visit. He hoped that the O’Shaughnessy would, despite their imminent departure, honor their long-standing invitation to attend the wedding of his son Victor the next day. Edith O'Shaughnessy readily agreed. She told herself that acceptance was "expedient," but she wished to make one last gesture of friendship. Nelson O'Shaughnessy soon returned home, and when told of Huerta's removing all the arms from the basement, he was furious. Huerta, however, paid no attention to his protests. He did, however, offer to send the departing couple to Veracruz the next evening aboard his personal train, with a full escort, including three officers of high rank. "I would go myself," he said, "but I cannot leave. I hope to send my son in my place. . . ." As the three stood together for the last time, Huerta spoke quietly: "1 hold no rancor toward the American people, nor toward su Excelencia el Senor Presidente Wilson." After a pause, he added, "He has not understood." The next evening, April 23, Nelson and Edith O'Shaughnessy were escorted with honors to Huerta's special train. Besides the charge and his wife, the train was carrying 150 prominent foreign refugees. Huerta's nephew accompanied the O'Shaughnessys to the train, and his chief of staff commanded the honor guard. Huerta's kindly feelings toward Nelson and Edith seemed truly unaffected by events in Veracruz. But regardless of his affection for the O'Shaughnessys, Huerta had no intention of continuing diplomatic relations with the United States. From then on, Brazil would represent U.S. interests in Mexico City. In response, President Wilson reinstituted the arms embargo against all parties in Mexico, apparently unaware that the embargo would affect only Carranza and Villa. The arms ban against Huerta, after all, was what the Veracruz landing was all about. On the international scene, the United States now stood alone, castigated on all sides for occupying the major seaport of a sovereign nation. In Spanish- speaking America, the feelings against the United States were bitter; in many places, Americans found it unsafe to walk the streets. To make matters worse, the Veracruz landing had so far failed in its obvious purpose--to topple Huerta- and no success was in sight. The episode appeared from all sides to be Yankee imperialism in its baldest form-and futile at that!

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INTERVENTION American diplomats were working behind the scenes, however, and on Saturday, April 25, their efforts bore fruit. The ambassadors from the three most powerful nations in Latin America-Argentina, Brazil, and Chile-called at the State Department with a request to see Secretary Bryan. The "ABC representatives," as they were soon called, offered to mediate the differences between the United States and Mexico. Bryan accepted the offer with alacrity, and Wilson, writing through Bryan, quickly confirmed the acceptance. Wilson expressed his relief in a letter to a friend: "1 am hoping (I must admit a little against hope) for the best results of the mediation. We have been in a blind alley so long that I am longing for an exit." To ensure congressional support for submitting to the mediation of the ABC countries, the president invited the usual four leaders of Congress to confer with him the same day that the offer was accepted. Senator Lodge approved in general but asked if the scope of the mediation was limited only to the Tampico incident and the occupation of Veracruz. "Certainly not!" the president answered. His note, he said, meant "settlement by general pacification of Mexico." That answer satisfied Lodge, but such a broad interpretation of the items to be settled spelled trouble ahead. News of the proposed ABC mediation electrified the world, especially Latin America. This show of respect for the three Latin American countries caused a complete turnaround of attitudes in that region. Now an American in a South American city wrote, "The transformation was amazing; American flags were run up; the United States was cheered." He himself had been "seized and carried on the shoulders of a yelling, rejoicing mob, which had been ready to tear him in pieces a moment before." In Mexico City, the regime of Victoriano Huerta had never been recognized by the ABC powers, so he saw no reason to give them any credence in mediating a dispute between Mexico and the United States. He finally accepted the mediation offer, though reportedly only under pressure from the British minister. But since President Wilson's concept of the meeting's agenda included a broad range of topics, including the fighting in Mexico, Wilson felt compelled to include First Chief Venustiano Carranza among the invitees. Carranza responded even more negatively than Huerta. He would never, he announced, agree to an armistice with Huerta. The Constitutionalists would send a representative to the ABC conference but only to discuss the differences between the United States and Huerta. The internal situation in Mexico was none of the United State’s concern.

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The Clouds of War

*The ABC mediators and the two U.S. representatives. met at Niagara Falls, Canada, on May 20, 1914. From the outset, the conference encountered predictable difficulties in defining its scope. The ABC mediators, like Carranza, sought only to fashion enough of a compromise between the United States and Mexico to avoid a war. Still, Wilson remained adamant in calling for a discussion of the broader aims he had in mind. "No settlement," the president wrote, "could have any prospect of. . . proving acceptable to public opinion in the United States" that did not provide for the "entire elimination of General Huerta" and the setting up of a provisional government acceptable to all parties. President Wilson's fixation on removing Huerta from power appears to have been the result of a peevish personal vendetta, motivated by resentment at Huerta's refusal to obey his dictates. That factor probably entered in, but Wilson also held strong convictions, which he revealed candidly in an interview with Samuel G. Blythe, from the Saturday Evening Post. When they met on the second floor of the White House, Blythe found Wilson elated; Huerta had just accepted the ABC mediation. When they sat down, the President defined his "ideal" as "an orderly and righteous government in Mexico." His passion, however, was "for the submerged 85 per cent of the people of the Republic who are now struggling for liberty." Then, hitting the desk with a clenched fist, Wilson went on: I challenge you to cite me an instance in all history where liberty was handed down from above. Liberty always is attained by the forces working below, underneath, by the great movements of the people. Every demand for the establishment of order in Mexico takes into consideration, not order for the benefit of the people of Mexico, the great mass of the population, but order for the benefit of the old-time regime, for the aristocrats, for the vested interests. *.Associate Supreme Court Justice Joseph Rucker Lamar and Frederick W. Lehmann, former solicitor general, represented the United States. The ABC representatives were Ramon S. Naon, of Argentina, D. da Cama, of Brazil, and Eduardo Suarez Mujica, of Chile.

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INTERVENTION The aristocrats wanted order, the old order, Wilson concluded, "but I say to you that the old order is dead." His mission, as he saw it, was "to aid in composing those differences so far as I may be able, that the new order, which will have its foundation on human liberty and human rights, shall prevail." Unfortunately, Wilson overestimated the willingness of Latin Americans to follow his guidance. Even if his egalitarian objectives had been shared by the Latin American leaders-and they were nothing high-handed methods would have defeated him anyway. Apparently oblivious to the attitudes of the ABC representatives, he informed his representatives at Niagara Falls that he would have nothing to do with any sort of "provisional authority [in Mexico] which would be neutral [between Huerta and Carranza]." A new government must conform to Wilson's views. That meant the unconditional replacement of Huerta as president. Wilson assumed that a Constitutionalist victory over Huerta was inevitable. His main concern, he wrote through Bryan, was that the transfer of power be effected with minimum bloodshed. President Wilson was undoubtedly correct in thinking that Huerta was on the way out. But his hope that Huerta's removal would bring peace to Mexico failed to take into account the rift widening between Carranza and Villa. Wilson still assumed that Carranza and Villa were parts of a single Constitutionalist movement. It soon became apparent that Carranza did not appreciate Wilson's helpfulness, even though the president was backing Carranza's own cause. Carranza remained as adamant as Huerta in condemning the U.S. occupation of Veracruz. And as to arranging for a free election in Mexico, Carranza would never "be made a party to proceedings which place the election of a President of Mexico in the hands of the Washington government." He "would not accept as a gift anything which the Mediators would give, even though it was what [the Constitutionalists] were otherwise seeking. . . ." No provisional president appointed by the mediators would be satisfactory, "even if it was Carranza himself." Consequently, the ABC mediation at Niagara Falls failed. A month's haggling produced nothing more than an innocuous agreement, reached in late June. It called for a provisional government "constituted by agreement of all parties involved in the civil war." Such a government, whatever its nature, was to be recognized by the United States "as soon as constituted." Huerta was not mentioned by name, nor was the incident at Tampico. All the concessions in the agreement were made by the United States. There the political impasse stood as June came to an end. The Americans had by then occupied Veracruz for over two months.

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The Clouds of War

At Veracruz, General Frederick Funston felt restless and frustrated. He had just received a pointed order from the secretary of war forbidding him from pushing inland toward Mexico City. He was to remain in the positions he had inherited from the navy. Such passivity was contrary to Funston's nature and to his previous understanding. He had come to Veracruz expecting to fight, to advance on Mexico City as soon as he had whipped his reinforced brigade into readiness. He had assumed that war would be declared and that he would be the commander of an invasion force. Funston set about to do battle with his superiors in Washington. He began a campaign to spread alarm in Washington. On May 2, he reported the existence of a threat, which turned out to be groundless, against the American pumping station at El Tejar. The next day, he passed on an unconfirmed report that five trains, loaded with an estimated eight thousand troops and numerous field guns, had been seen at Puebla on April 30. Funston combined these reports and deduced from them that a serious threat faced his command: "If [the Mexicans] contemplate breaking [the] truce and taking the offensive, there will be some interesting times here." He had seven thousand men, but they were strung out in a long line of outposts. Funston advised that Admiral Fletcher had agreed to help him in case of attack, but Fletcher's providing a garrison for the city-which is what he promised-would take time. Funston did not anticipate the need for such a move. Funston also protested recent orders that prohibited him from sending combat reconnaissance units out to find any Mexican forces near him. "If a disaster should result," he warned, "I must not be held responsible." The Mexicans, he explained, are "a people practically devoid of any sense of honor or fair dealing and who are smarting over their recent humiliation here. Four days after sending his messages of alarm, Funston truly showed his hand. He had previously couched his desires to move inland in terms of maintaining his present position, but now he urged outright action: "Have just been informed [that] foreigners and citizens in Mexico City will unite in request that US troops occupy city to prevent massacre and pillage by Zapata. . . . Under such conditions [we] can go through in a day or two. . . . Merely give the order and leave the rest to us."

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Actually, Funston was far from alone in advocating an advance on Mexico City. With him were Secretary of War Lindley M. Garrison, most of the American newspapers, many members of the Republican party, the Americans living in Mexico, and even the British government, for which the impact of the Benton killing was still fresh. One American offered some prescient advice to the adjutant general regarding the potential of air power:

Bokchito Drug Co Drugs,Chemicals, Patent Medicines .

Drugs Bokchito, Okla.

April 24, 1914 Dear Sir-In case of invasion of Mexico by the United States, it looks like it would be easy to drive the Mexicans from their impregnable positions by means of bombs and torpedoes from Air Ships. Yours Patriotic

J. O. Jack The most aggressive of the saber rattlers were the members of the American press who had converged on Veracruz expecting action. Among them were two adventurers, Jack London and William Harding Davis. London seemed interested in enjoying the visit-he even brought his wife. He therefore wrote patriotic but relatively factual articles. Davis, on the other hand, appeared intent on promoting hostilities for his own ends. Always one to picture American fighting men as sun- crowned heroes, Davis let his imagination run wild in describing how Mexicans must have viewed the invading American warriors: "Except in bronze on their monuments the [MexicansI had never seen such supermen of such heroic aspect. . . . This morning they could have marched not only from the wharf to the plaza, but from the harbor to Mexico City." Heroic words indeed, but written more than a week after the Veracruz invasion and by a man who had not been there. Davis did more than write sensational articles; his impatience caused Funston real difficulties. He once took off from Veracruz for Mexico City, reaching a place called Paso del Macho. There he and his companions were arrested and taken to General Maass, who amazingly allowed them to continue on. Davis was arrested once more in Mexico City, his life saved only by the intercession of the correspondent for the London Times. General Funston was not amused. As the days dragged on, both the troops and the correspondents in Veracruz came to realize they were not going anywhere soon despite Funston's messages to Washington. The Americans now concentrated on administering the city, which meant cleaning it up enough to permit safe habitation by Americans and other foreigners.

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The Clouds of War Even here Funston had his problems with Washington. Only one day after assuming command from Admiral Fletcher, the general received a message from Secretary Garrison advising that Robert Kerr, the man Funston and Fletcher had appointed mayor of Veracruz, was unacceptable to serve in that capacity. Kerr, it turned out, was an active Republican and a vociferous critic of Wilson's foreign policy. Funston fumed. Politics had nothing to do with the situation in Veracruz, he protested. He was merely "trying to secure the services of the best and most qualified Americans in Mexico," with about as much "regard for a man's politics as . . . about the color of his hair." He extolled the patriotism of the Americans willing to take civil positions in Veracruz. Funston's protests were to no avail. Secretary Garrison directed that Funston himself administer Veracruz, so on May 2 Funston assumed the title "Military Governor of Vera Cruz. Funston's functions as military governor included the collection of customs and taxes, and the maintenance of order. However, the need for establishing an acceptable system of sanitation was the most urgent matter on Funston's agenda. The name "Veracruz" had long been synonymous with filth and disease. The yellow fever season, which began in April every year, had made service at Veracruz more dangerous for American soldiers in the war with Mexico (1847-48) than had frontline duty with Winfield Scott's army. Funston went about rectifying the public health situation as if he were attacking an enemy position. Instituting a sanitation system in Veracruz was an uphill battle, made harder because the people themselves had always accepted their high mortality from disease as something foreordained. One sign of their apathy was the condition of the New Market, where food for the city was brought in from the countryside to be sold. Since its construction some four years earlier, the New Market had never been cleaned. The urinals were used as repositories for cigarette butts and other trash. Animals wandered through the open markets at will. Food on display often attracted a thick black coat of flies. The tiled floors were cracked and barely visible beneath "a festering meringue of dried blood, fish scales, chicken feathers, entrails, putrid produce, and excrement." The odor was so strong that "it was almost unbearable for a white person to remain in the vicinity." All that had to be cleaned up. Veneral disease also needed to be controlled. Funston did not try to forbid prostitution, but he had it strictly supervised. Mexican prostitutes were frequently examined; foreign prostitutes were deported. The problem of the prostitutes, however, defied complete solution. In one case, a thirteen-year-old Mexican girl had run away from her home in nearby Orizaba to see the American army when it arrived in Veracruz. Described as "innocent and unsophisticated," she soon fell into prostitution to avoid starvation. She was treated twice for gonorrhea and

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twice for fever in the Women's Hospital. Finally, the American authorities arrested her and sent her home to Orizaba, but not before she was discovered to have syphilis and to be three months pregnant. Her case was dramatic enough to prompt the American authorities to ship other young, unattached women out of Veracruz before it was too late. Funston's sanitary procedures were remarkably successful. The death rate from disease among the Mexicans dropped by 25 percent from that of the previous three months, even though the yellow fever season was just beginning. Yet Funston’s reforms did not make a permanent impression on the Veracruz population. After the departure of the American troops, the relieved citizens reverted to their old ways as if the Yankees and their regulations had never been there. By and large the physical condition of the soldiers and marines in Veracruz remained good. Their health records, in fact, were even better than those for a corresponding command in the United States. But boredom and the summer heat combined to sap morale. Some men tried to break the routine by sneaking through the lines, some even headed for Mexico City. On May 10, Funston arrested a lieutenant for going to Mexico City without authority. And on June 20 a marine private escaped from a psychiatric ward and left camp with a rifle and ammunition. The most bizarre and macabre case, however, was that of Private Samuel Parks, Twenty eighth Infantry, who stole two valuable horses and rode into Mexican lines on the night of May 6. Witnesses later reported having seen the horses, but stories came in that Parks had been executed near General Maass’s headquarters at Tejeria. Much later, the Associated Press representatives in Mexico City sent Funston Park’s identification tag which had been found with his “bloodstained clothing”. Parks had been executed as a spy on May 7 by the local Mexican commander at Tejeria. Funston requested the War Department to pressure the Mexicans to court-martial the officer for the action, but obtained no satisfaction. In the last days of the American occupation, Funston received a few charred bones, supposedly those of the unfortunate soldiers. Parks had been cremated.

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The Clouds of War The bored fighting men of Veracruz were always hoping for some change in their situation. If they were to see no combat action, perhaps Huerta would be killed or deposed, so the Americans could go home. That hope was encouraged by an increasing number of reports that one of the rebel leaders, either Zapata or Villa, would soon take Mexico City. Villa apparently expected to do so, he promised his men four days of looting when they took the city. General Funston affirmed his men’s hopes. The fall of Huerta Funston advised Washington, was close at hand.