The United States involvement in the Mexican Revolution was varied and seemingly contradictory, first supporting and then repudiating Mexican regimes during the period of 1910–1920.Friedrich Katz, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1981, p. 563. For both economic and political reasons, the U.S. government generally supported those who occupied the seats of power, but could withhold official recognition. The U.S. supported the regime of Mexican President Porfirio Díaz (1876–1880; 1884–1911) after initially withholding recognition since he came to power by coup. In 1909, Díaz and U.S. President William Howard Taft met in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Prior to the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson on March 4, 1913, the U.S. government focused on just warning the Mexican military that decisive action from the U.S. military would take place if the lives and the property of U.S. nationals living in the country were endangered. President Taft sent more troops to the U.S.-Mexico border but did not allow them to intervene directly in the conflict, a move which Congress opposed. Twice during the Revolution, the U.S. sent troops into Mexico, to occupy Veracruz in 1914 and to northern Mexico in 1916 in a failed attempt to capture Pancho Villa. U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America was to assume the region was the sphere of influence of the U.S., articulated in the Monroe Doctrine. However, the U.S. role in the Mexican Revolution has been exaggerated. It did not directly intervene in the Mexican Revolution in a sustained manner.Knight, Alan. "The U.S. and the Mexican Peasantry, c. 1880–1940" in Daniel Nugent, ed. Rural Revolt in Mexico and U.S. Intervention. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego 1988, p. 31.
During Díaz's long rule, he implemented policies aimed at modernization and economic development, inviting foreign entrepreneurs to invest in Mexico. The regime passed laws favorable to investors. American business interests invested large amounts of capital, particularly along the U.S.-Mexico border, during the decades of Díaz's rule. There was close economic cooperation between the two governments, which was predicated on Diaz's cooperation with U.S. investors. In 1908, Díaz stated he would not run for re-election in 1910; the statement gave rise to politicking of potential candidates. Díaz reversed himself, ran for re-election, and jailed the leading opposition candidate, Francisco I. Madero. Madero escaped Mexico and took refuge in San Antonio, Texas, and called for nullification of the 1910 elections, declared himself as provisional president, and asked for support from the Mexican people. His Plan of San Luis Potosí sparked revolutionary uprisings, particularly in Mexico's north. The U.S. stayed out of the unfolding events until March 6, 1911, when President Taft mobilized forces on the U.S.-Mexico border. "In effect this was an intervention in Mexican politics, and to Mexicans it meant the United States had condemned Díaz."Womack, John. "The Mexican Revolution" in Mexico Since Independence, ed. Leslie Bethell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991, p. 131.
After Díaz was forced to resign in 1911 and Francisco I. Madero was elected president in October 1911, President Taft was a lame duck, having lost the presidential election of 1912. Until the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson in March 1913, Taft's Ambassador to Mexico, Henry Lane Wilson actively sought to oust democratically elected Mexican president Madero. Lane Wilson was initially sympathetic to the Madero regime, but quickly came into conflict with it and conspired with General Victoriano Huerta to oust Madero. The anti-Madero coup took place in February 1913, known as the Ten Tragic Days, which saw the forced resignations of Madero and his vice president, followed immediately by their murders. Under President Woodrow Wilson, the United States government refused to recognize Huerta's government.
President Wilson sent troops to occupy Veracruz, with the dispute defused through a peace conference in Canada. Anti-Huerta forces in the north under Venustiano Carranza and in the south under Emiliano Zapata forced the resignation of Huerta in July 1914. A civil war between Carranza and Zapata broke out in 1915, with the U.S. recognizing Carranza's Constitutionalist faction. The U.S. supplied arms to Carranza's army. Pancho Villa was at first supported by Washington, but he was defeated and lost most of his support. He was angered by the U.S. switch to recognition of his rival. To draw the U.S. into Mexico he attacked the border village of Columbus, New Mexico, killing U.S. citizens in 1916. The U.S. Army under Gen. John J. Pershing pursued him in a punitive mission, known as the Pancho Villa Expedition, but failed to capture him. Carranza demanded the U.S. to withdraw across the border.
Diplomatic relations in the Díaz era
Díaz opened Mexico to foreign investment of Britain, France, Germany, and most especially the United States. Mexico–United States relations during Díaz's presidency were generally strong, although he began to strengthen ties with Great Britain, Germany, and France to offset U.S. power and influence.Katz, The Secret War in Mexico. Mexico was extremely important to U.S. business interests and Taft saw Díaz as key to protecting those investments. Taft met Díaz in person on the U.S.-Mexico border in 1909, an historic event in itself since it was the first trip of a sitting U.S. president to Mexico. It was a way for the U.S. to signal its continuing support of Díaz, despite his advancing age. Taft said: "we have two billions American capital in Mexico that will be greatly endangered if Díaz were to die and his government go to pieces."Schoultz, Beneath the United States, p. 238.
Despite the importance of Mexico to U.S. business interests, the U.S. had "a history of incompetent diplomatic representation." According to one scholar, the Taft administration's appointment of Henry Lane Wilson as ambassador "continued the tradition of incompetence."
During the presidency of Porfirio Díaz, documents from the U.S. Consulate in Mexico kept the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C. informed about Mexican affairs. The Secretary of State told President Taft about possible regime change when Díaz was unable to control rebellions in various areas of Mexico. Taft wanted to keep the Díaz government in power to prevent problems with U.S. access to Mexican resources, especially oil.
The U.S. and President Madero, 1911–1913
President Taft's Ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson was a key player in the overthrow of the President of Mexico, Francisco I. Madero. From the start of Madero's presidency, Ambassador Wilson was opposed to Madero and actively sought U.S. intervention in Mexico. Wilson controlled information and disinformation that he sent to the U.S. Department of State, so that the government did not have a clear understanding of the situation. Wilson stirred up trouble in the capital by feeding disinformation to local newspapers, and then when Madero reacted by censoring them, they played the victim of an unreasonable president. Madero came to office by a free and fair election after revolutionary forces made then President Porfirio Díaz's position untenable. A treaty was signed between rebels and representatives of Díaz in May 1911. Its provisions were that Díaz resign and go into exile, an interim government installed, and new elections called for November 1911. Madero acted against advice of his rebel supporters and dissolved their forces. He retained the Federal Army, which had just been defeated.
Madero was only in office a month when General Bernardo Reyes, a close advisor to President Díaz but then dropped from patronage, rebelled. Reyes had been across the U.S. border in Texas, came to Mexico calling on the people to rise against Madero. His rebellion was a complete failure. Madero had just been elected with a huge popular vote. For the moment the U.S. was optimistic that Madero's regime should be supported. Reyes bowed to the evidence that his rebellion was a failure and was arrested and imprisoned.Katz, Friedrich, The Secret War in Mexico, 44-45
Once office, Madero did not fulfill promises of his Plan of San Luis Potosí concerning land reform, resulting in a peasant rebellion in Morelos led by Emiliano Zapata, a former rebel supporter. For the U.S., this rebellion had little importance, since there were not U.S. investments there, but Madero's seeming inability to put down the rebellion cast doubt on his leadership.
A serious insurrection against Madero was led by Pascual Orozco, who had helped achieve victory for rebels in the north. Orozco was disappointed that he was marginalized once Madero was installed in the presidency and did not move on land reform. He rebelled in the north and posed a greater challenge to Madero. His rebellion was financed by large U.S. businesses as well as Mexicans seeking to destabilized Madero's regime, but the U.S. government seems to have aided or impeded Orozco's uprising. It was suppressed by the Mexican Federal Katz, The Secret War, 45.
General Félix Díaz had not gone into exile wíth his uncle Porfirio's family, but launched a rebellion in October 1912, with some support by the U.S. government. He appealed to all those who sought a return to the order and progress. Díaz had the magic family name, but he lacked the military or political skill of his uncle Porfirio. A leading U.S. businessman in Mexico wrote a recommendation for Félix Díaz to Leonard Wood, who served with Theodore Roosevelt as a Rough Rider in Cuba, and was now the head of the U.S. Army General Staff: "[Félix] Díaz can be Mexico's 'man on a white horse' if the U.S. helps him come to power. With the moral support of the U.S. he would be able to change the situation in Mexico in such a way that an [U.S.] intervention will not be necessary."quoted in Katz, The Secret War in Mexico, 49 Although if there were a reply to this recommendation, it is not currently extant. But the U.S. did send ships to the Gulf Coast at the time of Díaz's rebellion in Veracruz in October 1912. The German Ambassador Hintze reported that "With the outbreak of the Díaz revolution in Veracruz, the American embassary, without any notification of other missions, officially informed the Mexican government the that American government would opposed bombardment of Veracruz by government troops."quoted in Katz, The Secret War in Mexico, 49. Despite explicit U.S. support, Díaz's rebellion was a dismal failure. He was arrested and imprisoned. The U.S. continued to view him as the best option for the replacement of Madero, a course on which it was now set.