A Hundred Years to Come - The Fall and Rise of Mexico

Dorozhand

Banned
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Jose Antonio de Zapata did not know that one day he would be the hero of songs and poetry.

He did not know that on his shoulders lay the future of Mexico's survival as a nation.

All he knew was that the Republic of the Rio Grande needed him to defend the town of Saltillo from the Imperial army which was marching his way.

During the previous days he had implemented a plan. He fortified the city to make it look like the bulk of his forces were holed up within, and had several hundred of his best infantry create a small battle line in the pass south of the city.

This would lure the proud but foolish attacking general Francisco Garcia into a frontal charge, which would be surrounded and attacked from the rear by Zapata's cavalry, positioned in the hills surrounding the pass. Garcia would probably bring his artillery into the pass in preparation for a siege, which if captured would be a great asset to his forces.

In the orange light of the waning day, and the cool breeze of Zacatzontli coming forth from the wide and sapphire sky, Zapata reminisced on the last few years, and of the success of the uprisings in the north against the traitor Santa Anna. He also remembered the brutality with which conservative forces had crushed the Zacatecas and Durango rebellions, and the sad turning of the liberal tide that had furiously swept across Mexico since independence. His allegiance to the Republic of the Rio Grande, the last great holdout of revolution, was a final and desperate hope.

Zapata turned to his cavalrymen as they camped in a narrow valley, with the light of the setting sun over the mountains to his back, and spoke with grave but steadfast tone the words which are inscribed for immortal glory on his tomb:

"To outlive defeat on this field would be to live under the rule of a traitor and a tyrant. If the day is to be theirs, then I will fall as gladly as I would be victorious"

The sound of bugles in the pass drew his gaze to the setting sun, the signal alerted them to the forces which were now in sight on the southwards road. Men mounted their horses with speed and proceeded to positions near the mouth of the valley, just behind the right flank of their infantry line.

Now, the plan was about to be put in motion as the Imperials marched northwards into the pass.
As expected, Garcia brought up his infantry line and, seeing the few hundred thinly spread defenders, ordered a mass bayonet charge. The lines met, and briefly engaged, after which the defenders turned and ran in a false retreat. They were faster, and easily outran the Imperial infantry, and Garcia charged after them along with his men.

They did not see, on the far side of the next row of craggy hills, the cavalry of Zapata, patiently waiting for the right moment. And when the hoofbeats echoed on the desert sand, and the defending infantry suddenly turned to fire, they were trapped.

Garcia's horse took a Rio Grande bullet to the skull, and tumbled to the ground along with its rider, while the front row of his army fell to a volley, and the rear was cut down by the cavalry. The panicked men saw the opening on their right flank, and flew to escape.

Of the 1500 men Garcia had commanded into the valley of Saltillo, only 75 managed to return to bring the news to Emperor Antonio. In a show of mercy against those who had none for him, the 300 men who were captured were given a choice between joining the Rio Grande Army or death. Most chose the former.

From the battle Zapata gained three things. 230 new men, captured rifles and cannon, and an important victory for the Republic, which garnered more support from the constituent states and a great boost of morale.


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Dorozhand

Banned
The Republic of the Rio Grande

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After the reorganization of Mexico into a centralist dictatorial regime, discontent was rampant, but when Antonio de Santa Anna declared himself Emperor, things got even worse. Within months of his coronation, the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Tabasco, Yucatan, Jalisco, and Texas had declared independence. Many of these rebellions were crushed quite decisively, but one of them was not.
The states of Tamaulpias, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, and Texas, as well as the Territory of Nuevo Mexico, had united in 1838 as the Republic of the Rio Grande. Which became a federation in rivalry to Mexico City itself, and attracted to its armies defeated rebels and refugees from around the country.

The turning point came when General Jose Antonio de Zapata defeated a larger Imperialist force under the command of Francisco Garcia at the Battle of Saltillo. The Rio Grande victory in this engagement was a disastrous blow to Santa Anna's regime, and rebellion flared up even stronger, and in areas that were previously pacified. The Republic of Sonora, the Republic of California, the Republic of the Yucatan, and the Republic of Tabasco were all declared and set up independent governments. Chihuahua and Durango joined the Republic of the Rio Grande.

After this series of events, President Manuel María de Llano met with various generals and officials from the states in Saltillo. There, he presented the "Plan of Saltillo", the idea that, instead of persuing an indpendent nation, the Rio Grande Republic could take initiative from its position, and make a bid to reunify all of Mexico under the 1824 Constitution. This was met with enthusiastic support from most participants, and in February of 1840 general Zapata and the Army of the Rio Grande, now 4000 strong, was sent soutwards to San Luis Potosi to defeat the Imperial Army led by Santa Anna himself, while another army of about 1500 under the command of Antonio Canales Rosillo was sent to Sinaloa to link with the Sonorans.


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Dorozhand

Banned
Two questions:

What's the PoD?

How far are you going with this?

The PoD is that Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna decides to declare himself Emperor of Mexico after the enactment of the Siete Leyes. This exacerbates all the existing rebellions in Mexico.
Some of these rebellions are crushed after ruthless shows of force, but the Republic of the Rio Grande (which was founded earlier than OTL and is slightly different in character and origin) which contains the states of Coahuila, Texas, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas, continues to resist.
General Jose Antonio de Zapata is tasked with defeating an Imperial force heading northwards on a campaign to reconquer Rio Grande and Texas. He wins a spectacular victory, and breathes new life into the rebellions, which flare up all over again.

I think I might continue this for a while, I have a plan for the next couple decades.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
Ernesto Abarca Vasquez stood in the doorway of the governor's hall in Culiacan, Sinaloa. The black-white-black tricolour of the Republic of Sonora fluttering in the breeze on the pole above his head. He was an important servant of the republic, for he was tasked with administrative duties and garrison command in the city.

The people of Sinaloa were rather resentful of a Sonoran being in power over their administration, and more so at the refusal of Sonora to change its name to include Sinaloa. However, Vasquez was certain that their hatred of the Santaanista Imperialist oppressors was more than any sectional feelings. After all, how could Sinaloa stand up against the army of all Mexico without Sonora's help? His army of volunteers was currently underwhelming, but that could soon, he figured, be rectified by a morale-boosting victory in the south.

Ernesto's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of hoofbeats on the distant road.

"Who could this be?" he said to himself, "that rides so hastily and endangers passers-by?"

The rider stopped at the square, both man and horse seemingly exhausted. Ernesto saw that he wore the uniform of a Sonoran soldier, and wondered what news he might bring. The man dismounted and walked to the entrence of the hall, pulling from his tattered uniform a blood-stained piece of paper.

What Ernesto read on that paper horrified him. The Imperialists had soundly defeated the Sonoran Army and had taken the town of Chapala, and were now marching on Culiacan. The battle had been turned after a column of Sinaloans switched allegiances and attacked the Sonoran rear.

His face turned from horror to fury. The Sinaloans had betrayed the republic, and now deserved nothing but contempt. Vasquez would leave the city for the Imperialists to conquer. He hoped they would burn it to the ground.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
The Republic of Sonora

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After the disastrous enactment of the Siete Leyes and the coronation of Emperor Antonio, several states of Mexico seceded to form their own independent republics. One of these was Sonora, which was declared in 1838. The Sonoran Army, upon defeat of local loyalist garrisons, marched southwards into Sinaloa and siezed power from the local assemblies which had formed in the vacuum of the Imperialist retreat. The leader of the Republic, Juan Felix Morales Espinoza, became increasingly autocratic in his rule and the governing council was made mostly of corrupt landowners who were keen on maintaining their power and interest while fighting against the centralism that also undermined it.

The imposition of Sonoran authority, specifically the taxation without representation of the Sinaloan people was met with resentment, and, realizing that secession of any Republic of Sinaloa would mean only defeat by one or the other faction, many began to regard the Empire as an all-in-all better state of affairs than the republic. As they say, the faraway lord is better than the lord close to home.

Sinaloan deserters began to fill the ranks of an Imperialist army sent to reconquer Sonora, and after governor Ernesto Abarca Vasquez abandoned the city of Culiacan, the Imperialists took most of the region in short order. However, when General Zapata of the Republic of the Rio Grande defeated the Imperialists at the Battle of Saltillo in 1839, advancing southwards with a large army, Imperial General Manuel Luis Elizondo Dominguez, who for his scorched earth tactics would earn the epithet "The Great Butcher" decided to retreat from Sinaloa to link with Santa Anna in San Luis Potosi. His forces burned and looted the town, killing over 5,000 civilians and burning many acres of farmland in what would be known as the "Culiacan Massacre".

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Dorozhand

Banned
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A soldier of Tabasco was Benito Garza Fuentes, who stood behind a great cannon near the beach of a blue lagoon. The heat in the air was searing, made all the worse by the great clouds of smoke generated by the firing of the guns. A farmer's son, though, was no stranger to sweat and toil.

Fuentes had left his home to volunteer in the army of the Republic. His hands were tired of the hoe, his soul was tired of the familiar, and his pocketbook was tired of being emptied by the taxmen to pay for Emperor Antonio's newest statue of himself. Chosen to join the artillery brigade, he had been trained for a week before being marched hastily with a contingent of 700 men into the Yucatan. The commanders had explained that Tabasco was now at war after the Yucateco had conducted raids on Tabasqueño towns. He had worked tirelessly for three days loading and firing the guns upon the defenses erected by the Yucateco army to defend the town of Carmen, which lay across the narrow strait.

As another thundrous volley passed accross the midday sun, the officer shouted to cease fire. The town had been sufficiently pummeled and a major breach in the fort's defenses had been achieved on the southern side. Fuentes saw over the hill many infantrymen boarding small makeshift rafts that had been built in the previous days. They left the beach and rowed out into the lagoon towards the section of barricades that had been broken down.

Fuentes and the rest of the men waited anxiously for the distance to be crossed. Within an hour, the first boat had landed in a narrow bay, and soldiers were marching up the sandy beach. He heard the sound of rifles popping, and of the defenders rallying to the wall. Men fell, but they kept marching until all were within the fort. The sounds of fighting continued to echo weakly across the strait, until it died down to near silence.

Then the relief. In the distance, he could see the flag of the Yucatan being lowered from the pole on the fort's wall, to be replaced by the green and gold bicolour of the Republic of Tabasco. Everyone was ecstatic, and much celebration was going to occur that night.


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Dorozhand

Banned
The Republic of Tabasco

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Another nascent state to emerge during the Mexican Civil War was the Republic of Tabasco, which after being declared quickly defeated local garrisons even with its small army, as the main Imperial forces were now fighting in the north. The republic's main enemy throughout much of its existence was actually the Yucatan Republic, with whom it fought and won a major war during 1839. The Siege of Carmen, in which an army captured a major fort by landing on the beach in small rafts, was a major success that secured the republic's eastern border, brought the Yucateco to the negotiating table for the first time, and allowed other successes against Imperial forces in the west and south. In particular, the republic attempted repeatedly to link with guerrilla fighters in Chiapas and form an united front.

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Another Mexican timeline, that seems bleak right now. However, the title has me wondering about the things to come.

Where is the subscribe button when I really need it?

BTW, I liked those chapters that you have written over there.
 
cool ima subscribe but one thing. when it was part of Mexico Texas wasn't its own state. it was attached to Coahulia as Coahulia y Texas
 
cool ima subscribe but one thing. when it was part of Mexico Texas wasn't its own state. it was attached to Coahulia as Coahulia y Texas
 

Dorozhand

Banned
cool ima subscribe but one thing. when it was part of Mexico Texas wasn't its own state. it was attached to Coahulia as Coahulia y Texas

Thanks!
And yeah, Texas split off as it did IOTL, but soon after decided to join the Republic of the Rio Grande. It briefly considered doing so IOTL, and with a Rio Grande that's more powerful and founded earlier, it made sense to the Texans to join.
 

Deleted member 67076

Interesting start so far. Heres's to hoping the 1840s will much kinder to Mexico.
 
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