Early 20th century Mexican PoDs, effects on North America and WWI

raharris1973

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What if Porfirio retires gracefully instead of trying to run for reelection that last time?


What if Madero lives?


What if the ABC powers (Argentina, Brazil, Chile) don’t mediate between the US and Mexico over the Tampico affair in 1914? Another mediator? Bilateral settlement? Or a wider war? How long would that be?


What if the US recognizes Villa before his raid? (allegedly Mexican leaders at the time of the revolution raided the US or allowed raids of the US to earn US recognition by proving they were necessary for securing the border).


What if the US recognizes Carranza months before the Zimmerman Telegram?
(allegedly Mexican leaders at the time of the revolution raided the US or allowed raids of the US to earn US recognition by proving they were necessary for securing the border).


Any of these might butterfly Zimmerman Telegram. Would that delay or negate the US DoW on Germany?
 

raharris1973

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Does anybody know of a historical atlas of the Mexican Revolution, that illustrates which players controlled what throughout the 1910s?

Looking things over, I see that my fifth question above, about recognizing Carranza, makes little sense, because the US actually recognized him in late 1915.

Reviewing potential escalations to US-Mexican War, we have

1914: the Tampico Affair - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampico_Affair#Occupation_of_Veracruz , which ran from April to November 1914, and was mediated by South American countries at the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Falls_peace_conference of May 20, 1914.

1915: The "Plan of San Diego" and associated raids into Texas, from Jan-Oct 1915 get linked to the Carranza government, causing outrage and a US DoW on Mexico that year.

See David T's sophisticated explanation here:

It seems strange that the Germans could ever believe that the Mexicans would accept their proposal in the Zimmerman Telegram. However, perhaps they knew that Carranza (or at the very least *carrancistas*) supported the "Plan de San Diego" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_of_San_Diego raids into Texas, and mistakenly thought that meant he was really intent on a *Reconquista.*

If they did, they of course misjudged Carranza entirely. Carranza's aim was not to reconquer the Southwest US but to get US diplomatic recognition and arms:

"It was carrancista support that enabled the raids to continue. Why would Carranza sponsor raids into Texas? Because he desperately needed United States diplomatic recognition. At first glance this seems a counterproductive policy, but in reality it was brilliant. Carranza was emerging as the winner in the latest round of civil war in Mexico, but he couldn't feel secure unless and until the United States formally recongized him as the president of that country. Otherwise the United States retaained the option of supporting rival revolutionary factions; Carranza himself had profited enormously from the refusal of the United States to recognize Victoriano Huerta as the legitimate ruler of Mexico. Given the imperative, Carranza could foment raids in the Rio Grande Valley but control their intensity, ensuring they didn't become serious enough to provoke American intervention. He could, and did, argue that Mexican exiles and other malefactors were causing all the trouble and suggest strognly that were he recognized as president he would quickly put a stop to these incursions." Charles H. Harris, III and Louis R. Sadler, *The Texas Rangers and the Mexican Revolution: The Bloodiest Decade, 1910-1920* (University of New Mexico Press), pp. 252-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=kUnzbJL3LIIC&pg=PA252

"The plan's strategy consisted of four simple steps: 1) Carranza's armed and funded 'bandits' would raid Texas border communities; 2) The US State Department would demand Carranza subdue the 'bandits;' 3) Carranza would reply that the 'bandits' were only able to operate because Carranza lacked US recognition and sufficient arms to combat them; and 4) Carranza, having received recognition and arms, 'arrests' the raiders. Carranza's scheme to achieve diplomatic recognition and munitions was disguised as a Texas mexicano irredentist uprising." https://web.archive.org/web/2006062...news.com/archives/jan2005/perspective_01.html

And Carranza's strategy worked: "On October 19, 1915, Carranza achieved his goal of securing diplomatic recognition from the United States; the raids ended five days later..." http://books.google.com/books?id=kUnzbJL3LIIC&pg=PA295 (Harris and Sadler think that those last few raids were just expressions of frustration by rebels who realized that Carranza was about to cut off his support for them.)

See also the Handbook of Texas Online's article "Plan of San Diego": "The Plan of San Diego and the raids that accompanied it were originally attributed to the supporters of the ousted Mexican dictator Gen. Victoriano Huerta, who had been overthrown by Carranza in 1914. The evidence indicates, however, that the raids were carried out by followers of Carranza, who manipulated the movement in an effort to influence relations with the United States." https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ngp04

Here's my question: As brilliantly as Carranza's strategy worked out--at the cost of horribly embittering relations between Anglos and Latinos in Texas--it did involve some risk. It required him to maintain some degree of "plausible deniability." Suppose that absolutely irrefutable evidence that he was behind the raids came out and made the front page of every newspaper in the United States? Would this not force Wilson into war with Carranza and the Constitutionalists? (And yes, that would cause some problems if the US was fighting Germany at the same time...)

In fairness, I must acknowledge that even today Carranza's role is disputed. However, even historians who emphasize the "indigenous" Tejano nature of the Plan de San Diego uprising acknowledge that Constitutionalist support was vital in providing the *Sediciosos* with a safe haven in Mexico and that some Constitutionalists "directly participated in raids in August and September." Benjamin Heber Johnson, *Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexicans into Americans * (Yale UP 2003) http://books.google.com/books?id=KwVqxi14-QAC&pg=PA100 Johnson acknowledges that General Emiliano Nafarrate, the Constiutionalist commander based in Mamtamaros, gave the rebellious Tejanos "tacit support" and supposedly expressed his backing for the movement to Tejano rebel Aniceto Pizana, who claimed that Nafarrate told him, "we have to take from the damned gringos all the territory that Santana [Santa Anna] pawned." http://books.google.com/books?id=KwVqxi14-QAC&pg=PA101 Johnson speculates that Nafarrate may have felt that in view of the sympathy of the population of northern Tamaulipas for the Tejanos, it would be dangerous for him *not* to support the uprising; or he may have been moved by a feeling that the US government was biased against the Constitutionalists. Johnson does not (from what I have read of his book online) give much consideration to the thought that Nafarrate may simply have been acting on Carranza's orders. In any event, Nafarrate became the scapegoat: Carranza removed him from Matamaros on October 1.

Perhaps Nafarrate could have provided the "irrefutable evidence" of Carranza's involvement that I suggested could lead to war. In any event, in OTL in April 1918--when the rumors were that he was about to do just that--he was conveniently murdered in a Tampico brothel
...

1918: By the way, this last April 1918 paragraph suggests that news of Mexican-backed terrorism in Texas could become public in April 1918 and lead to war then.

Also in 1918, the US considered occupying the oilfields at Tampico, but backed off over threats of sabotage by Carranza. - What if the US didn't back off?

1916-1917: And of course, the Villa Expedition of March 1916-February 1917 escalating somehow into a fight with the Mexican central government.
 
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