Why did the Mexicans do so poorly in the Mexican American War

Why did Mexico do so poorly in the Mexican American War. They lost half of their territory and had their capital captured by the U.S. What happened and how could Mexico do better.
 
Why did Mexico do so poorly in the Mexican American War. They lost half of their territory and had their capital captured by the U.S. What happened and how could Mexico do better.

Essentially the Mexican army suffered from mismanagement and poor discipline in the ranks which made running an effective army difficult. While apparently on paper they held the advantage somewhat they lost out heavily on leadership and motivation. That and the terrain was working against them for the most part.
 
A vary apart lack of funds for basically anything in the country, the Mexican Military while not lacking in motivation as you have said were lacking quite heavily in Command.

In fact(to the best of my knowledge_ the only Mexican high commander that had any sort of some military competence during the war not great but some was Santa Anna.

No funds for rifles, powder, uniforms, rations basically anything that a Military needs, while a numerical advantage among the ranks added with the civilian population in the country was blunted by the US use of defense terrain and fortifications.

And the effective use of Generals in the field, General Scott who after studying French invasion of Spain and the Insurgent groups sprouting up all over the country in response to Heavy handed French treatment insured that Mexican civilians were treated good if not better by the US.

So to some it all up, the reasons why Mexico lost were, A heavy lack of funds, a very apparent lack of competent leadership in the Mexican High Command, and the competence of US Generals.
 
Aside from those facts mentioned by Rifleman above, there's also cities that surrendered without a fight, just to spite Santa Anna. And to make matters worse, the liberals and the conservatives didn't make any effort to actually fight together. The army also, aside from the bad leadership and lack of supplies, was also marred by political infighting and also bad training (which, erroneously, was thought to be compensated by proper valour... that worked at times, though). There were battles that were almost won by Mexico, but were lost at the end of the day due to a lack of supplies (Monterrey comes to my mind).

In general, not only was the underfunded army and all that that caused the defeat, but also a lot of disunity between fellow Mexicans that ended up dooming the war effort right from the start.

Never again we shall look this bad...
 
The big thing to take into consideration was that Mexico, at the time, was essentially a failed state.

Between 1833, when arrived to the Presidency, and 1847, when Pedro Maria Anaya was appointed interim president by Congress in order to negotiate peace with the United States, 11 different people served as President of Mexico. Santa Anna and Gomez Farias served multiple times within this time frame. Mexico had also undergone a constitutional change in 1836 during the Presidency of Barragan.


That is one. Then as eliphas points out:

Essentially the Mexican army suffered from mismanagement and poor discipline in the ranks which made running an effective army difficult.

Yes, there was heavy mismanagement in the army. Before Santa Anna returned from Cuba (he was in exile for the first part of the war) some of the more competent and experienced officers, like Jose de Urrea, were rather old. Younger officers like Mariano Arista and Mariano Paredes were essentially engaged in a prolonged dick measuring contest.

At the start of the war Mariano Paredes was given command of 2,000 men to reinforce Laredo. He turned around and used the army to launch a coup against President Herrera (one of the few competent administrators at the time).

While apparently on paper they held the advantage somewhat they lost out heavily on leadership and motivation. That and the terrain was working against them for the most part.

A vary apart lack of funds for basically anything in the country, the Mexican Military while not lacking in motivation as you have said were lacking quite heavily in Command.

Motivation was a mixed blessing. The army was generally not lacking in motivation. But a lot of local state governments did. For example:

In the Northern front, Monterrey was able to withstand the American siege. Zachary Taylor even offered an armistice because he could not get past them. It took the US troops 8 months to get past Monterrey, so Taylor could move onto Tampico and link up with Scott at Veracruz.

But in the Central front, the government in Puebla was highly apathetic. The Governor and the Archbishop of Puebla, Francisco Pablo Vásquez, actually let the American army march through unopposed. Thus the US troops faced no resistance between Veracruz and Cuernavaca. The US did have a hard time taking Veracruz, and marching from Cuernavaca into Mexico City. The bloodiest battles in the war occurred in this last stretch.

In Guadalajara, Governor Jose Maria Yañez declared Jalisco neutral (and dragged the sounding states into equal apathy) yet he personally led the retaking of San Blas from the American blocade.

In fact(to the best of my knowledge_ the only Mexican high commander that had any sort of some military competence during the war not great but some was Santa Anna.

Santa Anna was actually a terrible commander by all accounts. When he finally arrived back in Mexico, under very dubious circumstances (for he had to get through and American blockade in Veracruz, yet made it through without a problem) he attempted to lead both fronts himself. Santa Anna literally galloped between Tamaulipas and Puebla as he tried to command two armies. Not to mention he had to make frequent stops in Mexico City, to make sure his current lackey was still President. How he managed to do this with only one leg, is the only remarkable thing about him.

No funds for rifles, powder, uniforms, rations basically anything that a Military needs, while a numerical advantage among the ranks added with the civilian population in the country was blunted by the US use of defense terrain and fortifications.

But even if he had been a competent commander he was fighting a loosing battle. Mexico still lacked funds and weapons quite badly. And again as Rilfeman points out, the US actually ended up getting better use out of Mexico's terrain and fortifications (since they essentially mad use everything Puebla had).

And the effective use of Generals in the field, General Scott who after studying French invasion of Spain and the Insurgent groups sprouting up all over the country in response to Heavy handed French treatment insured that Mexican civilians were treated good if not better by the US.

And then there is this. Scott was actually a very competent military leader. He did his research; realized he could gain the archbishop's trust if he place guards at the Cathedral to prevent it from being damaged, which guaranteed his safe passage through Puebla, and the paid highway gangs quite handsomely to act as a counter-guerilla force.


So to some it all up, the reasons why Mexico lost were, A heavy lack of funds, a very apparent lack of competent leadership in the Mexican High Command, and the competence of US Generals.

Rifleman summarizes it quite well here.

But yet, individually there are many examples of were Mexicans, under local leadership, did put up a good fight. Monterrey is perhaps the best example. But there is also San Juan Ulua, before Scott landed in Veracruz, and the Battles of Coyoacan and Molino del Rey when the US was close to Mexico City, San Blas and Guaymas in the north. And even governor Flores put up a good fight in Los Angeles, in the Battle of Rio San Gabriel.

If Mexico had been stable, and under a competent chain of command (not even necessarily competence within individual generals, just the overall chain) the US would have not have it so easy.
 
And then the obivous question would be

How to make Mexico competent doing the war? How far back should the PoD be for them to gather themselves and make for a unified creditable threat with a realistic shot at getting out of a war without any concessions?
 
And then the obivous question would be

How to make Mexico competent doing the war? How far back should the PoD be for them to gather themselves and make for a unified creditable threat with a realistic shot at getting out of a war without any concessions?

Jycee above has a very excellent TL with a POD during the war itself (link is in his sig), while Arkhanglesk has one with an earlier War of Independence. Then I'm sorta writing one, with a PoD back during the early years of the Conquista, but that's kind of a different animal than probably what you're looking for.

And there's my shameless promotions for the active Mexi-wank TLS.:p
 
Thanks for the promos Othyrsyde! :)

I'll try to post a more detailed post later cuz I'm at work, but most of the problems the Mexicans faced could easily be rectified with a PoD at independence, and as jycee has demonstrated Mexico can scrape by a lot better with a PoD before or at the start of the war.
 
Were there any battles or strategic positioning where Mexican overconfidence caused them problems?

I remember reading that the Mexicans were convinced they'd curb-stomp the US, with some Mexican generals (Parades?) planning to invade New Orleans, stir up slave revolts in the South, etc. When I was in high school I remember a description of the Mexican press at the time being rather "bellicose."

Also, I remember reading elsewhere that the US had a big advantage in "flying artillery" (mobile big guns for tactical use) over the Mexicans. I read in a biography of George Thomas something about Braxton Bragg (the later Confederate) being REALLY good with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braxton_Bragg#Mexican-American_War

The book was obviously more specific.
 
Mexico probably didn't stand much of a chance to begin with. As The Penguin History of Latin America states, "For the next fifty years [after Mexico became a republic] Mexico would be repeatedly torn apart by civil wars. . .".

In the 1840s, Mexico had many problems besides Texas. The Yucatan tried to secede, Bustamante was toppled in a coup by Santa Anna, and Santa Anna himself squandered much of Mexico's money in lavish ceremonies. Not long afterwards, Santa Anna was replaced by José Herrera. Of course, then ANOTHER coup happens, and. . .you probably get the point now.

By the time of Benito Juárez, Mexico was bankrupt, which was one of the reasons the French set up Maximilian as a puppet emperor.
 

Swordman

Banned
A minor contributing factor was the very poor quality of Mexican gunpowder. It was made using calcium nitrate, rather than potassium nitrate. Not only was the powder weaker in strength, it tended to spoil very quickly because of the tendency of calcium nitrate to absorb water directly from the air.

Mike Garrity
 
Have driven the road from Vera Cruz to Puebla via Orizaba in RV. This route which is the shortest route was absolutely defensible so Scott went the other route. Puebla was not apathetic but in rebellion against Santa Ana. Santa Ana was brave enough in his own way but pathetic as a commander. The Texas Revolt of 1835 would just be a foonote to Mexican history had the more able Mexican commanders been in charge. Santa Ana was despised by many and made a series of tactical/strategic blunders that allowed the US to prevail. He remains despised by most Mexicans we have met (we RV down to Yucatan) as the man who sold out their country - and was willing to throw in Tamalupas, Nuevo Leon, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Baja California for a few more bucks in his bank account.
 
Santa Anna wasn't in Mexico when the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed and he actually managed to only sell the Mesilla valley during the Gadsden Purchase, refusing to sell more territory.
 
A minor contributing factor was the very poor quality of Mexican gunpowder. It was made using calcium nitrate, rather than potassium nitrate. Not only was the powder weaker in strength, it tended to spoil very quickly because of the tendency of calcium nitrate to absorb water directly from the air.

Mike Garrity

Were there any easily-available oxidisers that would have made the powder MORE powerful than powder made with potassium nitrate?

Some sort of chlorate or perchlorate springs to mind.
 
A minor contributing factor was the very poor quality of Mexican gunpowder. It was made using calcium nitrate, rather than potassium nitrate. Not only was the powder weaker in strength, it tended to spoil very quickly because of the tendency of calcium nitrate to absorb water directly from the air.

Mike Garrity

there was also a problem with graft in the supply service, in which gunpowder was thinned out with too much charcoal; hard to tell without actually using it because it looks like normal black powder, but lacking the oomph of it, and the supply people essentially got paid more by providing 'extra' gunpowder...
 
Thanks for the promos Othyrsyde! :)

I'll try to post a more detailed post later cuz I'm at work, but most of the problems the Mexicans faced could easily be rectified with a PoD at independence, and as jycee has demonstrated Mexico can scrape by a lot better with a PoD before or at the start of the war.

No problem. Figure living examples of AH would be good for any who are interested, as well as having more readers for y'alls TLs.
 
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