thirty-one
enmity
While Villa was still fighting in San Pedro de las Colonias, Venustiano Carranza, the First Chief of the Constitutionalist movement, made his arrival in the city of Chihuahua on April 12, 1914. He came from Ciudad Juárez and was received by Gov. Manuel Chao at the train station with a guard and a crowd of onlookers singing the national anthem. A photograph in which everyone is smiling recorded the event. After the welcoming ceremony, the first chief was taken to Quinta Gameros accompanied by his general staff. Next came ceremonies in the Palacio, where he gave a speech from the balcony. Vivas for the absent Pancho Villa by the public opened and closed Carranza’s speech. Finally, there was a vigil in the Teatro de los Héroes.
If the chief was bathed in admiration by crowds in Chihuahua, Villa got the same treatment when he returned to Torreón from San Pedro. A large-scale reception marked his return with a dense crowd applauding and cheering him on. Everyone wanted to meet him. Organ grinders played “La Adelita” in the streets and thousands of people gathered around the army’s camp to get something to eat.
Torreón was a good spot for the worn-out brigades of the Division of the North to regain their strength. Villa, meanwhile, took charge of repaying an old debt. During the first occupation of Torreón, he had demanded a forced loan from the merchants and ranchers, part of which had been covered by checks—which were not honored when those holding them attempted to cash them in Ciudad Juárez—from the following banks: Nacional de México, the Bank of London, La Laguna bank, and Germánico de la América del Sur bank. Pancho stated publicly that these banks were trying to snatch a half-million pesos from the Division of the North and ordered an intervention. Later, he commissioned Col. Gabino Durán to take charge of the Batopilas mines, among them the Tres Hermanos and Morelos mines. The gold and silver flowed directly into the Division of the North’s treasury.
Villa finally left Gómez Palacio and arrived in Chihuahua, without prior notice, on the night of April 19. The press was disappointed because they were not able to organize a popular reception and complained that “they had requested to be notified of his arrival,” noting that “yesterday, Sunday at ten o’clock in the evening,” Pancho had come to “greet our First Chief.” However, Terrazas and Chao were the only ones in the station.
“Our First Chief,” Venustiano Carranza was fifty-four years old. He had studied medicine but left the program due to an eye illness, discoloration of the sclera, forcing him to always wear dark lenses which he only removed to read. He was a medium-sized landholder, a Porfirian politician, and had only a mediocre record of action during the 1910 uprising, from which he emerged as Minister of War and then Governor of Coahuila. When Maderismo was overthrown by Huerta’s military coup, he was the only governor to resist and survive—Abraham González was captured and murdered, and Maytorena in Sonora initially went into exile. This transformed him into the axis around which the revolution gathered. Among his virtues were his nationalism and obstinacy, while among his defects were his strange anti-Maderismo and his lack of social awareness. They say that he could listen while he slept and repeat back what his assistants had said. Federico Cervantes described him thus, “Dour, stout, mature but upright and austere, a man of few words, sparing in gestures, calm but cold in manner.” It was said that mosquitos didn’t bite him.
The long-awaited meeting must have taken place on the morning of April 20, and it was the first time they had seen each other since Ciudad Juárez in 1911. Villa was accompanied by Ángeles.
They spoke for a while in private, exchanging impressions of the military situation and Villa fumed at Pablo González, complaining that he did not follow through on operations and did not fulfill agreements. The novelist Urquizo claimed that the “meeting was cordial,” but Aguirre Benavides commented that Villa did not like Carranza much as he was stern and dry. John Reed, who had interviewed him a few months earlier, said of Carranza, “There was something strange in the way he sat there, with his hands on the arms of the chair, as if he had been placed in it and told not to move.”
Later, Villa would say to Silvestre Terrazas, “This man will not lead us to a good ending, he’s already given in his life what he can.” Curiously, Villa remarked on reflection how Carranza used his glasses and his clumsiness or indecision when adjusting them, telling Ramón Puente that “he never looked straight at me and the whole conversation was confined to wallowing about in our different upbringings.” It seems that Carranza, “whose hair stood on end at the thought of Villa’s alliance with Madero’s brothers and his father,” told Villa that Maderismo made many promises, but that “it wasn’t necessary to make promises” to the people “because the struggle now was not the same as during Madero’s time and it has nothing to do with Zapata’s agrarianism.”
“My first impulse was to show respect for that elderly man [. . .]. I embraced him, very moved with emotion, but after a few words were spoken between us my blood began to boil because I understood that he could not open his heart, that I was not a friend to him, but a rival.”
J.B. Vargas stated—although he confused the timing of these remarks with a banquet that Villa did not attend—that Carranza had spoken of a strong government after the revolution, giving the impression that he would lead such a government. Villa, on the other hand, remembered that after Madero’s victory, he had retired to private life and once Huerta was finished off, he would do so again.
The relationship was not helped by the fact that there were people dedicated to petty conspiracies in each man’s circle. This author only knows of one photograph from this meeting. Both are standing, Carranza is wearing a bowler hat. They are not looking at one another but instead appear to be trying to avoid looking at something on the opposite side of the image.
On April 22, the newspapers announced that Carranza, Villa, Ángeles, and Chao would be viewing an explosives demonstration, however, the event did not take place because on that very day the United States attacked Veracruz. The pretext for the attack was a trivial incident that took place a week before in Tampico, when a group of US sailors from the US Dolphin who were loading gasoline in a restricted area were detained. President Wilson and Huerta then exchanged a series of demands and apologies. The US admiral, in the most brash imperial style, demanded the United States flag be raised on the Mexican beach and that the Mexicans give them a twenty-one-gun salute and the White House backed him up. Diplomatic bickering continued, but the pretext was strong enough for President Wilson to initiate the long-anticipated intervention in Mexico. The US fleet steamed towards Tampico. Meanwhile, Huerta had arranged for a large purchase of arms from Hamburg, Germany via New York and the shipment was on its way aboard the Ipiranga—the same ship on which Porfirio Díaz had set sail from Mexico in 1911. The US fleet received instructions to seize the customs house in Veracruz and to halt all access, unleashing a bombardment and then landing troops. Some favor Wilson was doing the Constitutionalists.
On April 22, Carranza distanced himself from Huerta’s government, both in a public statement and in a diplomatic note, stating that Huerta did “not represent the nation.” At the same time, he denounced the bombardment and deployment of troops as a “violation of national sovereignty” and an “affront to Mexico’s integrity and independence,” inviting the US to suspend its invasion and to deal with Mexico’s legitimate government, that is, his government. Villa had already commented on the first incidents in Tampico while he was in Torreón, declaring that the conflict was a fight between Huerta and Wilson, and, in a particularly unfortunate declaration, stated that the Division of the North would stamp out any anti-American uprisings.
That night, Dr. José María Rodríguez, one of Carranza’s doctors, attended to Villa’s upset stomach and stayed to dine with him and Ángeles. The doctor reported that both of them complained that Carranza had not consulted with anyone before issuing his manifesto. Ángeles suggested that they go to Ciudad Juárez to smooth over the clash with the United States.
Villa probably informed Venustiano Carranza of his intentions to travel to Ciudad Juárez with Ángeles because they met in the train station, and they were seen walking on the platform discussing the Veracruz situation. Carranza was afraid that Villa would do something stupid. Sources sympathetic to Carranza insisted that “he ordered them to avoid making any public statements or comments” about the invasion upon their arrival in Juárez.
Villa was surrounded by the press at the Ciudad Juárez station and abstained from giving any personal opinions of a diplomatic nature. He stated, “I must obey orders from my chief, Señor Carranza.”
On April 23, George Carothers—after having his diplomatic credentials revoked by Huerta on April 8—was recruited by President Wilson to act as a “special agent.” Reporting from the border, he noted that El Paso was in a state of alarm as both military men and popular rumors were saying that Villa was on his way with nine trains to attack the city. Fort Bliss even aimed its cannons at Ciudad Juárez. “When Villa arrived, I went to see him immediately and I found him with a small guard at his house, some 200 meters from the border. He said that there was nothing Huerta could do to sour his friendship with the United States, and that after Carranza’s telegram he had come to the border to assure himself that relations remained cordial.” Carothers crossed the border and sent a telegram to the State Department from El Paso: “I just finished dining with Villa [. . .]. He says there will be no war between the United States and the Constitutionalists [. . .] a war which neither side desires. He also said that ‘No drunk was going to drag the country into a war with its friends’ and that [. . .] they could stay in Veracruz and ‘not let even a drop of water get through to Huerta.’”
With Ángeles’s help, Villa made a written statement that was circulated by George Carothers himself in which he asserted that he was confident that the invasion did not imply war with Mexico and that Carranza ought to be excused in one way or the other because “he was only trying to defend the Republic of Mexico’s honor.” A few hours later, he met with Hugh Lenox Scott, adjutant chief of the US High Command, a sixty-one-year-old career officer who had fought in the last expeditions against the Apaches, Cuba, and the Philippines and was then in command of the border patrol with Mexico. Villa brought him some wool rugs as a gift. They talked about Veracruz with Villa aiming to ease tensions and offer assurances to the US. One month later, Scott wrote a profile of Villa for his superiors: “He’s a man who keeps his word [. . .] an illiterate and amoral Mexican [. . .] he listens to advice, better yet if it’s from people he respects [. . .] a leader of powerful men [. . .] he has prevented looting [. . .] he is the strongest character in Mexico yet produced by the current revolution.” On April 23, Villa, Ángeles, Carothers, and Scott dined in Pancho’s railway car.
The following day, Pancho’s statements were published in the New York Times: “Mexico has enough troubles of her own and is not seeking a war with any foreign country, certainly not the United States. I have come to the border for the purpose of conferring and seeking advice from my good American friends.” He also repeated his assurance that the drunkard Huerta did not represent the Mexican people. On April 24, Pancho added fuel to the fire, arguing in the El Paso Morning Times that Carranza’s statements were a “serious mistake,” that the invasion would only facilitate the arms blockade against Huerta, etc. Without a doubt, thus approving of the invasion and further weakening Carranza’s standing.
Where did Pancho Villa’s deep sympathy with the United States come from? Did he not understand the gravity of the invasion? For Pancho, the United States had served as Chihuahua’s rearguard over the previous year. The bullets, the butter, and the flour to bake bread and feed La Laguna’s hungry had flowed from that land. Of the 300 foreigners who had fought for the Division of the North, half had come from the United States. Creighton, Dreben, and Fountain—his friends—had died for the Mexican Revolution. And employing an elementary enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend logic, the US was also fighting Huerta in Veracruz. And, at the end of the day. . . the war against the gringos in 1847? What war? It was old news. The meaning of history? And Veracruz? Where, in that other part of the world he knows nothing about, is Veracruz?
Carothers met with Villa again on April 25, receiving a “Strictly confidential statement to inform President Woodrow Wilson via consul George C. Carothers.” The letter, which closely reflected Carothers’s own views, perhaps under Ángeles’s influence, recognized the magnanimity and sympathy of the American people for the Mexican Revolution, believing in the sincerity of Wilson’s statements of not wanting war with Mexico and blaming Huerta for wanting to launch a war against the United States. The statement noted that Carranza’s declaration had been “personal” but that “the Mexican leader’s dignified pride was justifiable,” while Wilson ought to take the high road because the nations of Latin America were watching. It closed thus: “I can assure you that our chief, Señor Carranza, is animated by the most fervent desire to avoid difficulties between our respective countries, and that we, seconding his patriotic impulse [. . .] find ourselves in the same position [. . .] of defending the dignity of the Mexican republic, which can by no means be considered a hostile act against the American government.”
Carothers had become the great intermediary. Confirmed as such from this moment on by Villa’s secretary, Enrique Pérez Rul. “He traveled in Villa’s company, he dined at his table, he took advantage of splendid privileges, he influenced the commander, and even served as an advisor on many occasions.” Another of Villa’s secretaries, Luis Aguirre Benavides, categorized him as “one of our excellent friends.” Knight described him, in exaggerated fashion, as the “gray eminence” behind Pancho Villa. However, this odd and myopic personality, this failed small merchant and manufacturer, inveterate gambler, and junior consul in the lost city of Torreón, only took hold of Villa’s hand in order to make his diplomatic career as “Wilson’s secret agent” and to gain access to the main protagonists of the Mexican Revolution. Villa also recruited him as an arms merchant. And fifteen days after their meeting, George C. Carothers, sporting a new hat, made the rounds along the border purchasing arms for the Division of the North’s Finance Agency. . . and collecting the corresponding commissions.
Villa tried to use his days in Juárez to reorganize the Finance Office with Lázaro de la Garza and to purchase arms that had recently been blockaded by the United States. But he had to postpone the operation after receiving a call from Carranza to report to Chihuahua to explain his meddling in the Constitucionalismo’s international relations.
On April 27, Chihuahua’s press announced, “Señor general Villa will arrive today.” Soon after his arrival, Villa met with Carranza in an office on the second floor of Quinta Gameros and, in a conversation of which there is no record, he was most likely asked to retract the statements he made in Juárez. The Carrancistas claimed that “this reprimand wounded Villa’s pride and this day led to the end of the cordial relations between the two chiefs.” Moreover, on April 30, the following statement from Pancho appeared in the newspapers, “The stories propagated in the press that there has been a quarrel between the First Chief of the Constitucionalista Army, Señor Carranza, and myself, are absolutely false.”
Over the following days, Villa received signs from the Colorados (Marcelo Caraveo) and the Federales (Joaquín Maas) proposing that they join forces to repel the invasion, but he didn’t want to hear anything from “Madero’s assassins.” Ángeles replied to a letter from old compañeros from inside Huerta’s camp inviting him to unite with them against the US invasion telling them that he trusted in the American people’s good sense while he had no such faith in Huerta. He concluded his response thusly, “And if it all collapses, each of us will die on our own side.” Villa responded in the same vein in a letter to Caraveo.
It seemed that the internal Carrancista environment had settled down, but the conflicts between Villa and Carranza were not going to stop there. It’s nearly impossible to disentangle with any precision the events that unfolded during the early hours of the morning on April 30, mixed up as they are between a dozen versions containing multiple, small discrepancies. It appears that Villa summoned Chao to his house on Quinta Prieto where he lived with Juanita. Miguel Alessio, according to Breceda’s version, claimed that Carranza was out for his morning walk when he discovered guards from the Sonora battalion, under the command of Pedro Bracamonte (which was very odd, the Dorados being in Chihuahua with Villa) in front of Pancho’s house and tried to find out what was happening. Breceda, sent by Carranza, found Manuel Chao seated in a chair at the entrance who told him that Villa wanted to shoot him. Felipe Ángeles, meanwhile, was there as well writing a letter. Carranza, via Capt. Dávila, asked Villa to visit him at Villa Gameros. At this point, the Carrancistas’ versions are not very credible. Dávila asserted that he came across Villa outside the house in the middle of the sidewalk, walking alone with an overcoat buttoned up to his neck and laughing and joking, then he beckoned him to the meeting with Carranza.
The meeting between Villa and Carranza was stormy. The Breceda version, dictated to Mena Brito, was very rocky in which the reasons for the differences between the two was never made exactly clear, only that Villa insisted repeatedly, in the crudest terms, that he let him get rid of Chao, that he shoot him. Urquizo added, “An irreparable clash broke out between those two enormous wills. The First Chief’s assistants reported never having seen him so indignant. There were strong words, raised voices, threats, they were at the point of drawing their guns when Carranza finally bent Villa’s rebel will and forced him to free Chao.”
Villa left the room angrily and when he was on his way out of the house, he ran into the secretary of government, Silvestre Terrazas, who had come to the house after finding out that there were problems between Villa and Chao. Silvestre suggested that he accompany Villa and then met with a couple of Carranza’s assistants (Breceda or Barragán or Espinosa Mireles, Terrazas did not remember). Villa didn’t say much, perhaps because he didn’t like the company. Aguirre Benavides would later state that “Villa told me, in effect, there had been a less than friendly conversation about the matter, but in the end, it was resolved satisfactorily.” Terrazas confirmed a conversation with Chao, whom Villa found sitting inside his house waiting. Villa hurled “very strong words” at him. Chao was “very calm,” looking at him straight on. And what were the reasons for Villa’s fury directed at Manuel Chao, the governor of Chihuahua, that had provoked the clash with Carranza? Some say it all had to do with Chao’s delay in sending food to the combatants in Torreón, but if that had been the cause, it would have been aired out between the protagonists days before. Aguirre Benavides claimed that Chao had taken certain measures without consulting Villa. Obregón chimed in suggesting that Chao had refused to pay a promissory note on the state treasury signed by Villa for an unknown gentleman. But these are rickety explanations for Villa’s wrath. Terrazas thought Villa had grown bitter against Chao because Villa accused Chao of trying to remove him from leadership of the Division of the North and preparing a military coup to assassinate him. Chao had serenely demonstrated these were all slanders. His cool head saved him as he explained away each charge during their heated exchange.
“I have shown my total loyalty to you, sir. Don’t believe the rumors and gossip,” said Chao.
“That’s true, my little compañero,” replied Villa.
And thus, the storm dissipated. There’s no doubt that Villa had threatened to shoot Chao, either during this conversation or in a previous one; however, it’s also true that the matter never went beyond that and Bracamonte did not receive any such order. Neither does there seem to be any doubt that Carranza, or his confidants, attempted to win Chao over to their side, which contributed to some extent to the clash with Villa, nor that gossip and rumors proliferated among Villa’s ranks.
As a result of the confrontation, Terrazas, whose loyalty to Villa never appeared in doubt, offered his resignation, but Villa convinced him that it made no sense. Even Villa’s relationship with Chao improved considerably and, in order to dispel the rumors, the two walked arm in arm through Chihuahua at six in the morning shortly before Villa returned to Torreón. Following the clash, so as to leave no doubt, Chao resigned the governorship, which was quickly occupied by Fidel Ávila, and Chao returned to the Division of the North on the eve of its next battles. Villa had treated Chao savagely, yet in confrontations with Carranza, he always took Villa’s side. Perhaps the proletarian soul of this rural teacher perceived that Carranza was a hardly trustworthy aristocrat.
Breceda later commented that, due to this confrontation, certain generals in the Division of the North asked Carranza for permission to shoot Villa, but that Carranza refused, claiming that Maclovio and Luis Herrera, Rosalío Hernández, Pánfilo Natera, and Martín Triana were among those who proposed it. The story is without doubt false. Martín Triana had deserted from the Division of the North in Torreón and Natera was not in Chihuahua, nor is it likely that Maclovio or Hernández were there either.
On May 1, Carranza hosted a banquet in the Teatro de los Héroes for the commanders of the Division of the North. As was to be expected, the tensions from the previous days proved difficult to overcome. According to some of the attendees, “the atmosphere was truly frosty and unpleasant.” Villa excused himself saying he had caught a cold. Urquizo wrote in his Memorias, that “at the crowded banquet, in which it would have been better not to have held in, when the time came for speeches, one of the attendees closest to Villa went overboard while he spoke, nearly disrespecting the First Chief.” It seems this was in reference to an intervention by Eugenio Aguirre Benavides, but the straw that broke the already heavily-laden camel’s back came from recently-promoted Maj. Enrique Santoscoy. After expressing shock at Carranza’s lack of Maderismo, he concluded: “The men of the Division of the North want the social doctrines for which we are fighting to be respected; they want social justice to prevail and to establish the right to vote; they want the land to be distributed to the campesinos. . . For all this, the men of the Division of the North enter into battle with the cry, ¡Viva Madero!” Federico Cervantes recalled that Venustiano “left the hall shaking in anger.” Strangely, the Villistas counterposed Carranza to the figure of Madero, but also to their own social program, which was not precisely Madero’s. They were trying to kill two birds with one stone.
On May 2, there was a party in Antonio Villa’s house to celebrate his impending marriage. Chao attended with Pancho to demonstrate that the showdown between the two had passed. One way or the other, the confrontations with Carranza continued and shortly thereafter a minor situation created new tensions. Several cars had arrived in Torreón carrying materials for the First Chief’s headquarters and Primitivo Uro, who was in charge of supplies, took control of them thinking they were for the Division of the North. Carranza erupted in anger and tried to have Uro arrested. Villa was cursing up and down. In the end, intermediaries prevented blood from being spilled.
Around this time, Carranza convened a meeting in which he ordered Villa not to move to the South, towards Zacatecas as Villa had planned, but rather turn east and take Saltillo in the area where Pablo González was then operating. Ángeles disagreed with the proposal, arguing that the Federales in the northeast had been defeated after the fighting in San Pedro and that Pablo González could finish them off on his own. Villa, through clenched teeth, submitted to Carranza’s wishes. Although he added, “I don’t believe support from my forces is necessary to succeed in taking Saltillo.” The only convincing argument was that Saltillo was the point of departure to Coahuila’s coal basin which the trains needed for fuel.
The proposal made even less sense in terms of how the Mexican Revolution was growing throughout Mexico. Three large forces were moving from the north to the south: Álvaro Obregón’s Division of the Northwest moving down from Sonora towards Sinaloa; Villa’s Division of the North moving through the center of the country from Chihuahua to Torreón; and Pablo González’s Division of the Northeast that controlled Monterrey and Piedras Negras. Logic dictated that they should converge on Mexico City, in addition to Huerta being harassed from the south by the Zapatistas.
Alberto J. Pani, Carranza’s money man who had no sympathy for Villa, would later reveal Carranza’s real motives: “Considering the dangers posed to the revolution by the undisciplined and ill-tempered general [Villa] taking possession of the capital of the republic, or in order to equalize the progress of each of the three divisions [. . .] the First Chief [. . .] wanted to slow the Division of the North’s march [. . .] ordering Gen. Villa to attack Saltillo, which belonged to the military jurisdiction assigned to Gen. [Pablo] González.” Soon after, Obregón related a visit from “Breceda [. . .] who was assigned by the First Chief to convey Señor Carranza’s desire that I should make every effort to speed my advance towards the center of the country because he was starting to be suspicious of Villa and Ángeles’s conduct.”
Pancho left Chihuahua and its tainted atmosphere and entered Torreón on May 3. Anger from the previous conflicts must have been gnawing at him. The next day, Urquizo reported that while he was eating in a Torreón hotel’s restaurant an officer was drinking wine at the next table when Villa appeared with four or five men from his general staff. Villa called for the officer—who must have been a recently-incorporated former Federale artillery officer—and, after informing him of the prevailing decree condemning to death anyone who consumed alcoholic beverages while on duty, shot him twice. Urquizo was shocked by Villa’s callousness.
On May 5, Villa reviewed the 15,000 men in Torreón, those who would take part in the attack on Saltillo a few days later along with La Laguna’s garrison. The following day, Carranza and his cabinet, accompanied by Manuel Chao, left for Torreón. Gov. Chao agreed to an interview with Vida Nueva in response to news in the El Paso Morning Times about tensions within upper echelons of Constitucionalismo. Chao refuted reports that there had been friction between himself and Villa. Various generals greeted them in the Torreón train station, including Eugenio Aguirre Benavides, Orestes Pereyra, and Calixto Contreras. Urquizo pointed out that “the First Chief betrayed a clear coldness.” There was no parade of troops. Miguel Alessio Robles remembered that while they were in Torreón, neither Toribio Ortega nor Ángeles greeted Carranza. Urquizo claimed that Villa was out of town, “I think he had left for Nieves.” Carranza stayed at the Banco de Coahuila while the men in his team saw danger all around, believing that Villa wanted to arrest them. The guard outside the First Chief’s lodgings was beefed up that night. The next day, without saying goodbye, Carranza and his general staff left for Durango, taking refuge under the protection of the Arrieta brothers.
Villa, meanwhile, was confronting a serious problem because the intervention in Veracruz had reactivated the ban on the export of arms and ammunition to Mexico. Villa ordered the Finance Agency to cut expenses and denied a request for money to repair several automobiles because all of it was needed for the army. De la Garza believed, along with Carothers himself, that the embargo would be resolved favorably and that in short order a limited number of cartridges could be imported. Villa assigned Sommerfeld and Carothers to purchase war materials and suggested to De la Garza to use his relationship with Cobb, the chief of El Paso customs, to send the munitions through Ciudad Juárez. Lázaro de la Garza spoke to Cobb and Pershing in Fort Bliss, telling them that the embargo would only help Huerta who was manufacturing munitions in Mexico. “If we have ammunition, we will get to the capital very soon.” They each promised to report to US Customs and Defense. “Sommerfeld is leaving for Washington for the same purpose. If we don’t get it, we’ll have to make violent arrangements to bring ammunition from Europe or the United States through Matamoros via Cuba. . . These people are showing signs of wanting to help us.”
That same week, the news broke that Chao would be replaced by Fidel Ávila and, on May 13, Chao handed over the government of Chihuahua to Terrazas, who transferred it to Ávila, and left with Villa to fight the Federales. Other, less obvious, changes impacted the Villista administration as well. Federico González Garza became Fidel Ávila’s advisor in the Chihuahua government and almost immediately recruited Manuel Bonilla to act as Secretary of the Government in Juárez under Tomás Ornelas. The old Maderistas were clearly uniting with Villismo. Based on Federico González Garza’s papers from the middle of 1914, we can answer the question of how the Villista territories were administered and by whom. González Garza ran the Secretary of the Government for Ávila, Bonilla did so for Tomás Ornelas in Ciudad Juárez, and Miguel Díaz Lombardo carried on in Washington. However, the main lines of political and military authority ran through Villa and the general staff of the Division of the North, while its commercial interests passed through the Finance Agency in Juárez and El Paso. In parallel, a very effective secret service was created in Chihuahua, led by Héctor Ramos with agents along the border who kept the activities of the Colorados and the Felicistas (the movement in support of Porfirio’s nephew Félix Díaz) activities in check.
