thirty-five
conferences
The stench of death had not even dissipated in Zacatecas when Felipe Ángeles proposed that Pancho Villa give him four brigades of cavalry to take Aguascalientes.
“I’ll give you seven, mi general,” replied Villa.
Ángeles believed he could be in Aguascalientes the following Sunday and began giving instructions. On June 25, Aguirre Benavides, Severino Ceniceros, Calixto Contreras, Máximo García, Pánfilo Natera, Isaac Arroyo, and Raúl Madero’s brigades were ordered to be ready by first light the following day in Guadalupe.
However, as Villa explained, “When we were preparing for the advance, I received news from Torreón that, by orders of the First Chief, he had ordered the route to Monterrey be cut off starting at the Hipólito station, and that a shipment of 100 cars of coal destined to reach us, was blocked. Carranza’s illogical decision to suspend the coal, seemed to be me to be obviously hostile and intentionally designed to leave my column stranded in the middle of the road without enough resources to either advance or retreat.” Not only was the coal supply cut off, but arms and munitions were prevented from coming from Torreón.
Villa, enraged, thought that he could move against Monclova and take the coal by force, but this would signify a complete break with Carranza. Huerta’s dictatorship was mortally wounded, but it was still kicking. If Pancho Villa moved south, he risked exhausting his resources because he had only enough ammunition for a couple more clashes and, most of all, he did not like the idea of distancing himself from his base of operations with hostilities on his flank.
Pancho wrote a telegram to Obregón: “Very urgent. I regret to inform you that Señor Carranza continues to place all manner of obstacles and difficulties in the way of the Division of the North marching to the south of the country.” He described how he had asked Venustiano and Pablo González for coal from the northern mines after the capture of Zacatecas and how they had not given it to him, and he complained they were blocking the transfer of ammunition from Tampico. He affirmed that “. . . in no way will I confine myself to the South,” and indicated that the Division of the Northeast (Pablo González) remained in Saltillo and Monterrey “in exasperating inactivity.” He announced that he would return to the North and was writing to him so that Obregón would be aware of the situation and take care in advancing southward, since the other divisions would not be doing so. He announced inter-division conferences between the North and Northeast in Torreón and invited the Northwest to attend. He supposed that Carranza would be represented there.
After a night of insomnia, he countermanded his orders to Ángeles and told him to return with those same brigades to Chihuahua. One way or the other, Pablo González’s troop movements towards Torreón must have weighed on Villa, after all, if they controlled Torreón, they could cut off Villa’s access to Chihuahua. But overall, Villa, who did not wish for a rupture, hoped that the other divisions, principally the Division of the Northwest, would side with him and, thus, create a new dynamic.
Ángeles’s general staff (Durón, Cervantes, and Herón González) encouraged him to move on to Mexico City. Coal could be purchased in the United States and if it led to a clash with Carranza, so be it. Ángeles restrained them, “There is only disrepute in Mexico City,” shaking his head without saying another word.
Villa, and even more so Ángeles, couldn’t have known that that same day Gen. Olea telegraphed Victoriano Huerta, telling him, “Brother, if you cannot send me at least 20,000 men, I think it will be difficult to contain the enemy’s movements to the south.” Gen. Olea was relying on a thousand Colorados—who had been brought there by Orozco after they had failed to reach Zacatecas—and Tello’s 1,000 men in Palmita. If Ángeles plan had been carried out, not only Aguascalientes, but the whole front would have collapsed.
Later that day, Villa sent a telegraph to Lázaro de la Garza to give Gen. Scott and President Wilson, via Sommerfeld, his version of events. “After the capture of Zacatecas, I thought of continuing my advance into the center of the republic all the way to Mexico City. Unfortunately, recent events have forced me to act otherwise, and I have resolved, in accord with all the chiefs of the Division of the North which I command, to return to the North, stationing my forces in the cities along the central railway line from Torreón to Juárez.” He explained that he was leaving Natera in Zacatecas and listed his reasons for doing so: first, “Gen. Pablo González’s evasiveness about heading south to San Luis Potosí alongside the column under my command;” second, “Señor Carranza’s refusal to provide me with coal, despite having immense quantities of this fuel in the Coahuila coal mines;” and, third, “Carranza did not supply this division with the necessary ammunition which only he can import through the port of Tampico.” This last point was not entirely correct because contraband continued to pour through El Paso.
The brigades led by Ángeles that were going to move south began to mobilize towards Torreón and Chihuahua. Ángeles himself confessed, “Our return to the North has become indispensable.”
Meanwhile, conversations continued between the delegates from the Division of the Northeast, led by Miguel Alessio Robles, and the Division of the North’s generals, with Dr. Silva, the chief of the Division’s medical brigade, acting as the principal interlocutor. Alessio pressured the northerners to refrain from breaking with Carranza, a view to which they had all previously consented, and they agreed jointly to convene a conference of the two divisions in Torreón as Villa had referred to in his letters. As part of his policy of détente, Villa sent Carranza a message informing him of the fall of Zacatecas and received congratulations from Carranza in reply. However, the following day, they learned of Felipe Ángeles’ dismissal as Undersecretary of War, dated June 19. It seemed like a provocation. A cold sensation washed over Miguel Alessio. “I wanted the earth to swallow me whole.” Carranza, furthermore, made Pablo González (his favorite) a division general (on his birthday, no less) and did the same for Obregón some days later (June 29), while refraining from granting Pancho Villa the same rank.
Faced with the danger of a definite break, Villa and the Division of the North’s commanders met with the Arrieta brothers’ brigade. The northerners attempted to get the Durangans on their side, but the old conflicts between the Arrietas and Urbina continued. Although the Arrieta brothers apparently had left for Durango after the meeting without any conflicts, Urbina wrote to Gov. Pastor Roix on June 26, “Tell Domingo Arrieta, that to avoid conflicts between our troops, he communicates my soldiers’ failings so I can punish them according to the law [. . .] because [. . .] I will be forced to shoot many employees of the Arrieta comrades if they continue to pick off cattle which are my property.” Villa persevered in his attempt ten days later, but tensions grew, producing desertions from Durango troops who didn’t want to be forced to fight the Division of the North.
The last days of June and the early days of July witnessed a strange impasse. Villa played cards incessantly, during breaks, at night, on the high command’s train, or while the telegraph hummed; usually with Carothers, who got used to losing.
On July 2, the long-awaited response from Obregón came from Ahualulco, Jalisco. He explained his delay in responding with reference to the terrible telegraph service “owing to the constant rain.” He asked that Villa be patient with Carranza and stated that he would not be attending the conference in Torreón because “time would not permit it.” He announced that he was heading south to capture Guadalajara, “even though I judge it to be hazardous if your brigades and those of Señor González are not continuing towards the center.” He did not pick sides in the conflict, calling on Villa to “continue your honorable career as subordinate to the First Chief.”
On July 4, the talks in Torreón began. Generals Antonio I. Villarreal, Cesáreo Castro, and Luis Caballero represented the Division of the Northeast with Ernesto Meade Fierro acting as secretary, while Gen. José Isabel Robles, Dr. Miguel Silva, and the engineer Manuel Bonilla represented the Division of the North with Col. Roque González Garza as secretary. Villa had chosen his most level-headed men to represent them. Miguel left us a description of Robles, “Black eyes that sparkled with the flame of an obvious talent,” and Villarreal said that “he looked like the last Moor King of Granada.”
The delegates installed themselves in the upper floors of the Bank of Coahuila with Silva presiding over the conference. After Bonilla and Robles presented the Division of the North’s complaints, they reached the first two agreements: to ratify their allegiance to Venustiano Carranza and to take a vote of confidence in Gen. Villa, recognizing him as the commander of the Division of the North. It appeared that things were getting to the starting point the Villistas wanted to discuss—that is, where had the conflict originated?
They next delimited Carranza’s power, or more accurately, restricted the political weight of those in his inner circle. The conference approved a proposal for Venustiano to form a cabinet with the agreement of the two groups and proposed a list, including: Fernando Iglesias Calderón, Luis Cabrera, Antonio I. Villarreal, Miguel Silva, Manuel Bonilla, Alberto J. Pani, Eduardo Hay, Ignacio L. Pesqueira, Miguel Díaz Lombardo, José Vasconcelos, Miguel Alessio Robles, and Federico González Garza. The list was balanced between Carranza partisans, independents, Obregonistas (like Hay), and Maderistas from the early days affiliated to Villismo.
During the conference, Pancho refrained from intervening. He limited himself to turning up in front of the doors to the bank building at one o’clock in the afternoon in his automobile where he would wait for the delegates to finish their work and then take them to eat.
The delegates partially amended the Plan de Guadalupe. Venustiano Carranza, upon the revolution’s triumph, would become interim president, responsible for the immediate convocation of presidential and gubernatorial elections.
This was not a small matter. The Villistas and some of the northeast generals believed that Carranza intended to maintain himself in the presidency. After the Battle of Zacatecas, Villa had sent a neutral party, Abel Serratos, to confer with Venustiano and ask him a series of questions: What would he do upon arriving in Mexico City? Would he relinquish the title of First Chief and comply with the Plan de Guadalupe? Would he convene immediate elections? Carranza did not respond to him. The mistrust was intense. Describing Villa’s feelings during the conferences, Carothers wrote to Secretary of State Bryan, claiming that Pancho “estimates that Carranza is surrounded by politicians who are feathering his nest which will give rise to a government even more despotic than the last.” And Bryan sent a telegram to President Wilson suggesting he demand that Carranza come to an agreement with Villa. Pancho, for his part, wrote to Gen. Scott sounding him out with respect to the US government’s potential attitude if he were to break with Carranza. Scott answered that his views were not the official views of the government, but he suggested seeking an understanding with Carranza and advancing on Mexico City. Once the city had been captured, it would be easier to arrive at some type of accord.
The conference stipulated that no commander of the Constitucionalista army could stand as a candidate for president. In its closing words, the final resolution approved at the conference stated: “The Divisions of the North and the Northeast resolve [. . .] to erect a democratic regime for our nation; to guarantee the well-being of the workers; to economically emancipate the campesinos by enacting an equitable distribution of land or by pursuing other means that will tend to resolve the agrarian problem; and to correct, punish, and bring to account those duly responsible members of the Roman Catholic clergy who have, materially or intellectually, assisted the usurper Victoriano Huerta.”
For the first time, a social program was developed that went further than the Plan de Guadalupe.
Three private agreements were reached but left out of the resolutions: the Division of the North would be recognized as an army corps, Villa would receive the rank of division general, and Ángeles would be reappointed as Undersecretary of War, although he would then immediately resign the post.
On July 8, the conference ended, and the delegates of the Division of the Northeast left for Saltillo, committed to presenting the resolutions to Carranza.
Villarreal, who had no love lost for Villa, recalled an anecdote narrated by Villa during one of the meals. True or not, it’s valuable because it captures the image Villarreal held of Villa, an image which prevailed in the following months.
You see, compañeritos, I went to give my condolences to the widow of my compañerito. When I arrived at my compadrita’s house, I heard music and singing coming from a neighboring house without any respect for the deceased. “How is this possible, comadrita? What kind of neighbors do you have who don’t know how to respect the pain of their fellow human beings?” I asked my comadrita and then she told me that she had already sent several messages requesting that they not continue playing piano and singing, but they had paid no attention. So, I went to see the neighbors and to request that they stop singing, but they gave me a very poor welcome, telling me they were absolutely free to do what they wanted in their own home.
“Do you know who you are speaking to?”
“No, we don’t care.”
“Well, you should know you are speaking to Francisco Villa.”
I became so angry with these women who didn’t know how to respect the pain of their fellow human beings that I punched the owner of the house in the head and then left very upset, but happy because they wouldn’t keep bothering my comadrita.
While waiting for Carranza’s response, Villa sent a telegraph to Obregón who was on the verge of occupying Guadalajara, telling him that he would take one month to reorganize his forces before heading south from Torreón.
Carranza replied to the conference on July 13, stating, “The First Chief of the Constitucionalista army under my command approves, in general, the agreements made in Torreón.” However, he did not respond to the suggestion to create a unified cabinet based on a consensus of the various forces, he did not address the question of whether he could be a constitutional president after his interim term had ended, and he ignored the call for social reforms, asserting, “With respect to the eighth clause [the one that highlighted the need for land redistribution, a disposition favoring the workers, and punishment of the interventionist clergy] which the conference approved, I must point out that the matters enumerated within are unconnected to the incident that prompted the conference.”
The heart of the proposal called upon the Huerta government’s fall, for the convening of an “assembly of all generals in the Constitucionalista army with forces under their command, which would also be attended by governors of the states, permitting those who could not attend in person to name proxies to represent them. The aforementioned assembly will set as its objective the study and resolution of the most important reforms in different areas that must be addressed and put into motion during the term of the provisional government, as well as setting the date to hold national and local elections throughout the republic.”
Carranza’s response provoked a high degree of irritation in the Division of the North. Roque González Garza pointed out that “Villa’s lieutenants criticized Gen. Pablo González and the delegates who had attended the Conference, believing they had been very weak and had allowed Carranza to evade the agreements [. . .]. The generals asked Villa for permission to rapidly advance on Mexico City, thinking that that the march would be irresistible.”
Villa threw cold water on them. According to Roque’s version, he said, “I believe we must indefinitely suspend [the advance], allowing generals González and Obregón to enter the capital. We will stay here, peacefully, and wait for the nation to make its decision.”
This resolution leaves this author perplexed, finding it hard to fathom the tranquility with which Villa approached the matter. What was going through his mind? Accepting that the other divisions would take the capital meant being militarily marginalized during the last phase of the campaign. It meant turning away from his hatred for Huerta and forgoing revenge; it meant diminishing the Division of the North’s military prestige. One weighty argument held that they had already completed the most important part of the campaign and now it fell to Obregón and Pablo González to finish it. Did Villa foresee that they were going to run into a brick wall which would require the Division of the North’s services? Was that his tactical calculation? Did he wish to rest his exhausted forces in advance of what might happen next?
Villa’s decision to wait at the ready raised tensions, producing a vacuum of information which was quickly filled by rumors. The wildest of these reported that Lázaro de la Garza, working with a financial pirate named Winfield, had stolen the “entire issuance of Villista currency,” including the printing plates—Lázaro had already returned to Chihuahua at the time—and that Villa had died, according to the New York Times, stabbed by a woman. Villa himself was obliged to send a telegram to the newspaper from Torreón, clarifying that “It is not true that I am dead. At the moment, I feel better than ever fighting against the enemies of the people.” Rumors circulated in Ciudad Juárez that Villa had fled to the United States when his people rose up after his subordinates found compromising papers showing that they had sold Mexican land to US citizens. It was said that martial law prevailed in Villista territory, which wasn’t true, and that the Division of the North was suffering a wave of desertions in Ciudad Juárez and Torreón, while in La Laguna, nearly five thousand Villistas sold their arms to Arrieta when, in fact, the opposite occurred.
Who was behind this campaign of calamity? Clearly Huerta’s consuls in the United States and the newspapers played a role. Did they think they could widen the breach between Villa and Carranza?
In the middle of July, Pancho left Torreón, returned to Chihuahua, and then continued on to Ciudad Juárez. A series of photographs taken at the time picture him smiling as well as depicting the barber who traveled on his train. Villa appears very calm, at ease. His clothes are well ironed and elegant.
After the talks in Torreón, Carranza asked the Division of the North to turn over the money it had confiscated as well as the currency printing machines and personnel that Villa had retained. Pani had been wasting his breath trying to work it out with Ornelas, the commander in charge of Ciudad Juárez, but when Villa arrived in the city, the Carrancista financial expert was summoned by the Division of the North’s commander. “The house where I found him was filled to the ceiling with people.” Villa listened to Pani’s petition—even if Villa interrupted frequently, bad-mouthing Venustiano and his political entourage—and agreed to return the money. Villa said that Don Venustiano wanted to kill him and assured Pani that communicating with Monterrey in coded messages was useless because “I have someone who gives me all telegrams, no matter who they’re from.” On the other hand, he affirmed that tensions with Carranza had lessened after the talks in Torreón. Pani decided to leave the Division of the North $1 million pesos. This clearly created an amusing situation when Villa, who handed over the money without counting it, asked him, “Sir, you count all the money?” Urbano Flores, one of those exempted from Carranza’s taxes, would later confirm the details of the interviews and describe how Pancho proposed that together they should found a state mining bank, adding that he had one million railroad ties ready to prepare the tracks.
Around this time, the dictatorship was coming apart at the seams. On July 15, Victoriano Huerta renounced the presidency and, following the tradition of dictators who don’t die with their boots on, left Mexico City for Veracruz, escorted by Gen. Blanquet and 600 soldiers. Villa watched the end of the story from a distance, a very long distance.
One day later, at 10:15 a.m., Toribio Ortega, the skinny warrior from Cuchillo Parado, died of typhoid fever at the age of forty-four, suffering terribly after being transported from Zacatecas to Chihuahua.
The silver lining was that his death produced a reconciliation between Juan N. Medina and Villa, who called for him in El Paso via Carlitos Jáuregui. There was a devilishly elegant theatricality to the language used on the occasion.
“Why did you leave my side?” Villa asked while welcoming him.
“So that you might find me on the very day you needed me.”
Medina was appointed municipal president of Ciudad Juárez on July 18. At his urging, Pancho sent for two young men who had moved closer to Villismo, Martín Guzmán and Carlos Domínguez, who he sent to sound out various Constitucionalista officers, among them Lucio Blanco, Eulalio Gutiérrez, and Dávila Sánchez.
Villa had come to Ciudad Juárez to handle a difficult problem. Over the previous weeks, US customs in the El Paso region had been seizing important shipments of cartridges that Pancho was trying to pass through as contraband and arresting the smugglers with the support of the American army. Quirk claimed that Villa’s presence in Juárez stemmed from him wanting to supervise “an enormous shipment” of arms that was on its way and that “the metal shops in El Paso sent munitions to Mexico freely and that the US customs inspectors limited themselves to cursory inspections, if they did any inspection at all.” But this was not true at all, in fact, the embargo had tightened. In just one month, 60,000 Mauser bullets had been confiscated and customs was watching a large shipment of 225,000 bullets on its way from Galveston. Villa was concerned because he was trying to improve the quality of the Division of the North’s artillery shells and Sommerfeld was purchasing 10,000 French shells in New York destined for Mexico. Fortunately, the embargo did not prevent Villa from legally buying hats, uniforms, raincoats, coal, gasoline, and dynamite in the United States so that, by the end of the month, there was enough coal in Chihuahua to get the Villista trains moving, and he had acquired $50,000 worth of raincoats.
How had he financed his most recent operations? Zachary Cobb, El Paso customs chief, informed his superiors that Villa had obtained a half-a-million dollars from selling unmarked cattle—actually, he had secured an advance for three hundred thousand cattle. This deal earned Lázaro de la Garza huge profits by selling to “a certain Garret (his father-in-law) and an Ophelia” based on the cattle expropriated from the Terrazas’s haciendas.
Around this time, the El Paso Morning Times estimated the Division of the North’s annual expenses to be $15 million. The sum might have been exaggerated, but not excessively because not all the Division’s income passed through the Finance Agency or through its bank accounts in the Rio Grande Valley Bank and the El Paso Bank and Trust Co.
Pancho took advantage of the pause to reorganize the Division of the North, filling in the holes created by those who had fallen. He divided the Villa brigade and established camps in his natural bases of Camargo, Jiménez, Parral, and Chihuahua. The recruitment of miners in Chihuahua was organized and the barracks were opened to hundreds of volunteers. A circular signed by Madinabeytia declared that houses assigned to Division of the North officers for their personal use could not be sold or rented. Those already being rented had to pay the municipal treasury, those who insisted on renting would be discharged. The sale of automobiles, furniture, and coaches transferred to commanders for their personal use was prohibited. The circular warned that serious cases would be brought to military tribunals.
Villa made another critical move, replacing Lázaro de la Garza as chief of the Division of the North’s Finance Agency with Ignacio Perchez Enríquez. Whether this was because Villa was aware of Lázaro’s economic abuses, murky deals, and personal maneuvers—and he had decided to put an end to them—or because he decided to utilize Lázaro in the United States to secure lines of credit that would allow him to buy directly from New York arms dealers, Villa ordered him to return to Chihuahua, telling him to take the next train. However, the “next” train would not arrive for several months and Lázaro—perhaps fearful of Villa’s reaction—moved to Los Angeles, using his wife’s illness as an excuse. Over the next month, he exchanged telegrams with Villa, asserting that his wife’s illness prevented him from leaving Los Angeles and going to New York (never mind Chihuahua), and reported that he had bought a Pierce-Arrow as a gift for Villa. His telegrams mix fantastic stories about San Francisco bankers with supposed meetings he held with members of the US Department of Justice, who assured him that the embargo would be lifted soon. Yet, Lázaro had begun double dealing. While he was writing to Villa describing the car he had bought for him, he was telegraphing Carranza to congratulate him for the Constitucionalista army’s entry into Mexico City.
Villa was left without the services of another of his financial operators and purchasing agents when, on August 1, George Carothers, Pancho’s representative to Wilson, was accused of economic mismanagement and had to appear in Washington to defend himself. He was accused, correctly, of having served as the front man for the Hearst consortium in the purchase of Mexican properties at a discounted price and of having acted as an intermediary for a soap manufacturer in La Laguna, allowing himself to be named manager in the enterprise in order to secure Villa’s favor.
On July 23, the vacuum created by Huerta’s escape was filled by an interim government presided over by the former Minister of Foreign Relations, Francisco Carvajal, supported by the remnants of the Federale army. Carranza quickly made clear that he would accept nothing from the interim Carvajal government except an unconditional surrender. Villa opened the door to a potential reconciliation, writing to Carranza on July 21, “I am very pleased to send you my most sincere congratulations for your unflinching attitude which clearly expressed the sentiments of all genuine revolutionaries,” and telling him that he could count on the Division of the North’s 30,000 men to prosecute a campaign “against the so-called government of Carvajal,” assuring him that he was ready “whenever you direct me to carry it out.” In the note, Villa stated that he needed the munitions shipment “on its way from Tampico” (which Carranza had blocked). Carranza did not accept the olive branch he was offered and kept up the blockade, instead inviting Villa to come visit him in Tampico. Villa refused the offer, lacking all confidence in Carranza, replying elegantly that he was inclined to act on the invitation “as soon as I am able to resolve all the matters for which I am responsible.”
Luis Aguirre Benavides, Villa’s secretary, recounted that Villa received a visit around this time from an envoy of interim president Francisco Carvajal who came to negotiate the surrender of the Federale forces in various states of the republic with the Division of the North because they found Carranza and Obregón’s conditions extremely harsh. He suggested that Villa not recognize Carranza as president and that, instead, Carvajal would immediately convene elections. Luis said that a telegram was drafted to the El Paso consul to be transmitted to the president along the lines of “Villa [. . .] will not recognize Carranza in the presidency and offers, of course, to support you so that you can convene elections [. . .] if you have any difficulties, Gen. Felipe Ángeles will be named in your place.” Villa merely insisted on the army’s unconditional surrender, and he considered the Federale’s dissolution to be Carranza’s concern. Luis said that he was opposed to this course of action and suggested that Villa consult with Ángeles. In the end, Ángeles convinced Villa that he could not act behind the back of the rest of the revolutionary army. His regard for Ángeles overcame his fury at Carranza and the telegram was never sent.
On August 13, Carvajal’s government surrendered and signed the treaty of Teoloyucan, in which it accepted the Federale army’s dissolution. Gen. J. Refugio Velasco, Torreón’s defender, signed on behalf of the government. An indirect effect of the treaty was that many of the Colorados’ commanders who had succumbed to Huertismo—fighting on his behalf in the North against Villa—declared themselves to be outside the agreement, as they could expect nothing from the Carrancista or Villista North. Almazán and Argumedo sought cover under the wing of Zapatismo while Orozco, José Inés Salazar, and Caraveo went into exile. On August 15, the Constitucionalista army entered Mexico City.
These were not the only conspiracies afoot in the republic’s tempestuous condition. Forces emerging from the nation’s social swamp attempted to take advantage of the wedge driven by the Constitucionalistas. The lawyer Bonales Sandoval, who worked for Félix Díaz and the Porfirian generals marginalized by Huerta, availed himself of his previous relation with Villa (at one time he had acted as his attorney) and conspired in El Paso, offering Villa information about the “damned Carrancistas,” facilitated by Villa’s dim view of Obregón and the obstacles Carranza’s agents in the United States had placed before the Division of the North. Villa must have been aware of all this on August 17 when he spent a few hours in El Paso. Oddly, one of the old Maderistas, the Boer Viljoen, went looking for him to offer his services.
There is a cinematographic record of his brief time in El Paso captured by Pathe’s Weekly in which Villa and Carothers are seen leaving J. F. Williams’ house after meeting with Gen. Scott. A second take shows Villa, Carothers, and Michie, Gen. Scott’s assistant, after leaving Villa’s house in Juárez. The relationship between Villa and Scott would keep up for many years to come, as evidenced by fifty-four letters from Villa in Scott’s archive.
Villa returned to Chihuahua the next day and replied to demands from the English consul to return the Los Remedios hacienda to the Benton widow once the harvest was complete. The hacienda was being worked by its neighbors from Santa María de Cuevas.
After stopping in Chihuahua for a few hours, Villa left for Parral where he welcomed the Herrera brothers at the train station while the band played a reworked version of “Marcha a Zacatecas.” He traveled with his brother Antonio, dined at Maclovio and José de la Luz’s home, and didn’t say a single word about the conflict with Carranza. He spent his time attending various parties, including an open-air dance at the Botello ranch and a banquet in the Pedro Alvarado palace. During his travels, he donated corrugated metal sheets to rebuild the Hidalgo market in Parral. On the final day, a confrontation between the Dorados and Maclovio’s guard almost ended in gunfire. Eulogio Ortiz, who was accompanying Villa, was challenged by Col. Pedro Sosa from the Juárez brigade, striking him and disarming him at a dance. The argument became heated because Villa wanted them to hand Sosa over to him, while Maclovio wanted Ortiz—who had abandoned Maclovio previously to work with Villa—turned over to him. At a certain point, the Herrera brothers ordered Capt. Muñoz to surround the Foreign Club building with Villa inside it. Fortunately, it went no farther than this, although relations “remained cold.”
Pancho next proceeded to Las Nieves, site of the Morelos brigade’s base. Urbina had invited him to baptize his son. Rancheras, rodeos, dances, and cock fights ensued. Alcohol ran freely, except in Villa’s guard. While there, Villa must have heard of Carranza’s entry into Mexico City. The Villistas were not the only ones excluded from the victory. Emiliano Zapata wrote to Villa from Yautepec on August 21, “I have always believed you to be a patriotic and honest man, who knows how to stand by the people’s cause clearly laid out in the Plan de Ayala [. . .]. I understand that Señor Carranza will try to evade the principles referred to in the Plan by attempting to seat himself in the presidential chair without a vote of the republic’s revolutionary commanders [. . .] based on the formation of a provisional revolutionary government.” Even before Zapata received a reply from Villa—one that would come via Gildardo Magaña—Villa himself insisted, on August 25, on the idea of a provisional government elected by the revolutionary chiefs, in keeping therefore with the agreements concluded by the Torreón talks, making it abundantly clear that if they tried to trample on the Plan de Ayala’s principles, his forces were prepared to fight “the war through to the end.”
