thirty-seven
convention
The novelist Mauricio Magdaleno, just a child when the Aguascalientes Convention took place, remembered his teachers wanting to let the children out of school before the conference began as excitement coursed through the small city, and, most of all, the constant whistles of the locomotives pulling special trains filled with delegates. Generals and their guards appeared all over town. Mayor Baudilio Caraveo described the scene: “Aguascalientes resembled a military camp at the time. A place that was united and cordial one moment and then filled with the kind of antagonism, mistrust, and aggression plotted in dark alleys.” Musical bands wandered all round, there was not enough lodging, armed people walked the streets, food became scarce, and the train station bustled like an ant hill. Agustín Víctor Casasola, Abraham, Lupercio, H. J. Gutiérrez, and Carlos Muñana circled the streets, even if there wasn’t much to photograph according to them.
What would become known as the Convención de Aguascalientes was basically a representative assembly of the “people in arms.” It had been agreed that only generals and governors would be represented. As Vito Alessio said, “Only those who had fought with arms in hand would be admitted as delegates.” Vasconcelos has argued that “The first foolish thing the assembly did was to declare itself a convention of military figures.” But it’s Vasconcelos who’s wrong here as excluding civilians in favor of commanders was based on sound logic. Constitucionalismo was not a political movement adopting a military form, rather it represented a military reaction to Huerta’s coup, which did not provoke significant political opposition in the form of civilian movements, struggles in the press, workers’ strikes, or student mobilizations. The Revolution, from its beginning, had expressed itself as a military resistance: the people in arms. In this sense, it was justifiable that those representing these people in arms were those who would decide the Revolution’s destiny.
As in all large assemblies, more time was lost in preliminaries than in the debates themselves, while back-room deals and secrets played not unimportant roles.
An opening meeting was held in the afternoon of October 6, 1914, in the Morelos theater in which the rules governing who would be represented were reviewed. Carranza refrained from sending a personal representative while Villa opted for Roque González Garza. Roque remembered that Villa, who had installed himself in Zacatecas, instructed him as follows:
I have nothing more to say, colonel, than to uphold all the points approved at the Torreón conference. If these points are approved by the Convention, we have nothing more to add. Moreover, colonel, I want you to work so that no military commander becomes president of the republic; make it clear to the generals that the revolution has ended, and they should place the power in the hands of those most capable, and these must be civilians. We’re not fit for that.
The first count showed 152 delegates, thirty-five of whom came from the Division of the North. The proportions did not reflect existing military forces. The Villistas had demanded that only generals commanding at least 1,000 men should be represented, however, they ended up accepting generals without commands and governors or their proxies.
Vito Alessio reported the Morelos theater’s “stage was decorated ridiculously,” with two bands stationed at the entrance. The first four days were spent arguing about credentials. Some didn’t make it past the first review. For instance, Carlos Bringas who—although he had not held a command in Chao’s brigade—emerged three months later as a general in Pablo González’s forces; and then there was Castellanos, who had also served as an officer with González’s troops as well as in Huerta’s secret police. Vito Alessio, the Convention’s greatest chronicler, remarked that “Ángeles was the most cultured of the delegates,” while Urbina stalked around “gruff, gloomy, and hostile.”
Villa watched from afar. On October 12, he wrote to Sommerfeld, telling him that he didn’t see a way to avoid a conflict because he wasn’t going to let Carranza remain in power in perpetuity.
The executive of the first assembly was chosen on October 14. Antonio I. Villarreal, a former Magonista from the Northeast Division, was named president while two Villistas, José Isabel Robles and Pánfilo Natera, were selected as vice presidents. Mateo Almanza and Marciano González were to serve in the secretariat along with Samuel N. Santos who handed over his post to Vito Alessio Robles the next day. Robles looked a little like a ghost with his tremendous height and baggy eyes, leading Martín Luis Guzmán to describe him in a benevolent light: “He hated cowards and sycophants, had no time for fools, and was somewhat irresistibly attracted to nonconformists. He was born for the opposition, to criticize everything.”
The first voting results demonstrated that the apparent Carrancista majority from the Convention was an illusion, making clear that he would not be ratified as First Chief. The Carrancista press from Mexico City added its own spin to this turn. One witness commented that, in celebration of these first skirmishes, “an infernal racket, a wild hullabaloo rained down throughout the night in Aguascalientes, with raucous cries and shots fired at the public streetlights, usually accompanied by ¡Vivas! for Villa.” Among the incidents that provoked the greatest tensions were instances of delegates being forced to shout ¡Viva Villa! at gun point. Some Villistas confronted Marciano and González Murrieta’s guards and tore off their insignias. The celebrations devolved into drunken binges.
While his name was being evoked in Aguascalientes, Villa was in Zacatecas, keeping up his habitual flood of correspondence. He advised Col. Díaz Couder to leave alone a factory named Concha owned by Peñón Blanco, which was then being managed by Gen. Contreras (“to avoid any quarrels”) who was in charge of confiscating cotton from several haciendas. Over the month of October, Villa once again attempted to convince Lázaro de la Garza to return to Chihuahua “as soon as possible,” but Lázaro evaded the question, offering all manner of excuses and explanations from the Hotel Knickerbocker at the corner of 42 Street and Broadway in New York. He asked for $40,000 to be deposited in his account in order to avoid losing $20,000 that he had advanced for a bank loan to purchase uniforms, “I am not claiming anything by this, I just want you to know that that I am very grateful for the many things I have received from you.” He said that he would be returning to Chihuahua in three days, but one week later he was still in New York. Villa didn’t manage to get him back until November 17.
It was around this time that Luz Corral, along with two of his daughters, arrived in Zacatecas to be with him. Reynalda had returned from a boarding school in San Francisco and, after living for a time with Martina, was adopted by La Güera Corral at the start of the year. Micaela, the daughter of Petra Vara, stayed for a time with Hipólito in Ciudad Juárez before Villa brought her to Chihuahua to be raised by Luz. Agustín came along as well—the son of Asunción Villaescusa, who had handed him over to Luz to care for him after she joined a convent. Villa hadn’t realized that the small boy had also been adopted and was delighted by the news. One day, the women in the family dressed Agustín up like a king, with a little crown and a robe. Villa was enraged and began shouting and calling them “ridiculous old women.” While the boy sobbed, Luz changed his costume and dressed him up like a general.
Villareal’s melodious voice rang out in the Convention, demanding an end to hostilities between Hill and Maytorena in Sonora, the incorporation of the Zapatistas, and that “we tell Carranza and Villa that the point of the Revolution was not to determine which man would occupy the presidency of the republic.” This, then, marked the general tone: reconciliation had to come by way of an agreement between Villa and Carranza, neither of whom were present. And if Villa appeared willing to join in, Carranza was not.
Obregón and Hay took the first formal step towards establishing the assembly’s independence from all prior orders by proposing that the delegates sign their names on the white of the Mexican flag, swearing an oath as Convencionalistas and establishing the gathering’s sovereignty. However, for this to work, they needed the one force that was not represented at the Convention to join in, that is, the Zapatistas. Ángeles encouraged a commission be established to invite them, which was eventually composed of Ángeles himself, Lucio Blanco, Calixto Contreras, and the young Buelna. The commission departed for Cuernavaca on October 16. The debates were then tabled waiting for the Zapatistas’ reply.
During the traditional reading of telegrams, one announced that Félix Díaz had crossed the border to join Villa’s troops. Eugenio Aguirre Benavides rose in response, shouting, “The same thing that happened to Bonales Sandoval will happen to him!” The information turned out to be false.
Villa arrived in Aguascalientes on October 16, aboard his train. Rumors raced through the city among the town’s conservative population. Villa had a good reputation among the ordinary people because he did not interfere with religious services or close the churches. Among the Jacobin elements of Obregonismo, Villa’s attitude caused suspicion and they denounced him as a reactionary who favored the clerics. A rumor circulated that Pancho was an early riser and people began to appear near his train, which was located on the farthest tracks, at sunrise. Music from brass bands, las charangas, could be heard through the whole neighborhood, playing “La Valentina,” “La Adelita,” and “La Cucaracha.” Villa was drinking his coffee with a group of soldiers when he was surprised by the cluster of people coming to the station shouting ¡Vivas! and applauding him.
Villa arrived at the theater amidst great expectations. Was he going to accept the Convention’s sovereignty and place himself at its orders? He was greeted at the door of the theater by a band playing the march of honor. However, he was not fully confident in the reception that awaited him and armed Villista soldiers had been dispersed throughout and told to “wait for orders.” Villa took his place in the gallery among the other delegates and there is a photograph that captured him in the first lines, the one-eyed Eduardo Hay at his side with Obregón a little further back. Villarreal invited him to take a seat to the right of the executive table.
Villa then gave a very simple speech: “You will hear from a man without any education at all, his words come straight from the heart [. . .] but Francisco Villa gives honest men no cause for shame as he will be the last to ask anything for himself.” Pancho, according to Martín Luis Guzmán, told him, “I got emotional and started crying.” The delegates rose to their feet and the applause did not die down for a long time.
After the speech, Obregón climbed onto the stage to embrace him. The two men exchanged a few words that would become very significant, or at least they are now in the memories of people who did not live through those years.
“History will know its genuine children,” said Villa.
“Exactly, Señor,” replied Obregón.
Villa surveyed the gallery, as always caught between discomfort and flattery from the applause, taking a pen and awkwardly signing the flag. Curiously, while he was signing, the three characters seated at the Convention’s executive table bearing witness did not, in fact, watch Villa sign his name. A photo of the event clearly shows José Isabel Robles gazing off lost in his thoughts; Vito Alessio Robles, his enormous eyes lending him an Frankensteinian air, looks straight at the camera; and Mateo Almanza is distractedly looking towards his colleagues. Historical actors never know when they are stepping into the frame of a memorable photograph.
Delegates aligned with Carranza at the Convention asked for a three-day recess, supposedly in order to wait for the Zapatistas’ reply. Yet, many delegates suspected that the real motivation behind the requested delay was to give Carranza time to compare notes among his people and, potentially, to order many of them to withdraw. The recess was approved over the opposition of the Division of the North.
While this was taking place, singular historic events were underway in the territories administered by the Villistas. At the end of September, the municipal president of Ciudad Juárez, Col. Juan N. Medina, the man in charge of Villa’s most distant rearguard, received a letter signed by twenty-five Mexican prostitutes. The petitioners stated that, despite the fact that Medina represented “democratic institutions,” discrimination was still being practiced in Juárez as they were prohibited from participating in “ticketed dances” and were told that Mexican women were not permitted to enter. However, given that “public dances were for any woman who wanted to attend without distinction of nationality,” they demanded justice. Medina initiated an investigation and discovered that sixty-five US and Mexican prostitutes were paying a fee of $3 pesos to the Ciudad Juárez treasury while five were paying a fee of $8 pesos, corresponding to first and second-class prostitute status. After verifying that they had paid their fees, Medina answered that there was no basis for any dance hall to discriminate on the basis of nationality, although there was a clause prohibiting them from traveling as a group. Therefore, he ruled, the petitioners could attend any ticketed dance. Moreover, if they knew of foreigners who were coming to Ciudad Juárez to practice prostitution without a permit, they could report them. However, as the owner of an establishment was free to deny entry to anyone whom he pleased, the municipal government could not intervene in the matter.
On Saturday, October 17 and Sunday, October 18, the Convention stood in recess. The Carrancista press in Mexico City complained that Aguascalientes was surrounded by Villista troops and that the delegates were not at liberty to act freely. If it was true that Rodolfo Fierro’s troops were in Rincón de Romos—where they had moved for lack of pastures in Zacatecas—it was also true that they were not putting any pressure on the Convencionistas. In fact, the same could be said of troops partial to Carranza who were stationed no farther than ten kilometers outside the city.
It did not help matters that, on the morning of Monday, October 19, a military guard from Villarreal’s troops had taken up positions around the theater, claiming to “guarantee neutrality.” Confrontations were heating up. Roque González offered to reduce the number of auxiliary troops and guards assigned to the Division of the North’s generals and demanded reciprocity. Obregón’s conciliatory intervention salvaged the dialogue.
Carranza, for his part, had decided to sabotage the assembly and ordered a group of journalists sympathetic to Villismo detained in Mexico City, including Malváez, Zamora Plowes, and Martín Luis Guzmán along with various Maderista politicians aligned with Villa, among them Enrique Llorente, Manuel Bonilla, and Abel Serratos. The arrests caused an enormous stir at the Convention. It was said that the detainees were to be deported and rumors circulated that they would be sent to Gen. Nafarrate in Matamoros to be shot. Iturbe, a Carancista, clarified that Carranza had told him that they would simply be taken to the border. The assembly ordered that communications be established with military garrisons at all train stations, the train carrying the detainees to be halted, and that they be taken to San Luis Potosí. Who was ruling the country? The sovereign Convention, or President Carranza? The Convention’s strong reply to Carranza offered a clear answer: two days later the detainees arrived in Aguascalientes.
That same October 19, the Convention’s daily newspaper was launched, to be directed by Heriberto Frías, the legendary anti-Porfirian author who had written the history of the Tomóchic rebellion as well as the military chronicles of the wars of independence and 1847. Frías had previously edited the Maderista Correo de la Tarde from Mazatlán. His appointment turned out to be absolutely opportune as the forty-four-year-old Frías had aged prematurely, was nearly blind, and was completely broke.
While attempts were made in the Convention to keep the door open by inviting Carranza to attend or to name a proxy, he ignored the offers. It was said that Venustiano affirmed that “despite the traitors, I will not abandon power even if the sky falls.” The press in Mexico City—addicted to the First Chief—fired its batteries against his old allies: Obregón, Eduardo Hay, and Villarreal, tagging them as traitors. The attacks led men such as Obregón and Julio and Serrano Madero to demand the capital’s press be censored, calling it divisive and dishonest.
Sometime around October 20, the Convention created a commission to draft a program for the provisional government, which included Eugenio Aguirre Benavides, Roque González Garza, and Obregón, while reserving two places for the Zapatistas pending their response. Lobbying commenced to name a president. Villarreal was said to be able to count on sixty delegates, almost all from the northeast. Eduardo Hay had the support of thirty delegates. The Division of the North didn’t seem to care who the president was as long as it wasn’t Carranza. Vito Alessio would later state, “In those days, all the delegates were predisposed to sacrificing their own particular preferences.”
The next day, Urbina sent a message to the Convention reporting that he had received a directive ordering him to withdraw from the territory around Aguascalientes and was, therefore, requesting permission to be absent from its sessions. The Convention clarified that the order pertained only to his troops, while he was welcome to remain.
Just then, a telegram signed by Lucio Blanco and Ángeles arrived announcing their mission’s success. They had had to sort through the Zapatistas’ suspicions and isolation and, even more delicately, work through the tenacity of their adherence to land reform as the revolution’s essence and a precondition to opening negotiations. Were the Convencionalistas going to sign the Plan de Ayala or not? The delegates were respectable from the Zapatistas’ point of view, they sympathized with the youthful Buelna, gave Ángeles his due as a loyal adversary from previous times, and recognized Lucio Blanco and Contreras as agrarian revolutionaries. In the end, they were won over by a simple argument: Who is going to bring your points of view to the Convention if you don’t attend?
But the good news was clouded by other developments. Llorente and Martín Luis Guzmán, two of the prisoners liberated by the Convention’s intervention, were in Guadalupe to meet with Villa on his train. After greeting Villa with a “Buenos días,” Villa responded gruffly, saying there was nothing good because “they were wearing many hats” while he continued bad-mouthing Maclovio, “big ears,” blaming him for the fact “my boys are still killing one another.” “Deaf son of a bitch.”
Maclovio Herrera had attacked Parral. Supposedly, Sóstenes Garza, Chao’s second-in-command, had made contact with Herrera, convincing him that as long the Convention was in session, there was no point in getting himself killed, creating a de facto truce. However, on October 23 [was he following instruction from Carranza who wanted to break up the Convention?] he surprised “men who were fast asleep.” With about one thousand combatants, Herrera attacked a corral where men and women were asleep while guarding a herd of horses. Some sixty soldiers from Chao’s brigade were massacred along with their families. Resistance continued until dawn in the Guanajuato barracks and, at sunrise, the Villistas launched a counterattack. Maclovio’s troops, faced with fighting the Division of the North, something for which they were not prepared, dispersed, surrendering and deserting en masse. Gen. Emiliano G. Sarabia and many of his men approached the Villistas, telling them they wanted to switch sides. Maclovio and Luis Herrera fled with forty men.
The telegraph clerk interrupted Villa while he was retelling this story, bringing him the report of Maclovio’s defeat. Villa, enraged, directed him to send a telegram with orders to shoot the 160 prisoners. But he then had a change of heart, after all, these were people from the Division of the North and in a fit of anger he had ordered them to be shot. He went off looking for the telegraph operator to countermand his order. Villa, now beside himself, walked in circles waiting for confirmation that his message had gotten through. Finally, word came that it had arrived in time.
On October 25, a Sunday, while many of the delegates were visiting Querétaro, Mexico City, or Guadalupe in order to consult with their commanders, the train carrying the Zapatista delegates passed by Aguascalientes, taking them to Guadalupe to visit Pancho Villa. October 26, the delegation, acting on instructions from Emiliano Zapata, met with Pancho with the intention of reaching an understanding and securing a guarantee that Villa would support the demands in the Plan de Ayala. The meeting was cordial. Villa assured them that, together, they would attain the sought-after social demands. The North-South alliance was thus established, and the Zapatistas were to receive subsidies from Villa. A photograph records the event.
Indeed, Villa presented his old friend Gildardo Magaña with a gift, a photo of himself wearing a pith helmet and a red scarf around his neck, a combed mustache with the ends twisted up. Where had Villa gotten a hold of a pith helmet, which made him look a bit like a soldier in an opera? Ignacio Muñoz recounted that, in 1913, the federal army had been supplied with those British colonial, waterproof cork helmets, calling them sarakofs. He said he negotiated the deal with Huerta’s son, Jorge, and made some $30,000 pesos with the transaction. How had they ended up with Villa? Where did these spoils come from?
In the early hours of October 27, the twenty-three Zapatista delegates arrived in Aguascalientes. They were welcomed in the Morelos theater to loud applause. Soto y Gama, Paulino Martínez, Juan Banderas, and Gildardo Magaña headed the delegation. Paulino gave a laudatory speech in which he referred to “the true representatives of the social struggle, Zapata and Villa,” while insisting that, if the Convention wanted their support, it would have to take on the Plan de Ayala and agrarian reform.
The assembly was now complete, although the size of the representative delegations was debatable: the Division of the North had between thirty-three and thirty-seven delegates; the Zapatistas, with many fewer troops under arms—although they stated that sixty thousand campesinos had risen up—had between twenty-three and twenty-six, while both the Divisions of the Northwest and Northeast each had nearly sixty delegates.
On October 28, the social principles in the Plan de Ayala were approved after a prologue featuring a fiery speech by Soto y Gama in which he railed against the very same flag (“the rag of Iturbide, the triumph of clerical reaction”) which they had all previously signed, nearly succeeding in getting the patriotic generals to shoot him full of holes on the spot. Obregón, that same night, asked for a closed-door meeting to share a communication from Carranza in which he replied to the invitations sent to him, declining so as to “not be restricted,” while proposing that Villa and Roque González Garza withdraw from the assembly as a condition of him retiring from power and even leaving the country, but the assembly should reflect on whether he was, in fact, the obstacle. Carranza referred to the Convention as a “junta” and threatened it with armed struggle if Villa did not leave the country at the same time as he did. The Carrancistas went around claiming, time and again, that “reaction was gathering behind Villa.” Carranza sent $50,000 pesos to the Convention via Obregón intended as an allowance for the Convencionista generals, which provoked a lot of friction because many of the delegates accused Obregón of nickel and diming them.
Far from Venustiano’s latest maneuver, Villa remained in Guadalupe. Luis Aguirre Benavides, Villa’s secretary, remembered that one “inactive and irritating” day, a tall, blond, blue-eyed man named Francisco L. Múgica, nicknamed el Gaucho, turned up. This character won Villa over. He boasted of a tempestuous past: he had had to emigrate because he owed huge debts in Argentina and had then landed in Mexico with a circus that soon failed. His time in Mexico City had been equally remarkable. After killing a certain Carlos Gilberto Schnerb in the Iturbide hotel, he was transferred to Belén prison, but a cannon blew a hole through his cell wall during the anti-Maderista uprising and he managed to escape, joining up with the insurrectionists. He was once again detained and sent to prison during Huerta’s tenure. Pretending to have gone mad, he managed to be relocated to La Castañeda asylum and ended up in the psychiatric hospital, finally being freed when the Carrancistas’ arrived in Mexico City.
A photograph in the Casasola archive depicts Múgica, dressed in a fancy cowboy outfit, or perhaps a circus outfit, with flowery seams, boleadoras hanging from his belt, and a laced hat. Really ridiculous.
Villa assigned Múgica a delicate mission, namely, to visit Enrique Llorente, who was then in prison in Mexico City, to bring him money. However, it seems that Múgica took advantage of the occasion to strike up a relationship with Gen. Cosío Robelo, Mexico City’s chief of police. One way or the other, the prisoners got wind of the story and informed Villa through a certain Cabiedes, sending news that Múgica had contracted with Cosío Robelo, or Pablo González, to kill him.
Villa commissioned the same Cabiedes and a Col. Leopoldo Gallardo to find out more. The two ran across Dr. Victoria Lima, Múgica’s former lover, in whose house he had left the money he had received to kill Villa. The envoys brought Dr. Lima to Villa, having fooled her into believing that she could convince Villa to pardon her lover. The trembling woman asked for Villa’s forgiveness for the part she had played in the plot and confirming that the money had come from Pablo González and Cosío Robelo. “Get out of here, Señora, I don’t shoot women,” said Pancho.
When el Gaucho returned to Guadalupe, Villa received him in the company of George Carothers (“I want you to witness this”). Múgica extended his hand and, without taking it, Villa let loose, “You son of a bitch, the Carrancistas have hired you to kill me. I know about Pablo González’s dealings with you.” Villa then hit him in the face with the barrel of his gun.
In the subsequent search of Múgica’s belongings, besides a dagger and a pistol, they found papers certifying him as a secret agent of the Mexico City police signed by Cosío Robelo and documents signed by González granting him a safe passage, as well as letters from Cosío addressed to the Carrancista delegates at the Convention. Múgica justified his actions by claiming that he was taking money from the Carrancistas. In the end, he confessed to having received money in exchange for killing Villa, however, having gotten to know him, he had regretted it. Pancho, who didn’t believe a word of it, ordered him shot.
On October 29, the Múgica affair was taken up in the Convention. Pablo González, accused by the press of having been behind the plot, published a statement from Querétaro denying everything, “Let the whole nation know that Pablo González has not been, nor will ever be, a common murderer.”
Soon after the Múgica business, Martín Luis Guzmán told Villa that Gen. Felipe Rivero from Sinaloa had fired a shot from twenty paces in which he fit the bullet into a cartridge of the same caliber. Villa asked if he had heard that correctly. Martín Luis said he’d heard it second hand. But Villa couldn’t let a story like this go. On an embankment a hundred meters from the tracks, he set about trying to prove whether it could be done by setting out a cartridge with absolute meticulous care. His first shot hit the cartridge but didn’t penetrate it. He concluded that what they said about Rivero was false. When he was asked to try again, he said that it was a waste of ammunition.
The Múgica plot raised a lot of bad blood which was not helped by the assassination of Col. Manuel Manzanera, a Villista who had deserted and then agreed to represent the Arrieta brothers at the Convention, the very same brothers with whom Urbina had had so many conflicts. Captured by Candelario Cervantes and José Carmen Ortiz, el Ruñis, acting under Urbina’s orders, he was dragged out of Aguascalientes and shot.
One of the delegates, David Berlanga, demanded a public explanation from Villa. Francisco J. Aguilar remembered that he was in one of the box seats in the theater with Rodolfo Fierro when David García Berlanga spoke and Fierro almost drew his pistol, shouting “I’ll kill that so and so.” Aguilar stopped Fierro, telling him they wouldn’t get out of there alive.
Stories circulated—although the sources turned out to be less than reliable—that Villa had sent sixty, well-dressed Dorados led by Manuel Banda to mix with the delegates and to bring any of them who insulted him to Guadalupe for a talk. José Isabel Robles put a stop to the idea, telling Villa that such actions would break up the Convention. Villa dropped the plan, responding that “it was just to put a scare into them.”
The fact is that guns that had remained holstered for the first days of the Convention were now coming out. Martín Luis Guzmán recalled that he and Lucio Blanco attended one of the sessions in which a documentary about the revolution was going to be shown, but they found a better place to watch it (behind the screen) because the theater was already full. When they got backstage, they found the props had already been removed so they had some chairs brought in. As the images flashed across the screen, the audience shouted vivas, applauded, and swore. When Carranza appeared, a solitary voice shouted “viva” among calls for his “death, stomping, applause, and hisses.” Villa’s appearance produced vivas for the Division of the North followed by new images of Don Venustiano. “The scene in which Carranza was seen entering Mexico City on horseback [provoked] a hell of a racket and ended in two shots being fired,” both of which punctured Carranza’s chest on screen and almost accidentally hit Lucio Blanco and Martín Luis sitting behind the screen.
The cinema wasn’t the only distraction. Ignacio Muñoz described how during the Convention a group of Villista generals—Borunda, Fierro, Banda, and Rafael Castro—played a “lottery of death” in the Paris hotel in Aguascalientes. Muñoz stated that the nefarious game, later called Russian roulette, was born there, which was not the case as there were already precedents in Chihuahua. Fierro “drank beer after beer at parties where the commanders met and he laughed along with the others, throwing a cocked pistol into the air which would go off when it hit the ground and they would see who would get shot.” Mantecón described a variant of the game which they called “little bulls,” which consisted in drinking various liquors and, when it was “time,” the players would gather around a table and one of them would take out their .44 pistol, pull back the hammer, and spin it around with their finger on the trigger until it went off. Refugio Gracidas died in Ciudad Juárez during one of these sessions; he had been one of those responsible for the massacre of Chinese people in Torreón and had been one of Villa’s Dorados since 1913. When Villa learned of these stories, he harshly punished the players.
Fierro also played cards at the Salón Fausto where he got into a confrontation with Paco Púas. They both went outside to draw their guns and would have ended up dead had those present not stopped them. Púas went to see Villa to tell him about the incident and Villa told him that he held Fierro in high esteem as a commander but if he wanted to kill one of his Dorados who, in turn, defended himself, “It would be up to God.”
There was also a pool table in the Salón Fausto that was a source of confrontations. Col. Tomás Domínguez took a couple shots at the Carrancistas Francisco de Paula Mariel and Col. Flores in an argument over their outfits. Mariel was injured and Villa, who didn’t intend to tolerate indiscipline, condemned Domínguez to the firing squad, although he later regretted his decision and let him go free.
Things were heating up fast, Ramírez Placarte conveyed an anecdote in which a group of Villistas—pistols in hand and half drunk—made García Vigil dance the cancan on his new Texan hat. And on October 19, Marcelino Murrieta complained that inebriated Villistas had forced him to shout ¡Viva Villa! at gunpoint.
Similar stories, for which Villa was not responsible in many cases, and the idea that Aguascalientes had been submitted to increasingly severe barbarian discipline, fortified the black legend hanging around Villismo’s neck.
José Vasconcelos, an intellectual taken to conspiracies who had been isolated and excluded by Carranza, arrived in the train along with Ángeles and the Zapatistas. He didn’t know Villa, although Villa had proposed him on a list of possible ministers to Venustiano, no doubt suggested by Maderistas in Villa’s camp. He had been one of the many detained by Carranza in Mexico City. Villa invited him to dine in his train in Guadalupe with Llorente and Martín Luis Guzmán. Vasconcelos described “Villa, upright and dressed in a sweater, on the tall side, robust, bulging eyes, with a thick lower lip, welcomed me with an embrace. . . Why hadn’t I come sooner?” Vasconcelos was uneasy because Villa neither drank alcohol nor smoked, thinking to himself, “He doesn’t drink because he’s worried about staying alert, even in the middle of the night.” Villa told him that “since I stopped eating meat, I’ve lost my ruthlessness.” Of course, he was following Dr. Rauchsman’s diet at the time.
Vasconcelos and Villa seemed to get along well during this first meeting even if, when the intellectual retold the story, he built up a terrifying atmosphere based around a fictitious character as the protagonist, a supposed hitman who worked for Villa named Pancitas. Years later, the thirty-three-year-old lawyer from Oaxaca would be one of the great fabricators of the dark legend of Francisco Villa.
At the time, Carothers had installed himself in Aguascalientes and the Carrancistas had him in their sights. Roberto Pesqueira delivered a note of protest to Washington in which Carranza guaranteed that George C. Carothers had sold himself to Villa. He was also accused of being supported by the Hearst chain, the mortal enemy of President Wilson, as well as financial interests tied to the Guggenheims. For good measure, the note denounced Los Angeles Times journalist Harrison Gray Otis.
At the same time, despite all his maneuvers, Carranza’s stature was deteriorating, and his supporters appeared to be in an absolute minority within the Convention when it came to the debate over candidates to serve as provisional president. Three groups had to be taken seriously: one supported Gen. Antonio I Villarreal; a second group, although still ill-defined, was inclined to support Obregón; the third preferred a candidate from the Division of the North. At first, Villa had suggested Dr. Miguel Silva, telling Roque, “When it comes to choosing the president of the republic, I would propose Dr. Miguel Silva, and I would like you to support him because the doctor is a real revolutionary, and he would bring happiness to my country.” But Silva refused to be considered. Villa and his generals mulled over José Isabel Robles, then Lucio Blanco, and then Juan G. Cabral. Roque González Garza maintained that: “Villa had a great affection for Robles, but [. . .] came to the conclusion that Robles was too young, he had just turned twenty-three. Villa didn’t personally know Gen. Lucio Blanco but held him in high esteem (finally). Gen. Juan G. Cabral came to be the Villista candidate, an upright man from Sonora who, although he was linked militarily to Obregón, was a friend to the Division of the North and had no quarrels whatsoever with the Villismo’s people.”
Just then, it occurred to Villa to play a malicious game in which he ordered Roque to spread the rumor that the Division of the North would propose Álvaro Obregón. This caused a great shock and Roque recalled that Obregón paid González Garza a visit to ask him directly about it; upon the receiving confirmation, Obregón became very nervous. Later, the proposal—which was actually never made in the first place—was withdrawn.
On October 27, Carranza said to Zubarán: “Can you tell the press that the Convention does not have the character nor the attributes that some have supposed [. . .] the Convention does not have the power to act until it comes to an agreement with the First Chief.” However, playing two hands at the same time, the following day, a message from Carranza was read out at the Convention which, after much rhetoric, stated that Villa and Zapata’s resignations were preconditions for his own retirement.
Over the next three days, a commission argued bitterly over Carranza’s proposal, and, on October 30, a decision promoted by Obregón resolved to accept Carranza’s conditions. Excluding Zapata—over whom they had no power—they proposed the cessation of Villa’s command of the Division of the North and Carranza’s presidency.
The Villistas could not accept Carranza’s proposal without consulting with Pancho, so Felipe Ángeles—from José Isabel Robles’ train car in Aguascalientes—held a telegraphic conference with Villa in which he told him that Carranza had made Ángeles’ resignation from command of the Division of the North a precondition for him giving up the presidency. Villa went even further, suggesting in his reply that, “I am disposed to relinquish command of my division, and respectfully await the Convention’s orders.” The matter must have been talked over beforehand without, however, coming to any conclusions. Neither Ángeles nor Villa believed that Carranza would so easily abandon the presidency but resigning his command would unmask and isolate him. Ángeles asked Villa to “think carefully about this matter.” Villa responded: “Good morning my general and my compañeros [Felipe Ángeles, José Isabel Robles, Orestes Pereyra, Severino Ceniceros, and Matías Pazuengo were all in the car with Ángeles], for my part, I propose that, for the salvation of my country, I not only retire from the Division, but I give my consent for the Convention, which holds the nation’s destiny in its hands, to have both myself and Señor Carranza shot, so that those who remain may save the republic and that they may know the sentiments of its true sons. Warmest regards. . .” The generals recorded this in writing and placed Villa’s telegram in a sealed envelope to be read at the Convention.
That same night, violence almost broke out between the delegates when a few derogatory words from Obregón about the Zapatistas led Juan Banderas, el Agachado (the Hunchback), to proclaim, “You are going to get yourself fucking killed right about now.” Nearby delegates grabbed them, preventing them from drawing their guns.
The El Paso Morning Times predicted the coming split. “Carranza is ready to fight. The president has 10,000 soldiers in León, twenty-six miles to the south of Aguascalientes.” Reports were coming in that forces aligned with Carranza were gathering in Lagos. Meanwhile, four trains carrying Villista troops departed from Torreón in pursuit of Maclovio Herrera.
The following day saw the Convention vote in favor of Carranza ending his presidency and Villa relinquishing command of the Division of the North. The vote was ninety-eight to twenty. It was curious that such a small number of delegates participated in the vote, not to mention that twenty votes were cast against the proposal. Were they recalcitrant Carrancistas?
On November 1, the election for president began. The first round of voting put up José Isabel Robles, Antonio Villarreal, and Juan C. Cabral. The Division of the North announced that its delegates would not vote for one of their own, making clear that they were not seeking Robles to assume the presidency. The Zapatistas vetoed Villarreal under explicit directions from Zapata himself—the Zapatistas from anarcho-libertarian backgrounds were making him pay for his desertion from Magonismo. Then, pulling a rabbit from his hat, Obregón took the opportunity to nominate Eulalio Gutiérrez, who was well known for his neutrality. The American embassy, via Carothers and Canova, stated that any of the original three candidates would be seen in a good light, as would Lucio Blanco, Aguirre Benavides, or Eulalio Gutiérrez.
The final voting went as follows: eighty-eight for Eulalio, the Zapatistas abstained, thirty-seven for Cabral (votes from the Division of the North), and one for Eduardo Hay.
Where did the new president come from? Standing amongst the brightest stars of the revolution, this dull general would become president, and he would do so with borrowed votes. Eulalio Gutiérrez was described by Vito Alessio as: “Square-backed, stocky, with a large torso, short legs, and huge feet. His physiognomy was extraordinarily lively, with features of a Tibetan or Mongolian based on straight or drooping mustaches and his small oblique eyes. He was a goat herder until the age of twelve and possessed all the mistrust and suspicion of those who have been in close contact with nature. Later he became a merchant in Saltillo and Concepción del Oro, also dedicating himself to mining.” Beginning as a Magonista during the uprisings prior to 1910 in Viesca and Las Vacas, he became a Maderista revolutionary, among the first to rise up against Huerta and dynamite railway convoys. He possessed a “colorful vocabulary” and was referred to as Ulalio by friends and enemies alike.
While waiting for a response from Carranza, Lucio Blanco met with Villa and declared that his troops were at the Convention’s disposal. Cabral and his compadre Ávila, as well as the new President Eulalio Gutiérrez, were also to pass through Guadalupe.
On November 3, the telegram from Villa, which had been kept in a sealed envelope, in which he suggested that both he and Carranza be put in front of the firing squad to bring an end to the discord was read aloud to the Convention. After the text was read, shouts of ¡Viva Villa! arose from the public. The Carrancista delegates began to leave and Venustiano Carranza himself departed Mexico City under the guise of visiting Teotihuacán, although he was really on his way to Puebla and then Veracruz. He did not utter a word about his offer to renounce the presidency.
Little came of Buelna’s letter, who, after telling Carranza that he had signed the flag and that there was no other path to follow, suggested, “Save yourself and the nation once again.” However, opinions were sharply divided. The Carrancistas went around in circles, entertained every kind of doubt, and exchanged hundreds of telegrams.
A commission composed of Obregón, Hay, Eugenio Aguirre Benavides, and Villarreal left to meet with the First Chief but were detained in Querétero by Pablo González’s troops before finally catching up with him in Córdoba. Upon their arrival, they were met with a demonstration in support of Carranza. Gen. Obregón told the demonstrators that the commissioners were prepared to confront both Carranza and Villa if either one of them failed to comply with the Convention’s agreements. However, if the time came when they had to choose between Villa and Carranza, they would support the latter.
Back in Aguascalientes, by order of the Convention, Felipe Ángeles occupied the city with three brigades under the command of Natera, Aguirre Benavides, and Robles. Villa then sent a new message to the Convention: “In faithful compliance with the agreements taken by that sovereign Convention pertaining to my retirement as commander of the Division of the North, I hereby state that, as I have always respectfully complied with the decisions of this assembly, which I consider to emanate from the popular will, I am wholly in agreement with its resolution.” He then handed over command of the Division of the North to José Isabel Robles. One day later (November 6), Eulalio Gutiérrez took possession of the presidency with the Dorados serving as his presidential guard.
Obregón and the other commissioners held their meeting with Carranza, who received them coldly, in the gardens of the Moctezuma de Orizaba brewery. Although they explained that the accords had been reached in order to avoid a new civil war, he could not be moved. He was not going to give up the presidency that he had given himself. Furious, Gen. Hay tried to explain to Carranza why his resignation was necessary.
“Señor Carranza, there is no other solution besides you and Villa both leaving the country,” Hay insisted.
“I will be the one, not you, who will throw Villa out, and by speaking to me about how Villa and I should leave the country, you have offended me by placing me on the same level as that bandit.”
They could not convince him. The Convention gave Carranza until November 10 to resign.
Obregón and Villarreal then relocated to Mexico City. Obregón “exclaimed to Gen. Villarreal that he was not inclined to participate in the seemingly inevitable war, therefore, he had decided to place himself at the head of the 4,000 Indians under his command and to march to Sonoran territory without attacking any of the belligerent factions. Instead, he was inclined to defend himself in case of being attacked and, upon reaching Sonoran territory, he would discharge his troops so they could retire to private life.” Villarreal told him he would do the same. Yet Obregón never fulfilled his pledge and, in the end, remained in Mexico City in a state of indecision.
Carranza ordered the Convencionista generals to get a hold of their troops. The deadline to resign the presidency expired on November 10 at six o’clock in the afternoon. Eulalio Gutiérrez, in one last effort at reconciliation, sent Carranza a long telegram in which he complained that Villa, who “was here” in Aguascalientes had not complied “because we are waiting the resolution of your situation,” assuring him that as soon as he confirmed his resignation, “Villa would definitively retire.” Carranza answered by talking in circles and concluded with “I have never recognized the sovereignty of the Convention.” The Convention, in an act of justified retribution, declared Carranza to be in a state of rebellion. The Mexican Civil War had burst open.
Three days after Villa had handed over the Division of the North, Eulalio Gutiérrez summoned him and placed him in command of the Convention’s armies. Villa wrote to Zapata. In light of the fact that Venustiano had failed to recognize the results of the Convention and given that the deadline for him to resign the presidency had passed, “the moment had come to cease hostilities in a determined manner.” He proposed blocking the way between Mexico City and Puebla to cut off the Carrancistas and finished by insisting that “it is very important to carry out this movement quickly. Your friend, compañero, and humble servant.”
Obregón hesitated once again. His military forces were with Diéguez in Jalisco and, together with Calles and Hill in Sonora, were blocking Carranza’s exit. Blanco had gone off with his cavalry. Villarreal also vacillated and, along with generals Hay and Aguirre Benavides, left Mexico City. Upon arriving in Querétero, he found Gen. Pablo González was already on a war footing. From Silao, the commissioners held a conference by telegram with Eulalio Gutiérrez, who informed them that the Convention, under the force of circumstances, had named Villa general-in-chief. From then on, Villarreal and Hay considered themselves to be separated from the Convention while Aguirre Benavides headed for Aguascalientes to assume command of his brigade. It was not love for Carranza, but rather fear of Villa, which provoked those who had remained in the middle to desert. Some of the commanders remained unclear about what to do. José María Caraveo wrote to his brother Baudilio, “Either we walk forward, placing our faith in God, or we go sit on a cactus.”
On November 16, the Division of the North seized León without firing a shot. Villa captured Julio Madero from Obregón’s general staff and put him on a train to the North. Villa had discovered Julio when their trains crossed paths and put him on a commission (yet another negotiations committee), refraining from shooting him out of deference to the Maderos. On November 18, Ángeles and Urbina arrived in Querétaro with their advance guard and artillery. Their trains were graciously allowed to pass through.
Many surprising situations arose as Villista troops began their move towards Mexico City. Pablo González, who controlled Querétaro, lost 2,000 men in a single week to desertion; Pancho Murguía’s brigade, made up of people from the North who were garrisoned in Toluca, suffered a desertion rate of one-third, and was forced to abandon the city. The 20,000 men spread out between Guanajuato and Mexico City—under Pablo González’s generals—were redeployed towards Pachuca but suffered big losses as many deserted, switched sides, or ran away. Just 3,000 men arrived in Tampico. Carrera Torres and Hidalgo de Flores’s troops deserted, Teodoro Elizondo was captured in San Francisco del Rincón and the Third Division kept itself out of the fighting. In Mexico City, only 4,000 of the Division of the Northeast’s 8,000 men stayed loyal to Carranza, while the remainder, led by Lucio Blanco, appeared to go over to the side of the Convention. But perhaps the most unusual event took place in Pachuca where Gen. Nicolás Flores, governor of Hidalgo, was left alone along with his high command while all his troops declared themselves in favor of the Villistas and left the city without bothering to arrest their officers.
Ignacio Muñoz summarized the situation as such, “Carranza was defeated, materially annihilated. His troops refused to fight [. . .] they were completely demoralized.”
A few days later in a conversation, Zapata, Villa, and Roque González Garza talked over the moment:
“And then I calculated they are going to try to rest up and strengthen themselves in Querétaro,” said Zapata.
“That’s where we expected the battle,” pointed out Roque González Garza.
“I wait there in Bajío, there would have been six or seven hundred dead; but nothing came of it, they just ran,” concluded Villa.
On November 21, Villa arrived in Querétaro. During a short military parade, a small accident took place. Ignacio Muñoz recalled: “His horse, a beautiful dark-colored animal, reared up in front of the main plaza. Villa [. . .] was a trainer who broke wild horses. Slicing across the beast’s flanks, he whipped the horse and pulled back on the reins. The animal, which was hot-blooded, rebelled in anger, throwing the rider to the ground. Villa got back up, covered in dust and irate. His first instinct was to pull out his gun, surely to kill the animal. I don’t know how he managed to control himself. One of the men lent him his own horse, taking the reins of the one which had toppled the warrior from Durango. The parade continued without incident.”
On November 23, he arrived in Tula after a second, more serious accident. It was so severe that rumors circulated that Pancho Villa was dead. His train, which had the right of way, crashed into Chao’s train, which was not displaying positioning lights. Adán Uro, who was riding in Villa’s train, said that there was “a tremendous death toll.” Muñoz reported that “Cries could be heard, moans from the injured [. . .] smoking remains of the train were tangled, among which the chimney of Villa’s machine protruded with its battered golden eagle, lying very close to the shattered lantern [. . .]. Villa was enraged and exited the train to find out what had caused the crash, he interrogated the crew, the boilerman was dead, Chao was slightly injured.”
That same day, United States forces abandoned Veracruz, providing Carranza a capital which he had not had. Obregón then published his manifesto in which he left no doubt as to where he stood: “The monster of this betrayal, this great crime—personified in Francisco Villa—threatens to destroy the fruit of our revolution.”
On November 24, Lucio Blanco, in command of what had formerly been the cavalry of Obregón’s Division of the Northeast, which had been filling the power vacuum, left Mexico City en route to Toluca. Lucio continued on without defining his intentions, not wanting to confront the Zapatistas with whom he had previously clashed.
After Lucio Blanco’s departure, typeset posters appeared pasted on the walls of the National Palace: “I’ll pluck Carranza’s beard/ and I’m going to weave it/ to put it on the hat/ of Gen. Francisco Villa.” The vanguard of Villa’s troops arrived in Mexico City led by Everardo González.
Villa was going to win, thought Canova, Wilson’s envoy in Mexico, as did Pershing from his perch on the border, “Villa can be the man of the hour.” British ambassador Hohler agreed, “The whole country seems to be on Villa’s side.” And mother Matiana’s prophecies concurred; four Panchos would govern Mexico: De la Barra, Madero, Carvajal, and now… Villa. However, Roque González Garza, in a letter to his brother Federico, did not give in to the sin of triumphalism. The Convention had been a success, but “the alliance with Eulalio Gutiérrez is delicate.”
Future accounts of the military forces in play were exaggerated. Azcona would say that Carranza could count on 101,000 men against Villa’s 24,000 troops, without counting the Zapatistas. The military historian Sánchez Lamego would claim that 90,000 troops backed the Convention (60,000 in the Division of the North and 30,000 Zapatistas), while Carranza had 35,000 men. Closer to the truth, we might say that the Convencionistas roughly doubled Carranza’s forces: 60,000 to 30,000.
With respect to the Villista war machine, it continued to be fed by the Division of the North’s Finance Office, which, headed up by Hipólito in Juárez, organized the oddest set of operations, selling goat hides in Durango, distributing beans, and selling cattle.
All the while, trains were on the move towards Mexico City. José Vasconcelos, free riding in the new president’s railway car, left us an utterly bizarre, racist, and entirely falsified after-the-fact description of Villa’s advance to the south: “…he occupied cities and towns, raped women, trampled all honor and haciendas alike, he ravaged the defenseless and committed outrages [. . .]. He spent money insatiably on his own vices and luxuries [. . .]. In Eulalio’s office—installed in the Pullman car which carried us towards the metropolis—reports arrived [. . .] which made us feel as if we were in an Aztec nightmare, as if all of a sudden the thirteen million Indians began to absorb and devour the three or four million inhabitants of European blood.”
Contrary to what Vasconcelos would write years later, the Villista trains arrived in Tula, some eighty kilometers from Mexico City. Gen. José Rodríguez was worried about whether there was enough food in the capital. There are “a lot of us,” he noted.
The plebes, both wise and vulgar, added a new stanza to the revolutionary “La Adelita” ballad: “If Carranza marries Zapata/ and Pancho Villa’s with Álvaro Obregón/ Adelita will marry me/ and that’s it for the revolution.” And they added a new song as well, “The thieving Carrancistas have left already/ with their Saltillo mules in stride/ because Pancho Villa’s on his way/ stinging their backsides.”
