From Aguascalientes, Villa tried to bring order to the chaos. He faced an open war on three fronts: Monterrey, where Ángeles was fighting (capturing the city on January 15, and distributing basic goods to the population); La Huasteca region, with Urbina and Chao leading the Villista forces; and Jalisco, where Diéguez had once again become a threat. He also had to contend with Eulalio Gutiérrez’s (supposedly) 10,000 troops in the middle of the country, an unknown military factor. Obregón and the Carrancistas controlled the east and the south of the country, once again dominating Puebla and pressing towards Mexico City—while the Zapatistas seemed incapable of stopping them—where Pancho had Roque, Estrada, and Madinabeytia stationed.
Villa began organizing his supplies, especially ammunition. On January 14, he ordered Lázaro de Garza to deposit “one or two million pesos” in the Division of the North’s cashier’s office in order to make a very important purchase—he claimed to be buying 100 million cartridges—in New York directly from J. B. Vargas’s munitions factory. Lázaro had opened a pair of businesses in New York through which he charged lucrative commissions, the L. de la Garza & Co., Inc, and the Import, Export and Commissions Business. Villa also issued orders for the purchase of coal to keep his trains moving. In January alone, one single company, the El Paso, C. Awbrey Co. sold the Villistas $13,000 worth of coal.
On January 16, Obregón received a telegram from Eulalio suggesting that he march northwards so they could join forces in San Luis Potosí. Obregón replied that he did not recognize the Convention but that it might raise Carranza’s spirits if his forces approached Obregón’s. He left them suspended in mid-air. The ex-president and his men were floating in hostile territory without any social base and with no friends to be found.
A day later, Villa’s train arrived in Querétaro at sunrise without having been warned about Alfredo Elizondo’s Carrancista garrison from Pablo González’s division. Martín López’s scouts reported cavalry movements on the outskirts of the town. Villa was shaving in his railway car while his men began unloading the horses. When he was informed of the situation, he dropped his towel, grabbed a rifle, and jumped out of his car in his shirtsleeves at the head of “50 men from my guard” in pursuit of the brigade that was abandoning Querétaro. “Almost all the troops obeyed the order to halt sounded by my bugler, except for Elizondo’s troops and part of the general staff who began a precipitous flight, but those were later captured, and all those people laid down their guns and joined my guard.” The cry ¡Viva Villa! precipitated many desertions. Villa ended up capturing 1,800 men with their rifles and 386 pistols. “When I looked at the huge mound of Mausers piled up in front of us, which added up to more than 1,000, I realized the danger I would have been in if the troops had truly been enthusiastic about righting.” Later, he explained to Zapata, surprised by his own luck, “let me tell you, it was very risky.”
Eugenio Aguirre Benavides attempted to build a bridge to his old compañeros, Emilio and Raúl Madero and Orestes Pereyra, who allowed him to enter Monterrey on a safe-conduct pass. He proposed that they abandon Villa and join forces with Eulalio. Faced with negative replies, he wrote a note to Felipe Ángeles, “You, sir, can’t approve of our country falling under the tyranny of a man like Francisco Villa.” Ángeles responded to him on January 22, complaining that, although Eugenio had sworn to defend the Convention’s agreements, he had violated his oath. In this sense, Ángeles agreed with Soto y Gama when he said that the national flag had been treated as nothing more than a political banner and accused Eulalio Gutiérrez of cowardice because while he, Ángeles, was out fighting on his behalf, Eulalio was busy negotiating. He warned him that the mistake “would weigh on him for his whole life.” “You are all making many late-arriving accusations against Gen. Villa, but you don’t understand that these merely magnify his glory.” He then prophesied the disaster, just as he had prophesied to Maclovio Herrera in Chihuahua.
Villa received the news from Madinabeytia that Luis Aguirre Benavides had disappeared. “Even Luisito abandoned me.” This was one of the desertions that hurt him the most. Luis had served as an excellent secretary and counselor during the terrible year of 1914.
How are we to understand these desertions? How did Villa understand them? Who could he believe in now? Distrustful by nature, the betrayal of his compañeros made him even more so. However, in the end, they were more painful than they were dangerous. Manuel Banda arrived bringing the confusing news that the Convencionista fugitives had defeated Agustín Estrada’s troops and those of the Guanajuatan Serratos in San Felipe Torres Mochas. However, Pancho managed to communicate directly with Estrada, who told him, on the contrary, that it had been a great victory. What Banda had witnessed was the brigades deserting Eulalio’s forces. Villa told el Chino (Banda) that he ought to shoot him for spreading bad information and left him incommunicado all night.
The battle had been a disaster for the ex-president of the Convention, who was now without a country and without the Convention. There had been a multitude of desertions from Robles’s brigade. The soldiers, when they realized they were going to be fighting the Division of the North, switched sides, including whole companies and their ranking officers. Mateo Almanza was injured, Aguirre Benavides’ Zaragoza brigade collapsed, and word spread that Eugenio had been fatally wounded by his own troops. . . which turned out to be false.
While Eulalio’s forces disintegrated, Villa cut short his trip to Mexico City from Querétaro and returned north where he felt more at ease, establishing his base in Aguascalientes. Villa pieced together the military situation, “Then and there, I immediately reorganized a powerful column which I put under the command of Tomás Urbina [including Chao’s brigade and the Morelos brigade] which, in short order, took over San Luis Potosí.” This cut off a potential base for the new enemy and prevented any alliance with the Carrancistas. He also mobilized Serrato’s troops, sending them towards Guanajuato. Villa had Ángeles, Orestes Pereyra, and Raúl Madero in Monterrey. “I formed the Benito Artalejo brigade from the troops who surrendered in Querétaro,” a cavalry brigade commanded by one of the Dorados, José I. Prieto, and an infantry brigade under José Ruiz, which were sent to Michoacán. Fierro, Calixto Contreras, and Julián Medina marched on Jalisco, where Diéguez—there supported by another Pancho, that is, Murguía—defeated them owing to their “numerical inferiority, lack of ammunition, and the lack of a truly skilled commander.” They were next forced out of Guadalajara on January 18.
On January 25, the Zapatistas left Mexico City and Obregón entered the city on January 28 as the Convention took refuge in Cuernavaca. A message from Villa offering to provide a train to transport the delegates to Torreón arrived too late. At this time, Federico Cervantes, acting on orders from Ángeles, met with Zapata in Cuernavaca. Obregón had taken the Federal District and Ángeles asked Zapata to cut his supply lines if he attempted to leave Mexico City. Zapata replied that he couldn’t endanger his troops. As Womack explained, “Zapata practically abandoned his military obligations [to the Convention].”
On January 28 in Irapuato, Villa organized contingents which he sent to Aguascalientes and took off in two trains towards Querétaro with the Dorados Nicolás Fernández, Martín López, and his secretariat (Silva, Pérez Rul, and Trillo). What was he doing? Was he daring Obregón to come after him by moving within his reach with only 300 men? Was he displaying the contempt in which he held Obregón? In the end, he decided to stop in Querétaro and not continue on towards Mexico City. Three days later, he returned to Aguascalientes. There, he declared his loyalty to the president of the Convention. But, at the same time, created a sui generis government to rule over the northern territories occupied by his forces with Miguel Díaz Lombardo—a lawyer and law school professor who had served as Minister of Education in Madero’s cabinet. Díaz was a small man, a careful dresser, balding, an heir to Miguel Miramón; whom Madero had also sent to France to neutralize the exiled Porfirio Díaz, and who returned after Huerta’s coup to serve as Minister of Foreign Relations and Justice, while Francisco Escudero became Minister of the Government and Communications, and Gen. Luis de la Garza Cárdenas was placed in the role of Minister of the Interior and Development. The justification for creating this government stemmed from the severing of communications between the North and the Convention, then established in Morelos. Around this time, and without Villa hearing the news, Celia Villa was born, his daughter from Librada Peña.
During the third and fourth week of January, Lázaro de la Garza informed the wandering Villa from Chihuahua about his attempts to secure ammunition, including an offer from South America and Sommerfeld and Hipólito’s dealings in New York. He then asked for more money.
On January 30, Urbina approached San Luis Potosí, planning on confronting Aguirre Benavides and the remnants of the defeated forces from Torres Mochas. Eugenio’s troops were deserting in droves once again in advance of the possibility of clashing with the Villistas; they were the Division of the North men after all. Mateo Almanza was captured and, given his betrayal of his compañeros, Urbina ordered him hung from a lamp post. The next day, he communicated by telegraph with Villa. The Gutiérrezistas were trying to reassemble themselves in Dolores, Hidalgo, over the course of a “very harsh” three-day battle, but Agustín Estrada, fighting without provisions or ammunition, destroyed them. The January plot had collapsed—in military terms, it had vanished. However, it had cost the Division of the North moments of indecision, forced it into erratic movements, and had wrested important forces away from the Convention, including a group of talented generals. Most of all, it had given Carranza and Obregón some breathing room, which they had needed badly.
On February 4, in Aguascalientes, Martín Luis Guzmán met with Villa. Through a series of chance events, he had remained in Villista territory and within sight of Pancho. It was odd because he was, in fact, very close to the group of conspirators and Eulalio, and would have joined them had he been able. Villa welcomed him amiably, asking him to describe what had taken place in Mexico City. He had nothing good to say about Blanco or Vasconcelos’ double-crossing. Yet he bore no animosity towards Eulalio. Gutiérrez had warned him that, if he could, he was going to leave him lying stranded, which he did, but there was no quarrel with him. Along with his idiocy, he recognized that Gutiérrez had a certain kind of honesty as well. Neither would he speak ill of José Isabel—who would surrender several days later, and Villa would send him a safe-conduct pass—or Aguirre Benavides. He didn’t understand how they had split apart. Villa offered Guzmán the post of secretary to fill the hole that had been created by Luis Aguirre Benavides’ departure. Martín Luis asked Villa permission to go and visit his family first, which Villa granted, knowing that he was going to desert. Their relations had been strained, as Martín recognized, by fear and mistrust. “My relations with Villa were never free of suspicion,” he confessed to a future novelist. This character presented a paradox, in a story already replete with paradoxes, who was never able to overcome an apparent gap and approach Villa more closely; he could never understand Villa, yet would become his most widely-read biographer as the years went by. They never saw each other again.
Also on February 4, true to the disinformation campaigns he habitually launched prior to launching an action, Villa announced that he was going to Aguascalientes and Irapuato, although his real plan was to move towards Jalisco. He arrived in Atotonilco along with the general staff, trains, and infantry. José Rodríguez led an advance party and communicated with Villa using the Division’s new airplanes.
Around this time, Hipólito Villa had bought three new Wright Model-B airplanes, a Wright model with a fuselage, a Wright SS, and a Christofferson. Although they were obsolete and were in rough shape, they provided Villa with a seemingly impressive air force. He hired several pilots from the John S. Berger company, paying them $500 in gold per month for their services with a bonus for each combat mission.
However, the possibilities for modernizing the Division of the North didn’t stop there. On February 10, Enrique Llorente, from his base at the Powhatan hotel in Washington, DC, made the most unexpected offer for military supplies yet made during the war. “He offered to sell us a submarine [. . .] from one of the best shipyards in the country.” The proposal came with a photograph. For just $340,000 the arms merchant would deliver it to Key West, Florida. “They would hand it over there, it had three torpedo tubes and they guaranteed us it would make 8 knots (9 mph), with a reach of.[ . . .]” The submarine measured thirty-five meters in length. In the photo that accompanied the proposal, a sailor can be seen at quite a distance standing on the war machine offering a sense of perspective. On the back side of the photo, one can read: “Can be delivered to the dock after inspection, for $325,000 if the delivery location is Kay [sic] West, including 340,000 new batteries for a cost of $26,000, plus all expenses for a crew of seven sailors and an officer.”
And what would Francisco Villa want with a submarine? To blockade the ports on the Gulf of Mexico (Veracruz, Tampico) and to prevent the import of arms and ammunition to the Carrancistas? Where had Llorente gotten it? Supposedly, the arms manufacturer had built it for the Tsar of Russia, but one of the Wilson Administration’s many arms blockades had impeded the sale. Villa had his doubts. He asked how the torpedoes worked and how many ships the submergible could sink. Whether or not Villa was very interested, it was a lot of money and there were bigger priorities at the moment. For example, coal.
The next day, Villa telegraphed Lázaro de la Garza from La Barca, where Rodríguez had turned back the Carrancistas, ordering him to transfer money to José D. Rodríguez to purchase coal. Lázaro answered by arguing that he was having difficulties securing money to pay for it. Villa insisted, sending two telegrams in one day, and, finally, a pair of payments were made to S. C. Awbrey & Co. and to a private party in El Paso.
According to various sources, Villa entered Guadalajara on February 12 or 13. This author resolved the doubts with respect to the date thanks to Doña María Luisa Santana’s cookbook where, by the side of a cake recipe which called for ground almonds, she made a note mentioning that “The Villistas arrived on February 13.” Pancho confirmed this, “I captured the city without resistance on February 13 since the enemy had departed for the south two days earlier.” Villa ordered Rodríguez to move on past and only entered town with his guard and the troops from Jalisco de Medina. People welcomed them from the balconies, with flowers and bells ringing. However, Villa wanted to keep going so as to not allow the enemy to regroup and, after leaving Medina behind as governor, continued his advance in pursuit of Diéguez.
Mariano Azuela, a forty-one-year-old doctor who had joined in October 1914 and served as a lieutenant colonel in the medical brigade, would end up becoming Julián Medina’s principal chronicler. In the following months, he wrote a wonderful novel called Los de abajo (The Ones Below) about which he would later state, “Written in the midst of the struggle between the two revolutionary factions divided by ambition after the triumph against Huerta, this book satisfied one of my greatest desires, that is, to live together with the real revolutionaries, those who came from below, since, until then, my observations had been limited to the tedious world of the petty bourgeoisie.” During those months, his life circled around the “ranches of Jalisco and Zacatecas.” The book marks the origins of the literature of the Mexican Revolution. Unfortunately for history, Azuela would not see Villa more than a couple times in person, and then, at quite a distance.
Yet while Azuela gathered impressions that would form his narrative, what were the Villistas themselves reading on the eve of the battles that would define the third phase of the Mexican Revolution? Judging by the readings suggested by Nueva Era, a number of French titles were popular. Aguilar Mora dug up references to works by eroticists whose names have long since faded away. But there were other, better-known names as well, including, of course, Victor Hugo and Les Misérables, Eugenio Sue and The Mysteries of Paris, but the biggest surprise for the narrator was to find two classics from his own youth, namely, Los Pardaillán by Zévaco (a marvelous cloak-and-dagger series) and Rocambole by Ponson du Terrail which tells the story of an exceptional bandit. A coincidence?
Villa left Guadalajara on February 14. One Villista remembered that, breaking with the custom of leaving the soldaderas behind, “beautiful women joined the column.” He had concentrated all the forces operating in the state of Jalisco; even so, he could count on no more than 10,000 men, of whom some 5,500 were part of the recently-created infantry brigade. Diéguez had 5,500 under his direct command and 6,000 more in Murguía’s division.
Vargas stated, “The enemy had not chosen a bad place to defend itself,” but Villa was more insistent, declaring that “They were waiting for me in Sayula in extremely advantageous positions.” The Sayula ridge encloses a valley which climbs for over fifteen kilometers with its flanks covered by hills. Manuel Diéguez had hit the mark in choosing his position; however, he did not act in concert with Pancho Murguía, who remained stationed some fifteen kilometers to the south.
Villa arrived in Sayula and proceeded to reconnoiter the terrain, soon finding the Carrancistas dug in behind parapets. In order to better ascertain the enemy’s position, the following day the Villistas bombarded the ridge without causing significant injuries. Fighting began during the night of February 17, with pressure being applied to the Carrancistas Amado Aguirre and Abascal, who were dug into trenches along a hill called Los Magueyes. However, the Villistas had found the enemy’s flanks. A series of cavalry charges by some 2,500 men wore down Diéguez’s infantry. Around three o’clock in the afternoon, the Villista infantry broke through the Carrancista’s lines. By nightfall, their right flank had been overrun and the Carrancista column was on the verge of being split in two and massacred.
Both sides reinforced their frontlines that night. The Carrancistas received three battalions under the command of Baca Calderón and Enrique Estrada while the Villistas welcomed comparable support. Around midnight, Diéguez sent his aids in search of Murguía with orders for him to take charge of the left flank, which he did around three o’clock in the morning with some 3,000 men.
Murguía’s forces had not finished taking up their positions when the Villista artillery opened fire on Diéguez’s center on the morning of February 18. Gen. Villa threw his infantry forward at the same time as he sent heavy detachments of cavalry to envelop the enemy’s flanks. Villa, personally leading his troops, directed their “terrifying charges,” especially pressing the center, and reached within twenty meters of the Carrancista infantry’s lines, where they were held off with increasing difficulty. The waves of assaults produced huge losses; however, almost as soon as the cavalry would withdraw, the infantry would go into action.
The Villistas had to cross an enormous valley, where they were easy targets for the Constitucionalistas, only then to have to climb the ridge. Men and horses alike fell down the cliffs, while Gen. Villa continued ordering new attacks, always keeping his lines in motion. At noon, a hole opened between Aguirre and Abascal’s columns and the Carrancistas began running low on ammunition. A column of infantry led by Villa himself crossed the lines and found themselves under fire by the Carrancistas, leaving several of Villa’s aids dead while his own saddle was destroyed.
Although victory lay in wrecking the center of the line, this could not be accomplished without debilitating the flanks. Villa weighed up the enemy by ordering especially sharp attacks on the Constitucionalista’s right where Murguía’s forces were concentrated and where the terrain lent itself to cavalry movements. Murguía was barely able to resist Villista cavalry charges led by the Dorados, many times being obliged to fight pistols in hand. Villa then launched a new attack on the center. The Villista cavalry charged ferociously at the center of the ridge and, although a first assault was turned back, it had hardly finished when Villa had already prepared a second.
At the moment the Villistas were again advancing on the center, Gen. Diéguez sent one of his aids with Gen. Murguía to ask for reinforcements. Murguía ordered 1,000 infantry under Col. Díaz Couder to immediately take up positions along the center, however, by the time they arrived, the Villistas had taken the trenches, sending Diéguez’s soldiers running and sowing confusion all along the line.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, the Carrancistas withdrew in disorder. Diéguez’s soldiers ran in all directions, while Villa sent new contingents forward. Murguía, at the head of his cavalry, feigned an attack; yet, upon realizing the enemy had occupied the center, gathered up his people and retreated to Zapopan. The fighting had lasted for seven hours.
Villa ordered Chao and Rodolfo Fierro’s brigades to finish off the fleeing troops. There was a “terrible massacre.” Fierro, who was very annoyed at having lost weeks at the head of his troops, caught up with the enemy’s rearguard and slaughtered it.
Villa, who was following behind, saw dead bodies every few minutes and ordered his men to stop shooting captured soldiers. However, the executions continued that night in Fierro’s camp. Vargas turned to Fierro and said, “The boss says not to kill any more.” Rodolfo Fierro was out of his mind, he not only shot down surrendered troops, he also killed a very young Villista with a single shot after the youth complained about an injury to his hand. The incident came within a hair’s breadth of costing Fierro his life because one of the young man’s enraged compañeros was ready to put a bullet in his head. Finally, Pancho Villa’s decision prevailed and his order not to shoot surrendering troops was obeyed. Instead, the captives were put to work repairing train tracks and bridges.
The Villistas suffered terrible casualties in the battle, there was talk of 700 or even 2,000. Although the casualties on the field of battle were not higher than 2,000 Constitucionalistas, during their retreat, more were injured or captured, and more still deserted or were dispersed. Total losses climbed to more than 4,000 for Diéguez’s brigade, which also lost its artillery and almost all its trains. Murguía’s losses totaled 3,000 men.
Over the following days, Villa advanced towards Ciudad Guzmán and then Zapotlán el Grande in pursuit of Diéguez, who retreated towards Manzanillo on the Pacific coast in search of ammunition and shelter. Murguía continued his retreat, arriving in Tecomán with only ten cartridges per combatant.
On February 20, Villa set up camp in Tuxpan, Jalisco. There he communicated with Chihuahua by telegraph, learning of Ángeles’ advantageous situation in Monterrey and that Roque had been appointed president of the Convencionista republic, which was cause for great celebration among the northerners. In a meeting of commanders, in which Calixto Contreras and Fierro participated, Villa proposed chasing the enemy all the way to Colima and Manzanillo. He was not only thinking about defeating his enemy, but of destroying its forces so they could never recover. However, the complexity of the military map arising from Eulalio’s desertion must have raised serious doubts.
During the next days, Villa returned to Guadalajara and tried to finalize the munitions purchases being carried out by Hipólito and Lázaro de La Garza, who were then meeting with bankers in Torreón and Aguascalientes.
Baudelio Uribe had begun to stand out for his courage in the midst of the Jalisco fighting. A blond native of Jiménez, Uribe had worked as a butcher in Gómez Palacio and became fast friends with Martín López based on a shared affinity for absurd tests of valor and an exceptional love of alcohol. Ernesto Ríos, future leader of the Dorados, recalled that “Villa loved them like his sons, they were some of the few he didn’t push away because of their drinking. He mistreated them, he locked them up, he hit them, but he never banished them from his side. They were two very young blond guys, very heavy drinkers. And they got along very well with the boss. The blond-haired Uribe once showed up at Villa’s train and asked: Is the beast up yet? Then Villa appeared in the door, looking like he’d never slept, but didn’t do anything to him. Other times, he called him ‘La colmillona’” (a mythical woman with fangs). In Torreón, Villa gave him a tremendous blow to the head because, while drunk, he had taken over a brothel all for himself. Pancho “pistol-whipped him brutally, leaving him drenched in blood.” But he took pity on him and ordered his guards to take him to a hotel, and later invited him to lunch. But when Uribe received the message, he replied that Villa should go fuck his mother. In order to put a stop to Martín López’s excesses, Villa once locked him in a caboose to dry him out, leaving him there for three days. When Villa went to check on him, he found the door was locked from inside, producing the following exchange:
“I am Gen. Villa. Open up!”
“You’re not el Chino, Villa, go away,” Martín replied drunkenly. He had figured out how to have someone pour mezcal through a window and he caught it in a washbowl.
Baudelio was extremely wild. He liked to play a variation of Russian roulette: sitting around a table, he’d throw a cocked pistol into the air, when it landed, the shot would sometimes wound and sometimes kill. Whoever was injured had to buy everyone’s drinks. They usually played at the Delmónico saloon in Chihuahua. When Villa found out, he almost had all the participants shot.
On March 4 in Guadalajara, Pancho met with a special envoy from the United States, Judge Duval West. Díaz Lombardo and Carothers accompanied the judge, and the conference was held in Villa’s special train. Years later, Villa recalled that “While I was in Guadalajara in 1915, an agent of the government of the USA approached me with the proposition that, if I might be willing to sell the states of Chihuahua and Sonora, to cede the Tehuantepec to Salina Cruz railway, and, subsequently, arrange for the sale or cession of Bahía Magdalena to them, they could provide me with the financial support or any other kind of help necessary to defeat my adversary. My first impulse was to kill the agent then and there, but I held back and simply rebuked him.” Villa figured that the same offer had been made to Carranza. Whether Duval was speaking on behalf of the US government or on behalf of investors from the country, or if he really had raised the cession of Chihuahua and Sonora, or if Villa had embellished Duval’s proposals in his memories, the fact remained that he was convinced that a proposal of this sort had, in fact, been made by US authorities.
Duval, in his official report, merely summarized that Villa told him that Mexico was for the Mexicans, and he did not show himself to be very interested in making concessions to foreign capital. In his report to the Secretary of State, based on a decidedly naive perspective, he stated that Villista territory could be secured for the United States if he were supplied with arms. The main danger, in Duval’s eyes, was “Villa’s lack of respect for the law, property, and women.”
Villa responded publicly a few days later to some commentaries in the US press using a very different tone to the one he had taken before the intervention in Veracruz. “I have read with disgust in today’s Washington Post a report that falsely attributed to me statements that I would not oppose an armed intervention by various powers to bring down Carranza as long as I commanded said expedition. Nothing could be more false, grotesque, or ludicrous [. . .]. I have always wanted our difficulties to be settled amongst ourselves, and if some nation were to unfortunately invade our territory, I would have to fight against it no matter the danger.” He had radically changed his position with respect to the US government.
In Jalisco, Villa received word that Maclovio Herrera had once again been defeated. Soon after he wrote to Llorente, stating “Maclovio could have done real harm to the state of Chihuahua, but the constant reverses he has suffered, especially the defeat inflicted by Gen. Hernández in San Carlos, will make it impossible for him to do us serious damage. . . I almost wish he would invade the state of Chihuahua.”
It was probably around this time that he received a telegram from Felipe Ángeles signaling that Monterrey was in danger. On March 7, Villa traveled to Torreón and from there onto Monterrey with 4,000 men. In the second week of March, Villa arrived at the Unión de Monterrey station in his railway car. The people greeted him with cries of “Viva Villa, sons of bitches!” while Villa immediately embraced Ángeles and Raúl Madero. After a brief inspection that seemed to reveal the enemy was at quite a distance—and that Monterrey’s plaza was not in imminent danger—Villa, who had seen the cavalry on the outskirts of the city formed into a firing line, said to Ángeles, “You’re mistaken, we have to maintain the offensive.”
Villa then told him there was no risk, that the enemy could never have taken Monterrey. Ángeles responded that he had not requested help, that he had only signaled he was short of ammunition and that if Monterrey were to fall, it would place Torreón in danger. Villa told him that that was, in fact, a request for help.
Ángeles, according to witnesses, argued that in order to garrison a city of Monterrey’s size, and according to regulation, more men and more ammunition were needed as they had only three hundred cartridges per man.
Villa, very upset, answered, “General, we are not going by army regulations here; we are soldiers of the revolution and all this talk about regulations is useless.”
He pointed out that he could have finished off Diéguez and Murguía when they retreated to Manzanillo, and that he should have taken their trains and infantry as well because they didn’t even have ships to help them escape. Events would prove him right as, during those same days, Fierro lost to Diéguez in Tuxpan while Ángeles and Madero’s troops were forcing the Carrancistas to run for it in Ramones.
Villa stayed angry, however, as he confessed years later, “I didn’t want to remain upset with Gen. Ángeles because I am a great admirer of his, more than anything because he remained a faithful friend to the younger Madero.” Meanwhile, a powerful snowstorm hit the region.
In Monterrey, Villa learned that Obregón’s Army of Operations had departed Mexico City and was moving northwards. Was he coming to look for Villa? Or was it simply that he did not like Mexico City and was looking for a place in the center of the country to establish his base of operations, which would also allow him to link up with the forces in Jalisco? Obregón would remark about Mexico City, “It’s neither a railway hub, nor is there any food, keeping it requires diverting a large force. Whether or not one controls Mexico City makes no difference.”
While he was mulling over Obregón’s intentions, Pancho received an invitation from Raúl Madero to a banquet he had organized for Monterrey’s businessmen.
“How much do they want to spend?” asked Villa.
“About thirty thousand pesos.”
“That’s a lot of money, I don’t think I’ll eat that much.”
Villa then ordered Raúl to tell “these gentlemen to spend the money on corn and beans for the people.” The only homage Villa would accept was a bullfight with free tickets for all. Raúl arranged a meeting with Carlos García Cantú, president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce, along with other industrialists and merchants and the commission met with Villa in the Palacio de Gobierno. Villa wore a woolen jacket and a black silk scarf around his neck, and well-shined mitazas (chaps). He looked at the men sideways and said that there weren’t very many of them. They replied that they were the executive committee, but Villa insisted they come back again for another meeting with all their associates the following day. On March 15, at the same time as fighting continued in Nuevo León against Pablo González, Monterrey’s industrialists and merchants met Villa in a green hall in the Palacio. Villa launched into a strange speech: “I have called you here because I want you to stop looking down on the poor. The poor people do everything and yet, you treat them very badly. I’m telling you to help feed the underprivileged and if you don’t, you already know the punishment that awaits you.”
The president of the Chamber stated that they were willing to sell goods at low prices. Villa yelled that he was lying and showed him clothing—pants or maybe underwear, depending on the version—that had been sold at a high price.
“You’re all a bunch of scoundrels, you have been hiding rice and beans.”
Villa kept right on raising his voice, working himself up. He told the Mexicans to move to one side of the room and the foreigners to move to the other.
“You all thought I was going to give a fancy speech about war booty. Instead, I have a train to take all of you to Chihuahua.”
He demanded a million pesos and threatened to shoot the president of the Chamber of Commerce, who argued that he needed more time to gather the money. Villa detained the executive committee as collateral. The one million was to be collected from among 135 businesses, but they never finished paying.
On March 18, Villa replied to a letter from Zapata that had been sent one month prior. It included news of events that had transpired, assuring him that as soon as he was able, he would head south to lend a hand, “to help him with some things.” He then got to the heart of the matter, “many clever and perfidious men have tried to approach me to instill in me suspicion and mistrust against you; but I assure you with all the sincerity in my heart that I have paid them no mind, that I will use an iron fist to punish those who have tried to divide us.” Villa told him that Obregón had left Mexico City and hoped that Zapata could take advantage of this (by March 11, he already had). Villa signed the letter, “your friend and compañero.”
One week later, telegraph communication between the North and Mexico City was restored, and Villa communicated with Roque González Garza over the wire who asked him for the go ahead for a new Convencionista government. Villa did not object, but he suggested leaving Mexico City—because the people there had been corrupted—and to come to the North. Roque replied that it was not an opportune time to leave and asked Villa for 2,000 soldiers to garrison the city. Villa must have complained that, although the Carrancistas had only 6,000 men stretched between Mexico City and San Juan del Río, the Zapatistas had done nothing.
Villa took advantage of his stay in Monterrey, working with Enrique Pérez Rul, to catch up on his correspondence, to promulgate nineteen decrees, and to authorize Llorente to organize a “vigilance service” in the United States. Among the decrees was one warning business owners—in the majority foreigners and mostly from the United States—that if they did not reopen the mines, and cease unjustified closures and work stoppages, their mines would be expropriated, granting them sixty days to comply. As William K. Meyers suggested, “Villa was losing patience.” The US-based Asarco mining company had reinvested $2,700,000 in Mexico, but mostly to buy up competitors’ mines and make new claims on regions to exploit, thereby taking advantage of the crisis, but keeping its production operations closed. Besides this situation creating economic instability in Chihuahua, Zacatecas, and Durango, it was not helping the northern military state’s finances.
In Monterrey, Villa took on his central supplies problem, that is, the permanent crisis of ammunition. He asked Hipólito and Llorente by telephone to send the ammunition they had secured, and which he had demanded one month prior, to Irapuato. There was a shipment waiting in El Paso, but it had been blockaded for “inexplicable reasons.” Besides these difficulties, Lázaro de la Garza was not responding to several calls placed from El Paso and Llorente couldn’t locate him. Villa ordered Jáuregui to look for de la Garza in New York, where Villa had ordered him to contract directly with munitions makers to supply cartridges and where Villa had, for said ends, deposited a large quantity of money to underwrite the purchase of 10 million cartridges. Lázaro and Sommerfeld withdrew the deposits that had been made by Hipólito—on behalf of the Division of the North’s Finance Agency—from the Guaranteed Trust Co. of New York, and temporarily vanished them into thin air. Hipólito contacted the US Secret Service to help locate them. Using the money from the Madero brothers and “some friends of Gen. Ángeles,” a small part of the munitions were recovered.
The missing Lázaro, meanwhile, tried to win over the confidence of the chief of US Customs in El Paso, with whom he carried on a voluminous correspondence. He told him that Villa was very short of ammunition and that he was trying to secure it in New York. But Cobb had gone from being a big admirer of Villa to a detractor, publicly repudiating confiscations carried out by the Division of the North.
On March 24, Villa left Monterrey. Soon after, he wrote a letter to Llorente in which he told him, “Although I recognize the important work of the press, I have suffered so many tricks from some of these gentlemen journalists that I wouldn’t want to protect them in the slightest.” Around this time, Villa had commented to the Chicago Tribune, “I don’t care what you write about me, so long as it’s the truth.”