The General and the Jaguar (8 page)

Carranza, however, was not amenable to the idea of resigning or being shot. After more wrangling, the leaders of the revolutionary
convention, which according to the Mexican Constitution represented the legitimate government at that time, declared Carranza
in rebellion and named Villa as commander in chief.

So began the most deadly phase of the revolution. “As in the history of most revolutions, the bloodiest phase of the Mexican
Revolution occurred not when revolutionaries were fighting the old regime but when they began to fight one another,” observes
historian Friedrich Katz. “In 1913-1914, when they fought against the federal army, revolutionary volunteers confronted mostly
unwilling, forcibly impressed conscripts. This time volunteer would fight mostly against volunteer.”

Carranza’s Constitutionalist forces and Villa’s Conventionalist army began fighting each other with a savagery that had not
been seen on the North American continent since the Civil War. Chief among the killers would be Pancho Villa himself.

A
S COMMANDER IN CHIEF
of the armed forces, Villa’s first task was to march south and take control of Mexico City. Carrancista
soldiers garrisoned in nearby towns fled before his troops and crowds showered them with flowers. Battle hardened and confident,
enjoying an almost fanatical loyalty from his men, Villa was at the peak of his power and the División del Norte had an aura
of invincibility that was demoralizing to opposing forces. In keeping with his stature, Villa upgraded the private train from
which he directed his battles, one boxcar serving as his office, sitting room, and bedroom; a second containing barbershop,
bath, and a player piano; a third reserved for siestas; and a fourth his dining room, staffed by dark-eyed beauties.

On December 2, 1914, in the village of Xochimilco on the outskirts of Mexico City, he met with Emiliano Zapata. Although the
two revolutionaries had exchanged correspondence and knew a lot about each other, it was the first time they had actually
had a face-to-face meeting.

“Sr. General Zapata, today I realize my dream of meeting the chief of the great Revolution of the South,” said Villa.

“And I now realize that same dream regarding the chief of the Northern Division,” Zapata responded.

Their joint public appearance sent a strong message to the rest of the country, as well as the international community, that
the Villistas and Zapatistas—not the Carrancistas—represented the will of the Mexican people and would triumph in the new
civil war. Followed by adoring crowds, the two adjourned to a nearby school for a conference. “For a half-hour, they sat in
an embarrassed silence, occasionally broken by some insignificant remark, like two country sweethearts,” a U.S. representative
later wrote. In an effort to lighten the atmosphere, Zapata called for a bottle of cognac. Reluctantly, Villa took a few swigs,
turning red faced and spluttering from the liquor.

Several days later, they rode through the streets of Mexico City to the National Palace, two splendid figures on horseback,
sitting relaxed in their saddles, right hands casually holding the reins. Zapata wore tight-fitting charro pants, a short
jacket, a scarf, and a huge sombrero that shaded his perpetual scowl. Villa was dressed up, too, his bulk squeezed into a
military tunic, his huge head topped by a visored cap. In addition to their superb horsemanship, the two charismatic leaders
had many things in common: a keen intelligence, a genuine concern for the poor, suspicious natures that bordered on paranoia,
and fierce hatred of the Carrancistas. They are “men who have always slept on soft pillows,” Villa sneered. “How could they
ever be friends of the people who have spent their lives with nothing but suffering?” Zapata agreed. “Those cabrones, as soon
as they see a little chance, well, they want to take advantage of it and line their pockets!”

When Villa and Carranza parted ways, the Villistas and Zapatistas, along with other generals friendly to their cause, controlled
most of the country, including the northern states adjacent to the U.S. border and the central highlands, as well as scattered
enclaves along the Gulf coast and the Pacific Ocean. The Carrancistas controlled less territory, but the land they did control
provided them with more valuable resources. Carranza’s forces, for example, occupied the oil-producing region of Tampico,
which had been relatively untouched by revolution and was generating far more revenue than the agricultural regions that Villa
depended upon to finance his army. Carranza had also inherited the huge cache of weaponry left behind in Veracruz when the
U.S. forces pulled out in November of 1914, which included millions of rounds of ammunition, rifles, pistols, machine guns,
barbed wire, and explosives. Perhaps most important of all, Carranza had Álvaro Obregón on his side. A former chickpea farmer,
Obregón is viewed by many historians as the most talented military general to emerge in the revolution. He was blessed with
a photographic memory, had some schooling, and was modest in appearance. Martín Luis Guzmán believed Obregón’s unpretentious
demeanor only camouflaged an immense conceit and sense of his own importance. “His ideas, his beliefs, his feelings were intended
like those of the theater, for the public. They lacked all roots and conviction.” Obregón was no fool, however, and unlike
the semiliterate Villa, took the time to study the lessons being learned in the trenches of Europe and apply them to the bloody
civil war that raged on beneath the hot Mexican sun.

Following the historic meeting between Villa and Zapata in Mexico City, Felipe Ángeles had urged Villa, together with Zapata’s
Liberating Army of the South, to capture Veracruz, where Carranza had his headquarters. Villa disagreed, pointing out that
his home base in the north was being threatened and that other cities were also in danger of being overrun by the Carrancistas.
Responded Ángeles, “I understand you, my General; but those lesser dangers will disappear when the great danger that Carranza
represents has passed. These other chiefs are like hats hanging on a rack; the rack is Carranza, and the best use of our forces
is not to pick off the hats one by one but to topple the rack, because then all the hats will fall.” Though Villa valued Ángeles’s
advice, he ignored it this time and sent troops to Guadalajara, Saltillo, and Monterrey. The Carrancistas were vanquished
in all three cities. Although the victories were of little strategic importance, Villa’s sense of invincibility grew.

Álvaro Obregón, meanwhile, was busily reorganizing his army. He drilled his troops, recruited new soldiers from the nascent
labor movement, and pondered his opponent’s crude military tactics. In April of 1915, Obregón was ready to launch a major
offensive and he loaded his army onto a train and began chugging toward the town of Celaya. Located about 130 miles northwest
of Mexico City, Celaya was surrounded by green fields that were irrigated by a network of ditches and canals. Obregón, who
happened to have a German adviser on his military team, immediately saw how the waterways could be used to erect a formidable
defense against his reliably hotheaded rival. He unrolled barbed wire in front of the ditches and placed nests of deadly machine
guns and cannons behind them. Then, with his combined forces of six thousand cavalry and five thousand infantry, he sat back
and waited for
el jaguar
to enter the deadly web.

Villa’s network of spies had informed him of the buildup of troops in Celaya, and true to Obregón’s prediction, he wanted
to rush there immediately and give the “little banty rooster” the thrashing of his life. But Felipe Ángeles had more respect
for Obregón’s military skills and urged Villa to avoid a direct battle. He suggested that Villa instead taunt Obregón, leading
him away from his supply base before launching his own ground attack. Villa argued that a defensive posture would tarnish
“the prestige of my troops and my own reputation would suffer in the eyes of the enemy. . . . When have I not gone out to
fight him, shattering him with my momentum, putting him to rout?”

On April 6, Obregón’s advance guard accidentally ran into a much larger contingent of Villistas and Obregón himself steamed
out in an armored train to rescue them. The following morning, the full-fledged battle began. Sitting astride a horse, Villa
ordered his cavalry and infantry and artillerymen to assemble along a line about three miles in length. Once his troops were
in position, Villa sent in the first wave, shining and gold-colored in the sun. As Obregón’s machine guns and artillery fire
cut them to pieces, another wave rose up through the haze and rode out to be butchered. At dusk, the Villistas halted their
assault. Obregón’s artillerymen kept up their bombardment through the night and Villa watched the shells exploding in the
darkness, marveling at the wasteful use of ammunition. He slept little, frequently interrupted by generals who came to him,
voicing their fears about their own dwindling arsenal. He tried to comfort them, saying, “The city will fall under the fury
of our first assault, and if not then, under the second.”

The following morning brought even bloodier fighting. Obregón’s Yaqui riflemen, well hidden in dugouts, picked off Villa’s
infantry and cavalry. Villa’s artillerymen lobbed shell after shell into the enemy camp. The shells hit their targets but
they were so poorly constructed that they did little damage. Nevertheless, Obregón’s center began to weaken and Villa ordered
his men to charge in “one great onslaught.” As they raced across the fields, Villa noticed that the ground had been inundated
with water, which had probably been piped in from the drainage ditches. While his soldiers floundered through the water, Obregón’s
cavalry engulfed the Villistas in a brilliant pincer movement. Villa’s right flank weakened and broke, then the center, and
finally the left. Villa rode out onto the field and drove back the enemy long enough for his troops to rescue most of their
cannons and begin an orderly withdrawal. “We abandoned our dead; we collected our arms; we gathered our wounded and carried
them to the trains of my health service, where they were taken aboard and sent to my hospitals in the north.”

Another general might have surrendered, but Villa still had enormous energy and confidence. Over the next few days the two
opposing forces swelled in strength. By the time the second titanic battle of Celaya began, a week later, there were perhaps
fifteen thousand men in Obregón’s camp and twenty thousand in Villa’s.

The battle began at noon on the thirteenth of April and continued all day and throughout the night, which brought heavy rain.
Villa did not alter his suicidal strategy at all. “Our attacks were thin and weak, but a single instant of weakness at a single
point in the enemy line might give us a chance,” he said later. Once again, his artillery shells, made in his shops in Chihuahua
and lacking the proper mix of chemicals, inflicted little damage. Then an eerie replay of the first Celaya battle occurred:
Obregón’s line once again began to weaken; Villa’s infantrymen charged, and Obregón’s cavalry—six thousand horsemen who had
remained hidden for two days in a mesquite thicket—enveloped their flanks. The once-mighty Villistas threw down their guns
and began to run for their lives.

In the two battles, approximately three thousand of Villa’s men were killed and six thousand were taken as prisoners. He also
lost a thousand horses, five thousand rifles, and thirty-two cannons. But the bitterest blow of all came in the milling confusion
afterward. Smiling pleasantly and glowing with success, the apple-cheeked Obregón asked the captured Villista officers, clad
in the same muddy clothes as their troops, to come forward. Some 120 brave men stepped forth and were promptly executed.

Distraught by the carnage, on June 2, 1915, President Wilson sent a lengthy public letter to Mexico City in which he urged
the revolutionary factions to settle their differences. “I feel it to be my duty to tell them that, if they can not accommodate
their differences and unite for this great purpose within a very short time, this Government will be constrained to decide
what means should be employed by the United States in order to help Mexico save herself and serve her people.”

Wilson’s appeal fell on deaf ears. Villa and Obregón were locked in a death struggle and neither intended to stop until the
other was destroyed. The two armies lumbered north. Near the town of León, northwest of Celaya, Obregón played the defense
again, ordering his troops into a protective square and preparing for more suicidal attacks. This time Villa heeded the advice
of Felipe Ángeles to “outpatience” Obregón and fought more defensively himself, ordering his infantry to dig in along the
edge of a wide, level plain. The battle stretched over forty days. During one of the skirmishes, an artillery shell struck
a tower where Obregón and his generals were observing the battlefield and blew off Obregón’s right arm. Obregón reached for
his pistol to shoot himself but an aide had removed the bullets while cleaning his gun the day before and he was rushed to
an emergency hospital. (“It was a very efficient staff that I had,” he would later joke. “When I regained consciousness I
found they had already amassed my watch and pocketbook.”)

Finally Villa could tolerate the stalemate no longer and sent one of his officers to attack a fortified hill. “Standing on
a rocky pinnacle, cursing and blaspheming, he saw his lieutenant defeated—and then nothing could hold him,” wrote James Hopper,
the
Collier’s
correspondent. Villa gathered up his cavalry and charged. Once again, he was soundly defeated.

The two opposing armies staggered on in a northwesterly direction, facing off against each other for the third time in Aguascalientes.
By then, Obregón had recovered somewhat from his injury and he again opted for a defensive posture. This time, his supply
lines were overextended and Villa was confident that he could defeat his nemesis with ease. Villa reverted to his old guerrilla
tactics, ordering his cavalry to circle behind Obregón’s men in order to divert some of his forces and disrupt his communication
and supply lines. Obregón, knowing he was in danger of being cut off, ordered his soldiers to mount an attack, and they routed
Villa’s men so unexpectedly that the Villistas left pots of “bubbling stew” on the battlefield.