Pascual Orozcoand his Chihuahuas attack Ciudad Juárez, where
approx 500 federal troops are stationed. They had an agreement with
Francisco I. Madero, who was still in Texas at the time.
The idea was that Madero
and his men would come back into the country as soon as Orozco and
his men had Ciudad Juárez under control.
However, the Mexican government had sent reinforcements direction
north and they defeated Orozco upon his attack and forced him to
flee.
February 4, 1911
The federal 10th regiment led by Colonel Antonio Rábago leave Casas
Grandes by train to aid their comrades in defending Ciudad Juárez.
They get as far as Bauche station where the rebels had cut off the
rails, resulting in the First Battle of Bauche.
Pascual Orozco and
his revolutionaries fought the feds this afternoon and night.
Oscar Merrit Wheelock, aka Captain
Oscar G. Creighton, might or
might not have been directly responsible for the disrupted tracks.
You can read more about
The Dynamite Devil on Rick
Sullivan's site.
February 5, 1911
Second and last day of the First Battle of Bauche.
Rabago and his
team abandon the train and continue their journey inland and make it
to Ciudad Juárez.
February 7, 1911 Gabriel Tepepa and
Lucio Moreno start their revolution but their
timing was awful. After a quick initial success, their movement got
stuck in the hills because nobody was really ready to run with them.
Zapata didn't chime in because he was still waiting for
Torres
Burgos to come back from his
Madero mission.
Mid February 1911 Torres Burgos returns at last.
Emiliano Zapata and his men had sent him to
meet with
Francisco I. Madero, to check the man out and his intentions. Zapata
wanted to make sure Madero was no flake and that Madero was worth
risking lives for.
Torres Burgos reported a thumbs up and the revolutionaries got
organized: Zapata was made colonel. Patricio Leyva was made chief
revolutionary. Torres Burgos was made chief revolutionary number
two, in case something happened to Patricio.
The new idea of the Zapatistas was to start the revolution in Villa
de Ayala and then go south, instead of north. Don't take on the
north until the south was lined up. Also:
Gabriel Tepepa, a potential rival,
had to be won over.
February 14, 1911
President
Porfirio Díaz put some pressure on the American government, who
then issued an order for
Madero's arrest. Madero crosses the border
back into Mexico near Ciudad Juárez.
March 1911
Emiliano Zapata and 5,000 men
shuffle to the city of Cuautla and close the road to the
capital, Mexico City.
March 6, 1911
Battle of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. Maderista rebels vs. Federal
troops. The federals win.
March 8, 1911
Morelo's governor
Pablo
Escandón y Barrón orders an expansion of the state police
force. Simultaneously, the hacienda owners strengthened their own
private armies.
March 10, 1911
The revolutionaries meet at Cuautla to discuss when to start the
revolution full force. Attending: Torres Burgos,
Rafael Merino,
Emiliano Zapata and more.
Zapata says they're not ready yet because a) there exists a lack of
unity among the revolutionary chiefs and b) the revolutionaries
don't have enough weapons and ammunition. Zapata is overruled. The
revolution will begin tomorrow.
March 11, 1911
The revolutionaries took the police office in Villa de Ayala,
gathered the people and Torres Burgos read to the crowd the
Plan of San Luis
Potosí.
At which occasion
Otilio E. Montaño yelled "¡Abajo las Haciendas
y Vivan los Pueblos!", Down with the haciendas, long live the towns.
March 12, 1911
Fighting at Agua Prieta, Sonora
March 16, 1911
In Juárez, someone set some nitroglycerin on fire and tried to blow
up the housing of the Federal troops stationed there.
March 18, 1911
A cannon that was placed in the public square of El Paso, Texas, has
disappeared over night.
Dolores Jiménez y Muro drafts her
Plan of Tacubaya.
March 22, 1911
Morelos' governor
Escandón flees to Jojutla.
March 24, 1911
Rebels enter Tlaquiltenango, 6 miles north of Jojutla.
Escandón
flees back to Mexico City. Tepepa takes Jojutla without bloodshed.
However, Tepepa and his men become too unpredictable.
Torres Burgos calls for
help from
Emiliano Zapata and
Rafael Merino. At an emergency meeting, Torres Burgos
resigns.
March 25, 1911
(?) Torres Burgos and his two sons were walking to Villa de Ayala. The
federal police get a hold of them and shoot all three.
End of March 1911
After having taken Jojutla, the rebels plan to withdraw back into
the hills because of the great discontent and lack of unity amongst
them. Tepepa and many well-armed men elect
Zapata Supreme Chief of the
Revolutionary Movement of the South. Zapata's goal now is to link
his revolution in Morelos with
Francisco I. Madero's revolution in the north.
Meanwhile, more and more people flock to Zapata's camp to join his
revolutionary army. Among them were hacienda foremen, preachers,
textile workers, shopkeepers, and of course the occasional bandit.
The situation in Morelos had sneaked up on
President Diaz. He
had been pretty sure that he had everything under control but far from it. Diaz was now
desperate. He offers the position of Governor of Morelos, currently
Escandón's job, to
Patricio Leyva.
Patricio refuses and Diaz makes Patricio's father,
Francisco Leyva,
State Military Commander instead. As a result, the Leyva family lost
all credibility in the revolutionaries' eyes.
General Leyva, now state military commander, asks for Zapata's
advice on how to handle best his new job assignment as Governor of Morelos.
They meet at Jonacatepec, 5 miles east of the Morelos state line.
Also attending this meeting:
Eufemio Zapata,
Gabriel Tepepa, and
Manuel Asúnsulo, who represents the rebels around Guerrero. No
common ground could be found and the two parties go back home
without any agreements.
Early April 1911 Zapatasends Tepepa and
Almazán to spice stuff up a bit along the
Puebla - Guerrero border in order to prepare his first major campaign.
April 5, 1911
In the state of Puebla,
Zapata and approx 1,500 men move towards the
towns Chietla and Izúcar de Matamoros. Also part of Zapata's army
were some women. Even more women traveled with the outfit for camp
work purposes. See
Women and the Mexican Revolution.
April 6, 1911
Federal troops and police hear of what's coming to town and pull out
of Chietla and Izúcar de Matamoros.
April 7, 1911 Zapata and his army move into Chietla and Izúcar de Matamoros. The
people of the towns support the revolutionaries.
April 8, 1911
Federal reinforcements are rushed down to Izúcar de Matamoros,
carrying heavy artillery.
Zapata decides to withdraw from Izúcar de
Matamoros and to regroup around Chietla.
April 22, 1911
At Jolalpan,
Zapata meets with
Ambrosio Figueroa, head of the rebels
in the state of Guerrero. They decide to fight together, Zapata as
the leader of joint operations in Morelos, Figueroa as the leader of
joint operations in Guerrero. The leader of joint operations outside
of these states would be agreed upon and appointed previously to the
operations in question.
In addition, Zapata and Figueroa pick April 28 as the date for a
joint attack on Jojutla.
Later in April, 1911
Zapata's spies tell him that the Jojutla attack on April 28 is a
trap. Back-stabbing weasel
Ambrosio Figueroa is going for revolutionary supremacy and
plans to inform the federal troops so they could be well prepared,
and to desert Zapata at the last minute.
Zapata asks Figueroa for a meeting to explain himself. Figueroa refuses,
which makes further explaining unnecessary.
Beginning of May 1911
Without
Ambrosio Figueroa,
Emiliano Zapata goes for a solo campaign against Jojutla. It
is a one hour deal. He surrounds the heavily guarded
city with his men and sends some boys into town, who could pass by
the guard without causing suspicion. The boys carry dynamite
camouflaged as toys and throw them at the guard house. Confusion
among the federal soldiers. Zapata and his men take the city.
May 13, 1911
Emiliano Zapata attacks Cuautla. The
Battle of Cuautla is fought from May 13
until May 19,
1911, and turned out to be one the bloodiest clashes in the entire
Mexican Revolution.
Zapata has approx 4,000 men who outnumbered the
approx 400 federal troops, however, the feds had
excellent defensive positions and heavy duty artillery. Around 300
rebels were killed in this first attack.
May 14, 1911
Second day of the Battle of Cuautla. This day started like yesterday
ended - with heavy machine gun fire. By mid afternoon it
began to show that
Zapata's army
was superior in number.
May 16, 1911
Fourth day of the Battle of Cuautla.
Zapata's men take the city
street by street.
May 17, 1911
Fifth day of the Battle of Cuautla. Meanwhile,
Ambrosio Figueroa
thought this was a delicious opportunity to make
Zapata's life a bit
more burdensome. Figueroa dispatched Asúnsulo with 800 men, to march
on Cuernavaca, which is the capital of Zapata's home state
Morelos.
May 18, 1911
Sixth day of the Battle of Cuautla. So far around 1,000 of
Zapata's men
are dead or wounded.
May 19, 1911
Seventh day of the Battle of Cuautla. Finally, the city
falls to the
rebels. Barely a handful of federal soldiers survives. Almost one in
every three Zapatistas had been killed or wounded.
The Battle of Cuautla increased Zapata's reputation as a determined
and ruthless rebel leader immensely. At one point during the battle,
General Leyva offered a truce, but
Zapata didn't want to hear
anything about it. He was done talking.
After the battle, Zapata promised the peasants complete return of
their lands, which had been taken by the haciendas.
The farmers
returned to their former fields.
May 21, 1911
Madero
and
Díaz representatives sign the
Treaty of Ciudad Juárez.
May 25, 1911
Díaz appoints a provisional president,
Francisco León de la Barra,
who was formerly the foreign secretary, and resigns. Diaz then
picked his exile resort of choice and left the country for Paris,
France.
Zapata receives orders from the new
Maderista authorities in Mexico
City to the effect that any act of hostility against the haciendas would be
considered an act of war.
Frederico Morales shoots
Gabriel Tepepa.
May 26, 1911 Zapata meets with
Manuel Asúnsulo, who was head of approx 800 men.
The two decide to enter Cuernavaca, capital of Morelos state,
together. And so it happens. It was a peaceful occupation of the
city, no riots.
Zapata meets
Genovevo de la O, originally from Santa Maria, just
north of Cuernavaca, also a rebel leader. Zapata and de la O become
allies.
Meanwhile in Mexico City,
Madero
issues a declaration. It is the
first manifesto since the armistice. The statement weakened the
vital paragraph 3 of article 3 in the
Plan of San Luis Potosí, which
promised judicial review of land exchanges and eventual return of
lands to their rightful owners.
Madero also renounced his provisional presidency that he had assumed in
November pending full elections and urged to obey
Francisco León de la Barra.
May 29, 1911
Conference of the rebel leaders:
Zapata,
de la O,
Asúnsulo, Alfonso
Miranda etc meet. They all agree that rivalry among them should end.
June 2, 1911 Juan Carreón is the new governor of
Morelos. He succeeds
Francisco Leyva and will stay in office until October 4, 1911.
June 3, 1911
Francisco I. Madero is getting ready for the trip from his home at Parras, in the state of Coahuila, to Mexico City, a four day trip.
June 7, 1911
In Mexico City just before dawn: For a little less than the duration
of 15 minutes
Mexico City gets hit by the strongest earthquake in living memory,
killing 207 people.
Francisco I. Madero arrives in Mexico City,
Emiliano
Zapata is among the ones who greets
him at the train station. At the following meeting, Madero asks
Zapata to disband his troops. Zapata says, not until the lands have
been returned. Madero promises to visit Morelos on June 12 in order
to assess the situation personally.
June 12, 1911
Madero visits
Morelos. Madero offers
Emiliano
Zapata money to buy land,
demands disarmament, and promises Zapata the post as commander of
the police in Morelos.
June 13, 1911
Zapata and his men commence disarmament.
June 15, 1911
Madero returns to Mexico City after his inspection of Cuernavaca, Igunta, Cuautla, and Chilpancingo.
June 18, 1911 Ruiz de Velasco calls a protest meeting in Mexico City. He invites
hacienda owners, rich merchants etc, and gives two options: either
Maderoextinguishes
Zapata's power or there will be war.
June 19, 1911 Zapata, previously voluntarily disarmed, requests 500 rifles and
ammunition from governor Juan Carreón. Carreón refuses. Zapata
seizes them anyway.
June 20, 1911 Emiliano
Zapata receives telegram from
Francisco Madero, who orders him to travel to
Mexico City to explain his behavior, which Zapata does. Madero tells
Zapata to knock it off for good. Zapata returns to Cuernavaca,
Morelos.
Another bad press day for Zapata. El Imparcial, Mexico City's
(partial) newspaper calls him the Modern Attila. Here's the very
edition:
June 26, 1911
Now officially a retiree,
Zapata
gets married.
July 11, 1911
People are still fed up with their general situation and ask
Zapata
for help. Zapata declines, he doesn't want to get involved
anymore.
July 12, 1911
Popular rumor has it that there is an assassination plot scheduled for
Maderotomorrow. Fighting breaks out between Federals and Maderistas.
Over 50 people get killed.
July 22, 1911
A group of Maderista generals issue a protest against the
de la Barra regime. This time,
Zapata
gets involved. He signs the protest
as well.
August 2, 1911 Alberto García Granados becomes the appointed Minister of the
Interior, replacing Emilio Vázquez.
Alberto García Granados hates
Madero's guts and demands another
demobilization of
Zapata's troops. Zapata refuses.
Madero invites Zapata to meet in Tehuacán for a chat. Zapata also
refuses but sends his brother
Eufemio Zapata. The discussions leads
to no results.
August 8, 1911
The War Department in Mexico City issues orders for troops to rush
to Cuernavaca and Jonacatepec, while police under
Ambrosio Figueroa
mass at Jojutla. The idea was to surround Zapata in the center at
Cuautla and to eliminate him.
August 9, 1911 Zapata's religious wedding ceremony at Cuautla. A messenger bursts
into the celebrations and informs the happy couple that the 32nd
Infantry Regiment with over 1,000 federal troops are on their way to
congratulate in person. Leader of the approaching regiment is
Brigadier General
Victoriano Huerta.
Zapata wires
Madero, asking if there are any official complaints
against him. No answer.
August 10, 1911
State elections scheduled for August 13 are suddenly canceled.
August 11, 1911
In a letter to interim president
de la Barra,
Victoriano Huerta calls the
Morelos governor Juan Carreón "lukewarm."
August 12, 1911
De la Barra declares martial law to be in effect.
August 13, 1911 Madero arrives in Cuernavaca. Ready? Here he comes:
Madero
notifies
de la Barra of his intention to negotiate with
Zapata. Madero advises Zapata to embrace retirement yet again.
Zapata feels strongly that a revolutionary force should remain
intact until all agrarian matters are solved and settled for good.
Zapata also demands a withdrawal of the federal troops from
Morelos.
August 14, 1911 Madero
sends word to
de la Barra and recommends that part of
Zapata's force should be allowed to be maintained and asks that
movement of the federal troops should be at least delayed. De la Barra can't hear on that ear and ignores both proposals.
August 15, 1911
The War Department tells
Victoriano Huerta to tell
Madero that if
Zapata
refuses to disarm immediately, Huerta's troops would advance from
Cuernavaca toward Yautepec, which is less than 10 miles from Cuautla,
Zapata's current residence.
Huerta receives this message but doesn't tell Madero anything.
Instead he requests extra artillery and ammunition from
de la Barra.
August 16, 1911
9 AM -
Madero leaves Cuernavaca for Mexico City. Precisely 60
minutes after Madero's departure,
Huerta issues his orders for his
troops to march toward Yautepec.
De la Barra receives a delayed telegram from Madero, in which Madero
expresses his thoughts that it would be a serious mistake to resort
to arms. De la Barra tells Huerta to cool it. Huerta says this is
just a maneuver.
Madero reaches Mexico City in the afternoon and convinces the
council of Ministers to delay operations for 48 hours during which
Madero would make another reconciliation attempt.
August 17, 1911 Madero
is off to meet
Zapata
at Cuautla again.
August 18, 1911 Francisco
I. Madero reaches Yecapixtla, Morelos, where
Eufemio Zapata welcomes
him and accompanies him as bodyguard to Cuatla to meet
Zapata.
Huerta and his troops are by now half way between Cuernavaca and Yautepec.
Madero and Zapata reach the following agreement:
Eduardo Hay
should be the new candidate for governor
in
Morelos
Raúl Madero (Francisco Madero's brother) should be the new
commander of the state police
The federal troops should return immediately to Cuernavaca, prior
to their complete withdrawal from the state of Morelos
Raúl Madero should bring 250 former
Maderista fighters to replace
the federal garrison
Zapata
should commence demobilization of his own men the next
morning
Madero offers voluntarily to remain in Cuautla until the federal
forces returned to Mexico City as proof of his good intentions.
August 19, 1911 Emiliano
Zapata commences disarmament in the morning.
August 21, 1911 Emiliano
Zapata and
Francisco
I. Madero confer in Yautepec. Both travel
back to Cuautla where the disarmament continues.
Governor Juan Carreón tells
president
de la Barra that
Eufemio Zapata has the intention to launch an attack on Cuernavaca.
De la Barra orders an extra 330 men with machine guns to
Cuernavaca.
August 22, 1911
In the name of the federal government,
Maderosigns a statement
absolving
Zapata
and his men from any charge of rebellion.
Meanwhile at Cuernavaca: Carreón
reports to
de la Barra of Zapatista
aggression, which might or might not be grossly exaggerated.
In any event, de la Barra announces that the rebels have violated the
truce.
August 23, 1911 Huertastarts forward from Yautepec. Cuautla is less than 10 miles
away.
Zapata's men had been demobilized and many had left the area,
only a few Zapatistas remain in the city. Frustrated
Maderotakes
the train back to Mexico City.
August 25, 1911 Madero sends a long and bitter letter to the president and
leaves the
capital for Yucatán.
August 27, 1911
From Cuautla,
Zapata
issues a declaration addressed to the people of
Morelos, in which he denounces the government.
Ambrosio Figueroa arrests approx 60 local
Zapatistas during the
first four days of his move on Cuautla. All of them were shot. More
Zapatistas were held for court martial with pretty much the same
fate in view.
The Minister of the Interior, Alberto García Granados, orders the
active pursuit and arrest of Zapata. Emiliano is now officially
wanted dead or alive.
August 31, 1911
Federal troops surround Cuautla.
Zapata
sends a telegraph to
de la Barra and tells him that he, Zapata, has no intention to lead a
rebellion, and that only a small group of bodyguards, assigned to
him by
Madero, remain with him there in Cuautla.
De la Barra thought this was interesting and related Zapata's whereabouts
and Zapata's vulnerability to
Victoriano
Huerta. Huerta and Arnoldo Casso López move with
their troops into Cuautla. Zapata had slipped away and was already
beyond Tenextepango.
September 1, 1911 Huerta pursues
Zapata, beating and killing his way through the
countryside.
De la Barra gave Huerta all thumbs up to use his
favorite methods as he wished. In effect, this brutality causes the
peasants to sympathize with Zapata.
Early September 1911 Zapata and
Juan Almazán, the former Puebla medical student,
establish a new and rough base 3,000 feet up in the mountains on the
wild Puebla-Guerrero border.
September 20, 1911
Prominent men in the state of Oaxaca were told to revolt as fast as
they could to divert federal attention.
September 26, 1911 Huerta claims that the entire state of
Morelos was pacified and his
mission there accomplished.
Meanwhile on the same day,
Zapata and his men issue the first public
declaration of their demands. They insist on
an election of men either freely elected by the people or selected
by the "Generals and Chiefs of the present Counter-Revolution."
an evacuation of the plazas in the sates of Morelos, Puebla,
Guerrero, and Oaxaca by the federal forces.
a postponement of the presidential elections that are scheduled
for October 1st this year
a return of timber and water to the pueblos
an absolute liberty granted to all political prisoners
This declaration is issued at San Juan del Río in Puebla, and signed
by Emiliano and
Eufemio Zapata and twelve other men.
Interim president
de la Barra receives this declaration, rejects all
points, and immediately tells Huerta to target Zapata's current
location.
September 27, 1911 Huerta
informs
de la Barra of his "vigorous pursuit of the
ridiculously pretentious bandits." Meanwhile,
Zapata lures Huerta
away from
Morelos. Huerta thought the rebels fled panic stricken.
October 1, 1911
The presidential elections take place and
Francisco
I. Madero easily defeats
de la Barra and
Reyes. Inauguration is scheduled for December 1, 1911.
Sometime later in October 1911 Reyes travels to San Antonio, Texas,
US. There he meets with Emilio Vásquez and the two plot together.
Francisco Vásquez and Emilio Vásquez
are rebel leaders in Chihuahua. Their
followers are called the Vazquistas.
Anyway, the US authorities got
a hold of Reyes and put him in jail. Read on at the December 4, 1911
entry to learn more about Reyes' next step.
October 6, 1911 Zapata
still got
Huertaon his heels. But he suddenly switches
directions, rides at maximum speed, outflanks Huerta, and
re-surfaces in eastern
Morelos, completely out of reach for Huerta.
There, he rallies the peasants.
October 10, 1911 Zapata's army numbers 1,500 and the peasants were on his side.
Mid-October 1911 Zapata
turns north into Mexico state and reaches the Ozumba area.
Zapata's troops attack the garrison at Milpa Alta. Panic strikes in
the capital.
October 27, 1911
Cabinet crisis in Mexico City because
Zapata
is so close. Three
ministers are forced to resign. One of them is
José Gonzáles Salas,
the War Minister.
October 28, 1911 Madero demands
Huerta's dismissal, says that "he is a very bad man."
November 6, 1911
Today is presidential inauguration date. The date had been
rescheduled from December 1 to
November 6 in order to get back to a normal life in Mexico ASAP.
Hence,
Madero is now officially Mexico's
El Presidente.
During the presidential celebrations,
Emiliano
Zapata stays at
Villa de Ayala.
November 8, 1911 Gabriel Robles Domínguez, the new representative of the President,
arrives at Cuautla to negotiate with
Zapata. He stays for three
days because there is a lot to discuss.
November 11, 1911
As far as General Casso López is concerned, the war continues.
He and his men surround
Villa de Ayala while Gabriel Robles Domínguez
is still in there, negotiating with
Zapata.
When Dominguez was done negotiating and wanted back out,
Casso López refused to let him pass through his lines. Domínguez wires
Maderoto halt the offensive because he had
obtained excellent conditions.
November 12, 1911 Gabriel Robles Domínguez manages to sneak through the federal lines.
He meets with
Madero and informs him of the results of his
discussions with
Zapata.
Zapata agrees to disarm provided that
the Villa de Ayala faction replaces the Figueroa faction as the
dominant party in
Morelos.
the federal troops withdraw and are replaced with local
revolutionaries.
the agrarian aims of the revolution must be guaranteed.
Madero refuses to accept these conditions. Instead, he declares
himself willing to grant pardon for Zapata and his men "for the
crime of rebellion" if they surrender at once. Quite the eye-opener
for Zapata.
Casso Lopez attacks Villa de Ayala
and finds the village deserted.
Zapata and his men are long gone.
November 25, 1911 Zapata draws up
The Plan of Ayala, declares to renew the Revolution
and exclaimes Tierra y Libertad, in other words Land and Liberty.
Zapata's manifesto, the Plan of Ayala, will appear in a Mexico City
newspaper in their December 15 issue.
November 28,
1911 Zapata
meets with his officers near Ayoxustla,
a small town in southeastern Puebla, to read to them the
The Plan of Ayala. And the men appointed General
Pascual Orozco as the new
revolutionary leader. Zapata being the second in command.
Early December 1911 Madero sends a group of negotiators
Zapata's
direction. Zapata kicked
them out with a message for El Presidente to get the hell to Havana,
otherwise he, Zapata, will have him hanged from one of the highest
tress in the park.
December 1911 Emiliano
Zapata's staff is composed of 7 generals, 27
colonels, and numerous captains. The generals are
Eufemio Zapata,
Francisco Mendoza,
Jesús Morales,
Jesús Navarro,
Otilio E. Montaño,
José Trinidad Ruiz, and
Próculo Capistrán.
December 4, 1911 Reyes jumps bail in the US and crosses the border into Mexico. He
commands about 600 men. But his revolutionary attempt will run out of
steam and his supporters will flee. Reyes will
get arrested once
more, this time by the Mexican authorities, and put in jail in
Mexico City.
December 20, 1911 Zapata issues general orders to his
Liberation Army of the South, or Ejército Libertador del Sur. He decrees that officers should "bring
to the consciousness of our troops that the better we behave, the
more adherents and help we will have among the people and the faster
will be our triumph."
December 31, 1911 Zapata issues another manifesto to the "beloved pueblos".
Also called the
Persian Wars, the Greco-Persian Wars were
fought for almost half a century from 492 BC -
449 BC. Greece won against enormous odds. Here
is more:
