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DOWNHILL HEREAFTER FOR PANCHO VILLA
Mexican History 1915
Mexican Revolution
Timeline - Year 1915
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January 4, 1915
The Constitutionalist forces, or Carrancistas, led by
 Alvaro Obregon
kick
the remaining Zapatistas out of Puebla City.
January 16, 1915
Interim President Gutiérrez realizes that he had managed to annoy
all revolutionary fractions equally. He flees from Mexico City and
settles in the small town of Doctor Arroyo. |
The Conventionalists name 29-year-old
Villista
Roque González Garza
their political leader. Confusion spreads.
Alvaro Obregon
approaches the
capital.
January 26, 1915
Roque González Garza
and his Villista / Zapatista government
provisionally moves to Cuernavaca with its entire personnel.
January 28, 1915
The Constitutionalists, which are the Carrancistas, led by
Alvaro Obregon, enter Mexico City.
Mexico City fights with famine and
pestilence. Meanwhile, the Zapatistas have almost all of
Morelos
surveyed and re-organized. The Morelenses, which is the name for the
people of Morelos, are leaning towards independence from the rest of
the country, which is more or less in a rotten state. They say that taxes and railroads are their own
affairs and they are seeking to obtain their own currency.
January 31, 1915
First session of the Revolutionary Convention, which had moved to Cuernavaca.
February 2, 1915
The Convention President
Roque González Garza
decrees that the
revolution paper money has to be accepted in Morelos.
Zapata
is not
happy about the limited amount of currency that gets allocated to
his area.
February 19, 1915
Roque González Garza
wants to resign but the Convention persuades
him to remain in office.
February 20, 1915
Emiliano
Zapata writes
Pancho Villa
and asks for troops and ammunition. Villa
answers that it's a no-can-do. Instead, these must be seized from the enemy.
March 10, 1915
Alvaro Obregon's
Constitutionalist army leaves Mexico City.
March 11, 1915
The Revolutionary Convention's last day in Cuernavaca.
Zapatista government moves back
in Mexico City.
Emiliano
Zapata remains in
Morelos.
March 21, 1915
In Mexico City, the Zapatista majority is led
by Soto y Gama and
Manuel Palafox.
Emiliano
Zapata doesn't show
much interest in anything that goes on outside of
Morelos.
March 31, 1915
President
Roque González Garza
has nominated the following people for the
Cabinet:
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Foreign Relations:
M. Diaz Lombardo
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Treasury and
Industry: Francisco Escudero
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Interior:
Francisco Lagos Chazaro
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Justice:
Manuel Mendez
Lopez
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State and Communications:
Luis de la Garza Cardenas
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Public Instructor:
Valentine Gama
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Public
Instruction:
Otillo Montano
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Agriculture:
Manuel Palafox
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War:
General Francisco Pacheco.
April 4 - 10, 1915
First Battle of Celaya. Fought at
Celaya, Guanajuato, between the forces of
Álvaro Obregón
(pro-
Carranza) and
Pancho Villa.
Obregon wins. Villa's first major
defeat.
April 13 - 15, 1915
Second
Battle of Celaya. Obregon finishes what he started a few
days ago. After the fight, Obregon sends report to Carranza and
claims that Villa has lost 32 cannon, 5,000 rifles, and 1,000
horses. From Villa's men, 3,000 ended up dead, and 6,000 men were
taken prisoner.
MAP LOCATION OF CELAYA, GUANAJUATO, MEXICO
CARRANZA'S MEN ARE PILING UP THE GUNS
THEY HAD CAPTURED FROM PANCHO VILLA'S MEN
April 16, 1915
U.S. President
Woodrow Wilson's
diplomat Judge Duval West meets with
Emiliano
Zapata. Zapata asks for Wilson to receive
Zapata's delegation. It was denied because the US had already
recognized the
Carranza
government. West found Zapata friendly but
considered him naive and concerned only with
Morelos.
Last days of April 1915
Battle of Leon starts. See June
3, 1915, which was its final day.
April 30, 1915
The Convention in Mexico City wants
Manuel Palafox to resign.
May 4, 1915
Emiliano
Zapata wires from Jojutla that he is on his way to the capital.
Manuel Palafox
is still in office.
May 5, 1915
Pablo Gonzáles Garza
orders the Revolutionary Convention to give up all weapons. He does
not recognize the state's government and revokes all laws it had
established.
May 7, 1915
As part of the Battle of Leon, Obregon establishes his headquarters
at the Trinity Station, close to Santa Ana del Conde.
June 3, 1915
Álvaro Obregón
loses his right arm.
In his book The Life and Times of
Pancho Villa, historian Friedrich Katz
tells how it happened.
"On April 3,
as Obregon stood on the hacienda's tower
reconnoitering the battlefield, a Villista
shell exploded, shattering his right arm.
Convinced that he was bleeding to death,
Obregon tried to commit suicide by shooting
himself in the temple.
Fortunately
for him, his adjutant had cleaned the pistol
the night before and removed the cartridges.
Obregon's men took the gun and brought him
to the hospital. Obregon's temporary
incapacity did not paralyze his army..."
However, there's
another version that the arm was lost not on
April 3, 1915, but today, on
June 3, 1915, at Santa Ana del Conde, during the
Battle of Leon.
Not sure which
date it really was?
Let Jurgen
Buchenau help you out. Jurgen is a history pro
at UNC Charlotte and he was kind enough to
clarify the matter for us.
I am
absolutely positive of this date [June 3,
1915], having seen it in the Alvaro Obregon
monument in Mexico City.
Katz's
biography is excellent on Pancho Villa, but
it is not a good source on Obregon; you can
find the essential facts in Linda Hall's
biography, Alvaro Obregon, pending the
publication of my own book next year (you
can also check out my chapter on Obregon's
arm in Lyman Johnson, ed., Death,
Dismemberment, and Memory (Albuquerque,
2004).
Thank you Jurgen!
And here is the
photo documentary.
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Alvaro
Obregon lost his right arm in battle
in 1915. |
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Enough of the arm. Forgotten which
battle it was?
Today is the final day of the
Battle of León in which
Pancho Villa
fought
Álvaro Obregón.
The long Battle of Leon had started end of April.
Obregon wins again.
Historian
Friedrich Katz says that, "The defeat of Leon destroyed
Villismo as a national force. Villa nevertheless refused to give up.
He still believed that Obregon could be defeated and decided to make
his last stand in central Mexico, in the city of Aguascalientes."
June 9, 1915
Roque González Garza
gets replaced by Francisco Lagos Cházaro,
former governor of Veracruz. Gonzales Garza goes into exile and
won't come back until 1920.
Venustiano Carranza
forms his army of the east
under
Pablo Gonzáles Garza.
June 18, 1915
Emiliano
Zapata orders all senior officers to report for duty.
June 23, 1915
Southern troops under General Rafael Eguía Lis make a stand before
the Gran Canal, 15 miles from the capital, thus halting
Pablo Gonzáles Garza's
advance.
June 24, 1915
Zapatistas attack but have to withdraw and
Pablo Gonzáles Garza
resumes
his advance on Mexico City.
July 7, 1915
The governmental Convention convenes its last meeting.
July 11, 1915
Pablo Gonzáles Garza
enters Mexico City
July 17, 1915
Pablo Gonzáles Garza pulls out after receiving fake reports of a
Constitutionalist counterattack.
August 2, 1915
Nervous
Pablo Gonzáles Garza
reenters Mexico City.
Don Venustiano Carranza takes
up residence in the National Palace.
October 19, 1915
The U.S. extends de facto recognition of the
Carranza
government. De
jure recognition will not be given until March 3, 1917, but in the
meantime all arms shipments to Mexico are prohibited, except to
Carranza.
Emiliano
Zapata is having a
nightmare.
Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Japan,
Germany, Spain, and the majority of the Latin America follow the US policy. Besides, everybody had their hands full with
World War
One.
November 28, 1915
Mexico City authorities announce plans for a victorious campaign
against Zapatistas.
During December 1915
Genovevo de la O fights hard and successfully against the
Carrancistas,
which he pushed south all the way to Acapulco.
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