Pancho Villa\'s Raid on Columbus,

Pancho Villa's Raid On Columbus, New Mexico

Pancho Villa remains one of the emblematic characters of the Mexican Revolution, despite the fact that many of his actual achievements have been put into shadow by unsuccessful and somewhat irrational acts, such as the raid on Columbus, New Mexico, which attracted a punitive expedition into Mexico under the U.S. General Pershing. Despite this fact, before analyzing more in depth the implications of the raid against Columbus, most notoriously the Punitive Expedition in Mexico, we need to look more carefully at some of the historical context in which this occurred.

As such, since 1910, Mexico was under the struggle between the revolutionaries and the elites who had supported former president Porfiro Diaz. With the revolutionaries closing in on Mexico City, several factions became obvious in the constitutional camp. These included Venutiano Carranza, as well as Pancho Villa, as the leader of the group of rebel forces in the north of the country, and E. Zapata from the south. As the capital was taken, the political agreement that was supposed to ensue under the leadership of V. Carranza involved the exclusion of both Villa and Zapata. However, at this point, the influence of Washington and the U.S. played an important part in the conclusion of the Convention at Torreon, with a more radical program and the exclusion of Carranza from power.

Nevertheless, the U.S. armies, stationed in Veracruz up to that point, pulled out of the country, which strengthened Carranza's position and permitted him, with aid from the likes of A. Obregon, to challenge Pancho Villa and Zapata, who gradually were forced to leave Mexico City, most notably after the defeat of Pancho Villa by the forces led by Obregon in the battle of Celaya (1915). Pancho Villa was forced to retreat to Chihuahua and the direct political effect of all these actions was that the American government recognized Carranza as the legitimate authority in Mexico. This can be seen as one of the direct causes of Pancho Villa's subsequent actions on U.S. territory and, most notably, his attack on Columbus, New Mexico.

Pancho Villa would see the victory of Carranza as being directly supported by the U.S., not necessarily because of sympathies for the new Mexican president, but because the government in Washington assumed that this was the best solution for stability in the south. Pancho Villa's radical program was perceived as a way to continue with revolutionary fervor in Mexico and to disfavor a gradual adoption of a political solution.

With the acts against U.S. citizens, Pancho Villa would, however, place himself in a dangerous position, mainly because this type of actions would simply justify any interventionist policy by the United States. The attack against Columbus, New Mexico is just a series of provocative acts by Pancho Villa that included the shooting down of 18 American train engineers that had been assured a safe passage through Mexico to the U.S. By the Carranza government.

The start in our analysis should be the general prevailing impression according to which President Wilson's almost exclusive desire was to punish an individual, despite any concerns for the violation of another state's borders. If this was the exact objective and mission, then General Pershing could be blamed for failing to accomplish it, as Pancho Villa was not captured.

Nevertheless, again, the entire campaign needs to be put in a larger perspective.

Pancho Villa's raid across the border came not only in the context of the Mexican Revolution, but also following a regional impetus in Mexico to gain back some of the territories that the United States had appropriated following its win in the American Mexican war of 1848-1849. These were not centralized acts in any way encouraged by the central Mexican government, but only isolated episodes of Mexican revolutionaries know in history as being part of the Plan of San Diego.

As such, the first consequences of the U.S. actions across the border in Mexico were primarily motivated by issues of national security. There is evidence in this sense even further back a couple of years, with the occupation by the U.S. troops of the port of Veracruz. Again, this was an instrument to defend national security abroad and ensure that the government of Mexico would be kept under pressure and that retaliation could be used in case the U.S. national security was deemed threatened.

However, with Pancho Villa's raids, there were two distinct problems. First of all, Pancho Villa was not representing the central government. In fact, throughout the Mexican Revolution, Pancho Villa is always only one of the representative members of a radical faction. His coagulation of sympathies and forces with the government is never significant and his position occasionally isolated. At the same time, the American troops had left Veracruz, which meant that retaliation implied the transport of U.S. troops to the theater of conflict.

At the time of the Plan of San Diego, the U.S. president, W. Wilson, took several steps to limit the effects of the actions invoked by the plan. These included both sending more troops to Texas and New Mexico, as well as the recognition of Carranza's government in October 1915, which can obviously be put in the same context related to U.S. national security. Carranza intended to show the U.S. that he deserved the support he had received, notably by acting against supporters of the Plan of San Diego in Mexico. Nevertheless, Mexico's vast territory and his still unconsolidated power in Mexico led to the fact that he could not properly control acts such as those by Pancho Villa and other isolated individuals, with their followers.

Pancho Villa's anti-Americanism, however, seems to have an additional cause as well. Many articles have recently pointed out towards the German involvement and German intrigue in getting Pancho Villa to attack across the border. His German doctor, also in charge of dealing with his finances and other logistics matters, had probably inferred some of the problems with banks in Columbus among the issues that Pancho Villa faced and encouraged a raid in the town. Felix Sommerfeld, former officer in the Kaiser's army was living in Mexico and had probably retained contact with German officials, notably the diplomatic representatives on the American continent.

The reason for the German meddling is quite simple. The First World War had started in Europe in 1914 and, up to that respective point, the United States government had stayed clear of any U.S. involvement in the European conflict. That, however, was not a given thing for the entire duration of the war and the U.S. had gradually begun to side with the European allies, mainly because the Germans were using torpedo warfare to secure the Atlantic and because the war would disturb the economic and business interests of the U.S. In Europe. The American non-involvement, in Germans' eyes, would eventually secure the win of the war in Europe.

For these reasons, it made sense for the U.S. To be involved in a war on its own continent, even if this took the form of dispersed threats to its national security on its southern border. This would take the focus away from the European conflict and for the potential military intervention on behalf of the Allies, since the U.S. troops would be caught in what the Germans' liked to see as a long guerilla conflict in the south. The German provocations went back to the time before the defeat of Pancho Villa in 1915. Allegations have even been made that the Germans had financed Villa's attacks in the State of Chihuahua (January 11, 1916) and the raid upon Columbus on the 9th of March, 1916. The two attacks ended with the death of 19 U.S. citizens in Chihuahua and 17 in Columbus, New Mexico.

Historians from different time periods have questioned Villa's motivation for his raid upon Columbus. The most relevant such motivations which stood the test of time and are recurrent in several works are the desire for personal revenge, the loot of Colmbus, and the desire to break the relations president Carranza had established with the United States. The first argument is based on the past events in Villa's military activity, namely the loss of the battle at Aqua Prieta. Columbus had allowed Mexican soldiers to pass through the United States to Aqua Prieta, which in his belief, lead to his loss and was now searching to avenge his loss in 1915. The second motivation is based on the fact that the outlaw Villa was running out of supplies and thought of getting them from Columbus.

The third reason is based on Villa's belief that the Mexican president was selling the country out to the Americans. Following this line of thoughts then, Villa's reasoning would have been a desire to disrupt the U.S. - Mexico relations, cripple Carranza, punish the United States for its interference and unify the Mexicans under the umbrella of nationalism. A fourth forwarded reason was the stimulation received from Germany. The most rational reasoning seems however the fact that Pancho Villa thought there was a conspiracy between United States President Woodrow Wilson and Carranza and he wanted the attacks to break this conspiracy and end their relations. "He saw the attacks as a strategy to embroil the U.S. with the Carranza government and therefore force his downfall."

The American president took a great interest in the stories emerged about Villa and even sent special agents to investigate the matter. Delegate John Lind was part of this mission and his conclusions were that while Villa was an individual of high morals, "physical and mental efficiency," he was "cruel and avaricious." These characteristics could not be possessed by a man who would rule Mexico and Lind argued that Carranza was the sole Mexican leader that the United States could accept. This state of events could well have led Villa to consider the existence of a conspiracy between Wilson and Carranza.

Another reason that could have alimented such a belief is based on the relationship with George Carothers, another special agent sent to Mexico to investigate Villa. His conclusions were that Villa was an honest man and it is often believed that the American agent influenced and, at times even forwarded, Villa's actions and statements to the American authorities and press. Villa could have seen in Carothers an ally and a representative of the American power, but might have been frustrated when Carothers was repeatedly unable to communicate with the U.S. President. "Later, when he testified for the Fall Committee, he (Carothers) told his questioners that the Secretary of State always seemed anxious to get rid of him, that he never could get in to see the President, and that he felt he was operating totally on his own in Mexico." Villa might have believed that the distant treatment received by Carothers could have been due to the fact that the American administration was in fact uninterested in his agenda and ideas, but simply had a man to follow him and report back to the U.S. authorities. It is easy to believe then that this situation could have constituted yet another argument for the existence of a conspiracy between Wilson and Carranza.

All culminated in 1915, when Wilson recognized Carranza as the legitimate president of Mexico. After that date, the American press, which had looked at him with favor, began telling the stories of banditry and the ruthless and violent behavior of Villa. He was forgotten by 1917 and the next time the American press would write about him would be the event of his assassination in July 1923, when the obituary in the Times stated that Pancho Villa had been "a ruthless bandit [whose] record of violence made him dangerous."

On the 20th of December 1915, Villa left the state of Chihuahua accompanied by 800 men, for an undisclosed destination. They reached San Ysable on the 10th of January 1916 and the event was described as a massacre by the single American survivor. The Mexican government declared Pancho Villa, Rafael Castro and Pablo Lopez outlaws and allowed any Mexican to execute them on sight. The United States increased the numbers of troops in the region, with the aim of "offer[ing] sufficient protection to American citizens in Mexico [and] prevent[ing] any repetition of such outrage."

Given that he was already defeated in the fight for Mexico's presidency, an outlaw and with few sources of food, arms, money, ammunition or other supplies, the sole solution was that of moving up north, towards the United States. Some historians even believe the attack on Columbus to have been fueled by a need for these supplies.

Colonel Herbert J. Slocum, Commander of the 13th U.S. Cavalry at Columbus described the raid as follows: "The bandits crossed the International Boundary Line at a point between two and three miles west of Border Gate, proceeded towards camp in a northeastern direction, when about one mile from camp broke into two attacking columns. First column moved south of camp to the east and attacked there the stables from a southeasterly direction. The second column crossed the drainage ditch parallel Deming-Columbus road (running immediately west of camp) at the Customs House, where they divided. The first half attacking camp from the west and the second half moving into town of Columbus where they proceed to loot, murder citizens and burn buildings... Casualties, Mexican bandits, killed in town, camp and to the border line, 67, Mexicans wounded and captured, 7. Total casualties of our command, 7 killed and 5 wounded. One wounded man has died since being sent to Military Hospital at Fort Bliss, Texas... Total men in camp at time of attack, 345. Of these 79 noncombatants."