page_title: Victoriano Huerta
section_title: Exile, late life and death
hierarchical_section_title: Victoriano Huerta / Exile, late life and death
caption_attribution_description: English: From left to right: José C. Delgado, Huerta's private secretary; Victoriano Huerta, former Mexican president and Abraham Z. Ratner, owner of the Tampico Daily News, on Huerta's arrival to New York City. Español: José C. Delgado, secretario particular de Huerta; Victoriano Huerta, ex presidente mexicano y Abraham Z. Ratner, propietario del Tampico Daily News, a la llegada de Huerta a la ciudad de Nueva York.
context_page_description: José Victoriano Huerta Márquez was a Mexican military officer and 35th President of Mexico, who came to power by coup.
  After a military career under President Porfirio Díaz, Huerta became a high-ranking officer under democratically elected president Francisco I. Madero during the first phase of the Mexican Revolution. In February 1913 Huerta led a conspiracy against Madero, who entrusted him to control a minor revolt in Mexico City. The Ten Tragic Days - actually fifteen days - saw the forced resignation of Madero and his vice president and their murders. The coup was backed by the nascent German Empire as well the United States under the Taft Administration, but the succeeding Wilson administration refused to recognize the new regime and allowed arms sales to rebel forces. Many foreign powers did recognize the regime, but withdrew further support when revolutionary forces started to show military success against the regime; with continuing support threatened their own relationships with the American government. Huerta was forced to resign in July 1914 and flee the country to Spain, only 17 months into his presidency, after the federal army collapsed.
context_section_description: Huerta went into exile, first traveling to Kingston, Jamaica, aboard the German cruiser SMS Dresden. From there he moved to the United Kingdom, then Spain, finally arriving in the United States in April 1915.
  While in the US he negotiated with Capt. Franz von Rintelen of German Navy Intelligence for money to purchase weapons and arrange U-boat landings to provide support, while offering (perhaps as a bargaining chip) to make war on the US, which Germany hoped would end munitions supplies to the Allies. Their meetings, held at the Manhattan Hotel (as well as another New York hotel, "probably the Holland House" at Fifth Avenue and 30th Street), were observed by Secret Servicemen, and von Rintelen's telephone conversations were routinely intercepted and recorded.
  Huerta traveled from New York by train to Newman, New Mexico (25 miles from the border), where he was to be met by Gen. Pascual Orozco and some well-armed Mexican supporters. However, a US Army colonel with 25 soldiers and two deputy US marshals intervened and arrested him as he left the train, on a charge of sedition. The German-initiated plan for Huerta to regain the Mexican presidency through a coup d'état was foiled. After some time in a US Army prison at Fort Bliss he was released on bail, but remained under house arrest due to risk of flight to Mexico. A day after, he attended a dinner at Fort Bliss. Later he was returned to jail, and while so confined died, perhaps of cirrhosis of the liver. While the main symptom was yellow jaundice, poisoning by the US was widely suspected.
caption: José C. Delgado, Victoriano Huerta and Abraham F. Ratner.
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