page_title: Military history of Mexico
section_title: Mexican Revolution 1910-1920
hierarchical_section_title: Military history of Mexico / Mexican Revolution 1910-1920
caption_attribution_description: English: Porfirio Díaz
context_page_description: The military history of Mexico encompasses armed conflicts within what that nation's territory, dating from before the arrival of Europeans in 1519 to the present era. Mexican military history is replete with small-scale revolts, foreign invasions, civil wars, indigenous uprisings, and coups d’etat by disgruntled military leaders. Mexico's colonial-era military was not established until the eighteenth century. After the Spanish conquest of central Mexico in the early sixteenth century, the Spanish crown did not rely on a standing military, but the crown responded to the external threat of a British invasion by establishing a standing military for the first time following the Seven Years' War. The regular army units and militias had a short history when in the early 19th century, the unstable situation in Spain with the Napoleonic invasion gave rise to an insurgency for independence, propelled by militarily untrained, darker complected masses fight for the independence of Mexico. The Mexican War of Independence saw royalist and insurgent armies battling to a stalemate in 1820.
context_section_description: The Mexican Revolution came about as a protest against the aging dictator, Porfirio Díaz, and to quell social and economic injustices as found under his authoritarian regime. In 1910 the 80-year-old Díaz reversed his publicly-stated decision not to run for reelection for another term as president. He thought he had long since eliminated any serious opposition at home, including General Bernardo Reyes. He did not consider his nephew, General Félix Díaz as his successor, nor his own son, also a military officer, so did not seek to establish a family dynasty. However, Francisco I. Madero, a civilian from a rich land-owning family, challenged him for the presidency, and quickly gathered popular support.  Díaz jailed Madero and fraudulent elections were held.
  When the official election results were announced, it was declared that Díaz had won reelection almost unanimously, with Madero receiving only a few hundred votes in the entire country. This fraud by the Porfiriato was too blatant for the public to swallow, and riots broke out. Madero prepared a document known as the Plan de San Luis Potosí, in which he called the people to take their weapons and fight against the illegitimate government of Porfirio Díaz. There was no massive uprising November 20, 1910, but rebellions in Morelos and in northern Mexico, especially by Pascual Orozco and his then-subordinate Pancho Villa defeated the Federal Army, capturing the strategic border town of Ciudad Juárez, forcing Díaz to resign in May 1911. The Treaty of Ciudad Juárez called for Díaz's resignation and exile, an interim presidency pending new elections, and the retention of the Federal Army. Rebels who had ousted Díaz were to be demobilized. For those rebels, this political transition retaining to Federal Army and practically the whole leadership of Díaz's administration was dismaying. Elections were scheduled for the fall, with Madero campaigning actively. In the meantime, the Federal Army under General Victoriano Huerta was directed that summer to Morelos to suppress rebels led by Emiliano Zapata. Elections were held in the fall, with Madero overwhelmingly elected.  Once in office, however, the inexperienced civilian politician was unable to govern effectively. A few days after his inauguration, Zapata and fellow leaders in Morelos issued the Plan of Ayala, declaring themselves in rebellion against the Madero government for not implementing land reform. Zapatistas continued to be in rebellion against every subsequent government that decade. Northern rebel Pascual Orozco, a former muleteer, had led rebels in the north, bringing Madero to power.  Madero insultingly appointed him a commander of a local rural police force, while keeping the Federal Army commanders he had defeated in power.  In 1912 Orozco rose in rebellion against Madero.  Madero sent General Huerta to suppress it. General Reyes and General Félix Díaz rose in rebellion and were jailed.  Despite their incarceration in separate prisons, they hatch a plot, with the support of the U.S. Ambassador, to overthrow Madero. General Huerta secretly joined the plot. In February 1913 Reyes and Díaz were freed from jail, and Mexico City came under bombardment by rebels in what is known as the Ten Tragic Days.  Huerta seized command of the rebels, arrested Madero and his vice president and forced to resign. Madero and he were murdered. Huerta became president of Mexico.  The reaction to this was a rising in the north of Mexico, with the Governor of Coahuila state declaring the Huerta regime illegitimate and becoming the "First Chief" of the Constitutionalist Army. Two brilliant natural soldiers, Pancho Villa and Alvaro Obregón, rose to command armies that soundly defeated Huerta's Federal Army. Huerta resigned in July 1914, and the Federal Army dissolved. Zapata had continued guerrilla warfare in Morelos.
  With the forces of reaction defeated and the Federal Army gone, the revolutionary winners failed to reach agreement on how power would now exercised.  Civil war was the result. Pancho Villa broke with First Chief of the Constitu
caption: Porfirio Díaz ca. 1910 when he was 80 years old and in power since 1876
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