page_title: Mexican Revolution
section_title: Ten Tragic Days, 9-19 February 1913
hierarchical_section_title: Mexican Revolution / Ten Tragic Days, 9-19 February 1913
caption_attribution_description: Creator: Ramos, Manuel Date: ca. 1913 Part Of: Album, Mexican Revolution Page Number: p. 02 Place: Mexico City, Mexico File: ag1996_1039_02_opt.tif Rights: Please cite Southern Methodist University, Central University Libraries, DeGolyer Library when using this file. A high-quality version of this file may be obtained for a fee by contacting degolyer@smu.edu. For more information, see: &lt;a href="http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/u?/mex,102" rel="nofollow"&gt;digitalcollections.smu.edu/u?/mex,102&lt;/a&gt; View Mexico: Photographs, Manuscripts, and Imprints at: &lt;a href="http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/all/cul/mex/" rel="nofollow"&gt;digitalcollections.smu.edu/all/cul/mex/&lt;/a&gt;
context_page_description: The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle, lasting roughly from 1910 to 1920, that transformed Mexican culture and government. Although recent research has focused on local and regional aspects of the revolution, it was a genuinely national revolution. Its outbreak in 1910 resulted from the failure of the 31-year-long regime of Porfirio Díaz to find a managed solution to presidential succession. This meant there was a political crisis among competing elites and the opportunity for agrarian insurrection. Wealthy landowner Francisco I. Madero challenged Díaz in the 1910 presidential election, and following the rigged results, revolted under the Plan of San Luis Potosí. Armed conflict broke out in northern Mexico and Díaz was forced out. In the Treaty of Ciudad Juárez, Díaz resigned and went into exile, new elections were to occur in the fall, and an interim presidency under Francisco León de la Barra was installed. A new election was held in 1911, bringing Madero to the presidency.
  The origins of the conflict were broadly based in opposition to the Díaz regime, with the 1910 election becoming the catalyst for the outbreak of political rebellion.
context_section_description: The Madero presidency was unraveling, to no one's surprise except perhaps Madero's, whose support continued to deteriorate, even among his political allies.  Madero's supporters in congress before the coup, the so-called "Renovadores" ("the renewers"), criticized him, saying, "The revolution is heading toward collapse and is pulling the government to which it gave rise down with it, for the simple reason that it is not governing with revolutionaries. Compromises and concessions to the supporters of the old [Díaz] regime are the main causes of the unsettling situation in which the government that emerged from the revolution finds itself . . . The regime appears relentlessly bent on suicide."
  Huerta, formally in charge of the defense of Madero's regime, allowed the rebels to hold the armory in Mexico City--the Ciudadela--while he consolidated his political power. He changed allegiance from Madero to the rebels under Félix Díaz (Bernardo Reyes having been killed on the first day of the open armed conflict). U.S. Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, who had done all he could to undermine U.S. confidence in Madero's presidency, brokered the Pact of the Embassy, which formalized the alliance between Félix Díaz and Huerta, with the backing of the United States. Huerta was to become provisional president following the resignations of Madero and his vice president, José María Pino Suárez. Rather than being sent into exile with their families, the two were murdered while being transported to prison--a shocking event, but one that did not prevent the Huerta regime's recognition by most world governments.
  Historian Friedrich Katz considers Madero's retention of the Federal Army, which was defeated by the revolutionary forces and resulted in Díaz's resignation, "was the basic cause of his fall." His failure is also attributable to "the failure of the social class to which he belonged and whose interests he considered to be identical to those of Mexico: the liberal hacendados [owners of large estates].  Madero  had created no political organization that could survive his death and had alienated and demobilized the revolutionary fighters who had helped bring him to power. In the aftermath of his assassination and Huerta's seizure of power via military coup, former revolutionaries had no formal organization through which to raise opposition to Huerta.
caption: Corpses in front of the National Palace during the Ten Tragic Days. Photographer, Manuel Ramos.[86]
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