Everything about Victoriano Huerta totally explained
José Victoriano Huerta Ortega (
Colotlán,
Jalisco,
December 22,
1850, –
January 13,
1916 in
El Paso,
Texas) was a
Mexican military officer and
president of Mexico.
Early Life
Victoriano Huerta was born in the town of Colotlán, Jalisco, son of Jesús Huerta and Refugio Márquez who were of Mestizo descent. He entered the
Mexican Army at the age of 17, distinguished himself and gained admission to the Military Academy at
Chapultepec under the express guidance of President Diaz.
Military Career
During the
Porfirio Díaz administration he rose to the rank of
general, and fought to subdue the
Chan Santa Cruz Maya people of
Yucatán and against the rebels of
Emiliano Zapata.
On the eve of the 1910
Revolution against the long established Díaz regime, Huerta was involved in the innocuous project of reforming the uniforms of the Federal Army.
After Díaz went into exile Huerta initially pledged allegiance to the new administration of
Francisco Madero, and he was retained by the Madero administration and crushed anti-Madero revolts by rebel generals such as
Pascual Orozco. However, Huerta secretly plotted with
U.S. ambassador to Mexico,
Henry Lane Wilson, cashiered general
Bernardo Reyes, and
Félix Díaz, Porfirio Díaz's nephew, to
overthrow Madero. This episode in Mexican history is known as
La decena trágica.
Following a confused few days of fighting in Mexico City between loyalist and rebel factions of the Army, on
February 18 1913 Huerta had Madero and vice-president
José María Pino Suárez seized and briefly imprisoned in the
National Palace. The conspirators then met at the US Embassy to sign
el Pacto de la Embajada (The Embassy Pact), which provided for Madero and Pino Suárez's exile and Huerta's takeover of the Mexican government.
Political Career
To give the coup the appearance of legitimacy, Huerta had
foreign minister Pedro Lascuráin assume the presidency; under the
1857 Constitution of Mexico, the foreign minister stood third in line for the presidency behind the vice-president and
attorney general. Madero's attorney general had also been ousted in the coup. Lascuráin then appointed Huerta as
interior minister--constitutionally, fourth in line for the presidency. After less than an hour in office (some sources say as little as 15 minutes), Lascuráin resigned, handing the presidency to Huerta. At a late-night special session of Congress surrounded by Huerta's troops, the legislators endorsed his assumption of power. Four days later Madero and Pino Suárez were taken from the
Palacio Nacional to prison at night and shot by officers of the
rurales (federal mounted police) who were assumed to be acting on Huerta's orders.
Huerta established a harsh military dictatorship.
US President Woodrow Wilson became hostile to the Huerta administration, recalled ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, and demanded Huerta step aside for democratic elections. When Huerta refused, and with the situation further exacerbated by the
Tampico Affair, President Wilson landed US troops
to occupy Mexico's most important seaport, Veracruz.
The reaction to the Huerta usurpation was
Venustiano Carranza's
Plan of Guadalupe, calling for the creation of a
Constitutional Army, for Huerta's ouster, and for the restoration of constitutional government. Supporters of the plan included
Zapata,
Pancho Villa and
Álvaro Obregón. After repeated field defeats of
Huerta's Federal Army by Obregón and Villa, climaxing in the Battle of
Zacatecas, Huerta bowed to pressure and resigned the presidency on
July 15,
1914.
Exile and Late Life
He went into exile, first traveling to
Kingston, Jamaica, aboard the German cruiser
SMS Dresden. From there, he moved to
England, then
Spain, then to the United States. He was discovered to be plotting to return to power in Mexico — in both Spain and Washington, he'd been negotiating with
German agents to secure the
Kaiser's support for another attempt at a
coup d'état. He was arrested in
Newman, New Mexico, USA, on
June 27,
1915 together with
Pascual Orozco and charged with
conspiracy to violate US neutrality laws. After some time in a US Army prison at
Fort Bliss, for a while he was released on bail but remained under house arrest due to risk of flight to Mexico. Later he returned to jail, and while so confined, he died of
cirrhosis of the liver.
Huerta is still vilified by modern-day Mexicans, who generally refer to him as
El Chacal — "The
Jackal".
Further Information
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