THE INSURGENCE of CHAN SANTA CRUZ

BOOK SEVEN: THE SECOND of the BOOKS of CHANGE

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Almost to the end Victoriano Huerta hoped for miracles: a rupture among Constitutionalists that would save his regime, aggressive blundering by the American Republic (now celebrating its one hundred and thirty eighth birthday), perhaps an offer of allegiance from the British or the Germans (or both). The conference dragged on with no progress on the diplomatic front... although the adventure of Niagara Falls did influence, in certain ways, the direction what Americans called their Federal Reserve, enacted twelve days before the previous Christmas. The A-B-C conferees settled in, enjoying the hospitality of the Clifton House and the sudden disappearance of publicity following the May 30th sinking of the Empress of Ireland in the St. Lawrence off Rimouski, Quebec, some seven hundred miles northeast of Niagara Falls.

The delegates... Naon of Argentina, deGama of Brazil and the Chilean, Suarez, the two Americans Justice Lamar and Lehmann, and, even, Huerta's own delegate, Emilio Rabasa... agreed that Huerta must go. Carranza, however, complained without cease of being disrespected by Washington and would not cooperate with Villa, who was rumoured to have urged Huerta, through an intermediary, not to resign. Obregon played the one off against the other and Zapata ignored the negotiations entirely, repeatedly demanding recognition of his Plan of Ayala.

In Veracruz the Americans came and went largely unhindered, but for those few in search of vice who found themselves robbed or beaten for their trouble. General Blanquet, speaking for Huerta, assured Sir Lionel Carden that British citizens in Mexico were perfectly safe but Zapatistas on the outskirts of Mexico City warned Huerta that they would cut off electricity and power unless the dictator fled. Huerta, responding quickly, called for elections on one day's notice and, although hardly anyone showed up to vote, Blanquet hailed the results as "a great victory".

On the eighth of July, Villa was reported to have been "killed today at Torreon by a woman" but, within two days, another telegram was issued, reporting his death premature and, further, that harmony now existed among the revolutionary forces; Carranza to be recognized as chief of all the Constitutionalist forces, Villa was recognized as Chief of the North. Carrancistas in Washington had filed legal papers prohibiting delivery of more Villista paper money; Villa refused to forward National Treasury funds confiscated at Juarez to the First Chief. Now, Huerta declared his availability as a mediator between the contending factions, a gesture repudiated by all sides.

In his closet, the formal clothes awaiting his audience with the American President waited still.

While the Constitutionalist leaders squabbled, however, Zapata and Obregon had been winning in the field... a few Huertistas, fearing the primacy of a bandit in the capital "would result in a general massacre" quietly shifted their sentiments towards Carranza. Huerta's offers to share power with Zapata were refused; Rabasa remained alone in Niagara Falls while the A-B-C negotiators continued their task at the Hotel Astor in New York City... braving the riots occasioned by the order of the New York police to burn the bodies of four anarchists who had, in attempting to blow up John D. Rockefeller, blown up themselves, instead. Despite a plea by Alexander Berkman, himself, a public funeral was denied.

On Thursday, July 9th, Obregon routed the forces under General José Maria Mier at Guadalajara, taking five thousand Federals with only a few casualties. Other Constitutionalist armies advanced on San Luis Potosi, Guaymas and Acapulco and Huerta's Foreign Minister, Querido Moheno, fled to a French liner departing Veracruz, declaring that his resignation was an act of principle, a protest of Huerta's continued sale of oil concessions for cash. He was last seen leaning out one of the portholes, shaking his fist at the American flag waving over the port, warning that Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Party had a secret plot to annex all of Mexico.

Also aboard was another escapee... Huerta's nephew, General Maas, described by correspondents as of a "surly" disposition. Perhaps he had foreknowledge that the Constitutionalists possessed evidence that, as head of maintenance at Chapultepec, General Maas had systematically embezzled from the Republic, even robbing the soldiers under his command.

On July 10th Huerta appointed Francisco Carbajal the new Foreign Minister, as negotiated in Niagara Falls, ensuring his succession, however temporary, as President of Mexico should Huerta and Blanquet tender their resignations. The end in sight, Señora Huerta, sons Jorge and Victor and the President's two still-unmarried daughters were bundled off towards Veracruz, now under the occupation of General Funston, drawing an entourage of financiers, Ministers, swindlers and potential assassins in their wake. The President spent the few hours remaining to him driving around Mexico City in a touring car, saying farewells to cronies with assurances that they were only temporary. He also ordered the disposition of some unfinished business... 170 unsympathetic officials were executed at the Federal Penitentiary, another sixty of Huerta's enemies slaughtered in the prison of Santiago Tlaltelolco. For their part, the Constitutionalists shot General Mier in Guadalajara.

His last public function was a kirmesse for the French colony, at which a good many bottles of wine and cognac were opened, and the stabbing of the Russian occultist Grigori Rasputin by a woman of his native village deemed of more import than the posturings still rising out of Sarajevo. "This was a monk," one of the French deputies with knowledge of Moscow told the fascinated Mexicans, "but, if he took a vow of poverty, he certainly did not obey it... Rasputin's villa at Yalta is finer than the Czar's winter retreat. But now he surely will succumb, and who knows what poor Nicholas will do, his mind and constitution have never been more than fragile."

"Like Carranza's constitution," Huerta jested, and ordered copitas raised to Rasputin's health, for the thought of the emaciated Siberian xaman languoring in the Crimean sun greatly amused the President. A more purposeful Blanquet scolded the French doubters... dismissing spiritualism as a remnant of the discredited Pancho Madero, and assuring them that the likelihood of rebels entering the capital was as absurd as the chance of any European war. As after Torreon, Blanquet denied the fall of Guadalajara and, far from being shot, General Mier had merely retreated to Celaya for tactical reasons.

The following morning, Huerta appeared before his handpicked Chamber of Deputies, submitted his resignation... which was accepted by a vote of 121 to 17... then disappeared. From Juarez, Villa asserted it was a trick... Huerta would appear at Queretaro for one last, glorious battle and "will find a force of determined men opposing him that he cannot resist".

And in Havana, Querido Moheno continued naming his names. "Just recall some of Huerta's Ministers! There was Urrutia, who started the regime of persons disappearing and Garsa Aldape, who continued the same persecutions after Urrutia sought protection from Woodrow Wilson. There is, also, José de la Lama who is capable of ruining even the government of England... Huerta is a great General and military organizer but a poor judge of men."

Informed, then, that Huerta and Blanquet were themselves considering Havana, from which place Felix Diaz was already vowing yet another revolution, the Ministerial absconder fled to the docks and found passage to Key West, the southernmost extreme of Florida.

Huerta surfaced the evening of July fifteenth for a last appearance at his favorite French cafe, raising his glass as cronies kissed his hand and wept, denouncing the Americans as "Wall Street thieves" and "blond beasts". "This will be my last toast in my favorite resort, and I drink to the new President of Mexico." Then, he and Vice President Blanquet boarded a special train that had been waiting for two days at the Interoceanic Railway Station to carry him to Puerto Mexico where, despite his vow to return at the head of a great army within the year, the only remaining talk of Huerta was whether he would choose the German cruiser Dresden, under Captain Erich Kohler, or the British vessel Bristol, under command of Captain Fanshaw.

Hearing of his enemy's flight, Carranza ordered Carbajal to surrender unconditionally and the Constitutionalist agent in New York, citing Carbajal's involvement in Huertista oil deals, vowed there would be no mercy towards any Cientificos remaining when the First Chief entered. So belligerent was Carranza's message that Woodrow Wilson's representative, John Silliman, cautioned don Venus against mass reprisals; Carranza was among the first, but by no means the last, to disdain President Wilson's desires. But his arrival in Mexico City came too late for vengeance against not only Huerta and Blanquet, but General Bravo, too. Slithering away from his command, Bravo would not be spotted until in Veracruz on the ninth of August. A lively trade in false documents had emerged overnight - Mexicans could, for example, obtain diplomas... no questions asked... from the spurious Academia Fisico Chimica Italiana, and use these to seek refuge.

Venustiano Carranza would have liked to finish off his enemies but he was, again, under attack from those he deemed his subjects, if not friends. Zapatistas, refusing to recognize Carbajal, vowed to attack the capital again, and the First Chief sent seven thousand Constitutionalists to oppose them. Villa also rode south towards Chihuahua to reinforce his troops battling the Carrancistas in Durango... their cries of "Viva la Constitución" being answered by the Dorados' replies of "Viva la Prostitución". Porfirio Diaz, departing Paris for another summer in Biarritz, had no comment on Huerta's resignation, nor did the remnants of the Madero family, attending a reunion in Asbury Park, New Jersey. And Orozco, refusing to accept Huerta's resignation, battled on in Aguascalientes.

Huerta, united with his family... who, leaving a rabble of petitioners and Constitutionalist thugs in Veracruz, had sped down the coast to Puerto Mexico... relished the discomfiture of his enemies, taunting them for several days while certain of his ex-Ministers insinuated that his ultimate aim was no less than to return to lead a revolution of all Latin America against the Yankees. Lingering on the beach, perhaps in homage to Rasputin (whose life still lay in the balance), Huerta nonetheless denied rumors of his return to battle. "When I assumed the Presidency, I said publicly that I would restore peace - cost what it might," he told the foreign journalists who trailed him up and down the sands. "I have paid - it has cost me the Presidency.

"When I get to New York some day, you shall all dine with me," Huerta promised. "I will pay if I have money; if not, I shall not hesitate to borrow from you."

These correspondents loaned Huerta their marks, pounds, francs and dollars and passed the hours laying bets on whether the Bristol or Dresden would have the honor of carrying off the dallying dictator, and how much money he had removed from the Treasury... estimates ranged from two to twelve million pesos. Finally, no doubt influenced by the tardy arrival of assassins who made three unsuccessful attempts on his life in one day, Huerta boarded the Dresden for Spain by way of Jamaica, tipping his favorite old brown hat and waving towards the dockworkers. "I am merely one of the sons of Mexico, no more important, myself, than any one of these."

The Dresden then lifted anchor and set sail, leaving a correspondent to admit, grudgingly, "There was - and is - something large about that old Indian."

Now the race to the capital was truly on. While Francisco Carbajal ineffectually tried to mollify the Constitutionalists, the Zapatistas and the hordes of Cientificos seeking protection, Americans turned their interest to the sports pages. David Fultz, Chairman of the Baseball Players' Fraternity threatened a nationwide strike over a player named Kraft who, after a trade, refused to be demoted to the minor leagues. American League President Ban Johnson responded that he would lock the players out before allowing them to strike.

And then... suddenly, inexplicably... Europe was in flames, exactly as Arthur Conan-Doyle had feared. As Austria broke with Serbia and the German and Russian armies began to mobilize, the first shots of war were fired by British troops against revolutionists in the streets of Dublin. Mexico was forgotten by the world. General Iturbide, jefe militar of the Federal District since Bravo's disappearance, signed an armistice with the Constitutionalists to fend off a Zapatista occupation. Carranza vowed no amnesty for Federals or for foreign priests... especially the Jesuits. "Amnesty is something the conqueror gives the conquered as an act of generosity, not a condition of surrender."

The Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia. Rasputin having survived his assassin, a restored Czar Nicholas vowed to lead his own armies into battle.

Across the world the stock markets collapsed, gold prices soared... great men in London and Berlin and on Wall Street, New York tallied up their gains and losses. Fifteen London firms failed on July 29th alone. Woodrow Wilson was heard to describe the situation as "encouraging".

The events in Sarajevo had cheated Carranza of his triumph. Disdainfully, he sent Alvaro Obregon south to take the capital; Carvajal deserted his office on the twelfth of August, and General Iturbide was sworn in on the 13th... the notice carried next to an advertisement promising "Resultados Revolucionarios con Dr. Lovett's Pills de Nueva York". In Europe, the Battle of Liege commenced; in Merida, the drama "Cleopatro" succeeded "Quo Vadis" at the Teatro Peon Contreras.

Obregon entered Mexico City two days later... no earthquake heralded his conquest, only the footfalls of hundreds of Federals and Cientificos sneaking out by night behind General Refugio Velasquez under the terms of the Teoloyucan treaties. To attempt to pacify the Zapatistas and Villistas, the First Chief consented to a convention, to be held later in the year at Aguascalientes. Inhabitants of the capital gathered flowers to make a path for the incoming Constitutionalists.

Telegrams of congratulations were received, along with those of resignation from Huerta's Governors in the states that had not been occupied by any of the rebel armies. Yucatan was among the last to submit, the Territory simply ignored the change.

Huerta was flown, but the world and Mexico looked for peace and still would find none.

"Go to the Devil, gentle reader, if you want to know Mexico, for he has made it his favorite resort," reported a minister from Minnesota, a witness to the horrors soon to be visited upon Merida. "There is sulpher and smoke in volcanoes; heat in climate and food; torment in cactus plant and insect life; fire in the eyes of the señoritas; hell-hate in the hearts of the rulers and despair in the souls of the peons. From the beginning, the Devil has been Mexico's mental, moral and military hero and today he is the real patron saint of the people. Viva el Diablo!"

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