Having become a high-ranking military officer during the presidency of Madero during the first phase of the Mexican Revolution (1911–13), after a military career under President Porfirio Díaz and Interim President Francisco León de la Barra, in Feb 1913, José Victoriano Huerta Márquez joined a conspiracy against Madero, who had entrusted him to control a revolt in Mexico City, and seized power in the coup d'etat known as The Ten Tragic Days, which saw the forced resignation of Madero and his vice president Pino Suárez, and their subsequent murders four days later, with Huerta still vilified by modern-day Mexicans as 'The Jackal' or 'The Usurper'. The coup was backed by the US ambassador to Mexico under the Taft administration, Henry Lane Wilson, who also won over the support of the British, Spanish and German ambassadors (stating that said that he called into consultation, on this and subsequent occasions, only his British, Spanish and German colleagues because "they represented the largest interest here", and "the others really did not matter"- the Austrian and Japanese legations, with all the Latin American representatives, including those of Brazil, Chile, and Cuba, had all opposed the coup instead, vociferously backing Madero's efforts to put down the mutiny).
The Huerta government was promptly recognized by all the western European governments (with many foreign powers recognizing the regime, including Britain and Germany, but ultimately withdrawing further support when revolutionary forces started to show military success against the regime, with their continuing support of him having threatened their own relationships with the U.S. government); Japan, locked in its dispute with the US over the 1913 California Alien Land Law, seized the opportunity presented in Mexico to stick it to the Americans, with its new ambassador to the Huerta regime arriving in Mexico City in July 1913 to cries of "Viva Japan!" and Felix Díaz dispatched to Tokyo as Huerta's envoy on the return diplomatic mission to get him out of the way. But critically, it was never recognized by the government of the United States; with the outgoing US administration of William Howard Taft refusing to recognize the new government as a way of pressuring Mexico to end the Chamizal border dispute in favor of the US, with its plan being to trade recognition for settling the dispute on American terms. Newly inaugurated U.S. president Woodrow Wilson had a general bias in favor of liberal democracy and had distaste for Gen. Huerta, who had come to power by coup and was implicated in the murder of Madero, but was initially open to recognizing Huerta provided that he could "win" an election that would give him a democratic veneer. Félix Díaz and the rest of the conservative leaders had seen Huerta as a transitional leader and pressed for early elections, which they expected to be won by Díaz on a Catholic conservative platform, and were rudely surprised when they discovered Huerta wanted to keep the presidency for himself.
Huerta "came very close to converting Mexico into the most completely militaristic state in the world"; establishing a harsh military dictatorship, Huerta chose to rely entirely upon the army for support, giving officers all of the key jobs, regardless of their talents, as he sought to rule with La Mano Dura ("The Iron Hand"), believing only in military solutions to all problems. As such, rather than making any real pretense of legitimizing his rule, or accept the outgoing Taft administration's offer to lend him official recognition in exchange for ceding of this small tract of territory to the US, he instead chose to cite the refusal of the US to recognize his government as an example of American "interference" in Mexico's internal affairs, organizing anti-American demonstrations in the summer of 1913 with the hope of drumming up populist reactionary Mexican nationalist support, which sealed the Wilson administration's hostility towards his rule; with Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson recalled in favor of President Wilson's "personal representative" John Lind, a progressive who sympathized with the Mexican revolutionaries, an arms embargo imposed by the USA against Huerta's Mexican government in August 1913 along with a lifting of the arms embargo previously imposed by Taft against the rebels; and demands for Huerta to step aside for democratic elections, with the threat of military intervention if these demands weren't met. In late August Huerta withdrew his name from consideration as a presidential candidate, with his foreign minister Federico Gamboa stood for election; but whilst the U.S. was enthusiastic about Gamboa's candidacy and supported the new regime (pressuring revolutionary opponents, including the newly emerged anti-Huerta leader Venustiano Carranza, to sign on to support a potential new Gamboa government, only for most including Carranza to refuse), Huerta himself and his regime continued to be placed under the embargo, and Huerta added himself as a presidential candidate once more.
This continued into autumn, with Huerta running spurious stories in the press warning of an imminent U.S. invasion and asking for patriotic men to step up to defend Mexico; with this campaign attracted some volunteers from the lower middle class initially, but ultimately not only proving a complete failure in the countryside, but losing him all of his supporters outside of the Federal Army. And the October 1913 elections were the end of any pretension to constitutional rule in Mexico, with civilian political activity banned. Huerta's refusal to call elections, and with further exacerbation of the situation by the Tampico Affair, led to President Wilson's decision to land US troops to occupy Mexico's most important seaport, Veracruz, in an armed invasion of Mexico; Huerta's government resisted the U.S. incursion into the port of Veracruz as a clear violation of Mexico's sovereignty, with even Huerta's opponents agreeing with his stance, but was ultimately incapable of responding to the US invasion due to the Constitutionalist forces' major gains against his ever-weakening Federal Army, causing Huerta's position to continue to deteriorate. And in mid-July 1914, only 17 months into his presidency, after the collapse of the Federal Army, he resigned and fled to the Gulf Coast port of Puerto México; turning to the German government, which had generally supported his presidency, and reluctantly allowed him to be transported into exile aboard its light cruiser the SMS Dresden.
First fleeing to Jamaica, Huerta then moved to the UK, then Spain, and finally to the USA in 1915; where 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 to make war on the US, which Germany hoped would end munitions supplies to the Allies. Their meetings, held at the Manhattan Hotel, were observed by Secret Servicemen; and travelling from New York by train to Newman, New Mexico, where he was to be met by Gen. Pascual Orozco and some well-armed Mexican supporters, a US Army colonel with 25 soldiers and two deputy US marshals intervened and arrested Huerta as he left the train, on a charge of sedition, thus foiling the German-initiated plan for Huerta to regain the Mexican presidency through a coup d'état and add Mexico to the Central Powers alliance. 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, attending a dinner the next day at Fort Bliss before being returned to jail, where then he died in custody of cirrhosis of the liver, with poisoning by the US being widely suspected.
So then, here's an interesting What If scenario to ponder IMHO; what if Huerta had actually successfully managed to consolidate power after the Ten Tragic Days coup? Let's say that, as the option which requires perhaps the least divergence, the POD involves Huerta simply chooses to accept the concession of ending the Chamizal border dispute in favor of the USA before the Taft administration leaves office, thus securing the recognition of the ongoing US government as the legitimate government of Mexico. How long would it take for Woodrow Wilson's administration to revoke this recognition, impose an arms embargo against his regime, and lift the USA's preexisting arms embargo against the rebels in the Mexican Revolution ITTL (particularly without the same anti-Americanist Mexican nationalist propaganda campaigns Huerta attempted to utilize in order to increase military recruitment IOTL, to disastrously counter-productive effect)? With this advantage enabling Huerta to maintain or improve his easy access to arms, whilst continuing to deny arms to the rebels, for several months longer than IOTL, how much stronger, and weaker, might the Federal and Constitutional Armies respectively potentially be- enough to keep the ongoing conflict with Zapata regional, and prevent Mexico from descending into full-blown civil war, without U.S. backing empowering the revolutionary factions in the north to nearly the extent that it did IOTL? And if/when the nigh-inevitable conflict between President Wilson's USA and President-General Huerta's Mexico does come, how might this impact upon the course and outcome of WW1?
The Huerta government was promptly recognized by all the western European governments (with many foreign powers recognizing the regime, including Britain and Germany, but ultimately withdrawing further support when revolutionary forces started to show military success against the regime, with their continuing support of him having threatened their own relationships with the U.S. government); Japan, locked in its dispute with the US over the 1913 California Alien Land Law, seized the opportunity presented in Mexico to stick it to the Americans, with its new ambassador to the Huerta regime arriving in Mexico City in July 1913 to cries of "Viva Japan!" and Felix Díaz dispatched to Tokyo as Huerta's envoy on the return diplomatic mission to get him out of the way. But critically, it was never recognized by the government of the United States; with the outgoing US administration of William Howard Taft refusing to recognize the new government as a way of pressuring Mexico to end the Chamizal border dispute in favor of the US, with its plan being to trade recognition for settling the dispute on American terms. Newly inaugurated U.S. president Woodrow Wilson had a general bias in favor of liberal democracy and had distaste for Gen. Huerta, who had come to power by coup and was implicated in the murder of Madero, but was initially open to recognizing Huerta provided that he could "win" an election that would give him a democratic veneer. Félix Díaz and the rest of the conservative leaders had seen Huerta as a transitional leader and pressed for early elections, which they expected to be won by Díaz on a Catholic conservative platform, and were rudely surprised when they discovered Huerta wanted to keep the presidency for himself.
Huerta "came very close to converting Mexico into the most completely militaristic state in the world"; establishing a harsh military dictatorship, Huerta chose to rely entirely upon the army for support, giving officers all of the key jobs, regardless of their talents, as he sought to rule with La Mano Dura ("The Iron Hand"), believing only in military solutions to all problems. As such, rather than making any real pretense of legitimizing his rule, or accept the outgoing Taft administration's offer to lend him official recognition in exchange for ceding of this small tract of territory to the US, he instead chose to cite the refusal of the US to recognize his government as an example of American "interference" in Mexico's internal affairs, organizing anti-American demonstrations in the summer of 1913 with the hope of drumming up populist reactionary Mexican nationalist support, which sealed the Wilson administration's hostility towards his rule; with Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson recalled in favor of President Wilson's "personal representative" John Lind, a progressive who sympathized with the Mexican revolutionaries, an arms embargo imposed by the USA against Huerta's Mexican government in August 1913 along with a lifting of the arms embargo previously imposed by Taft against the rebels; and demands for Huerta to step aside for democratic elections, with the threat of military intervention if these demands weren't met. In late August Huerta withdrew his name from consideration as a presidential candidate, with his foreign minister Federico Gamboa stood for election; but whilst the U.S. was enthusiastic about Gamboa's candidacy and supported the new regime (pressuring revolutionary opponents, including the newly emerged anti-Huerta leader Venustiano Carranza, to sign on to support a potential new Gamboa government, only for most including Carranza to refuse), Huerta himself and his regime continued to be placed under the embargo, and Huerta added himself as a presidential candidate once more.
This continued into autumn, with Huerta running spurious stories in the press warning of an imminent U.S. invasion and asking for patriotic men to step up to defend Mexico; with this campaign attracted some volunteers from the lower middle class initially, but ultimately not only proving a complete failure in the countryside, but losing him all of his supporters outside of the Federal Army. And the October 1913 elections were the end of any pretension to constitutional rule in Mexico, with civilian political activity banned. Huerta's refusal to call elections, and with further exacerbation of the situation by the Tampico Affair, led to President Wilson's decision to land US troops to occupy Mexico's most important seaport, Veracruz, in an armed invasion of Mexico; Huerta's government resisted the U.S. incursion into the port of Veracruz as a clear violation of Mexico's sovereignty, with even Huerta's opponents agreeing with his stance, but was ultimately incapable of responding to the US invasion due to the Constitutionalist forces' major gains against his ever-weakening Federal Army, causing Huerta's position to continue to deteriorate. And in mid-July 1914, only 17 months into his presidency, after the collapse of the Federal Army, he resigned and fled to the Gulf Coast port of Puerto México; turning to the German government, which had generally supported his presidency, and reluctantly allowed him to be transported into exile aboard its light cruiser the SMS Dresden.
First fleeing to Jamaica, Huerta then moved to the UK, then Spain, and finally to the USA in 1915; where 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 to make war on the US, which Germany hoped would end munitions supplies to the Allies. Their meetings, held at the Manhattan Hotel, were observed by Secret Servicemen; and travelling from New York by train to Newman, New Mexico, where he was to be met by Gen. Pascual Orozco and some well-armed Mexican supporters, a US Army colonel with 25 soldiers and two deputy US marshals intervened and arrested Huerta as he left the train, on a charge of sedition, thus foiling the German-initiated plan for Huerta to regain the Mexican presidency through a coup d'état and add Mexico to the Central Powers alliance. 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, attending a dinner the next day at Fort Bliss before being returned to jail, where then he died in custody of cirrhosis of the liver, with poisoning by the US being widely suspected.
So then, here's an interesting What If scenario to ponder IMHO; what if Huerta had actually successfully managed to consolidate power after the Ten Tragic Days coup? Let's say that, as the option which requires perhaps the least divergence, the POD involves Huerta simply chooses to accept the concession of ending the Chamizal border dispute in favor of the USA before the Taft administration leaves office, thus securing the recognition of the ongoing US government as the legitimate government of Mexico. How long would it take for Woodrow Wilson's administration to revoke this recognition, impose an arms embargo against his regime, and lift the USA's preexisting arms embargo against the rebels in the Mexican Revolution ITTL (particularly without the same anti-Americanist Mexican nationalist propaganda campaigns Huerta attempted to utilize in order to increase military recruitment IOTL, to disastrously counter-productive effect)? With this advantage enabling Huerta to maintain or improve his easy access to arms, whilst continuing to deny arms to the rebels, for several months longer than IOTL, how much stronger, and weaker, might the Federal and Constitutional Armies respectively potentially be- enough to keep the ongoing conflict with Zapata regional, and prevent Mexico from descending into full-blown civil war, without U.S. backing empowering the revolutionary factions in the north to nearly the extent that it did IOTL? And if/when the nigh-inevitable conflict between President Wilson's USA and President-General Huerta's Mexico does come, how might this impact upon the course and outcome of WW1?
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