|
"INTERVENTION Book Review by Alice Hathaway Sorting out the succession of Generals who became Presidents during the Mexican Revolution had been too confusing for me to grapple with until I read Intervention by retired army offlicer and military historian John Eisenhower. He has brought the characters to life and made the action clear with a storyteller’s attention to interesting anecdote and fascinating detail. The four-year U. S. intervention in Mexico during a time of upheaval has been little understood by North Americans. The imperious occupation of Veracruz in 1914, and the “Punitive Expedition” led by General John J. Pershing in 1916 were resented at the time, and have affected U.S.-Mexican relations ever since. Efforts by the Wilson Ad- ministration to influence the Revolution were largely ineflective, according to Eisenhower, who states that it “...was started by Mexicans, conducted by Mexicans, and resolved in a wholly Mexican fashion.” “Issues in the war were not always clear; independent war-lords fought among themselves, changing sides often, and seizing the opportunity the chaos af forded to enrich themselves. An estimated one million people died, victims of violence, devastation, and the disruption of Mexican society. Peace came with Obregon’s election to the presidency in 1920, primarily because Mexico was exhausted; its People were seeking peace at any price.” With hindsight, we may wonder why the United States should have been involved at all. Wasn’t the overthrow of a despotic dictatorship an internal affair? It was not always so viewed in the country that shared a two-thousand mile open border, when great investments in Mexican mining, oil, and land were hoarded by industrial powers in Europe as well as in North America. In the summer of 1911 , as the Diaz regime was collapsing, President William Howard Taft ordered the army to concentrate its various regiments into a “Maneuver Division,” training in anticipation of a possible incursion into Mexico. Newly commissioned 2nd Lieutenant Dwight D. Eisenhower was stationed in Texas, where he met, and married Mamie. The author of this book is their son. Pancho Villa, one of the most colorful and controversial figures in the war, rose from bandit to Army Commander, lost most of his troops and returned to banditry. His disastrous midnight raid on a military base in Columbus, New Mexico, was a fiasco, with casualties on both sides and no loot for the raiders. But it brought a “Punitive Expedition” of ten thousand troops 300 miles into the desert and mountains of central Mexico looking for him. Cavalry as well as foot soldiers had, to be supplied -without benefit of rail or decent roads- with food and forage during the ll-month unsuccessful operation. Villa escaped, and General Pershing finally withdrew in 1917 to take command of US forces in Europe during World War 1. This is a fascinating book, with history lessons to be learned from heavy-handed diplomatic and military meddling in another country’s internal affairs. |