Victoriano Huerta

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Victoriano Huerta Márquez
President of Mexico
In office February 18, 1913 – July 15, 1914
Preceded by	Pedro Lascuráin
Succeeded by	Francisco S. Carvajal
Born	December 23, 1854 Colotlán, Jalisco
Died	January 13, 1916 El Paso, Texas, USA
Political party	No Party
Spouse	Emilia Águila

José Victoriano Huerta Márquez (December 23, 1850,^[1] Colotlán, Jalisco—January 13, 1916, El Paso, Texas) was a Mexican military officer and president of Mexico.

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.

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 Diaz 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 tragica.

Following a confused few days of fighting in Mexico City between loyalist and rebel factions of the Army, Huerta had Madero and vice-president José María Pino Suárez seized and briefly imprisoned in the Palacio Nacional. The conspirators then met at the US Embassy to sign el Pacto de la Embajada (The Embassy Pact), which provided for Madero and Pino Suarez's exile and Huerta's takeover of the Mexican government. After a very short term of office by Pedro Lascuráin) on February 18, 1913 Huerta proclaimed himself provisional president of Mexico. 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 Alvaro Obregon. After repeated field defeats of Huerta's Federal Army by Obregon and Villa, climaxing in the Battle of Zacatecas, Huerta bowed to pressure and resigned the presidency on July 15, 1914.

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 had 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, he was released on bail but remained under house arrest due to risk of flight to Mexico. While so confined, he drank very heavily and died of alcohol poisoning in El Paso, Texas.

Huerta is still vilified by modern-day Mexicans, who generally refer to him as El Chacal — "The Jackal".

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ This date is in dispute. Many sources give March 23, 1850. However, Encyclopædia Britanica has given December 23 from the 1911 edition through the current edition. The Spanish, French, German and other Wikipedias also give December 23.

[edit] See also

• Huerta's Federal Army
• La Cucaracha
• U.S. occupation of Veracruz (1914)

[edit] External links

• Huerta on gob.mx/kids

Preceded by Pedro Lascuráin

(Interim) President of Mexico 1913–1914

Succeeded by Francisco S. Carvajal