Battle of Torreón (1913)

Battle for Torreón

Part of: Mexican Revolution

Plan of the Battle of Torreón with the direction of attack of the revolutionaries (red arrows) and the positions of the federal troops (blue lines)

date	September 29, 1913 to October 1, 1913
place	Torreón , Coahuila State , Mexico
output	Victory of the constitutionalists

Parties to the conflict
Constitutionalists	mexican government ( federales )
Commander
Pancho Villa	Eutiquio Munguía
Troop strength
6,000-8,000	3,000

The Battle of Torreón , known in Mexico as la toma de Torreón ("the capture of Torreón"), was between the armed forces of the Mexican ruler Victoriano Huerta (1850-1916) and one of Pancho Villa ( 1878–1923) defeated constitutionalist army . The victory in his first great battle of the Mexican Revolution brought Villa not only a huge increase in prestige, but also considerable spoils of war in the form of urgently needed military equipment of all kinds.

Starting position

In February 1913, the Mexican President Francisco Madero (1873-1913) and some of his closest partisans were through a coup of senior officers who had been assured by the US Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson (1857-1932) that they would be benevolent in their endeavors his government could count on, disempowered and murdered. Victoriano Huerta, the commander-in-chief of the army, emerged as the new and de facto dictatorial ruler from the resulting battles between the army factions loyal to the government and rebellious groups, which went down in Mexican history as Decena Trágica (“the ten tragic days”) . He was soon opposed by a politically very heterogeneous coalition of revolutionary forces, whose leadership Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920), the governor of Coahuila , claimed for himself. He denied the usurper Huerta the right to the presidency, called the people to arms and saw himself as the highest general of the “constitutionalist” armed forces, that is, the armed forces that were loyal to the Mexican constitution.

After Madero's death, Pancho Villa returned to Mexico from exile in the US in early March 1913 and took up the fight against the federales , the federal troops controlled by Huerta , in the north and northwest of Chihuahua . At first, however, he was only one of several revolutionary leaders here, and there was nothing to indicate that he would eventually be accepted as sole leader by the leaders of the other revolutionary contingents that had formed during his absence to fight the Huerta troops. A series of military successes over the federales , paired with "publicly effective" acts of "social justice", for example in the form of confiscations of goods from the large landowning families, above all those of the Terrazas-Creel family clan, which was hated in Chihuahua, made his popularity strong among the population increase. Since Villa deliberately avoided the possessions of US citizens from these measures, he also secured the attention and benevolence of various representatives of the United States, who in his case indicated an increasing willingness not to embargo the arms imposed on the Mexican rebels so strictly handle as usual.

In contrast to Villa, the leaders of the other revolutionary contingents who were active in the states of Chihuahua and Durango came under increasing military pressure from the federal army and its allies in the course of 1913: the combat units established by the Terrazas family and the Orozquistas , how to call the fighters called, who commanded Pascual Orozco (1882-1915), a former Madero partisan who had now come to terms with Huerta. This development eventually led to these revolutionary leaders, one after the other, subordinating themselves to the mansions they commanded. On September 26, 1913, they met Villa in the town of Jiménez , where it was decided to conquer Torreón in the state of Coahuila and entrust Villa with the military high command of the rebel contingents united for this purpose. There were two main reasons why Torreón had been chosen: firstly, this city was an important economic center, and secondly, it was an important rail hub through which all supply trains for the federal troops stationed in Chihuahua had to pass.

procedure

With the 6,000 to 8,000 men who were now under him, Villa commanded one of the largest revolutionary armies that had been set up so far. Nevertheless, the risk of the planned military operation was not inconsiderable. Villa had neither the experience necessary to command such a large armed force, nor as a guerrilla leader had he had the opportunity to try out regular warfare; The fighters under his command from Durango and the basin called La Laguna ("the lagoon ") , in which the target was located, were notorious for their indiscipline, which was one of the reasons that Venustiano Carranza's attempt had already failed in July 1913 to conquer the city. Above all, Villa lacked one of the crucial prerequisites for taking a well-fortified city like Torreón: He only had two guns and almost no trained artillerymen to operate them.

General Eutiquio Munguía , who commanded the Torreón garrison of around 3,000 men, including 1,000 militiamen and orozquistas , looked forward to the coming events with some calm. He had clearly superior artillery, which he had stationed on the heights that dominated the entrances to Torreón. In this way - according to his plan - the attackers would be targeted under fire while they were approaching the city and their attack would be brought to a standstill. He also knew that a second army of the federales had been marched from Chihuahua , which would finally hold the attackers, who had already been weakened by the futile onslaught, and destroy them. What Munguía had not included in his calculation, however, was that his troops consisted to a large extent of conscripted recruits from Mexico's deep south, who in a terrain completely foreign to them were well acquainted with the terrain, highly motivated and filled with revolutionary vigor Opponents faced.

The attack by the Villistas , as the soldiers were called Villas, began on September 29th and was initially directed against the gun emplacements on the heights around the town. In a series of nocturnal attacks that were to become one of the hallmarks of their warfare, Villa's troops conquered one rise after another and took the federal troops under fire with the captured artillery. When Villa's vanguard then advanced into the suburbs of Torreón, Munguía foolishly ordered General Felipe Alvírez, who was under his command, to carry out a counter-attack and drive the revolutionaries from there again. Alvírez and his approximately 500 men, however, encountered a numerically far superior enemy and were almost completely wiped out. Munguía tried to keep the news of Alvírez's destruction a secret, but it still got through to his troops and caused demoralization and panic. In the face of the round-the-clock attacks by the revolutionaries, Munguía also lost his nerve and, like most of his soldiers, fled the city. Before that, however, he had ordered another of his subordinate generals, Luis G. Anaya, to retake the elevations on which the artillery had been stationed. Anaya's counterattack was initially quite successful, which is why he wanted to personally request Munguía for troop reinforcements. Since the commander in chief had meanwhile disappeared without a trace, Anaya's initial success was in vain. Finally, the armed force of the federal troops advancing from the north failed miserably due to the inability of their commander in the first combat contact with the Villistas , with which the battle for Torreón was lost for the federales .

consequences

While General Munguia in Mexico City of his military court conviction for cowardice looked forward, viewed Villa was his popularity at the previous peak. With this first conquest of Torreón, he had become a national celebrity. In addition, with this victory he had also impressively proven that he had actually gone from guerrilla to revolutionary leader, who from then on could compete in open field battle with Huerta's federal troops. With great relief, which later turned into praise and admiration, many townspeople, especially the US consulate, accepted the disciplined manner in which Villa’s troops took possession of Torreón on the night of October 1, 1913 . With a few exceptions, there was no looting, rioting or assault on US property. The captured soldiers of the Federal Army, their officers and all Orozquistas who were captured were also spared by the Villistas, however, without exception.

At least as important as its increase in prestige was the fact that Villa in Torreón fell into the hands of large amounts of war material that the federal troops had left behind in their hasty escape. The Villistas not only captured around 1,000 rifles including half a million cartridges, but also six machine guns and 11 pieces of artillery as well as 600 artillery shells. Among the captured artillery, a large gun mounted on a railroad car stood out, nicknamed El Niño ("The Child"). Furthermore, locomotives and other rolling stock fell into their hands at the Torreóns train station, which significantly increased their mobility in the future. As if that weren't enough, Villa used massive threats to force the city's “ plutocrats ” into a “loan” of 3 million pesos , which filled his war chest accordingly. After this coup, Villa's army turned north again to continue the fight against the federales , who still had large numbers of troops stationed in various garrisons here. In Torreón, Villa only left a small crew behind, which was insufficient to prevent Huerta's troops from retaking the city a few months later.

literature

• Joe Lee Janssens: Maneuver and Battle in the Mexican Revolution. A Revolution in Military Affairs. Volume 1: 1913. Revolution Publishing, Houston 2016, ISBN 978-0996478908 , pp. 227-239.
• Friedrich Katz: The life and times of Pancho Villa . Stanford, Calif .: Stanford Univ. Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8047-3046-6 .
• Frank McLynn: Villa and Zapata. A History of the Mexican Revolution. London: Pimlico, 2001, ISBN 978-0-7126-6677-0 .

References and comments

1. ↑ See for example Katz (1998), pp. 193–203 and McLynn (2001), pp. 150–159.
2. ↑ ^{a b} On Villa's renewed rise and the situation in Chihuahua at the beginning of the anti-Huerta revolution, cf. especially Katz (1998), pp. 203-215.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Katz (1998), pp. 215-218 and 222 and McLynn (2001), pp. 170-172.
4. ↑ The Spanish Wikipedia sometimes gives slightly different numbers. This is "only" about 300 rifles, five machine guns and 300 artillery shells.