1910
July 8
Porfirio Diaz is reelected president of Mexico,
a post he has held almost continuously since 1876. His main political rival,
Francisco I. Madero, is in jail, along with
60,000 other supporters. Madero, released on bail eleven days later, flees
to San
Antonio, Texas.
Nov. 20
Francisco Madero returns to Mexico from Texas,
an event still commemorated in Mexico.
1911
May 5
Francisco I. Madero, leader of the rebellion
against President Porfirio Diaz, holds a meeting at Bustillos.
May 10
City of Juarez falls to Madero's forces, thanks
largely to the aggressiveness (and insubordination) of Francisco ("Pancho")
Villa and Pascual Orozco.
May 13-15
Villa and Orozco break with Madero over his
clemency to General Navarro, whom they took prisoner at Juarez. Villa returns
to his wife at San Andres, Chihuahua.
May 25
Porfirio Diaz resigns as president, is escorted
to Veracruz, departs for exile in Paris. Madero refuses to take office
until
elected. Vice President Francisco de La Barra
is installed as interim president.
Oct.
Madero is elected president, inaugurated in
November.
1912
March 3
Threatened by Orozco, Villa flees from Chihuahua
after refusing to join in rebellion against Madero. Villa sets about raising
his
own force.
March 24
Villa takes the city of Parral from the Orozco
rebels.
April 4
Orozco retakes Parral from Villa, who melts
into the mountains and joins Victoriano Huerta, Madero's field commander,
at
Torreón.
June 3
Villa, sentenced to be shot for insubordination
by Huerta, is spared by Madero's order at the last moment and sent to Santiago
Tlatelolco prison, in Mexico City.
Nov.
Woodrow Wilson elected president of the United
States.
Dec. 26
Villa escapes prison, where he has learned
of plots hatched by Generals Bernardo Reyes and Felix Diaz, but has refused
to
join them. Villa crosses Rio Grande into El
Paso on January 3, 1913.
1913
Feb. 9-18
"Ten Tragic Days." Rebellion of Bernardo Reyes,
Felix Diaz, and Victoriano Huerta. Huerta arrests Madero on February 18
and assumes power.
Feb. 22
President Madero and Vice President Pino Suarez
are murdered outside Lecumberri prison, Mexico City.
March 4
Inauguration of Woodrow Wilson as president
of the United States.
March 23
Villa returns to Mexico after learning of
Madero's assassination; gathers army on way to San Andres; sends message
of
defiance to governor of Chihuahua.
March 28
Venustiano Carranza draws up Plan of Guadalupe,
in which he declares himself "First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army,"
claiming to be the rightful successor to Madero.
June 1
President Wilson sends William Bayard Hale
to Mexico on a fact-finding mission. Hale sends reports throughout June.
Aug. 9
President Wilson sends Governor John Lind
to Mexico as an unofficial agent. Lind, rebuffed by Huerta, spends some
months
in Veracruz.
Aug. 26
Villa's new army routs forces under Felix
Terrazas at San Andres, taking three trains and other booty.
Aug. 27
Woodrow Wilson declares policy of "watchful
waiting" before a joint session of Congress. Start of the ''honeymoon''
between
Mexico and the United States.
Oct. 2
Villa's Division of the North captures Torreón.
Villa becomes a civil governor for the first time.
Oct. 10
Huerta's second coup. Arrest and imprisonment
of eighty-five Mexican congressmen. Huerta is elected president in an election
so obviously rigged as to be nullified and
deferred for nine months.
Oct. 17
Carranza establishes a provisional government
at Hermosillo, in Sonora.
Nov. 7
Wilson's "Circular Note," which includes an
obvious implied threat to remove Huerta.
Nov. 15.
Villa captures Juarez, taking 3,000 prisoners.
Mid-Nov.
Wilson sends William Hale to Nogales, Mexico,
for a conference with Carranza, which turns out disastrously. Hale returns
to
the U.S. side on November 19. Wilson levies
an arms embargo against Carranza.
Nov. 19
Villa defeats General Jose Ines Salvador at
Tierra Blanca.
Dec. 8
Chihuahua City falls to Villa's Division of
the North.
1914
Jan. 11
Villa defeats Salvador Mercado at Ojinaga,
across from Presidio, Texas, on the Rio Grande. Mercado and his army escape
to
the Texas side of the river. John J. Pershing
comes to the Mexican side to call on Villa.
Feb. 3
President Wilson lifts the embargo of arms
against Carranza.
Feb.
The Benton affair, in which Villa murders
the British subject William H. Benton. Villa claims "self-defense," but
nobody
believes him.
March
Villa and Carranza fall out over plans for
the future. Villa gives in and attacks Saltillo, at Carranza’s insistence.
Villa then
learns that Carranza has sent another general
to take Zacatecas, Villa's own objective.
April 10
A Huertista general at Tampico arrests crewmen
from the US Dolphin. U.S. demands for a public display of contrition create
an international crisis.
April 20
Wilson asks Congress for extraordinary military
powers as a result of the Tampico incident.
April 21
The German ship Ypiranga arrives off Veracruz.
Admiral Frank Fletcher lands sailors and marines at Veracruz the next day.
April 24
Meeting between Wilson and his cabinet. Secretary
of War Lindley M. Garrison urges that the U.S. Army push on to Mexico
City. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile offer to
mediate between the United States and Mexico the next day.
April 30
Fifth Infantry Brigade, under Brigadier General
Frederick Funston, relieves marine garrison at Veracruz.
May 20-July 2
U.S. and Mexican diplomats meet at Niagara
Falls, Canada, under ABC sponsorship. As a result, Wilson asks Carranza
to
hold up the march on Mexico City. Carranza
refuses on June 16.
June 23
Villa takes Zacatecas, though without Carranza's
approval. Carranza responds by with-holding supplies of ammunition and
coal from Villa.
July 8
Alvaro Obregón, military commander
under Carranza, captures Guadalajara.
July 15
Huerta resigns as provisional president and
flees to Spain.
Aug. 15
Obregón occupies Mexico City on behalf
of the Constitutionalists. Carranza soon follows.
Aug. 16
Woodrow Wilson sends Paul Fuller to visit
Villa at Santa Rosalia and urges him to establish a government and then
retire. Villa
agrees.
Sept. 5
Fuller confers with Carranza in Mexico City.
Carranza promises to cooperate.
Sept.
Obregón, now minister of war in Mexico
City, visits Villa in Chihuahua. Together they visit Pershing in Fort Bliss,
Texas, and
Maytorena in Nogales.
Sept. 23
Villa declares war on Carranza.
Oct. 12-Nov. 12
Convention at Aguascaliente. General Eulalio
Gutierrez is elected president.
Nov. 23
U.S. Fifth Infantry Brigade debarks at Veracruz.
Generals Alvaro Obregón and Pablo Gonzalez join the deposed Carranza,
who occupies Veracruz as his capital. Villa
and Emiliano Zapata occupy Mexico City.
1915
Jan. 6
Carranza issues a decree revising the Plan
of Guadalupe to include land reform, electoral reform, workers' rights.
Jan.
Villa meets with U.S. General Hugh S. Scott
and sells out Governor Maytorena in the Sonora civil war.
Jan. 15
Obregón begins a campaign against Villa's
forces.
April 6-15
Obregón defeats Villa in two battles
at Celaya, near Queretaro.
June 2
Wilson warns Mexico, threatening intervention.
June-Sept.
Villa is defeated at León and takes
refuge in Chihuahua.
Oct. 19
The United States and six Latin American nations
recognize the Carranza government.
Nov. 1
Villa's army is decimated by Carrancista forces
under Plutarco Elias Calles in a two-day battle at Agua Prieta, opposite
Douglas, Arizona. Later word that the U.S.
had assisted Calles infuriates Villa. Agua Prieta is soon followed by a
similar defeat
at Hermosillo, Sonora.
Dec.
Pascual Orozco, jumping bail in El Paso, is
killed by Texas Rangers near Presidio, Texas. Huerta dies in El Paso.
1916
Jan. 11
Villa raids a train, running from Chihuahua
City to the Cusi mines, at Santa Isabel, Chihuahua. Villa's men kill sixteen
of the
seventeen Americans aboard.
March 9
Villista raid on Columbus, New Mexico, killing
nineteen Americans.
March 15
Brigadier General John J. Pershing, on President
Wilson's order, crosses the Mexican border at Columbus and Culberson's
Ranch, pursuing Villa.
March 24
Protocol signed between Washington and Carranza,
interpreted by Wilson as allowing the Punitive Expedition into Mexico.
April 8
Pershing's Punitive Expedition, now 6,675
men strong, reaches over three hundred miles into Mexico.
April 12
Skirmish between U.S. cavalry and Carrancistas
at Parral, over five hundred road miles into Mexican territory. End of
Pershing's pursuit of Villa.
May 22
Long and bitter note from Carranza to Wilson.
June 18
Wilson calls up the National Guard, eventually
100,000 men.
June 21
Battle of Carrizal, in which Captain Charles
T. Boyd, Lieutenant Henry R. Adair, and Mexican General Felix G. G6mez
are
killed. Heavy losses on both sides. Twenty-three
Americans are taken prisoner by the Carrancistas
July 4
Carranza proposes Mexican-U.S. talks.
Sept. 16
U.S.-Mexican meetings begin in New London.
Later shifted to Philadelphia and Atlantic City. A protocol is signed November
24.
Oct.
Constitutional convention meets at Queretaro.
Dec. 17
Carranza rejects protocol of November 24 between
the United States and Mexico.
1917
Jan. 27
Beginning of the withdrawal of the Punitive
Expedition.
Jan. 31
Completion of the radical new Mexican constitution.
Feb. 5
Last of the Punitive Expedition crosses the
Rio Grande into the United States.
March 11
Venustiano Carranza is elected president.
March 13
President Woodrow Wilson establishes full
diplomatic relations with the new Carranza government by sending Henry
P.
Fletcher as ambassador to Mexico.
April 6
The United States declares war on imperial
Germany.
May 1
Carranza is inaugurated as president of Mexico.
1919
April 10
Emiliano Zapata is assassinated at Chinameca
on orders of Carranza.
June 1
Alvaro Obregón declares himself a candidate
for the presidency in the election to be held in 1920. Carranza, in early
September, endorses his own candidate, Ignacio
Bonillas.
1920
April 2
Carranza summons Obregón to Mexico
City to face trumped-up charges. Obregón escapes with his life through
the aid of
friends.
April 20
Obregón manifesto declaring rebellion
against Carranza.
May 7
Carranza flees Mexico City. Abandons train
on May 14
May 21
Carranza is assassinated in the village of
Tlaxcalantongo, Puebla.
June 1
Adolfo de la Huerta is inaugurated provisional
president.
Sept. 5
Obregón is elected president, inaugurated
on November 30.
1923
July 20
Assassination of Pancho Villa and his bodyguards
in Parral. His executioners are never punished.