The General and the Jaguar by Eileen Welsome Read Free Book Online Page B

campaign, Villa used guerrilla tactics to weaken Huerta’s army, mounting surprise attacks in the
     middle of the night and then melting back into the countryside. As his fame spread, other rebel leaders joined his army, anxious
     to save themselves from annihilation and convinced that cooperation was the only way to defeat Huerta. Huerta dispatched his
     sharpshooters to kill Villa, but no one seemed to be able to hit him. Oblivious to the danger, Villa rode up and down behind
     his artillery guns, shouting out directions:
“Mas derecho! Poco mas izquierda!”
—“More to the right! A little more to the left!”
    By late September of 1913, the División del Norte had a troop strength of six to eight thousand men and Villa was ready to
     lay siege to the city of Torreón, an important source of supplies and a communications hub located in north-central Mexico.
     Attacking at night, the Villistas captured the federal army’s artillery and took command of the outlying hills. After a few
     days, Torreón weakened and fell.
    Villa imposed a rigid discipline upon his troops and began strategizing for his next battle. He set his sights on Ciudad Chihuahua,
     the state capital, some 250 miles south of El Paso. On November 5, the Villistas launched their attack. This time the entrenched
     federal army fought hard, and successfully repelled Villa’s soldiers. After a five-day siege, the rebel forces withdrew.
    Villa then executed a dazzling maneuver that would propel him onto the world stage. Capturing a supply train, he loaded his
     troops onto it and proceeded north toward the city of Juárez. Pretending to be the colonel in charge of the captured train,
     he sent a message to the federal commander in Juárez informing him that the engine had broken down and asking him to send
     another engine and five cars. After receiving them, Villa wired another message to Juárez: “Wires cut between here and Chihuahua.
     Large force of rebels approaching from south. What shall I do?” The commander in Juárez instructed him to return and he obeyed,
     confirming his whereabouts at every stop along the way. Military authorities in Juárez, thinking Villa’s men were still laying
     siege to Chihuahua, enjoyed a leisurely dinner and entertainment. At one o’clock on the morning of November 15, 1913, Villa’s
     troops rolled into the city and routed the surprised federal troops with a minimum of bloodshed. Villa immediately shut down
     the saloons, swept up the silver from the gambling tables, ordered his men to shoot any looters, and made plans to go to a
     cockfight, one of his favorite pastimes.
    The capture of Juárez was condemned as “shameful” by Mexico City’s upper class, who still believed war was a gentlemanly pursuit
     to be conducted only in daylight hours. But the U.S. Army generals who sat on the American side of the border watching the
     revolution were delighted. The War Department’s chief of staff, Brigadier General Hugh Scott, a bluff old Indian fighter with
     a walrus mustache and a bad case of lumbago, wrote, “The taking of Juárez by Villa was a beautiful piece of strategy. . .
     . Altogether he is the strongest character yet developed in Mexico in the present Revolution, and may yet develop into a ruler,
     although he is said to have no ambition to be president of Mexico, on account of his conviction of lack of sufficient education.”
    Scott, who prided himself on educating “primitive people,” quickly developed a rapport with Villa, whom he hoped to enroll
     one day in military school in Leavenworth. Villa was a great sinner, Scott often said, but he also had been greatly sinned
     against.
    “Civilized people look upon you as a tiger or a wolf,” Scott once told him.
    “Me?” Villa exclaimed.
    “Yes, you.”
    “How is that?”
    “Why, from the way you kill wounded and unarmed prisoners.”
    Scott gave Villa a booklet on the rules of engagement, a treatise that amused him no end, wrote journalist