The Mexican Revolution Essay Example

The Mexican Revolution was a war between many different groups who were looking to rebuild Mexico in their own political image. The revolution began around 1908 when most of the Mexican citizens were upset with President Porfirio Diaz due to his policies which favored rich landowners and businessmen. His opponent was a liberal idea-based leader of another political party in Mexico named Francisco Madero. Diaz had Madero arrested so he would have no one in his was for the next election but after Madero was freed from jail, he led multiple revolts in 1911 which kicked Diaz out of office and instated Madero as the new President of Mexico. Madero became very unpopular quickly which led to a political coup of Madero by a member of Mexico’s military, a revolutionary, and a US ambassador to Mexico. The Pact of the Embassy had on effect on the Mexican Revolution by restarting an once thought ended revolution, increased tensions between the United States and Mexico, and causing Mexico much more war and turmoil for many years past it.

Even though the revolution was thought to have ended after Diaz was removed from office, Madero’s reign proved highly unpopular with the common people which caused more rebellions to happen against his reign. While Madero did do some good as the new president, his reign was highly unpopular due to him not feeling like Mexico needed any major economic changes. These tensions between the government and the people led to a major battle in Mexico City between Victoriano Huerta and the government military and revolutionaries led by the nephew of the former president Felix Diaz in what was called the Ten Tragic Days.

During all of this however, American Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson was highly against Madero’s reign due to the effect on American businesses if a civil war broke out. According to Blaisdell, “the ambassador strongly supported the rebels, and took steps to help them”. Americans had owned about a fifth of Mexico’s land around this time and were concerned about what would happen to those businesses if the war spread into their lands and properties. What really caused tensions to rise with the US is “When Madero imposed a small tax on extracting petroleum and passed legislation to defend local industry through tariffs on foreign goods, Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson (without authorization) threatened US intervention” (Benson, Berliner 150). On the ninth day of the Ten Tragic Days, Wilson met with Diaz and Huerta to come up with a plan to get Madero out of office.

Wilson, Diaz, and Huerta’s plan was to stage a coup where Madero would be removed as president of Mexico and Huerta would take over as the interim president until the next election. The coup was successful on February 18, 1913 at the end of the Ten Tragic Days where both President Madero and Vice President Pino were imprisoned and Huerta was officially instated as the new President of Mexico. A few days later both Madero and Pino were both shot and killed, while there is no confirmation Wilson had anything to do with the killings, there is a thought that he may have approved the killing of the former government leaders. The US government did not approve of Wilsons actions however and he was recalled as the ambassador to Mexico in July of 1913.

Overall, the Pact of the Embassy saw a major shift for a countries government that had just previously fought to had been freed from a corrupt leader, kept tensions high between the United States and Mexico, and led several more revolts after the coup of President Madero. Huerta’s reign was seen as unfit and illegal in the eyes of the revolutionaries who were fighting for both constitutionalism and the right for anyone to buy property. Not only that, but due to the way Huerta became President, the US refused to recognize him as the President of Mexico and backed the revolutionaries for the rest of the Mexican Revolution.