Díaz’s long success did not include planning for a political transition beyond his own presidency. He made no attempt, however, to establish a family dynasty, naming no relative as his successor. As the centennial of independence approached, Díaz gave an interview where he said he was not going to run in the 1910 elections, when he would be 80. Political opposition had been suppressed and there were few avenues for a new generation of leaders. But his announcement set off a frenzy of political activity, including the unlikely candidacy of the scion of a rich landowning family, Francisco I. Madero. Madero won a surprising amount of political support when Díaz changed his mind an ran in the election, jailing Madero. The September centennial celebration of independence was the last celebration of the Porfiriato. The Mexican Revolution starting in 1910 saw a decade of civil war, the “wind that swept Mexico.”
Mexican Revolution (1910–1920):
The Mexican Revolution was a decade-long transformational conflict in Mexico, with consequences to this day. It saw uprisings against President Díaz, his resignation, an interim presidency, and the democratic election of a rich landowner, Francisco I. Madero in 1911.
In February 1913, a military coup d’état overthrew Madero’s government, with the support of the U.S., resulted in Madero’s murder by agents of Federal Army General Victoriano Huerta. A coalition of anti-Huerta forces in the North, the Constitutionalist Army overseen by Venustiano Carranza, and a peasant army in the South under Emiliano Zapata, defeated the Federal Army. In 1914 that army was dissolved as an institution. Following the revolutionaries’ victory against Huerta, revolutionary armies sought to broker a peaceful political solution, but the coalition splintered, plunging Mexico into civil war again. Constitutionalist general Pancho Villa, commander of the Division of the North, broke with Carranza and allied with Zapata. Carranza’s best general, Alvaro Obregón, defeated Villa, his former comrade-in-arms in the battle of Celaya in 1915, and Villa’s forces melted away. Carranza became the de facto head of Mexico, and the U.S. recognized his government. In 1916, the winners met at a constitutional convention to draft the Constitution of 1917, which was ratified in February 1917. Said Constitution strengthened the anticlerical provisions that were carried over from the 1857 Constitution. With amendments, it remains the governing document of Mexico. It is estimated that the war killed 900,000 of the 1910 population of 15 million.
The U.S. has had a history of inference and intervention in Mexico, most notably the Mexican-American War. During the Revolution, the Taft administration supported the Huerta coup against Madero, but when Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated as president in March 1913, it refused to recognize Huerta’s regime and allowed arms sales to the Constitutionalists. Wilson ordered troops to occupy the strategic port of Veracruz in 1914, which was lifted. After Pancho Villa was defeated by revolutionary forces in 1915, he led a raid into Columbus, New Mexico incursion, prompting the U.S. to send 10,000 troops led by General John J. Pershing in an unsuccessful attempt to capture Villa.