The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 21: The Recent Days (1910-1914)
History
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 21: The Recent Days (1910-1914)
World history
The first large battle occurred on May 9-10-11-12th outside of Guaymas,
between Ojeda's Federals and Obregon's Constitutionalists, at a place
called Santa Rosa. The Federal advance north consisted of about twelve
hundred men and eighteen pieces of artillery. They were opposed by
about four thousand men under Obregon, without artillery. Eight hundred
Federals were killed and all their artillery captured. The
Constitutionalists lost two hundred and fifty men killed and wounded.
Comparatively few Federals returned to Guaymas. Each side killed all
the wounded that they found, and also all captives who refused to
enlist in the captor's force. This success was not followed up and
Guaymas remained in the hands of the Federals. The artillery captured
by the Constitutionalists had had the breech blocks removed to render
them unserviceable; new ones, however, were made in the shops at
Cananca by a German mechanician named Klaus.
In the summer, Urbina captured the city of Durango, annihilating the
Federals. The city was given over to loot and the greatest excesses
were indulged in by the victors. Arson, rape, and the robbing of banks,
stores, and private houses were indiscriminately carried on. Horses
were stabled in the parlors of the homes of the prosperous citizens,
and many non-combatants were killed by the soldiers before order was
restored.
At this time the only points held by the Federals on the boundary
between the United States and Mexico were Juarez, in Chihuahua, and
Nuevo Laredo, in Tamaulipas. The railroads south of these points were
also in the physical possession of the Federals but subject to
continual interruption at the hands of the Constitutionalists.
Venustiano Carranza had established headquarters at Ciudad Porfirio
Diaz (Piedras Negras) across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Tex. He
started on a trip, during the late summer, through the northern
provinces to confer with the leaders of the Constitutionalist movement
in order to bring about better coordination of effort on their part. He
went through the States of Coahuila, Durango, Chihuahua, and Sonora and
established a new headquarters in Sonora. Since then the efforts of the
Constitutionalists have been much better coordinated, with the result
that they have had much better success.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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