The Dallas Morning News
U.S. Chased Villa into mythology, filmmaker says
November 27, 1993
by Rick Nathanson
The American soldiers who chased Pancho Villa across the northern Mexico in response to a brutal 1916 raid on Columbus, N.M., inadvertently helped create the myth that still surrounds the revolutionary figure.
The Punitive Expedition, as it was called, "served only to elevate Villa to legendary status far beyond what he would have achieved had they not gone after him," says Albuquerque native Paul Espinosa, a producer of the recent PBS documentary The Hunt for Pancho Villa.
The documentary underscores how misinformed U.S. politicians and the military establishment were about the Mexican culture, and how ill-equipped U.S. forces were to cope with and navigate the rough desert Mexican terrain, Mr. Espinosa said.
Mr. Espinosa, 43, said he chose Villa for a documentary because Americans recognize him as the best-known figure of the Mexican Revolution.
The documentary depicts Villa as an enigmatic character, a Mexican Robin Hood who initially was friendly towards the United States and respectful of its holding south of the border. Hugh Scott, chief of staff for President Woodrow Wilson, predicted that Villa would be "the George Washington of Mexico."
Indeed, Villa had won a series of military victories during the Mexican Revolution and had emerged as a national figure. No wonder he was convinced that the United States would recognize him as Mexico's legitimate leader.
If there is an omission in the documentary, it's in the explanation of why the United States in 1915 suddenly threw its support behind Villa's rival, Venustiano Carranza.
Mr. Espinosa said that people who ponder that "share Pancho Villa's sentiments. The only explanation would seem to be that people in Wilson's administration thought Carranza was easier to deal with than Villa. Carranza was an educated former governor of a Mexican state, and Villa was an unpredictable, semiliterate guerilla fighter."
Villa felt further betrayed, Mr. Espinosa said, when he discovered that the United States was secretly helping Carranza's troops defeat Villa's fighters and when the United States placed an arms embargo on Villa, cutting off his supply from border towns such as Columbus.
Villa's raid on Columbus left 17 Americans dead. Mr. Wilson, preoccupied by a presidential election sent Gen. John Pershing to the border to wage a Punitive Expedition to apprehend Villa -- dead or alive.
Pershing's expedition was "the last of the old and the first of the new," said Louis Ray Sadler, a historian at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces who spoke in the documentary. "This is the last great cavalry operation in the United States Army."
In the largest mobilization of American troops since the Civil War, Pershing stationed 150,000 soldiers along the border from Texas to California. Some 12,000 troops crossed into Mexico, where old technology melded with new, Mr. Espinosa said.
More than 8,000 horses carried soldiers armed with rifle-mounted bayonets. They were joined by the latest in the U.S. military might: 600 trucks, 250 armored vehicles and eight airplanes.
Mexico and the United States had an agreement allowing law enforcement authorities or military personnel to cross each other's borders to pursue criminals.
"Wilson used this as an excuse for the protracted excursion," Mr. Espinosa said. "Mexico regarded it as an invasion."
The U.S. military was unable to capture or kill Villa. In fact, Mr. Espinosa said, "they never even sighted him, in part because Villa knew the terrain like the back of his hand," while the Americans "ignorant of the geography and culture."
Pershing and other American leaders underestimated the broad base of support that Villa had among the people; they underestimated the difficulty of operating in the harsh northern Mexico desert; and they underestimated the resentment the Mexican people had towards the U.S. presence in their country.
That resentment erupted in several towns where residents attacked and killed U.S. soldiers looking for Villa.
After a fruitless 11-month search for Villa, U.S. military and political leaders were looking for a face-saving way to end the expedition.
They found it after two battles between the soldiers of Carranza and Villa, in which Villa experienced heavy losses and was forced to vanish into the desert. Pershing publically declared the Punitive Expedition a victory and his troops returned north of the border.
In 1920, Villa laid down his arms in exchange for amnesty and land. He was assassinated three years later.