Border photographer documents Mexican Revolution

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1913, Brownsville photographer Robert Runyon arrived in Matamoros and began compiling a unique record of the Mexican Revolution along the Texas-Mexico border. The Kentucky native arrived in Texas in 1909 and opened a photography studio the following year.
He is best known for his coverage of the revolutionary conflict in northeastern Mexico between 1913 and 1916. He traveled to Matamoros the day after its Federal garrison had been captured by Gen. Lucio Blanco's Constitutionalist revolutionary forces. Continued

Orozco: The Life and Death of a Mexican Revolutionary

(Wild West) After Hernán Cortez destroyed the Aztec empire, he worked to avoid the mistakes the Spanish made with the Indians of the Caribbean islands. For one thing, he put military police in Mexico City to enable local artists and merchants to safely sell their products in the open markets. He also permitted Indian communities to keep and collectively cultivate what he called “common land.”
Evidently failing to learn from that bit of history, President Porfírio Díaz and his political circle started to seize that land—and sure enough, Mexico erupted in revolution in early 1911. Continued

A Hundred Years Ago Today: Battle of Ambos Nogales

 

(Wikipedia) The Battle of Ambos Nogales (The Battle of Both Nogales), or as it is known in Mexico La batalla del 27 de agosto (The Battle of 27 August), was an engagement fought on 27 August 1918 between Mexican forces and elements of US Army troops of the 35th Infantry Regiment, who were reinforced by the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, and commanded by Lt. Col. Frederick J. Herman.
The American soldiers and militia forces were stationed in Nogales, Arizona, and the Mexican soldiers and armed Mexican militia were in Nogales, Sonora. This battle was notable for being a significant confrontation between US and Mexican forces during the Border War which took place in the context of the Mexican Revolution and the First World War. Continued

The Punitive Expedition

 

(Wikipedia) ... Trouble between the United States and Pancho Villa had been growing since October 1915, when the United States government officially recognized Villa's rival and former ally Venustiano Carranza as head of the government of Mexico. The U.S. also provided rail transportation through the United States, from Eagle Pass, Texas to Douglas, Arizona, for the movement of more than 5,000 Carrancista forces to fight Villa at the Battle of Agua Prieta; Villa's seasoned División del Norte was smashed.
Feeling betrayed, Villa began attacking U.S. nationals and their property in northern Mexico. On November 26, 1915, Villa sent a force to attack the city of Nogales and in the course of the ensuing battle, engaged with American forces before withdrawing. Continued

Border photographer documents Mexican Revolution

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1913, Brownsville photographer Robert Runyon arrived in Matamoros and began compiling a unique record of the Mexican Revolution along the Texas-Mexico border. The Kentucky native arrived in Texas in 1909 and opened a photography studio the following year.
He is best known for his coverage of the revolutionary conflict in northeastern Mexico between 1913 and 1916. He traveled to Matamoros the day after its Federal garrison had been captured by Gen. Lucio Blanco's Constitutionalist revolutionary forces. Continued

1916: US cavalry crosses the US–Mexico border to join the hunt for Pancho Villa

(Wikipedia) ... Trouble between the United States and Pancho Villa had been growing since October 1915, when the United States government officially recognized Villa's rival and former ally Venustiano Carranza as head of the government of Mexico. The U.S. also provided rail transportation through the United States, from Eagle Pass, Texas to Douglas, Arizona, for the movement of more than 5,000 Carrancista forces to fight Villa at the Battle of Agua Prieta; Villa's seasoned División del Norte was smashed.
Feeling betrayed, Villa began attacking U.S. nationals and their property in northern Mexico. On November 26, 1915, Villa sent a force to attack the city of Nogales and in the course of the ensuing battle, engaged with American forces before withdrawing. Continued

Pancho Villa State Park annual event is Saturday

(Albuquerque Journal) To commemorate the 1916 raid by Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa on Columbus, N.M., Pancho Villa State Park will have its annual Camp Furlong Day event Saturday to inform guests of the history of the attack on the border town.
While the annual event is held in conjunction with the Cabalgata celebration of unity between the two countries, Camp Furlong Day is scheduled to give visitors the history of the raid and to bring guests back to 1916 by means of artifacts and accounts at the Exhibition Hall, 400 N.M. Highway 9. Continued

The Zimmermann Telegram

(Wikipedia) The Zimmermann Telegram (or Zimmermann Note or Zimmerman Cable) was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico in the event of the United States' entering World War I against Germany. The proposal was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence.
Revelation of the contents enraged American public opinion, especially after the German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann publicly admitted the telegram was genuine on 3 March, and helped generate support for the United States declaration of war on Germany in April.
The decryption was described as the most significant intelligence triumph for Britain during World War I, and one of the earliest occasions on which a piece of signals intelligence influenced world events. Continued

Battle of Ambos Nogales

(Wikipedia) The Battle of Ambos Nogales (The Battle of Both Nogales), or as it is known in Mexico La batalla del 27 de agosto (The Battle of 27 August), was an engagement fought on 27 August 1918 between Mexican forces and elements of US Army troops of the 35th Infantry Regiment, who were reinforced by the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, and commanded by Lt. Col. Frederick J. Herman. The American soldiers and militia forces were stationed in Nogales, Arizona, and the Mexican soldiers and armed Mexican militia were in Nogales, Sonora.[2] This battle was notable for being a significant confrontation between US and Mexican forces during the Border War which took place in the context of the Mexican Revolution and the First World War. Continued

Ambrose Bierce

Poetry Foundation: [June 24, 1842 – circa 1914] Ambrose Bierce's literary reputation is based primarily on his short stories about the Civil War and the supernatural—a body of work that makes up a relatively small part of his total output. Often compared to the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, these stories share an attraction to death in its more bizarre forms, featuring depictions of mental deterioration, uncanny, otherworldly manifestations, and expressions of the horror of existence in a meaningless universe.
...  In 1914 he informed some of his correspondents that he intended to enter Mexico and join Pancho Villa's forces as an observer during that country's civil war. He was never heard from again, and the circumstances of his death are uncertain. Continued

First Clovis man to die in country’s service remembered

(Clovis News Journal) Sometime around Thanksgiving Day in 1916, Everett Fitzhugh of Clovis climbed on a wagon with members of the New Mexico National Guard ... Continued