Deadly Violence Growing Factor For Mexican Border Patrols

Pancho Villa Expedition


Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa wearing bandoliers in front of an insurgent camp


Members of the 6th and 16th Infantry withdrawing homeward in January 1917

The Pancho Villa Expedition – officially known in the United States as the Mexican Expedition<1>, but sometimes referred to colloquially as the "Punitive Expedition" – was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican insurgent Francisco "Pancho" Villa from 1916 to 1917. The expedition was in retaliation for Villa's illegal incursion into the United States and attack on the village of Columbus, Luna County, New Mexico, during the Mexican Revolution.

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Villa's attacks

Trouble between the U.S. and Pancho Villa had been growing since 1915, when the United States government disappointed Villa by siding with and giving its official recognition to Venustiano Carranza's national government. Feeling betrayed, Villa began attacking American property and citizens in northern Mexico. The most serious incident occurred in January 1916, when 17 American employees of the ASARCO company were removed from a train at Santa Isabel, Chihuahua, and summarily stripped and executed, although one escaped by faking his death. Villa kept his men south of the border to avoid a direct confrontation with the U.S. Army forces which were being deployed to protect the border.

Battle of Columbus

At approximately 4:17 am on March 9, 1916, Villa's troops attacked Columbus, New Mexico and its local detachment of the U.S. 13th Cavalry Regiment, killing 10 civilians and 8 soldiers and wounding 2 civilians and 6 soldiers, for a total of 18 killed and 8 wounded.<2><3> The raiders also burned the town, took many horses and mules and seized available machine guns, ammunition and merchandise, before they returned to Mexico. However, Villa's troops suffered considerable losses, with at least sixty-seven dead. About thirteen others would later die of their wounds. Five Mexicans were taken prisoner and later executed. The raid may have been spurred by an American merchant in Columbus who supplied Villa with weapons and ammunition. After Villa paid several thousand dollars in cash in advance, the merchant decided to stop supplying him with weapons and demanded payment in gold.

Campaign

On March 15, on orders from President Woodrow Wilson, General John J. Pershing led an expeditionary force of 4,800 men into Mexico to capture Villa, who had already had more than a week to disperse and conceal his forces before the punitive expedition tried to seek them out in unmapped terrain. The newly adopted Curtiss "Jenny" airplane was used by the 1st Provisional Aero Squadron to conduct aerial reconnaissance.

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While the expedition did make contact with Villista formations and killed two of his generals, it failed in its major objectives, neither stopping border raids – which continued while the expedition was in Mexico, although both National Guard troops and Texas Rangers were stationed on the border – nor capturing Villa. However, between the date of the American withdrawal and Villa's retirement in 1920, Villa's troops were no longer an effective fighting force, being hemmed in by American and Mexican federal troops and money and arms blockades on both sides of the border.

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Training ground

National Guard units from Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico had been called into service on May 8, 1916.<6> With congressional approval of the National Defense Act on June 3, 1916, Guard units from the remainder of the states and the District of Columbia were also called for duty on the border.<7> In mid-June President Wilson called out 110,000 National Guard for border service. None of the National Guard troops would cross the border into Mexico but were used instead as a show of force.

Nonetheless, activities on the border were far from dull. The troops had to be on constant alert as border raids were still an occasional nuisance. Three of the raids were particularly bloody. On May 5, 1916, Mexican bandits attacked an outpost at Glenn Springs, Texas, killing one civilian and wounding three American soldiers. On June 15 bandits killed four American soldiers at San Ygnacio, Texas, and on July 31 one American soldier and a U.S. customs inspector were killed. In all three cases Mexican raiders were killed and wounded, but the exact numbers are unknown.<6> The Mexican Expedition proved to be an excellent training environment for the officers and men of the National Guard, who would be recalled to Federal Service later that same year (1917) for duty in World War I. Many National Guard leaders in both World Wars traced their first Federal Service to the Mexican Expedition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Villa_Expedition