Editing Mexican Revolution (section)

==Constitutionalists in power under Carranza: 1915–1920==
{{main|Venustiano Carranza}}
[[File:Revolución mexicana 1915.svg|thumb|Mexico at the end of 1915, with the Constitutionalists holding the most territory]]

Carranza's 1913 Plan of Guadalupe was narrowly political, designed to unite the anti-Huerta forces in the north. But once Huerta was ousted, the Federal Army dissolved, and former Constitutionalist Pancho Villa defeated, Carranza sought to consolidate his position. The Constitutionalists retook Mexico City, which had been held by the Zapatistas, and held it permanently. He did not take the title of provisional or interim President of Mexico, since in doing so he would have been ineligible to become the constitutional president. Until the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution his was framed as the "pre-constitutional government."

In October 1915, the U.S. recognized Carranza's government as the de facto ruling power, following Obregón's victories. This gave Carranza's Constitutionalists legitimacy internationally and access to the legal flow of arms from the U.S. The Carranza government still had active opponents, including Villa, who retreated north.<ref>Knight, Alan. "Venustiano Carranza" in ''[[Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture]]'', vol. 1, pp. 573–575</ref> Zapata remained active in the south, even though he was losing support, Zapata remained a threat to the Carranza regime until his assassination by order of Carranza on 10 April 1919.<ref name="Brunk, Samuel p. 494">Brunk, Samuel. "Emiliano Zapata". In ''[[Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture]]'', vol. 5, p. 494.</ref> Disorder and violence in the countryside was largely due to anti-Carranza forces, but banditry as well as military and police misconduct contributed to the unsettled situation. The government's inability to keep order gave an opening to supporters of the old order headed by Félix Díaz (nephew of former President Porfirio Diaz). Some 36 generals of the dissolved Federal Army stood with Díaz.

The Constitutionalist Army was renamed the "Mexican National Army" and Carranza sent some of its most able generals to eliminate threats. In Morelos, he sent General [[Pablo González Garza|Pablo González]] to fight Zapata's Liberating Army of the South.<ref>Matute, Álvaro. "Mexican Revolution: May 1917 – December 1920" in ''[[Encyclopedia of Mexico]]'', 862.</ref> Morelos was very close to Mexico City, so Zapata's control of it and parts of the adjacent state of Puebla made Carranza's government vulnerable. Constitutionalist Army soldiers assassinated Zapata in an ambush in 1919, after their commanding officer tricked Zapata by pretending that he intended to defect to Zapata's side. Carranza sent General Francisco Murguía and General Manuel M. Diéguez to track down and eliminate Villa, but they were unsuccessful. They did capture and execute one of Villa's top men, General [[Felipe Angeles]], the only general of the old [[Federal Army]] to join the revolutionaries.<ref>Matute, "Mexican Revolution: May 1917 – December 1920", ''[[Encyclopedia of Mexico]]'', 863.</ref> Revolutionary generals asserted their "right to rule", having been victorious in the Revolution, but "they ruled in a manner which was a credit neither to themselves, their institution, nor the Carranza government. More often than not, they were predatory, venal, cruel and corrupt."{{sfn|Lieuwen|1981|p=37}} The system of central government control over states that Díaz had created over decades had broken down during the revolutionary fighting. Autonomous fiefdoms arose in which governors simply ignored orders by the Carranza government. One of these was Governor of Sonora, General [[Plutarco Elías Calles]], who later joined in the 1920 successful coup against Carranza.{{sfn|Lieuwen|1981|pp=36–37}}

The 1914 [[Pact of Torreon|Pact of Torreón]] had contained far more radical language and promises of land reform and support for peasants and workers than Carranza's original plan. Carranza issued the "Additions to the Plan of Guadalupe", which for the first time promised significant reform. He also issued an agrarian reform law in 1915, drafted by [[Luis Cabrera Lobato|Luis Cabrera]], sanctioning the return of all village lands illegally seized in contravention of an 1856 law passed under [[Benito Juárez]]. The Carranza reform declared village lands were to be divided among individuals, aiming at creating a class of small holders, and not to revive the old structure of communities of communal landholders. In practice, land was transferred not to villagers, but rather redistributed to Constitutional army generals, and created new large-scale enterprises as rewards to the victorious military leaders.<ref>[[Adolfo Gilly|Gilly, Adolfo]]. ''The Mexican Revolution''. New York: The New Press 2005, 185–187</ref>

Carranza did not move on land reform, despite his rhetoric. Rather, he returned confiscated estates to their owners.<ref name=":11"/> Not only did he oppose large-scale land reform, he vetoed laws that would have increased agricultural production by giving peasants temporary access to lands not under cultivation.<ref>Markiewicz, Dana. ''The Mexican Revolution and the Limits of Agrarian Reform, 1915–1946''. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publisher 1993, p. 31.</ref> In places where peasants had fought for land reform, Carranza's policy was to repress them and deny their demands. In the southeast, where hacienda owners held strong, Carranza sent the most radical of his supporters, [[Francisco José Múgica]] in Tabasco and [[Salvador Alvarado]] in Yucatan, to mobilize peasants and be a counterweight to the hacienda owners.{{sfn|Katz|1981|p=296}} After taking control of [[Yucatán (state)|Yucatán]] in 1915, Salvador Alvarado organized a large Socialist Party and carried out extensive land reform. He confiscated the large landed estates and redistributed the land in smaller plots to the liberated peasants.<ref>Busky, Donald F. ''Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey''</ref> [[Máximo Castillo|Maximo Castillo]], a revolutionary brigadier general from Chihuahua was frustrated by the slow pace of land reform under the Madero presidency. He ordered the subdivision of six haciendas belonging to [[Luis Terrazas]], which were given to sharecroppers and tenants.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Máximo Castillo and the Mexican Revolution|last=Castillo|first=Máximo|publisher=Louisiana State University Press|year=2016|isbn=978-0-8071-6388-7|editor-last=Valdés|editor-first=Jesús Vargas|location=Baton Rouge, Louisiana|pages=51–58|translator-last=Aliaga-Buchenau|translator-first=Ana-Isabel}}</ref>

[[File:Ejércitos rebeldes 1916-1920.svg|thumb|right|Rebel armies between 1916 and 1920.]]
Carranza's relationship with the United States had initially benefited from its recognition of his government, with the Constitutionalist Army being able to buy arms. In 1915 and early 1916, there is evidence that Carranza was seeking a loan from the U.S. with the backing of American bankers and a formal alliance with the U.S. Mexican nationalists in Mexico were seeking a stronger stance against the colossus of the north, by taxing foreign holdings and limiting their influence. Villa's raid against [[Battle of Columbus (1916)|Columbus, New Mexico]] in March 1916, ended the possibility of a closer relationship with the U.S.{{sfn|Katz|1981|p=297}} Under heavy pressure from public opinion in the U.S. to punish the attackers (stoked mainly by the papers of ultra-conservative publisher [[William Randolph Hearst]], who owned a large estate in Mexico), American President [[Woodrow Wilson]] sent General [[John J. Pershing]] and around 5,000 troops into Mexico in an attempt to capture Villa.{{sfn|Katz|1998|p=569}}

[[File:VillaUncleSamBerrymanCartoon.png|thumb|upright|left|[[Uncle Sam]] entering Mexico in 1916 to punish Pancho Villa.]]
The U.S. Army intervention, known as the [[Pancho Villa Expedition|Punitive Expedition]], was limited to the western Sierras of [[Chihuahua (state)|Chihuahua]]. From the Mexican perspective, as much as Carranza sought the elimination of his rival Villa, but as a Mexican nationalist he could not countenance the extended U.S. incursion into its sovereign territory. Villa knew the inhospitable terrain intimately and operating with guerrilla tactics, he had little trouble evading his U.S. Army pursuers. Villa was deeply entrenched in the mountains of northern Mexico and knew the terrain too well to be captured. American General [[John J. Pershing]] could not continue with his unsuccessful mission; declaring victory the troops returned to the U.S. after nearly a year. They were shortly thereafter deployed to Europe when the U.S. entered World War I on the side of the Allies. The Punitive Mission not only damaged the fragile United States-Mexico relationship, but also caused a rise in [[anti-Americanism|anti-American sentiment]] among the Mexicans.<ref>{{cite book|doi=10.1093/acref/9780195071986.001.0001|author-last=Hart|author-first=John M.|entry=Mexican Revolution, U. S. Military Involvement In The|editor-last1=Chambers II |editor-first1=John Whiteclay |title=The Oxford Companion to American Military History |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00cham |url-access=registration |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1999 |page=[https://archive.org/details/oxfordcompaniont00cham/page/432 432] |isbn=978-0-19-507198-6}}</ref> Carranza asserted Mexican sovereignty and forced the U.S. to withdraw in 1917{{Citation needed|date=April 2025}}

With the outbreak of [[World War I]] in Europe in 1914, foreign powers with significant economic and strategic interests in Mexico—particularly the U.S., Great Britain and Germany—made efforts to sway Mexico to their side, but Mexico maintained a policy of neutrality. In the [[Zimmermann Telegram]], a coded cable from the German government to Carranza's government, Germany attempted to draw Mexico into war with the United States, which was itself neutral at the time. Germany hoped to draw American troops from deployment to Europe and as a reward in the event of a German victory to return the territory lost to Mexico to the U.S. in the [[Mexican–American War]]. Carranza did not pursue this policy, but the leaking of the telegram pushed the U.S. into war against Germany in 1917.