Editing Mexican Revolution (section)

==A military coup overthrows Madero: 9–22 February 1913==
{{main|Ten Tragic Days|Pact of the Embassy}}
[[File:Dead outside National Palace during one of the outbreaks, Mexico City.jpg|thumb|Corpses in front of the National Palace during the Ten Tragic Days. Photographer: Manuel Ramos.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/search/collection/mex/searchterm/Ag1996.1039/mode/exact |title=Album, Mexican Revolution |access-date=31 January 2020 |archive-date=29 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200129211250/http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/search/collection/mex/searchterm/Ag1996.1039/mode/exact |url-status=live}}</ref>]]

The Madero presidency was unravelling, to no one's surprise except perhaps Madero's, whose support continued to deteriorate, even among his political allies. Madero's supporters in congress before the coup, the so-called {{lang|es|Renovadores}} ("the renewers"), criticized him, saying, "The revolution is heading toward collapse and is pulling the government to which it gave rise down with it, for the simple reason that it is not governing with revolutionaries. Compromises and concessions to the supporters of the old [Díaz] regime are the main causes of the unsettling situation in which the government that emerged from the revolution finds itself ... The regime appears relentlessly bent on suicide."<ref>quoted in {{harvp|Katz|1998|pp=196–197}}</ref>

Huerta, formally in charge of the defense of Madero's regime, allowed the rebels to hold the armory in Mexico City—the Ciudadela—while he consolidated his political power. He changed allegiance from Madero to the rebels under Félix Díaz (Bernardo Reyes having been killed on the first day of the open armed conflict). U.S. Ambassador [[Henry Lane Wilson]], who had done all he could to undermine American confidence in Madero's presidency, brokered the [[Pact of the Embassy]], which formalized the alliance between Félix Díaz and Huerta, with the backing of the United States.<ref name="Tuñon Pablos p. 855">Tuñon Pablos, ''Mexican Revolution: February 1913 – October 1915'', p. 855</ref> Huerta was to become provisional president following the resignations of Madero and his vice president, José María Pino Suárez. Rather than being sent into exile with their families, the two were murdered while being transported to prison—a shocking event, but one that did not prevent the Huerta regime's recognition by most world governments, with the notable exception of the U.S.

Historian [[Friedrich Katz]] considers Madero's retention of the Federal Army, which was defeated by the revolutionary forces and resulted in Díaz's resignation, "was the basic cause of his fall". His failure is also attributable to "the failure of the social class to which he belonged and whose interests he considered to be identical to those of Mexico: the liberal hacendados" (owners of large estates).{{sfn|Katz|1981|p=114}} Madero had created no political organization that could survive his death and had alienated and demobilized the revolutionary fighters who had helped bring him to power. In the aftermath of his assassination and Huerta's seizure of power via a military coup, former revolutionaries had no formal organization through which to raise opposition to Huerta.{{sfn|Katz|1998|p=196}}