Personal life Blanquet was born on 31 December 1848 in
Morelia, in the state of
Michoacán. He was the son of Antonio D. Blanquet and María Torres. Later, as a brigadier sergeant, he participated in the
siege of Querétaro, which resulted in the capture of
Maximilian von Habsburg. Afterwards, Maximilian was under Blanquet's custody.
During the Mexican Revolution In July 1911 Blanquet commanded federal troops stationed in
Puebla. On July 12 a group of armed men fired shots at the rival
Maderistas and fled into the federal army barracks. On the next day
Madero publicly hugged Blanquet and cleared him of any wrongdoing; he ordered radical Maderistas to surrender arms to Blanquet's
Federales and go home. The Puebla Incident also created international tension after the fleeing Maderistas killed German and Spanish expatriates who stood in their way. During May 1912 Blanquet served under General
Victoriano Huerta, leading the 29th Infantry Battalion in the successful suppression of the Orozquista revolt against the Madero government. On 13 June 1913, General
Manuel Mondragón resigned as
Secretary of War and the Navy, and Huerta replaced him with Blanquet. He held the post until 1 July 1914. He was succeeded by
José Refugio Velasco. ,
Victoriano Huerta,
Félix Díaz, and Blanquet in 1913 In October 1913 Huerta dissolved the Federal Congress and prepared for a rigged
referendum to legitimize himself as the President, with Blanquet named as vice-president. In July 1914, when the Huerta government collapsed, Blanquet resigned as vice president, and departed from Mexico with Huerta. On August 19, 1914, General Blanquet, having returned from overseas, intervened in the disbandment process of Huerta's defeated Federal army. He led the 29th Battalion of 400 men, which he had formerly commanded, plus other remnants of Federal troops dissatisfied with their redundancy payments, against Carrancistas in
Puebla. Blanquet captured the city and learned that two Carrancistas agents, brothers Ramon and Raphael Cabrera, were on their way to Puebla to assert the authority of the new government. Blanquet's federals captured the Cabreras and shot them on Blanquet's order. The two surviving Cabrera brothers,
Luiz and
Alfonso, avenged the dead with a campaign of terror, killing over sixty Federal prisoners. Blanquet escaped and resumed his exile, in Cuba.
Death On 24 March 1919, Blanquet returned from exile in Cuba, disembarking at
the port of Veracruz, to support the Félix Díaz rebellion against Venustiano Carranza. With only about six followers he moved inland from the Gulf Coast in an attempt to join up with Díaz. On April 7, 1919, Blanquet was killed when his horse fell down a ravine after a skirmish with government troops near La Barranca de Chavaxtla, in
Huatusco, Veracruz. The Constitutionalist commander General Guadalupe Sánchez had Blanquet's head taken to Veracruz for display and photographing. ==Notes==