To give the coup the appearance of legitimacy, Huerta had
foreign minister Pedro Lascuráin assume the presidency; under the
1857 Constitution of Mexico, the foreign minister stood third in line for the presidency behind the Vice President and
Attorney General; Madero's attorney general had also been ousted in the coup. Lascuráin then appointed Huerta as
Secretary of the Interior, making him next in line for the presidency. After less than an hour in office (some sources say as little as 15 minutes), Lascuráin resigned, handing the presidency to Huerta. At a late-night special session of Congress surrounded by Huerta's troops, the legislators endorsed his assumption of power. Four days later Madero and Pino Suárez were taken from the National Palace to prison at night and shot by officers of the
rurales (federal police), who were assumed to be acting on Huerta's orders. In the economic sphere, Huerta suspended payments on the foreign debt; in May 1913, he contracted a loan of six million pounds sterling at a very high interest rate of 8.33%, reflecting the lack of confidence in his administration (successive governments would not be able to obtain credit until 1943). The Currency and Exchange Commission devalued the peso in response to capital flight, and the following August, unsuccessfully prohibited the export of national gold and silver coins. To obtain more resources, Huerta forced banks to issue paper money, and in response to popular rejection, he decreed a compulsory currency for banknotes, forcing Mexico to abandon the gold standard. Furthermore, to obtain more credit, he lowered the legal reserve limits for banks. During his term in power, he thus obtained approximately 63.7 million pounds in printed credit. The consequences were rampant inflation and devaluation, uncontrollable, and the imminent bankruptcy of financial institutions. The Huerta government was promptly recognized by all the western European governments, but not the government of the United States. The outgoing US administration of
William Howard Taft refused to recognize the new government, as a way of pressuring Mexico to end the
Chamizal border dispute in favor of the US, with the plan being to trade recognition for settling the dispute on American terms. Newly inaugurated U.S. president
Woodrow Wilson had a general bias in favor of liberal democracy and had distaste for General Huerta, who had come to power by coup and was implicated in the murder of Madero, but was initially open to recognizing Huerta provided that he could "win" an election that would give him a democratic veneer. Félix Díaz and the rest of the conservative leaders had seen Huerta as a transitional leader and pressed for early elections, which they expected to be won by Díaz on a Catholic conservative platform, and were rudely surprised when they discovered Huerta wanted to keep the presidency for himself. (right). Huerta moved quickly to consolidate power within Mexico with the support of state governors. Huerta sought support from Pascual Orozco, whose rebellion against Madero Huerta had been in charge of suppressing. Orozco still held the leadership of significant forces in Chihuahua and potentially in Durango, so gaining his support was important to Huerta. Orozco had rebelled against Madero and Huerta had overthrown him, so there was the possibility of gaining his support. During a meeting of representatives of Huerta's government and Orozco's forces, Orozco laid out his terms for supporting Huerta. He sought recognition of his soldiers' service to the overthrown of Madero and pay; pensions and care of soldiers' widows and orphans, agrarian reforms, government payment of Orozquista debts that financed the campaign against Madero, and employment of Orozquistas as
rurales. Huerta agreed to the terms, and Orozco threw his support to Huerta on 27 February 1913. Orozco sought to persuade Emiliano Zapata to make peace with Huerta regime. Zapata had held Orozco in high esteem as a fellow revolutionary who had rejected the Madero regime. However, for Zapata, Orozco's support of Huerta was anathema, saying "Huerta represents the defection of the army. You represent the defection of the Revolution." Huerta attempted to build further support for his government, and the urban working class in Mexico City made important gains before being suppressed. In particular, the leftist
Casa del Obrero Mundial (House of the World Worker). The Casa organized demonstrations and strikes, which the Huerta regime initially tolerated. But then the government cracked down, arresting and deporting some leaders, and destroying the Casa's headquarters. Huerta also sought to diffuse agrarian agitation, which fueled the rebellion in Morelos led by Emiliano Zapata. The most vocal intellectual in favor of land reform was
Andrés Molina Enríquez, whose 1909 publication
Los grandes problemas nacionales (The Great National Problems) focused on inequality of land tenure. Molina Enríquez joined the Huerta government heading the Department of Labor. He had denounced the overthrow of Madero, but "initially saw in the Huerta regime the political formula he believed Mexico required: a strong military leader capable of imposing the social reforms Mexico needed to benefit the masses." However, despite internal support in the Huerta regime for reform, Huerta increasingly embraced militarization and Molina Enríquez resigned. Chihuahua Governor
Abraham González refused and Huerta had him arrested and murdered in March 1913. The most important challenge from a state governor was by
Venustiano Carranza, governor of Coahuila, who drafted the
Plan of Guadalupe, calling for the creation of a
Constitutionalist Army (evoking the 1857 Liberal Constitution) to oust the usurper Huerta and restore constitutional government. Supporters of Carranza's plan included
Emiliano Zapata, who nonetheless remained loyal to his own
Plan de Ayala, northern revolutionary
Francisco "Pancho" Villa, and
Álvaro Obregón. However, former revolutionary General
Pascual Orozco, whom Huerta fought when serving President Madero, now joined with Huerta as a counter-revolutionary. Four Deputies were executed over the summer of 1913 for criticizing the Huerta regime. One deputy was arrested by Mexico City police as he was delivering a speech denouncing Huerta at a rally and taken out to the countryside, where he was "shot while trying to escape". Lacking popular legitimacy, Huerta chose to turn the refusal of the US to recognize his government as an example of American "interference" in Mexico's internal affairs, organizing anti-American demonstrations in the summer of 1913 with the hope of gaining some popular support. British historian
Alan Knight wrote about Huerta: "The consistent thread which ran through the Huerta regime, from start to finish, was militarisation: the growth and reliance on the Federal Army, the military takeover of public offices, the preference for military over political solutions, the militarisation of society in general". Huerta "came very close to converting Mexico into the most completely militaristic state in the world." Huerta's stated goal was a return to the "order" of the
Porfiriato, but his methods were unlike those of Diaz, who had shown a talent for compromise and diplomacy; seeking support from and playing off regional elites, using not only army officers but also technocrats, former guerrilla leaders,
caciques and provincial elites to support his regime. By contrast, Huerta relied entirely upon the army for support, giving officers all of the key jobs, regardless of their talents, as Huerta sought to rule with
La Mano Dura ("The Iron Hand"), believing only in military solutions to all problems. For this reason, Huerta during his short time as president was the object of far more hatred than Diaz ever was; even the
Zapatistas had a certain respect for Diaz as a patriarchal leader who had enough sense to finally leave with dignity in 1911, whereas Huerta was seen as a thuggish soldier who had Madero murdered and sought to terrorize the nation into submission.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson became hostile to the Huerta administration, recalled ambassador
Henry Lane Wilson and demanded Huerta step aside for democratic elections. In August 1913 Wilson imposed an arms embargo on Mexico, forcing Huerta to turn to Europe and Japan to buy arms. The Federal Army Huerta took over in February 1913 on paper numbered between 45,000 and 50,000 men. Huerta continued to increase the strength of the army, issuing a decree for conscripting 150,000 men in October 1913; another decree for conscripting 200,000 men in January 1914 and one for a quarter of million men in March 1914. These figures were never achieved as many men fled to fight for the Constitutionalists rather than Huerta. Together with an increase in the number of the paramilitary
rurales mounted police force and the state militias, Huerta had approximately 300,000 men, or about 4% of the population, fighting for him by early 1914. Faced with Mexicans' widespread reluctance to serve, Huerta had to resort to the
leva, as vagrants, criminals, captured rebels, political prisoners and sometimes just men on the streets were rounded up to serve in the Federal Army. In Veracruz workers getting off the night shift at factories were rounded up in a
leva (forced conscription), while in Mexico City poor men going to hospitals were rounded up in the
leva. As Indians were felt to be particularly docile and submissive to whites, the
leva was applied especially heavily in southern Mexico, where the majority of the people were indigenous. Thousands of Juchiteco and Maya were rounded up to fight a war in the north of Mexico that they felt did not concern them. A visitor to Mérida, Yucatán wrote of "heart-breaking" scenes as hundreds of Maya said goodbye to their wives as they were forced to board a train while in chains. The men rounded up in the
leva proved to be poor soldiers, prone to desertion and mutiny, since they were serving against their will and felt hatred for their commanding officers. Officers mistreated both their enlisted men and the common people. Huerta had to follow a defensive strategy of keeping the army concentrated in large towns, since his soldiers in the field would either desert or go over to the rebels. Throughout the civil war of 1913–14 the Constitutionalists fought with a ferocity and courage that the federal army never managed. In Yucatán about 70% of the army were men conscripted from the prisons, while one "volunteer" battalion consisted of captured Yaqui. To secure volunteers, Huerta attempted to use Mexican nationalism and anti-Americanism. In the fall of 1913, running spurious stories in the press warning of an imminent U.S. invasion and asking for patriotic men to step up to defend Mexico. The campaign attracted some volunteers from the lower middle class, through they were usually disillusioned when they learned that they were going to fight other Mexicans, not the Americans. In rural Mexico a sense of Mexican nationalism barely existed at this time among the
campesinos. Mexico was an abstract entity that meant nothing, and most peasants were primarily loyal to their own villages, the
patria chicas. Huerta's patriotic campaign was a complete failure in the countryside. When Huerta refused to call elections, and with the situation further exacerbated by the
Tampico Affair, President Wilson landed US troops to
occupy Mexico's most important seaport,
Veracruz. After the Federal Army was repeatedly defeated in battle by Constitutionalist generals
Alvaro Obregón and
Pancho Villa, climaxing in the
Battle of Zacatecas, Huerta bowed to internal and external pressure and resigned the presidency on 15 July 1914. ==Exile, late life and death==