The Army That Failed

An Army and Its Two Lives
Between 1867 and 1936, Mexico built a national army twice. The first, the Federal Army of the Porfiriato, grew out of the war against the French Intervention and over four decades became the most visible symbol of order and progress under Porfirio Díaz. In less than four years, between November 1910 and August 1914, it was defeated, discredited, and finally dissolved at Teoloyucan. The second, the National Army of the post-revolutionary state, was assembled from the victorious revolutionary forces. It survived a decade of rebellion and by the 1930s had become the institution that guaranteed the government it served.
This work tells the story of both armies in two volumes: how they were organized, armed, paid, trained, and commanded, and how they fought. This first volume follows the Federal Army from the Porfirian reforms and modernization programs through the collapse of 1911, the Decena Trágica, and Huerta's desperate expansion of 1913-1914 to its dissolution in August 1914. Volume II follows the revolutionary transition of 1914-1920, the rebellions of the 1920s, and the National Army as foreign and Mexican observers saw it between 1926 and 1936.

The Argument
The central question of the book is simple to state. Why did the Porfirian army, after thirty years of professionalization and modernization, collapse so quickly, while the improvised army of the Revolution, born of civil war and led by caudillos, survived and became an institution?