La Decena Trágica

A Brief Biography of Francisco I. Madero, Part 3

Statue of Francisco I. Madero in front of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Photograph by Carlos Perez Chavez, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53003068

This is the third and (mercifully) the final installment in the 3-part miniseries on the life and times of Francisco Madero. If you missed the first and/or second parts, you can find them here and here. Also, I want to acknowledge that it has been at least a few weeks since my last post - sorry for the delay; I hadn’t lost interest, merely time. With that, let’s jump right in where we last left off.

The Ten Tragic Days began on February 9, 1913 when Félix Díaz and General Bernardo Reyes - two conspirators who wished to destabilize and overthrow Madero’s new government - were freed from prison by other conspirators in the Mexican armed forces. Félix Díaz was the nephew of Porfirio Díaz and loyal to the ex-president. The goal of the those who opposed Madero was to create a sense of chaos in Mexico’s capital, and to use that chaos as justification to overthrow President Madero. U.S. ambassador to Mexico Henry Lane Wilson - who I mentioned in the previous article in this series - was a major proponent of this coup attempt, which gave the conspirators even more clout and support. Wilson - for all intents and purposes- was one of the architects of this coup.

Eventually, the leader of Mexico’s Army - General Victoriano Huerta - sided with and aided the rebellion, even as he continued to convince Madero that he was actually on Madero’s side. But on February 17, Madero’s brother Gustavo discovered that General Huerta was having secret meetings with Félix Díaz. Gustavo arrested Huerta and brought him before Madero.

General Huerta had a long and public history of association with Félix Díaz. Huerta had a public history of being at odds with Madero. Even Madero’s own mother warned Madero not to trust Huerta. But when Huerta was finally brought before Madero as a prisoner, Madero shockingly pardoned him, and gave him one final chance to demonstrate that he could be loyal to the new government. This pardon would prove fatal to both Madero and his brother, and why Madero gave it remains a mystery. It made no sense politically, and perhaps that’s the only sense one can make of it.

Instead of demonstrating his loyalty, Huerta and the army overcame President Madero’s defenders after a bloody siege in Mexico City, and arrested Madero on February 18. On the same day, Huerta personally arrested Madero’s brother Gustavo. Later that day Gustavo would be sadistically murdered by Huerta’s men.

On February 19, the coalition of conspirators against Madero formed a pact, thus ending the Ten Tragic Days. Madero was no longer president, the ideals of the revolution were lost. And on February 22, Madero and his vice-president were removed from their jail cells and told they were being transported to another facility. Instead, they were driven to their place of execution, and Huerta would be declared the next president of Mexico, with the blessing and encouragement of the United States.

But the spark of revolution that Madero lit would not die. The revolutionary armies in the north and south of Mexico commanded by the Constitutionalist generals Alvaro Obregón and Pancho Villa would eventually defeat the traitorous forces of Mexico’s new president, and Huerta would be sent into exile. A kinder end than he offered Madero¹.

Final Remarks

Madero was the antithesis of today’s political leaders, who more and more are about self-enrichment and believing only what is necessary to further that enrichment. Cynicism and the cultivation of hate appear to be the burgeoning political economy today; Madero would recognize this as the Porfiriato gone completely and utterly off the rails.

Some Mexican historians believe that the Ten Tragic Days leading to the selling out of the Mexican Revolution and the assassination of the brightest of the bright stars of that social re-awakening have left an indelible scar of guilt from which Mexico has still not recovered. Perhaps this says something special about the Mexican character; certainly it says a lot about how Mexico feels about Madero. Few world leaders can lay claim to the type of moral, social, and ethical righteousness that Madero not only espoused but embodied. Madero’s obsession with improving the lives of the underprivileged coupled with his betrayal and death may be one of the closest analogs in the secular world to that of Jesus Christ. Certainly the closest analog in the history of Mexico. Madero lived his convictions with his mind, his wallet, and his hands; and forgave even his mortal enemies. That mankind can meet such grace with murder maybe leaves us all with some small sense of guilt.

1. Huerta would die ignominiously in a U.S. prison after a ridiculous attempt to help the Germans gain an upper hand against the U.S. in the early days of World War I.