"Pancho" Villa's Raids in the US 1916-1917
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Francisco "Pancho" Villa (1877-1923) is famed in Mexico as a revolutionary and in the United States as a violent bandit. The 1911 overthrow of Mexico's haded dictatorial president Porfirio Diaz (1830-1915) set off a struggle for power that Villa, who had American support, was winning until 1915, when the troops of Alvaro Obregon (1880-1928) defeated him and elevated as acting chief of Mexico Villa's enemy Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920). the United States recognized Carranza and repudiated Villa, who responded by attacking Americans' in Mexico. Villa's men raided across the border into Columbus, New Mexico (March 9, 1916), killing about a dozen Americans before being driven off. US president Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) order General John J. Pershing (1860-1948) to lead a punitive expedition into Mexico in pursuit of Villa, whose forces skirmished several times with the invaders. This American invasion, which was labeled a failure after 11 months (Pershing withdrew in February 1917) because Villa, whose raids continued, could not be captured, so angered his countrymen that Villa was regarded as a national hero, despite the fact that he led rebels in northern Mexico until 1920, the year of Carranza's death.