GENERAL RUBIO.
As the opportunity offers itself, let us say a few words about the
military organization of the United States of Mexico, an organization as
singular as all the rest of the machinery by means of which the strange
government of this eccentric Republic does its work.
A military uniform generally pleases the masses; a soldier's life has
something in it so independent of ordinary life, that all nations more
or less allow themselves to be carried away and seduced by the glitter
of embroidery and epaulettes, the rolling of drums, and the shrill notes
of the bugles. Young nations, especially, like to play at soldiering, to
make standards flutter, horses curvet, and mighty sabres flash.
The struggle of Mexico with Spain lasted ten years, constant, feverish,
and obstinate: it was fertile in terrible events and striking incidents.
The Mexicans, held by their oppressors in the most complete subjection,
were as simple at the beginning of the revolution as at the period of
the conquest: the majority did not know how to load a gun, and none of
them had ever had firearms in their hands. Still, excited by the ardent
desire for liberty which boiled in their hearts, their progress in
military tactics was rapid, and the Spaniards soon learned at their own
expense that these wretched guerillas, commanded by priests and curates,
who at the outset were only armed with lances and arrows, became at
length capable of responding to their platoon fire, dying bravely
without yielding an inch, and inflicting terrible defeats upon them. The
enthusiasm and hatred of the oppressors had made soldiers of all the men
capable of bearing arms.
When the independence was proclaimed and the war ended, the part played
by the army was at an end in a country which, without immediate
neighbours, had no foreign intervention to apprehend in its internal
affairs and had no invasion to fear. The army, therefore, ought to have
laid down the arms which had so valiantly achieved the liberty of the
country, and returned peaceably home. Such was its duty, and such was
expected; but this was a great mistake. The army felt itself strong and
feared; hence it wished to keep the place it had assumed, and, impose
conditions in its turn.
Having no longer enemies to combat, the Mexican army constituted itself,
or its private authority, the arbiter of the destinies of the country it
had been called out to defend: in order to secure promotion among the
officers, the army made revolutions. Then commenced that era of
pronunciamentos, in which Mexico is fatally ensnared, and which is
leading it irresistibly to that gulf in which its independence, so
dearly acquired, and even its nationality, will be finally wrecked.
From the sub-lieutenant to the general of division, each officer made a
stepping stone of a pronunciamento to gain a step--the lieutenant to
become captain; the captain, colonel; the colonel, general; and the
general, president of the Mexican Republic. There are generally three to
four presidents at once; often enough there are five, or even six; a
single president would be regarded as an extraordinary phenomenon--a
_rara avis._ We believe that since the proclamation of Independence no
single president has governed the country for six consecutive months.
The result of this state of things is, that the army has fallen into
extreme discredit; and while the profession of arms was honourable at
the period of the struggle against the Spaniards, it is exactly the
reverse now. The army is, therefore, necessarily recruited from the
lowest classes of society, that is to say, from bandits, leperos, and
even the villains condemned for robbery or assassination.
All these men, on reaching certain grades, merely change their uniform,
while retaining in the new rank where accident places them their vices
and low habits; hence young men of good family are not at all inclined
to accept an epaulette, and despise a profession regarded with so little
honour by the respectable classes of society. In a corps so badly
organised, where discipline does not exist, and military education is a
nullity, any _esprit de corps_ must be unknown, and that is the case.
And yet this army has been good, and it counts magnificent exploits on
its books; its soldiers and officers displayed great bravery in the
critical phases of the War of Independence.
But at the present day everything is dead, the feeling of duty is
despised, and honour--that powerful stimulus to the soldier--is
trampled under foot. Duelling, that necessary evil to a certain point to
make the soldier respect the cloth he wears, is forbidden under the
severest penalties; and if you horsewhip a Mexican officer, or call him
a coward or a scoundrel, the only risk you run is of being treacherously
assassinated.
It needs a lengthened apprenticeship to become a soldier and obtain the
proper spirit; it is only after long and serious study, when he has
suffered great privations, and looked death several times in the face,
that a man acquires that knowledge and coolness which enable him to
sacrifice his life without calculation, and fulfil the duties of a true
soldier.
Most of the Mexican generals would blush at their ignorance if they
found themselves face to face with the lowest non-commissioned officer
of our army; for they know absolutely nothing, and have not the least
idea of their art. With Mexican officers all is reduced to this:
changing the scarf. The colonel wears a red one, the brigadier-general's
is green, and that of the general of division white. It is for the
purpose of obtaining the last colour that all the pronunciamentos are
made.
Badly clothed, badly fed, and badly paid, the Mexican troops are a
scourge to the civilian population, whom they shamelessly and pitilessly
squeeze upon the slightest pretext. From what we have written, it is
easy to see how an armed corps thus disorganised must be dangerous to
everybody, for it knows no restraint, and lives beyond the law which it
despises. The present state of Mexico proves the incontestable truth of
our assertions.
We have not wished to enter into personalities, but treated the question
generally, seeking to show what it is really. There are, we allow, some
officers of merit--a few truly honourable men--in this unhappy army; but
they are pearls lost in the mud, and the number is so limited, that if
we quoted all their names, we should not reach a hundred. This is the
more sad, because the further Mexico goes, the nearer it approaches the
catastrophe; and, ere long, the evil that undermines this fair country
will be incurable, and it will sink for ever--not under the blows of
strangers, but assassinated by its own children.
General Don José Maria Rubio was in no way distinguished from the herd
of Mexican officers, but he possessed over those who surrounded him the
immense advantage of being a soldier of the war of Independence, and in
him experience amply compensated for his lack of education. His history
was simple, and may be told in a few words.
Son of an evangelista or public writer at Tampico, he had with great
difficulty learned a little reading and writing under the auspices of
his father; this pretence at education, slight as it was, was destined
to be of great utility to him at a later date. The great uprising, of
which the celebrated Fray Hidalgo was the promoter, and which
inaugurated the revolution, found young José Maria wandering about the
neighbourhood of Tampico, where he gained a livelihood by the most
heterogeneous trades. The young man--a little bit of a muleteer, a
little bit of a fisherman, and a good deal of a smuggler--intoxicated
by the smell of gunpowder, and fascinated by the omnipotent influence
Hidalgo exercised over all those who approached him, threw his gun over
his shoulder, mounted the first horse he came across, and gaily followed
the revolutionary band. From that moment his life was only one long
succession of combats.
He became in a short time, thanks to his courage, energy, and presence
of mind, one of the guerillas most feared by the Spaniards; always the
first in attack, the last to retreat. Chief of a cuadrilla composed of
picked men, to whom the most daring and wild expeditions appeared but
child's play, and favoured by constant good luck, for fortune ever loves
the rash, José Maria soon became a terror to the Spaniards, and his mere
name inspired them with indescribable terror. After serving in turn
under all the heroes of the Mexican war of Independence, and fighting
bravely by their side, peace found him a brigadier-general.
General Rubio was not ambitious; he was a brave and honest soldier, who
loved his profession passionately, and who needed to render him happy
the roll of the drum, the lustre of arms, and military life in its
fullest extent. When he fought, the idea never occurred to him that the
war would end some day or other; and hence he was quite surprised and
perfectly demoralised when peace was made and independence proclaimed.
The worthy General looked round him. Everybody was preparing to retire
to the bosom of his family, and enjoy a repose do dearly purchased. Don
José Maria might perhaps have desired nothing better than to follow the
example; but his family was the army, and he had, or at least was
acquainted with, no other. During the ten years' fighting which had just
elapsed, the General had completely lost out of sight all the relations
he possessed. His father, whose death he learned accidentally, was the
sole person whose influence might have brought him to abandon a
military career, but the paternal hearth was cold. Nothing attracted him
to the province, and he therefore remained under the banner, though not
through ambition. We repeat that the worthy soldier did himself justice,
and recognised the fact that he had attained a position far superior to
any he might ever have dared to desire; but he could not live alone or
abandon old friends with whom he had so long suffered, combated--in a
word, shared good and evil fortune.
The different Chiefs, who immediately began coveting power, and
succeeded each other in the presidential chair, far from fearing the
general, whose simple and honest character was known to them, on the
contrary sought his friendship, and lavished on him proofs of the most
frank and real protection; for they felt convinced that he would never
abuse their confidence in him.
At the period when the Texans began agitating and claiming their
independence, the Mexican Government, deceived at the outset by the
agents appointed to watch that state, sent insufficient forces to
re-establish order, and crush the insurgents: but the movement soon
assumed such a distinctly revolutionary character, that the President
found it urgent to make an effective demonstration. Unfortunately it was
too late; the dissatisfaction had spread: it was no longer a question of
suppressing a revolt, but stifling a revolution, which is not at all the
same thing.
The President of the Mexican Republic then learned at his own cost that,
in every human question, there is something more powerful than the brute
force of bayonets: it is the idea whose time has come and hour struck.
The troops sent to Texas were beaten and driven back on all sides; in
short, they were compelled to treat with the insurgents, and withdraw
ignominiously.
The government could not, and would not, accept such a dishonouring
check inflicted by badly-armed and undisciplined bands, and they
resolved to make a last and decisive effort. Numerous troops were massed
on the Texan frontiers; and to terrify the insurgents, and finish with
them at one blow, a grand military demonstration was made.
But the war then changed its character: the Texans, nearly all North
Americans, skilful hunters, indefatigable marchers, and marksmen of
proverbial reputation, broke up into small bands, and instead of
offering the Mexican troops a front, which would have enabled them to
outmanoeuvre and crush them, they began a hedge war, full of tricks and
ambushes, after the manner of the Vendeans, the first result of which
was to enormously fatigue the soldiers by compelling them to make
continual marches and counter-marches, and produced among them
discouragement and demoralization, by compelling to fight against a
shifting foe, whom they knew to be everywhere, and yet could never
seize.
The position became more and more critical. These outlaws, branded with
the epithets of bandits, border ruffians, and freebooters, whom they
affected to confound with the villains who congregate in these
countries, and whom they obstinately treated as such by granting them no
quarter, and shooting them without trial wherever they were captured:
these men, now disciplined, hardened, and strong in the moral support of
their fellow citizens, who applauded their successes, and put up vows
for them, had boldly raised the flag of Texan independence, and after
several engagements, in which they decimated the troops sent against
them, compelled the latter to recognize them as the avowed defenders of
an honourable cause.
Among the numerous generals of the republic, the president at length
chose the only man capable of repairing the successive disasters
undergone by the government. General Don José Maria Rubio was invested
with the supreme command of the troops detached to act against Texas.
This choice was most lucky; the general, an honest man and brave
soldier, was incapable of selling himself, however great the price
offered. Hence there was no reason to fear treachery from him, from
which others, less susceptible or more avaricious than he was, had not
recoiled. As an old soldier of the war of Independence, and ex-guerilla,
Don José Maria was thoroughly conversant with all the tricks, and was
the very man to fight with advantage against the foes that awaited him.
Unfortunately, this selection was made very late. Still, the General,
while perfectly comprehending the immense responsibility he assumed,
accepted without a murmur the rude task imposed on him. Certain men have
the incontestable privilege of being born for the positions they occupy;
their intellect seems to grow with the situation; made for great things,
they ever remain on a level with events, whatever the nature of the
latter may be. The General possessed this precious faculty; at the first
glance he judged his enemies with that coolness which renders old
soldiers so strong, and his plan was formed in a few minutes.
He immediately changed the tactics employed by his predecessors, and
adopted a system diametrically opposite. Instead of fatiguing his troops
by purposeless marches which had no result, he seized on the strongest
positions, scattered his troops through cantonments, where they
supported each other, and in case of need could all he assembled under
his orders within four-and-twenty hours.
When these precautions were taken, still keeping his forces in hand, he
prudently remained on the defensive, and instead of marching forward,
watched with indefatigable patience for the opportunity to fall on the
enemy suddenly and crush him.
The Texan Chiefs soon comprehended all the danger of these new and
skilful tactics. In fact, they had changed parts; instead of being
attacked, the insurgents were obliged to become the assailants, which
made them lose all the advantages of their position, by compelling them
to concentrate their troops, and make a demonstration of strength,
contrary to their usual habits of fighting.
To the young officers who murmured at the plan adopted by the general,
and made sarcastic remarks on his prudence, the latter replied with a
smile that there was no hurry, that war was a game of skill in which the
cleverest man won; and that he must not, for the sake of little lustre,
let himself be led away to compromise the success of an enterprise
which, with a little patience, must lead to certain success. The result
proved that the general reasoned correctly, and that his plan was good.
The insurgents, reduced to inactivity by the system the new Chief of the
Mexican army adopted, tried several times to attack his entrenchments,
and draw him out; but the general contented himself with killing as many
of them as he could, and would not move a step forward.
The conducta de plata intrusted to Captain Melendez had an immense
importance in the eyes of the needy government at the capital; the
dollars must at all hazards reach Mexico in safety; the more so, because
for some time past the arrival of coin from Texas had become desperately
irregular, and threatened to leave off altogether ere long.
General Rubio found himself reluctantly compelled to modify temporarily
the line he had traced; he did not doubt that the insurgents, advised of
the passage of the conducta, would make the greatest efforts to
intercept and seize it, for they also suffered from a great want of
money, and the millions sent to Mexico were of the utmost importance to
them. Hence their plans must be foiled, and the conducta saved. For this
purpose the General collected a large body of troops, placed himself at
their head, and advanced by forced marches to the entrance of the
defile, where, from the reports of his spies, he knew that the
insurgents were ambuscaded; then, as we have seen, he sent off a sure
man (or whom he supposed to be) to Captain Melendez, to warn him of his
approach, and put him on his guard.
We have narrated in the "Border Rifles" what took place, and how truly
worthy the General's express was of the confidence placed in him.
The Mexican camp stood in the centre of a beautiful plain, facing the
defile through which the conducta must pass, according to the General's
instructions. It was evening, and the sun had set for about an hour. Don
José Maria, rendered anxious by the Captain's delay, and beginning to
suspect a mishap, had sent off scouts in different directions to bring
him news, and a prey to an agitation, which each moment that passed
augmented, was walking anxiously about his tent, cursing and swearing in
a low voice, frowning and stopping every now and then to listen to those
thousand noises which arise at night without apparent cause, and pass as
if borne on the wings of the Djinns.
General Don José Maria Rubio was still a young man; he was about
forty-two, though he seemed older, through the fatigues of a military
life, which had left rude marks on his martial and open countenance; he
was tall and well-built; his muscular limbs, his wide and projecting
chest denoted great vigour; and though his close-shaven hair was
beginning to turn grey, his black eye had a brilliancy full of youth and
intelligence.
Contrary to the habits of Mexican general officers, who, under all
circumstances, make a great display of embroidery, and are gilded and
plumed like charlatans, his uniform had a simplicity and severity which
added to his military appearance, and gave him that aspect of reflection
and majesty which is so befitting the chief of an army.
A sabre and a pair of holster pistols were carelessly thrown across a
map on the table in the centre of the room, over which the General
frequently bent in his agitated walk. The gallop of a horse, at first
distant, but which rapidly drew nearer, was heard. The sentinel outside
the tent challenged, "Who goes there?"
The horseman stopped, leapt to the ground, and a moment later the
curtain of the tent was thrust aside, and a man appeared.
It was Captain Don Juan Melendez.
"Here you are, at last!" the General exclaimed, as his countenance grew
brighter.
But on noticing the impression of sorrow spread over the officer's
features, the General, who had walked two steps toward him, stopped, and
his face again assumed an anxious look.
"Oh, oh!" he said, "What can have happened? Captain, has any mishap
occurred to the conducta?"
The officer bowed his head.
"What is the meaning of this, Caballero?" the General continued,
angrily; "Have you suddenly grown dumb?"
The Captain made an effort. "No, General," he answered.
"The conducta! Where is the conducta?" he went on, violently.
"Captured!" Don Juan replied, in a hollow voice.
"Viva Dios!" the General shouted, as he gave him a terrible glance, and
stamped his foot: "The conducta captured, and yourself alive to bring me
the news?"
"I could not get myself killed."
"I really believe, Heaven pardon me!" the General said, ironically,
"that you have not even received a scratch."
"It is true."
The General walked up and down the tent in the utmost agitation. "And
your soldiers, Caballero," he went on, a minute later, stopping before
the officer, "I suppose they fled at the first shot?"
"My soldiers are dead, General."
"What do you say?"
"I say, General, that my soldiers fell to the last man defending the
trust confided to their honour."
"Hum, hum!" the General remarked, "Are they all dead?"
"Yes, General, all lie in a bloody grave; I am the only survivor of
fifty brave and devoted men."
There was a second silence. The General knew the Captain too well to
doubt his courage and honour. He began to suspect a mystery.
"But I sent you a guide," he at length said.
"Yes, General, and it was that guide who led us into the trap laid by
the insurgents."
"A thousand demons! If the scoundrel----"
"He is dead," the Captain interrupted him, "I killed him."
"Good. But there is something about the affair I cannot understand."
"General," the young man exclaimed, with some animation, "though the
conducta is lost, the fight was glorious for the Mexican name. Our
honour has not suffered; we were crushed by numbers."
"Come, Captain, you are one of those men above suspicion, whom not the
slightest stain can affect. If necessary, I would give bail for your
loyalty and bravery before the world. Report to me frankly, and without
any beating round the bush, all that has happened, and I will believe
you; give me the fullest details about this action, in order that I may
know whether I have to pity or punish you."
"Listen, then, General. But I swear to you that if after my report the
slightest doubt remains in your heart as to my honour and the devotion
of my soldiers, I will blow out my brains in your presence."
"Speak first, Caballero, we will see afterwards what your best course
should be."
The Captain bowed, and began an exact report of what had taken place.