Marines in Vera Cruz Was a Tipping Point

Contemporaries gave President Woodrow Wilson high marks for having the courage of his convictions. They differed over the wisdom of those convictions. Among the most controversial was Wilson’s certainty that he possessed the moral authority to evict General Victoriano Huerta from the presidency of Mexico. A tough, hard-drinking old soldier, Huerta had seized power in February 1913 through a bloody coup d’état. His predecessor, Francesco I. Madero, Mexico’s first democratically elected president, was arrested and shortly thereafter shot, ostensibly while attempting to escape. When Wilson was inaugurated as president of the United States a month later, his agenda included a firm resolve to force Huerta out of office. The new president did not intend to employ military means, as he felt sure that “the steady pressure of moral force” would suffice. The result was the largest landing operation conducted by the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps between the Spanish-American War and World War II.1