Propagandists in our neighbor republic added fuel to the already brisk flame of native hostility to the Yankee. A considerable German commercial colony grew up, assimilated the language and customs of Mexico, and bade fair to be a strong competitor in the development of the huge natural resources waiting there for foreign capital. By 1914 Germany had evidently expected to be in a position sufficiently strong to enlist Mexico on her side in case the United States gave trouble. The reader will recall that Admiral von Hintze in the summer of 1914 had recommended Captain von Papen for a decoration for having organized a fair military unit of the Germans in Mexico. That same summer, however, saw Mexico with troubles of her own, and German efforts against the United States through Mexico had to be postponed.
Early in 1914 General Huerta, an unscrupulous, powerful and dissolute factionist, had executed a coup d'etat which placed him in the president's chair. He at once advertised for bids. The United States had no intention of protecting him, and in order to stop at its source any trouble which might prove too attractive to a foreign power, placed an embargo upon the shipment of American arms into Mexico. The American fleet was despatched to Vera Cruz to see that the order was carried out. The steamship Ypiranga, with a cargo of arms, succeeded in eluding the fleet, and under orders from the German admiral, and the direction of Karl Heynen, the arms were landed.
Huerta had promised the presidency to Felix Diaz. In order to get him out of the way he sent Diaz to negotiate a Japanese understanding. The United States gently diverted Señor Diaz from his mission. Huerta began to lose the grip he held; three other factionists, Villa, Carranza and Zapata, each at the head of an army, were aiming at his head, and shortly before the world went to war the old rogue fled to Barcelona.
There Rintelen negotiated with him in February, 1915, and out of their conferences grew a plan to restore him to the Mexican presidency. This plan would have meant war between Mexico and the United States, which was precisely what von Rintelen and his Wilhelmstrasse friends desired: American forces would have to be mobilized at the Rio Grande, and American munitions, destined for the Allies, would have to be commandeered and diverted to Mexico.
The aged general arrived in New York in April, and was interviewed and photographed. He told the public through the newspapers that he proposed to acquire an estate on Long Island and the public considered it not inauspicious that the veteran warrior should have come to pass the remainder of his stormy life in the world's most peaceful country. Fortunately for the peace of the United States not every one believed him.
Within a week of his arrival von Rintelen slipped into New York. He placed in the Havana branch of the Deutsches Bank and in banks in Mexico City some $800,000 to Huerta's credit, and within a short time the political jackals who lived on foreign subsidy began to prick up their ears. Von Papen and Boy-Ed had made trips to the Mexican border, arranging through their consular agents in the Mexican towns across the river the mobilization of Germans in Mexico, the storing of supplies and ammunition, and the deposit of funds in banks at Brownsville, El Paso, San Antonio and Douglas. Not all Mexicans in the United States were Huertistas, however, and one Raphael Nieto, Assistant-Secretary of Finance to Carranza, was quite as eager to follow Huerta's activities as were the agents of the United States. The Carranzistas joined forces with the Secret Service and found out that the plot had already begun to develop.
During the month of May, Huerta frequently met a member of the German Embassy at the Hotel McAlpin. Von Rintelen was clever enough not to negotiate in person, but he dined frequently with the Embassy member. Much of what had occurred at these conferences in the McAlpin was known to government agents, who had been concealed where they could take notes on the conversation. On June 1, 1915, General Huerta, with Jose Ratner, his "financial adviser," held a conference in the Holland House with a former Huertista cabinet minister, a son of the Mexican general, Angeles, and certain other personages who purposed to take part in the revolution for the sake of this world. One of the men present was a Carranza spy, and through him it became known that Huerta outlined that he had ten millions of dollars for immediate use in a plot to restore him to his former position, twice that sum in reserve, and that more would be forthcoming if necessary. Arms and ammunition, he said, would be shipped into Mexico secretly, supplies would be accumulated at certain border towns, and envoys had already been sent to incite desertion from the armies of Carranza and Villa.
Rintelen did not know that the Carranzistas had sold out to the authorities. Rintelen had already purchased some $3,000,000 worth of arms and cartridges, and he was prepared to see the enterprise to a successful conclusion. Incidentally he was quietly supplying six other Mexican factions with funds in case Huerta's measure of success should prove too intoxicating.
Because he was a figure of considerable international notoriety and indisputable news interest, the press had been following Huerta's movements with strict attention. Affairs at the border were not reassuring and there persisted the feeling that Huerta in the United States held promise of Huerta once more in Mexico. In July, his agent, Ratner, issued the following frank though apparently ingenious statement:
"General Huerta and those of us associated with him are confident that the whole Mexican situation will be cleared up within ninety days. We believe that to rule the country is a one-man job. And in that time we expect that one man to come forward and unite the country. General Huerta does not care to indicate the man he has in mind, but he is from our viewpoint a true patriot, and naturally that excludes both Carranza and Villa.