WAR DESIRED BY MEXICO

The strongest basis of hope for effective aid from abroad was, however, none of these considerations, but our dispute with England over Oregon. In January, 1846, Bankhead and Slidell agreed that Mexico’s policy toward the United States would depend mainly or wholly upon the outcome of that issue, and to the Mexican eye the outcome was already clear. Each country had rejected the proposition of the other, and Polk’s Message of December 2, 1845, committed him afresh to an extreme position. The course of England tended to confirm the natural inference. Her perfectly excusable intention was to hold the Mexicans ready to coöperate with her, should war become her programme, while restraining them from engaging us alone. Bankhead replied with an encouraging vagueness to Mexican hints that British assistance was desired, and Lord Aberdeen talked with the Mexican agent at London of a possible alliance against us. Indeed that agent reported that he believed Aberdeen would like to see Mexico fight the United States and win.[26]

For superficial, touch-and-go people here was enough to build upon, and the long entertained hopes of British aid struck root anew. January 14, 1846, our minister Slidell stated that the idea of an approaching conflict over the Oregon question was assiduously nursed, and seventeen days later the correspondent of the London Times reported, that it had become a general conviction. Aberdeen’s possible alliance seemed therefore like a certainty, and he himself admitted to our minister at London that Mexico had counted upon a war over Oregon. With France, as we know, Mexico did not stand on the best of terms at this juncture; but in addition to the other reasons for looking to her, Guizot and Louis Philippe were strongly pro-English, and in fact, so Bankhead reported, Paredes hoped for assistance from that country also.[27]

From high to low, as we have learned, the Mexicans were inveterate gamblers, passionately fond of calculating probabilities and accepting chances, and a situation like this appealed most fascinatingly to their instincts and their habits. But in the eyes of many—indeed most, it is likely—the outlook seemed more than promising. Vain and superficial, they did not realize their weaknesses. “We could not be in a better state for war,” the Diario announced in March, 1845. If any one thought of the empty treasury, he assured himself that patriotism and the boundless natural wealth of the country would afford resources. Enthusiasm would supply everything, it was believed. Equally unable were the Mexicans to perceive the frailty of their hopes for European aid. With few exceptions they saw through a veil, darkly. Even Almonte, a military man and better acquainted with the United States than any other prominent citizen, assured his government that in such a conflict the triumph of Mexico would be “certain.”[28]

Here and there one doubted. Some drew back. But the nation as a whole—if Mexico really was a nation—felt convinced that pride and passion could safely be indulged. We shall dictate our own terms, thought many. At any rate, argued others, our honor will be vindicated by a brilliant stroke beyond the Rio Grande; European intervention will then occur; the United States will have to pay a round sum for Texas; and we shall obtain a fixed boundary, guaranteed by the leading powers of Europe, that will serve as an everlasting dike against American aggression. The press clamored for war; the government was deeply committed to that policy; and the great majority of those who counted for anything, panting feverishly, though with occasional shivers, to fight the United States, were passionately determined that no amicable and fair adjustment of the pending difficulties should be made.[28]

“For us [Mexicans],” Roa Bárcena admitted, “the war was a fact after Shannon’s declarations of October, 1844, and the fact was confirmed by the admission of Texas to the North-American Union.” “Since the usurpation of Texas no arrangement, no friendly settlement has been possible,” said La Reforma. Besides, a faith in eventual triumph, strong enough to survive a series of disasters, burned in the heart of the nation. The Mexican correspondent of the Prussian minister at Washington—regarded by our secretary of war as entirely trustworthy—reported that the people were bent upon war. But for the procrastination and vanity of Mexico, no conflict would have occurred, said J. F. Ramírez, who stood high among the best public men of that country. “The idea of peace was not popular,” states one Mexican historian; the nation was responsible for the war, confess others. Mexico desired it, admitted Santa Anna in 1847 and the minister of relations in 1849, both speaking officially.[28]

VI
THE AMERICAN ATTITUDE ON THE EVE OF WAR
1845

In the United States a strong feeling against the dominant elements in Mexico had been created by events that did not directly concern us. The atrocious massacres perpetrated at Goliad and the Alamo during the Texan struggle for independence made an indelible impression on the public mind. Said Buchanan on the floor of the American Senate: “I shall never forget the deep, the heart-rending sensations of sorrow and of indignation” which pervaded this body when we first heard of Santa Anna’s “inhuman butcheries.” The decimating of Texan prisoners for trying to escape from their guards, as they had a perfect right to do, and the cruelties, or at least excessive hardships, which they were made to suffer in confinement, deepened the feeling. The official threats of ruthless war and even extermination against the Texans, and the belief that Indians were incited to fall upon their women and children, sharpened it still more. In 1844 one Sentmanat went from New Orleans to Tabasco on a revolutionary mission but was unsuccessful; and his party surrendered to the Mexican leader, General Ampudia, on the promise of good treatment. Most of the men, however, were shot; the rest of them disappeared in prison; Sentmanat was summarily executed; and his head, fried in oil to make it last longer, became the chief decoration of the public square at San Juan Bautista.[1]