Ideologically, the revolution was American- and European-inspired since it was focused on freedom and equality. The goal of this conflict was in a major sense Utopian. But it lacked intellectual leadership: a Napoleon, to serve as figurehead. Under a single military leadership the revolution might have been shortened, saving thousands of lives. Following the collapse of the Porfirio Díaz regime, leaders tottered like dominos, and local revolts involved years of quixotic terrorism.
Zapata, Villa, Madero, Carranza, Huerta, and Obregón attempted to form a government or attempted to attain power for the sake of power. Greed and chicanery took their toll. Almost every community felt the impact as governments failed. The Church did its best to retain the feudalism of the hacienda; hacendados, lobbying in the capital, attempted to retain their old status.
Zapata and Villa joined forces briefly, because they sought the same goal. They met in Mexico City but could not reach an accord or coordinate their military "hordes." While they held the capital under their control, they dreamed of power, and yet it is doubtful whether either man thought constructively of the future of the nine million peasants remaining on the haciendas, earning from nothing to thirty cents a day. Suspecting betrayal, both men returned to their native regions.
Villa raided most of the northern states. His armed forces sometimes had an international character with a menagerie of professional adventurers: Tom Mix, Pascual Orozco, Óscar Creighton, Guiseppe Garibaldi, Tracy Richardson, and Hector Worden, the first American barnstormer to participate in armed hostilities. Villa, as military governor of Chihuahua, stripped the fourteen haciendas of the Terrazas family, haciendas totaling 17 million acres. His cronies hanged Terrazas until he revealed where cash was concealed.
Both Villa and Zapata were known as "horse bandits"—through robbery they financed their troops or buried their loot for tomorrow. Sonorans and Chihuahuans winked at the entierros (loot) they concealed in Sierra Madre caves. Villa and Zapata commanded thousands—killed thousands.
Reed, in his book Insurgent Mexico, describes the fighting at the Hacienda Santa Clara: