The battle at Bachimba must have swelled this budget. During this one day's fight nearly two million rifle cartridges and more than 10,000 artillery projectiles were fired away by the Federals. Huerta's twenty pieces of field artillery, neatly posted in a straight line on the open plain, barely half a mile away from his ammunition railway train, kept firing at the supposed rebel positions all day long without any appreciable interruption, and all day long the artillery caissons and limbers kept trotting to and fro between the batteries and ammunition cars. Orozco had but 3,000 men with two pieces of so-called artillery, with gun barrels improvised from railroad axles, so he once more ordered a general retreat by way of his railroad trains, waiting at a convenient distance on a bend of the road behind the intervening hills. As at Rellano, at Conejos, and at other places in the campaign where the railroad swept in big bends around the hills, no attempt was made on the Federal side to cut off the rebels' retreat by short-cut flanking movements of cavalry, of which Huerta had more than he could conveniently use, or chose to use. The whole ten hours' bombardment and rifle fire resulted in but fourteen dead rebels; but it won the campaign for the Government, and earned for Huerta his promotion to Major-General besides the proud title of "Hero of Bachimba."
President Madero and his anxious Government associates were more than glad to receive the tidings of this "decisive victory." The only trouble was that it did not decide anything in particular. Orozco and his followers, while evacuating the capital of Chihuahua, kept on wrecking railway property between Chihuahua City and Juarez, and the campaign kept growing more expensive every day.
It took Huerta from July until August to work his slow way from the center of Chihuahua to Ciudad Juarez on the northern frontier. Before he reached this goal, though, the rebels had split into many smaller detachments, some of which cut his communications in the rear, while others harried his flanks with guerrilla tactics and threatened to carry the "war" into the neighboring State of Sonora. So far as the trouble and expense to the Federal Government was concerned this guerrilla warfare was far worse than the preceding slow but sure railway campaign. General Huerta himself, who was threatened with the loss of his eyesight from cataract, gave up trying to pursue the fleeing rebel detachments in person, but kept close to his comfortable headquarters in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua City. This unsatisfactory condition of affairs gave promise of enduring indefinitely, until President Madero in Mexico City, whose Government had to bear the financial brunt of it all, suddenly lost his patience and recalled Huerta to the capital, leaving the command in General Rabago's hands.
For reasons that were never quite fathomed by Madero's Government, Huerta took his time about obeying these orders. Thus, he lingered first at Ciudad Juarez, then at Chihuahua City, then at Santa Rosalía, next at Jimenez, and presently at Torreon, where he remained for over a week, apparently sulking in his tent like Achilles. This gave rise to grave suspicions, and rumors flew all over Mexico that Huerta was about to make common cause with Orozco. President Madero himself, at this time, told a friend of mine that he was afraid Huerta was going to turn traitor. About the same time, at a diplomatic reception, President Madero stated openly to Ambassador Wilson that he had reasons to suspect Huerta's loyalty. At length, however, General Huerta appeared at the capital, and after a somewhat chilly interview with the President, obtained a suspension from duty so that he might have his eyes treated by a specialist.
Thus it happened that Huerta, who was nearly blind then, escaped being drawn into the sudden military movements that grew out of General Felix Diaz's unexpected revolt and temporary capture of the port of Vera Cruz last October.
General Huerta's part in Felix Diaz's second revolution, four months later, is almost too recent to have been forgotten. He was the senior ranking general at the capital when the rebellion broke out, and was summoned to his post of duty by President Madero from the very first. He accompanied Madero in his celebrated ride from Chapultepec Castle to the National Palace on the morning of the first day of the famous "Ten Days," and was put in supreme command of the forces of the Government after the first hurried council of war. President Madero, totally lacking in military professional knowledge as he was, confided the entire conduct of the necessary war measures to General Huerta; but it soon became apparent that the old General either could not or would not direct any energetic offensive movement against the rebels. From the very first the Government committed the fatal blunder of letting the rebels slowly proceed to the Citadel—a fortified military arsenal—the retention of which was of paramount importance, without even attempting to intercept their roundabout march or to frustrate their belated entry into the poorly guarded Citadel. Later, when it became clear that the rebels could not be dislodged from this stronghold by street rushes, no attempt was made to shell them out of their strong position by a high-angle bombardment of plunging explosive shells.
After it was all over General Huerta explained the ill-success of his military measures during the ten days' street-fighting by saying that President Madero was a madman who had spoiled all Huerta's military plans and measures by utterly impracticable counter-orders. At the time, though, it was given out officially that Huerta had been placed in absolute, unrestricted command. When the American Ambassador, toward the close of the long bombardment, appealed to President Madero to remove some Federal batteries, the fire from which threatened the foreign quarter of Mexico City, President Madero replied that he had nothing to do with the military dispositions, and referred the Ambassador to General Huerta, who promptly acceded to the request. On another occasion, later in the bombardment, when Madero insisted that the Federal artillery should use explosive shells against the Citadel, General Huerta did not hesitate to take it upon himself to countermand the President's suggestions to Colonel Navarrete, the Federal chief of artillery. Afterward General Navarrete admitted in a speech at a military banquet that his Federal artillery "could have reduced the Citadel in short order had this really been desired."
Whether General Huerta was really able to win or not is beside the issue, since the final turn of events plainly revealed that his heart was not in the fight, and that he was only waiting for a favorable moment to turn against Madero. Before General Blanquet with his supposed relief column was allowed to enter the city, General Huerta had a private conference with Blanquet. This conference sealed Madero's doom. Later, after Blanquet's forces had been admitted to the Palace, on Huerta's assurances to the President that Blanquet was loyal to the Government, it was agreed between the two generals that Blanquet should make sure of the person of the President, while Huerta would personally capture the President's brother, Gustavo, with whom he was to dine that day. The plot was carried out to the letter.
When Huerta put Gustavo Madero under arrest, still sitting at the table where Huerta had been his guest, Huerta sought to palliate his action by claiming that Gustavo Madero had tried to poison him by putting "knock-out" drops into Huerta's after-dinner brandy. At the same time Huerta claimed that President Madero had tried to have him assassinated, on the day before, by leading Huerta to a window in the Palace, which an instant afterward was shattered by a rifle bullet from outside.
Neither of the two prisoners ever had a chance to defend themselves against these charges, for Gustavo Madero on the night following his arrest was shot to death by a squad of soldiers in the garden of the Citadel, and President Madero met a similar fate a few nights afterward. General Huerta, who by this time had got himself officially recognized as President, gave out an official statement from the Palace pretending that Gustavo Madero had lost his life while attempting to escape, and that his brother, the President, had been accidentally shot by some of his own friends who were trying to rescue him from his guard.