The Mexican War

[HPL]

I was recently reading some web pages about the Mexican War while having a dicussion with a friend about “Wars the US has lost”.

I found it very interesting in that the Americans were rather green and had far less numbers then their Mexican counterparts, they managed to push into Mexico with quite a few victories, ending the war rather quickly.

So, exactly why did the Americans prevail in the Mexican War? The biggest factor the American Military seemed to have in it’s favor was that the Mexican Government seemed rather fragmented and ineffectual.

Do I have this wrong? Could somebody enlighten me?

[GIGObuster]

Many factors were involved, but one big reason was internal disagreements due to social unrest:

Retired Site | PBS

From then on, a potential social upheaval, similar to the one championed by Hidalgo, was always latent. Therefore, no matter how many proposals of popular support for particular political programs, such initiatives were systematically rejected. The same thing happened in the middle of the war with the United States. Among others, Melchor Ocampo, who years later would excel as one of the main liberal ideologists of the Reform, proposed arming the civil population en mass, in order to beat the North American army in a guerrilla war.

Such proposals were rejected, considering that after eliminating the foreign enemy, the lower class masses, clearly the majority, could threaten the established social order. Therefore, the choice was to suffer and sacrifice whatever was necessary…even civil war caused by the Polko rebellion and, of course, a huge territorial loss…rather than endanger the continuation of that social order.
……

However, the fundamental difference between the two nations is that in the case of the United States, such disagreements did not have any influence on the development (and final outcome) of the military campaigns against Mexico. In the case of Mexico, on the other hand, in at least two instances (La Angostura and Padierna) the internal disagreements had a direct influence in the outcome of both battles. In other words, the deep dissensions among the Mexicans prevented them from creating a united front before a common enemy.

In the documentary, one of the big disagreements was between General Santa Anna and the Mexican Catholic Church. The church had more power then, and did not trust Santa Anna.

Retired Site | PBS

Check the site for more info, and see if you can find the documentary at your local library.

[ColonelDax]

As far as purely military factors, the Mexican War was yet another example of how superior training, organization and equipment can enable a numerically smaller army to defeat a larger one, a not uncommon phenomenon in military history.

[smiling_bandit]

Lets no forget leadership: the US had some good generals then, and a lot of the JO’s in that war went on to become great leaders in the Civil War, including Grant and Lee.