What do you think?
Rate this book
The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution
In this timely historical study, Katz details the overt and covert activities by which the governments, intelligence agencies, and business interests of other nations sought to influence the course of events of the Mexican Revolution. In unearthing the startling stories of intrigue and derring-do told here, the author has, for the first time, made full use of German, Austrian, French, Cuban, Mexican Spanish, and British sources, as well as recently declassified material from the United States.
After 1867, the fight for predominance in Mexico by the European powers took place principally in the economic arena until the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910. From then until the beginning of World War I, diplomatic activity took center stage. During the war, however, secret diplomacy, espionage, diversion, and sabotage prevailed—activities which constituted a "secret war."
Katz particularly emphasizes the role Germany played in this secret war, and skillfully demonstrates how the history of German-Mexican relations requires at each stage a reinterpretation of the behavior of the other great powers. The comprehensive approach to the rivalries and competition of foreign interests in Mexico is thus combined with an analysis of the effects these factors had on the internal politics of the Mexican Revolution. This world contributes not only to the reinterpretation of Mexican history but also to the diplomatic history of the First World War.
After 1867, the fight for predominance in Mexico by the European powers took place principally in the economic arena until the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910. From then until the beginning of World War I, diplomatic activity took center stage. During the war, however, secret diplomacy, espionage, diversion, and sabotage prevailed—activities which constituted a "secret war."
Katz particularly emphasizes the role Germany played in this secret war, and skillfully demonstrates how the history of German-Mexican relations requires at each stage a reinterpretation of the behavior of the other great powers. The comprehensive approach to the rivalries and competition of foreign interests in Mexico is thus combined with an analysis of the effects these factors had on the internal politics of the Mexican Revolution. This world contributes not only to the reinterpretation of Mexican history but also to the diplomatic history of the First World War.
656 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
15 people are currently reading
275 people want to read
About the author
Friedrich Katz
32 books13 followersC. Friedrich Katz was an Austrian-born anthropologist and historian specialized in 19th and 20th century history of Latin America; particularly, in the Mexican Revolution.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 13, 2024
From 1910 until 1920, Mexico experienced a series of civil wars that profoundly transformed the country’s social and political structures. Yet while predominantly an event shaped by the internal conflicts facing the nation, the Mexican Revolution, as the period came to be called, was also one in which foreign interests were regularly engaged in efforts to influence developments. It is this aspect of the Mexican Revolution that is the subject of Friedrich Katz’s book. In it, he recounts the attempts by both Western governments and business interests to intervene in the conflict, the goals they pursued, and how the clash between them shaped events not just in Mexico, but in the world more generally. In the process, he describes not only the efforts by external powers to exploit the turmoil within Mexico, but how the events of the revolution shaped international affairs during one of the pivotal decades in world history.
Katz’s begins his book by summarizing both the foreign presence in Mexico in the years leading up to the revolution and the sequence of events that led to its outbreak. This underscores how the two were intertwined, as for decades the ruling regime of Porfirio Díaz had encouraged foreign investment in their country. This stimulated economic development, yet the expanding middle class and the growing labor movement were frustrated by their lack of commensurate political power or social standing. When combined with agrarian discontent in several states, the mixture was explosive enough to bring about Díaz’s downfall in 1911.
The collapse of the Porfirian regime took place during a time of growing rivalry between various economic powers for influence in Mexico. Foremost among them was the United States, whose proximity and economic growth gave it enormous influence in Mexican affairs. To offset this, Mexican leaders encouraged investment from other countries, most notably Great Britain and Germany. Katz notes that these interests were not always in opposition to one another, and often supported common goals, such as the restoration of stability once fighting broke out. Yet their governments were wary of developments that favored the interests of one of them over those of the others. Thus, while the major powers were united in their opposition to Díaz’s successor, Francisco Madero, the perception of Madero’s replacement, Victoriano Huerta, as a tool of American interests led to a divide between these groups. No country wanted to see any of the others emerge as the primary beneficiary of the turmoil.
Nevertheless, when it came to influencing events the United States enjoyed a considerable advantage over their European competitors, which they exerted through a succession of military interventions. While these did not always achieve the outcome American officials desired, they personified an ability to influence events denied to the European powers. This especially proved true once the First World War broke out, and European interests in Mexico were subordinated to their respective nation’s need to win the war. This sharpened the competition between the various powers, as they sought to leverage events in Mexico in order to win an advantage in their own conflict.
Mexicans were far from pawns in this clash of interests. Katz emphasizes throughout his text how Mexican leaders exploited international interests to their own advantage. This particularly benefited Germany, who during the First World War seemed the only power positioned to offset American influence. The Germans sought to exploit this advantage by turning the Mexican Revolution into a war between Mexico and the United States, an effort that nearly succeeded before the Wilson administration decided to withdraw the Punitive Expedition on the eve of their entry into the war. As an effort to revive the prospect of such an entanglement by provoking the new president, Venustiano Carranza, into attacking the United States, the Zimmerman telegram represented a last-ditch effort to revive this option, only for it to backfire with the note’s interception by British intelligence and its release to the Americans.
Despite Carranza’s success in navigating between the twin perils of German exploitation and American dominance, Mexico again faced the possibility of a military intervention after the Armistice, when bankers and oil executives sought to impose a settlement that would award them greater control over the country’s resources. Katz gives Carranza considerable credit for maintaining Mexico’s sovereignty throughout this period, which was no easy feat considering the challenges he describes. These he details by drawing upon the archival holdings of eight countries, which he uses to reconstruct shadowy activities, shifting policies, and complex responses to a chaotic situation. Better editing could have addressed the repetitiveness of the details and the author’s tendency to lose the thread of his narrative that occurs in the text. Yet these issues in no way detract from the scope of his achievement with this book. Despite its age, Katz’s book has yet to be surpassed as an examination of the role foreign powers played in the Mexican Revolution, and is necessary reading for anyone interested the revolution or the international politics of the era more generally.
Katz’s begins his book by summarizing both the foreign presence in Mexico in the years leading up to the revolution and the sequence of events that led to its outbreak. This underscores how the two were intertwined, as for decades the ruling regime of Porfirio Díaz had encouraged foreign investment in their country. This stimulated economic development, yet the expanding middle class and the growing labor movement were frustrated by their lack of commensurate political power or social standing. When combined with agrarian discontent in several states, the mixture was explosive enough to bring about Díaz’s downfall in 1911.
The collapse of the Porfirian regime took place during a time of growing rivalry between various economic powers for influence in Mexico. Foremost among them was the United States, whose proximity and economic growth gave it enormous influence in Mexican affairs. To offset this, Mexican leaders encouraged investment from other countries, most notably Great Britain and Germany. Katz notes that these interests were not always in opposition to one another, and often supported common goals, such as the restoration of stability once fighting broke out. Yet their governments were wary of developments that favored the interests of one of them over those of the others. Thus, while the major powers were united in their opposition to Díaz’s successor, Francisco Madero, the perception of Madero’s replacement, Victoriano Huerta, as a tool of American interests led to a divide between these groups. No country wanted to see any of the others emerge as the primary beneficiary of the turmoil.
Nevertheless, when it came to influencing events the United States enjoyed a considerable advantage over their European competitors, which they exerted through a succession of military interventions. While these did not always achieve the outcome American officials desired, they personified an ability to influence events denied to the European powers. This especially proved true once the First World War broke out, and European interests in Mexico were subordinated to their respective nation’s need to win the war. This sharpened the competition between the various powers, as they sought to leverage events in Mexico in order to win an advantage in their own conflict.
Mexicans were far from pawns in this clash of interests. Katz emphasizes throughout his text how Mexican leaders exploited international interests to their own advantage. This particularly benefited Germany, who during the First World War seemed the only power positioned to offset American influence. The Germans sought to exploit this advantage by turning the Mexican Revolution into a war between Mexico and the United States, an effort that nearly succeeded before the Wilson administration decided to withdraw the Punitive Expedition on the eve of their entry into the war. As an effort to revive the prospect of such an entanglement by provoking the new president, Venustiano Carranza, into attacking the United States, the Zimmerman telegram represented a last-ditch effort to revive this option, only for it to backfire with the note’s interception by British intelligence and its release to the Americans.
Despite Carranza’s success in navigating between the twin perils of German exploitation and American dominance, Mexico again faced the possibility of a military intervention after the Armistice, when bankers and oil executives sought to impose a settlement that would award them greater control over the country’s resources. Katz gives Carranza considerable credit for maintaining Mexico’s sovereignty throughout this period, which was no easy feat considering the challenges he describes. These he details by drawing upon the archival holdings of eight countries, which he uses to reconstruct shadowy activities, shifting policies, and complex responses to a chaotic situation. Better editing could have addressed the repetitiveness of the details and the author’s tendency to lose the thread of his narrative that occurs in the text. Yet these issues in no way detract from the scope of his achievement with this book. Despite its age, Katz’s book has yet to be surpassed as an examination of the role foreign powers played in the Mexican Revolution, and is necessary reading for anyone interested the revolution or the international politics of the era more generally.
April 24, 2022
It’s a shame that the University of Chicago Press has allowed this book to go out of print; not even available as an e-book. It was originally published in German in 1964 and focused on Germany’s role in the Mexican Revolution. In the 1970’s, American and Mexican publishers asked the author to update the book with new research in conjunction with the preparation of English and Spanish language editions. In the process, he expanded the scope of the book to produce a detailed examination of European and US business lobbying and diplomatic maneuvering over the course of the revolution.
The result is a very detailed but fascinating history of the early 20th century’s great powers’ unceasing efforts to leverage Mexico’s instability for their own benefit. The book also delves into the flip side of this power dynamic; competing Mexican caudillos exploited the great powers’ rivalries to gain military or political advantage over one another. Professor Katz utilized private and state archives in East and West Germany, Austria, Great Britain, France, Mexico, and the US to create a fascinating behind-the-scenes diplomatic history. This is not an easy book, but readers with time and stamina will find it rewarding. The book exposes the mentality of imperialists in an age when racism was blatant, and the imperial powers looked at most of the globe as fair game for exploitation. These were practitioners of classic realpolitik, even though they were often delusional.
If you’re unfamiliar with the outlines of the decade-long Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), the book will give you a solid understanding of the competing factions: their strategies, vulnerabilities, constituencies, successes and failures. Unlike the French and Russian Revolutions, the Mexican Revolution didn’t result in significant agrarian reform or concessions to the peasantry. The elites under the deposed dictator Porfirio Diaz lost their political power but maintained their economic power. Despite a long, multi-factional civil war and extreme vulnerability to European and US power politics, Mexico managed to maintain its independence during the perilous years that straddled and overlapped WW1. The author does a good job explaining this success, which actually seems miraculous in hindsight. At the same time, by the end of the revolution, US commercial and military power had grown significantly and the Monroe Doctrine was more firmly established than ever.
Germany’s efforts to promote armed conflict between Mexico and the US in the first years of WW1 were particularly interesting, though Katz's coverage of the Zimmermann Telegram was overwhelmingly detailed and really too much for me. Other topics I found interesting included Kaiser Wilhelm’s vapid marginalia on diplomatic communications he received, US ambassador Henry Lane Wilson’s efforts to overthrow (murder) Mexico's democratically elected president Francisco Madero, the US seizure of Veracruz in 1914, Pancho Villa’s 1916 attack on Columbus (NM), and the complete absence of anything resembling idealism or morality in the diplomatic world.
The result is a very detailed but fascinating history of the early 20th century’s great powers’ unceasing efforts to leverage Mexico’s instability for their own benefit. The book also delves into the flip side of this power dynamic; competing Mexican caudillos exploited the great powers’ rivalries to gain military or political advantage over one another. Professor Katz utilized private and state archives in East and West Germany, Austria, Great Britain, France, Mexico, and the US to create a fascinating behind-the-scenes diplomatic history. This is not an easy book, but readers with time and stamina will find it rewarding. The book exposes the mentality of imperialists in an age when racism was blatant, and the imperial powers looked at most of the globe as fair game for exploitation. These were practitioners of classic realpolitik, even though they were often delusional.
If you’re unfamiliar with the outlines of the decade-long Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), the book will give you a solid understanding of the competing factions: their strategies, vulnerabilities, constituencies, successes and failures. Unlike the French and Russian Revolutions, the Mexican Revolution didn’t result in significant agrarian reform or concessions to the peasantry. The elites under the deposed dictator Porfirio Diaz lost their political power but maintained their economic power. Despite a long, multi-factional civil war and extreme vulnerability to European and US power politics, Mexico managed to maintain its independence during the perilous years that straddled and overlapped WW1. The author does a good job explaining this success, which actually seems miraculous in hindsight. At the same time, by the end of the revolution, US commercial and military power had grown significantly and the Monroe Doctrine was more firmly established than ever.
Germany’s efforts to promote armed conflict between Mexico and the US in the first years of WW1 were particularly interesting, though Katz's coverage of the Zimmermann Telegram was overwhelmingly detailed and really too much for me. Other topics I found interesting included Kaiser Wilhelm’s vapid marginalia on diplomatic communications he received, US ambassador Henry Lane Wilson’s efforts to overthrow (murder) Mexico's democratically elected president Francisco Madero, the US seizure of Veracruz in 1914, Pancho Villa’s 1916 attack on Columbus (NM), and the complete absence of anything resembling idealism or morality in the diplomatic world.
May 13, 2022
Mexico, its people, and its leaders had so many forces pressing upon them. I picture these forces like fractals, complicated and repeating. Each nation that wanted a piece of Mexico had its own internal set of forces, such as the business interests that wanted war and those that profit from peace or the military interests that as often as not conflicted with state department goals. These nations had different approaches to gaining control of Mexico: Britain targeted its influence at the oligarchs, the U.S worked to co-op the revolutionaries fighting for land reform and the poor, and Germany sought to present itself as a counterbalance to American domination with the ultimate goal of supplanting the United States' ability to hold Mexico in a state of dependency. Japan has a presence and is trying its best to be neutral yet spread its own imperial wings without creating enough disturbance to roil a conflict.
Mexico's leaders had to balance gaining recognition and investment from these different nations with not giving up sovereignty, often having to play each nation against the another without making an enemy. In turn, the internal conflicts between oligarchs and revolutionaries split off into yet more similar conflicts: oligarch against oligarch and revolutionary faction against revolutionary faction, each vying for power, position, and influence.
This is a very detailed book that is about all these forces during the Mexican Revolution and WWI. It does not cover either of those conflicts, but it does describe the anarchy that pulls the invisible strings that control the world order we think we understand.
Mexico's leaders had to balance gaining recognition and investment from these different nations with not giving up sovereignty, often having to play each nation against the another without making an enemy. In turn, the internal conflicts between oligarchs and revolutionaries split off into yet more similar conflicts: oligarch against oligarch and revolutionary faction against revolutionary faction, each vying for power, position, and influence.
This is a very detailed book that is about all these forces during the Mexican Revolution and WWI. It does not cover either of those conflicts, but it does describe the anarchy that pulls the invisible strings that control the world order we think we understand.
January 19, 2014
Valioso libro con honda investigación en los archivos de la exRepública Democrática Alemana que mostró el escarceo de los alemanes tratando de atraer a México como aliado, haciéndole la guerra EEUU con la fantasía de reintegrarle la mitad del territorio que nos habían arrebatado con la Guerra expansionista de 1847.
Carranza demostró ser muy listo y cauto para caer en sus enredos.
Por otra parte, no menos importante labor de contrainteligencia de los Británicos,al interceptar y hacere público el famoso telegrama Zimmermann enviado por el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores del Imperio Alemán, Arthur Zimmermann, el 16 de enero de 1917, al embajador alemán en México, Heinrich von Eckardt, durante la Primera Guerra Mundial. En ese telegrama se instruía al embajador para que se acercara al Gobierno mexicano con una propuesta para formar una alianza contra los Estados Unidos.
Valioso libro que me resultó de lenta lectura por la enorme cantidad de referencias bibliográficas.
Carranza demostró ser muy listo y cauto para caer en sus enredos.
Por otra parte, no menos importante labor de contrainteligencia de los Británicos,al interceptar y hacere público el famoso telegrama Zimmermann enviado por el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores del Imperio Alemán, Arthur Zimmermann, el 16 de enero de 1917, al embajador alemán en México, Heinrich von Eckardt, durante la Primera Guerra Mundial. En ese telegrama se instruía al embajador para que se acercara al Gobierno mexicano con una propuesta para formar una alianza contra los Estados Unidos.
Valioso libro que me resultó de lenta lectura por la enorme cantidad de referencias bibliográficas.
December 4, 2009
Uno de los mejores escritores de la historia de mexico, increiblemente aleman....
January 10, 2019
"...Pero el Imperio Alemán tenía otros planes más ambiciosos: ofrecer ayuda económico-militar a México para una posible invasión a Estados Unidos, sumado a la ayuda mexicana para influir en Japón, hacer que cambie de bando y forjar una alianza Japón-México-Alemania para luchar contra el enemigo común, Estados Unidos.
No sonaba mal, incluso suena mejor si consideramos todos los factores que influyeron durante la Revolución Mexicana. Sigue siendo el sueño favorito de muchos mexicanos, me incluía entre ellos. Sin embargo era necesario verlo con objetividad, y entender que México no es el centro del mundo, analizando los múltiples factores. Además los Germanos a los cuales adoro por culpa de mi germanofilia, no siempre fueron almas de la caridad y tenían los mejores planes para la nación, en el peor de los momentos eramos la carne de cañón necesaria, lo cual me hizo revalorar un poco mis filias. Es en este contexto donde Friedrich Katz hace un excelente trabajo, analizando economía, política interna y externa, situación internacional, en lo singular; embajadores, políticos, espías, revolucionarios. En lo general; la guerra mundial del fondo y las repercusiones de ciertas acciones en la guerra."
Reseña completa en: https://contraelpromediomexicano.com/...
No sonaba mal, incluso suena mejor si consideramos todos los factores que influyeron durante la Revolución Mexicana. Sigue siendo el sueño favorito de muchos mexicanos, me incluía entre ellos. Sin embargo era necesario verlo con objetividad, y entender que México no es el centro del mundo, analizando los múltiples factores. Además los Germanos a los cuales adoro por culpa de mi germanofilia, no siempre fueron almas de la caridad y tenían los mejores planes para la nación, en el peor de los momentos eramos la carne de cañón necesaria, lo cual me hizo revalorar un poco mis filias. Es en este contexto donde Friedrich Katz hace un excelente trabajo, analizando economía, política interna y externa, situación internacional, en lo singular; embajadores, políticos, espías, revolucionarios. En lo general; la guerra mundial del fondo y las repercusiones de ciertas acciones en la guerra."
Reseña completa en: https://contraelpromediomexicano.com/...
January 3, 2026
Full of details (corporations, nations manipulating Mexico, trying to gain $$ & power). Reads exactly like Vietnam in 1960s
September 30, 2014
A great book that highlights the struggle to control Mexican resources during the early 20th century. The book looks at the stromg German influence to keep the United State occupied as World War I was being fought in Europe.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews