Obregon summarized the battle in a long telegram to Crrranza: ‘Doroteo Arango (alias Francisco Villa), with forty-two of his so-called generals and more than thirty thousand men of the three arms…opened fire at six P.M. of the 13th…More than thirty guns have been collected on the battlefield, in perfect condition, with ammunition and draft animals; around five thousand Mausers, about eight thousand prisoners, a great number of horses with saddles, and other equipment.’ The following day, the commander reported that his troops had counted four thousand Villistas dead on the battlefield, including three ex-Federal generals; Constitutionalist casualties were 138 killed and 276 wounded.

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There were other battle casualties. The Conventionalist government, revealed as a tragic farce by Zapita’s failure to support Villa, was dead. Villa’s reputation of invicibility was shattered, and his commanders began to change sides and his troops to desert. Villa’s credibility was another casualty, as Villista pesos, worth fifth U.S. cents before Celaya, rapidly dwindled to five cents, and American munitions suppliers raised prices and demanded cash. By rising to Obregon’s challenge and fighting at Celaya, Villa also failed to capture the Tampico oil region, as Felipe Angeles had advised, and he was running out of exports as well as cash. Now, defeat would follow defeat. By 1916 Pancho Villa would be leading only a few hundred guerrillas. An outlaw hunted by mexican and American forces, he was more a nuisance than a serious threat to the Constitutionalist government.

The winners of Celaya were the Constitutionalist government, which would survive as the foundation of Mexico’s political system — for better or for worse — until December 2000, and Alvaro Obregon, who became the pre-eminent hero of the revolution. His political plans succeeded, like his business and military plans, and he occupied the presidential chair from 1920 to ‘24, but in 1928 he was assassinated, as had been Zapata (1919), Carranza (1920), and Villa (1923).

It remained, ironically, for Villa’s longtime henchman, the sinister Roberto Fierro, to make perhaps the most perceptive — certainly the pithiest — assessment of the Celaya commanders. Pancho Villa, he said, was ‘the greatested warrior in the world,’ but Alvaro Obregon was ‘the greatest Mexican general.’

This article was written by Ronald R. Gilliam and originally published in the Spring 2003 edition of MHQ.

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