Pancho Villa (5 June 1878 – 20 July 1923), born Doroteo Arango, was a Mexican revolutionary general who commanded the Division del Norte in the northern state of Chihuahua during the Mexican Revolution. Villa ended conventional warfare after his 1915 defeat at the Battle of Celaya, moving on to become a raider and a bandit. Adventurers from the United States joined him, and the US Army failed to track him down in 1917. He would ultimately be assassinated in Parral, Chihuahua in 1923.
Biography[]
Born Doroteo Arango, Francisco "Pancho" Villa lived as a bandit in northern Mexico. He led his outlaws in support of the overthrow of dictator Porfirio Diaz in 1910 and participated in the many-sided conflicts that followed. Villa was a charismatic leader whose Division del Norte attracted adventurous volunteers from the United States. He fought the brutal General Victoriano Huerta, winning a series of victories, notably at Tierra Blanca in November 1913, and riding into Mexico City in December 1914.
The following year, Villa clashed with former allies Venustiano Carranza and Alvaro Obregon. He turned his ire upon the United States, which had backed Carranza and Obregon. In March 1916, he sent 500 men across the border to raid Columbus, New Mexico, fighting a sharp engagement with US cavalry. The United States responded with a punitive expedition, in which General John J. Pershing led 10,000 troops into Mexico to search for Villa. They failed to find him, and Pershing complained that he had been "outwitted and out-bluffed". Villa was assassinated in 1923.
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