HUGHES, WILLIAM MORRIS “Pancho” Villa, Emiliano Zapata, and ÁLVARO OBREGÓN. Huerta also acquired a powerful adversary in American president WOODROW WILSON, who abhorred Madero’s murder. Wilson immediately recalled his ambassador from Mexico City and thereafter refused to extend diplomatic recognition. In April 1914, Wilson used the detention of American sailors in Veracruz as a pretext to bombard and seize the town, infringing upon Huerta’s ability to import foreign arms. But if by seizing Veracruz Wilson hoped to reduce support for Huerta, he sadly miscalculated. This overt aggression rekindled simmering resentments against the United States, and thousands of Mexicans suddenly flocked to Huerta’s army. Huerta then simply took his new recruits and deployed them against Constitutionalist armies advancing from the north. At length Huerta confronted enemy forces on four fronts and lacked the resources and popular support to contain them. By July 1914 his forces were badly defeated outside Mexico City, and he decided to flee the country. Huerta exiled himself in London and Barcelona before relocating to the United States in March 1915. With German backing, he hoped to raise an insurgent force from anti-Carranzista forces and resume fighting. But on June 27, 1915, Huerta was arrested and detained by American authorities in El Paso, Texas. He died while in their custody on January 13, 1916, possibly from cirrhosis of the liver. Historians regard his administration as something of an aberration, for he was devoid of any ideals associated with the Mexican revolution. Huerta’s tenure in office was simply a power-grabbing interlude displaying no political or social merit. Further Reading Benjamin, Thomas. La Revolución: Mexico’s Great Revolution in Memory, Myth, and History. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. Foreman, Michael A. “A Storm over Veracruz.” American History Illustrated 29, no. 1 (1994): 28–37, 72. Gonzalez, Michael J. The Mexican Revolution, 1910–1940. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002. Henderson, Paul V. N. “Woodrow Wilson, Victoriano Huerta, and the Recognition Issue in Mexico.” Americas 41, no. 2 (1984): 151–176. Meyer, Michael C. Huerta: a Political Portrait. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972.
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Torres, Mark A. “Victoriano Huerta and the Conspiracy of 1915.” Unpublished master’s thesis. University of Texas–El Paso, 1997.
Hughes, William Morris (1862–1952) prime minister of Australia William Morris Hughes was born in London, England, on September 25, 1862, the son of Welsh working-class parents. He immigrated to Australia in 1884, worked at several odd jobs, and began organizing maritime workers. Hughes joined the Labor Party and was elected to the New South Wales Assembly in 1894; he held this seat for the next 50 years. After 1901 Hughes functioned within the new, federal House of Representatives and, to make himself more politically competitive, he studied law and was admitted to the bar. As a politician Hughes was stridently loyal to Labor principles, although his forceful, prickly disposition occasioned him many enemies. He nonetheless performed competently as minister for external affairs under Prime Minister John Watson in 1904 and subsequently served as attorney general three times under Andrew Fisher. In October 1915, after Fisher resigned from office to serve as high commissioner in England, Hughes became both party leader and prime minister. Australia was then embroiled in World War I, a conflict resulting in heavy loss of life to Commonwealth forces. Hughes nonetheless remained fully committed to the British Empire, and in January 1916 he visited England as part of the United Kingdom War Cabinet. However, trouble was brewing at home between the prime minister and his party over the issue of conscription. Hughes wanted to draft Australian men for service in Europe and the Middle East, but the Labor Party, consisting mostly of Irish workers with little sympathy for England, refused to support him. Hughes decided to put the issue through a public referendum, which was defeated, and his strident behavior so estranged fellow Labor members that they ejected him from the party. Angered by what he considered betrayal, Hughes quickly shuffled conservative Labor members into a new Nationalist Party. He then fashioned a coalition with the Liberal (actually conservative) Party and continued on in office. Determined to assist England, he put through another conscription referendum in December 1917, which was again rejected. Despite this national reluctance to deploy manpower abroad, Australian troops rendered sterling