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The German government decided in the fall of 1914 to corner the U.S. arms and ammunition market to the detriment of England and France. In New York German Military Attaché Franz von Papen and Naval Attaché Karl Boy-Ed could not think of anyone more effective and with better connections than Felix A. Sommerfeld to sell off the weapons and ammunition to Mexico. A few months later, Sommerfeld received orders to create a border incident. Tensions along the U.S. - Mexican border suddenly increased in a wave of border raids under the Plan de San Diego. When Pancho Villa attacked the town of Columbus, NM, on March 9, 1916, virtually the entire regular U.S. Army descended upon Mexico or patrolled the border. War seemed inevitable. Federal agents could not prove it, but suspected German involvement. Felix A. Sommerfeld and fellow agents had forced the hand of the U.S. government through some of the most intricate clandestine operations in the history of World War I.
When Hitler was striving for recognition and relevance in the political turmoil of the early Weimar years in Germany he gave little thought to the world on the other side of the Atlantic other than to nurture a constant nagging resentment over President Wilson’s role in the post-war evisceration of Germany at Versailles in 1919. It was the United States, however, that had bankrolled the German economy to substantially boost industrial production and employment in the 1920s and the evidence of American wealth and economic power was hard to ignore. Even when the Nazis took over in Germany after the elections of March 1933, Hitler’s narrow vision was still concentrated on consolidating his power base in Germany itself and quickly thereafter expanded to take in the countries of Eastern Europe. What impressions he had of American culture and society were encapsulated in the trivialities and stereotypes of Hollywood movies depicting the ‘wild west’ or the deprivations of the Great Depression. Despite its economic power, nothing in Hitler’s world view envisaged the United States as a potential player in European politics, but the Germans intelligence services that he inherited were not so easily convinced. They had been aware of American power and influence since before the First World War and for them, spying on the United States was nothing more than a continuation of their efforts to prevent that country thwarting German ambitions. There had been spectacular successes in the past, such as the espionage attack that had wreaked massive destruction in the Black Tom Island explosion on 30 July 1916. But overall, the German agencies had gone to great lengths and considerable expense without achieving their ambitions and failed to prevent American participation in the war. With another war in prospect, the Germans once again made plans to influence American policy and do what they could to keep their forces out of European affairs. Spying for Hitler traces the history of German espionage in the United States and describes, in detail, the personnel involved and operations they conducted all through the 1930s and early 1940s. It examines the training of German agents and the espionage techniques they employed. The way in which the FBI reacted to the threat, in particular, from the Griebl-Lonkowski spy ring, shows how Hoover’s ‘Feds’ were initially slow to appreciate the danger, but soon learned the lessons. This was later to put them on a sounder footing to counter further attempts to infiltrate agents into the United States. This was most spectacularly displayed in Operation Pastorius, when saboteurs were landed on the American East Coast from U-boats. This book also examines the way in which the Germans used ‘sleeper’ agents and also describes how the FBI successfully ‘turned’ German agents to feed disinformation to Abwehr headquarters in Berlin. It describes how espionage missions played out and the fate of those involves.
"From bestselling author Jeff Guinn, the dramatic story of how U.S.-Mexico border tensions erupted into open warfare in 1916, as a U.S. military expedition crossed the border to try to capture Mexican guerrilla Pancho Villa -- a military incursion whose effects still haunt the border region to this day"--
This volume brings together a number of critical essays on three selected topics: biography, nationhood, and globalism. Written exclusively for this book by specialists from Mexico, Germany, and the United States, the essays propose a reexamination of Mexican American cultural history from a twenty-first century standpoint, written in English and approached from different analytical models and critical methods, but free of theoretical jargon. The essays range from biographies and memoirs by leading Chicano historians and studies of globalism during the rule of Imperial Spain (1492-1898), to the modern rise and global influence of the United States, particularly in Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean. Also included are critical studies of novels by Chicano, Latin American, and Caribbean writers who narrate and represent the dominant role played by the United States both within the nation itself and in the Caribbean, thus illustrating the historical parallels and relations that bind Latinos and Americans of Mexican descent. This book will be of importance to literary historians, literary critics, teachers, students, and readers interested in stimulating and unconventional studies of Mexican American cultural history from a global perspective.
On August 31, 1915, a Texas posse lynched five “horse thieves.” One of them, it turned out, was General Pascual Orozco Jr., military hero of the Mexican Revolution. Was he a desperado or a hero? Orozco’s death proved as controversial as his storied life, a career of mysterious contradictions that Raymond Caballero puzzles out in this book. A long-overdue biography of a significant but little-known and less understood figure of Mexican history, Orozco tells the full story of this revolutionary’s meteoric rise and ignominious descent, including the purposely obscured circumstances of his death at the hands of a lone, murderous lawman. That story—of an unknown muleteer of Northwest Chihuahua who became the revolution’s most important military leader, a national hero and idol, only to turn on his former revolutionary ally Francisco Madero—is one of the most compelling narratives of early-twentieth-century Mexican history. Without Orozco’s leadership, Madero would likely have never deposed dictator Porfirio Díaz. And yet Orozco soon joined Madero’s hated assassin, the new dictator, Victoriano Huerta, and espoused progressive reforms while fighting on behalf of reactionaries. Whereas other historians have struggled to make sense of this contradictory record, Caballero brings to light Orozco’s bizarre appointment of an unknown con man to administer his rebellion, a man whose background and character, once revealed, explain many of Orozco’s previously baffling actions. The book also delves into the peculiar history of Orozco’s homeland, offering new insight into why Northwest Chihuahua, of all places in Mexico, produced the revolution’s military leadership, in particular a champion like Pascual Orozco. From the circumstances of his ascent, to revelations about his treachery, to the true details of his death, Orozco at last emerges, through Caballero’s account, in all his complexity and significance.
The Secret War Council, Germany’s spy organization in New York, received orders from Berlin to stop the flow of munitions through terrorism in January 1915. German agents in the U.S. firebombed freighters on the high seas, incited labor unrest, fomented troubles along the Mexican-American border, and damaged or destroyed dozens of American factories and logistics installations. The German secret war against the United States in 1915, its discovery and publication, combined with the disastrous sinking of the Lusitania in May of that year, did much to prepare the American public to finally accept joining the Entente powers against Germany in 1917. This is the story of a group of German agents in the United States, who executed this mission.
Woodrow Wilson's presidential administration (1913-1921) was marked not only by America's participation in World War I, but also by numerous armed interventions by the United States in other countries. Spanning the globe, these actions included the years-long occupations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, a border war with Mexico, and the use of Marines guarding American citizens during unrest in Chinese cities. Author Mark Benbow examines what these American policy decisions and military adventures reveal of Wilson as commander-in-chief, and the powers and duties of the office. Wilson tended to let his cabinet officials operate their own departments as they wished as long as their actions did not contradict his overall policies. However, as regards foreign policy, Wilson took an active role overseeing American diplomats. His policy toward the military followed a similar pattern, though sometimes military commanders' actions. affected Wilson's diplomatic goals. Benbow focuses on those conflicts between military reality, the pragmatic needs of policy, and the larger goals of crafting a lasting foreign policy.
Adding to the momentum of Lascasian Studies, this interdisciplinary effort of seventeen scholars offers sophisticated explorations of colonial Latin American and early modern Iberian studies.
The Secret War Council illuminates the activities of German agents in the United States in 1914, a critical battlefield of the Great War. This crucial time of German-American relations builds the foundation for a thorough understanding of the road that led the two nations into open confrontation in 1917. A little known group of agents, diplomats, and businessmen organized in the Secret War Council helped pave that road.