The Mexican people: their struggle for freedom

Preface

THIS book is deliberately given the title of "The Mexican People: Their Struggle for Freedom." We know that to the average mind Mexico and freedom seem almost antithetical terms; that is why we wrote this book. The Mexican people have democratic traditions as grand, pure, and sane as those of any race in the world. Like all peoples, they have suffered bitter oppression at the hands of their own master class, but unlike the majority of peoples their weakness has made of them the peculiar prey of the foreign exploiter as well. For a hundred years they have maintained the bloodiest, most heroically abandoned fight for their liberties, not only against their own master class but against that master class leagued with Spain, with the United States, with France, and with England. We have long wished to tell of this struggle. It constitutes one of the most exalted dramas of the social process. If by this book, wrought out amidst many difficulties, we shall awaken the spirit of brotherhood and understanding in the hearts of some, for the battling proletariat of Mexico, our work will not have been without reward.

L. Gutierrez de Lara.

Edgcumb Pinchon.

CONTENTS V

PAGE

I. The Real Mexico 3

II. The Genesis of the Mexican Master Class ... 7

III. The Origin of the Mexican Agrarian Revolts . . 15

IV. Political and Ecclesiastical Constitution of Mexico

in the Colonial Period 19

V. The Revolution of Independence 26

VI. The First Empire . 61

VII. The Republic 74

VIII. The Presidency of Bustamante 87

IX. The Texas War 100

X. Clerical Prsetorianism and the Supreme Conservative Power ... 121

XI, The War with the United States 139

XII. Clerical Intrigues for the Establishment of a

Monarchy in Mexico 167

XIII. The Ayutla Revolution 179

XIV. The Constitution of 1857 201

XV. The Upholding of the Constitution .... 220

XVI. The French Intervention of 1861-1865 ... 233 XVII. The Withdrawal of the French Troops and the

End of the Empire ........ 257

vii viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER . PAGE

XVIII. Reestablishment of the Republic and the

Constitution of 1857 265

XIX. Agrarian and Political Democracy 27T^

XX. The Diaz Cuartelazo 289

XXI. Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico 297

XXII. The Dictatorship .312

XXIII. The Railroads . 335

XXIV. The Revolution of 1910-1914 341

XXV. The Downfall of Madero ....... 351

Epilogue. A Dispatch from the Front . . o » . . 359

ILLUSTRATIONS

What the Mexican People Are Fighting For Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

President Diaz and His Cabinet 20

The Cost of the Battle of Ojinaga 21

Map for the Period of Independence 28

The Constitutionalists' Agrarian Plan 42

Jose Maria Morelos 43

Vincente Guerrero — President of Mexico in 1827 . . 68

General Carranza Addressing a Crowd of Constitutionalists 69

Native Maya Girls 84

Ore Sorting 85

Native Silver Smelter 85

Mexican Types 116

Chapultepec Castle 117

Mexico Penitentiary 117

Second epoch of the history of Mexico, showing places where war with the United States, Ayutla Revolution, and

French Intervention took place 142

The Famous Floating Gardens Near Mexico City . . . 148

Federals 149

Constitutionalists 149

A Little Rebel Patriot .164

X

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

General Luis Terrazas Claims United States Protection . 164

A Troop of Rurales 165

A Battery of Mexican Federal Artillery 165

The National Palace 196

Constitutionalists and Their Families 196

Chapultepec Castle 197

Mexico City After the Bombardment of February, 1913 . 197

General Carranza on Campaign 212

Yaqui Soldiers 212

General Zapata, Called "The Atilla of the South" ... 213

Zapata and His Men 213

Mexican Planter and Peon 246

Cultivation of Hennequin, Yucatan 246

The Toilers 247

Constitutionalists 258

Yaqui Rebels in Camp 259

A Rebel Barricade in Juarez 259

President Huerta and His Advisers 292

Enrique C. Creel 293

Jose Y . Limantour . 293

Ramon Corral . . . . 293

Rebel Scouts 308

The People and War News 308

General Pascual Orozco . 309

General Pancho Villa 309

Third epoch of the history of Mexico, showing places where

ILLUSTRATIONS xi

FACING PAGE

farmers were disposessed of their lands .... 322

Victoriano Huerta 340

Venustiano Carranza 340

Francisco Madero 341

The CHmax in the 1912-1914 Revolt 356

Non-Combatants in the Bombardment of Mexico City . 356

Non-Combatants from Ojinaga 357

Federal Lines of Defence at Ojinaga 357

THE MEXICAN PEOPLE: THEIR STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM

The Mexican People: Their Struggle for Freedom

Chapter I The Real Mexico

IT IS commonly supposed that the Mexican race is made up of degraded half-castes, the joint product of the most backward nation in Europe (the Spanish) and the primitive savages of the southern portion of North America. None of the popular superstitions in regard to Mexico could be more falsely cruel. The Aztecs, Toltecs, Zapotecs, Mistecs, Mayas, and allied races which made up the entire population of Mexico at the time of the Conquest still constitute 60 per cent, of the population, and in spite of the fact that they have been compelled to adopt Spanish names and the Spanish language, this 60 per cent, of the nation — the working class of Mexico — still retain their ancient blood in all its purity.

Again, these peoples are not Indians.* Modern archaeological and philological research bear emphatic witness to the fact that they are ethnologically as remote from the wild nomads of North America as are the so-called white races themselves. At the time of the Conquest they were in full enjoyment of a civilization greatly superior in many respects to that of Teutonic Europe, and certainly superior in every respect to that of the

*The real Indians (akin to tKe North American Indians) form a small proportion of the population of Mexico. They reside for the most part in the hills and moimtains and are entirely outside of the main currents of Mexican politics.

Spanish nation which subjugated and enslaved them. Much, has been written, particularly by Spanish historians, of the barbarous religious practices of these native races. It is true that the degraded native priesthood, who founded their wisdomreligion in Mexico more than three thousand years ago, practised human sacrifice as did the British druids. Even so, this deliberate blood sacrifice of the Aztecs was intrinsically no more inhuman than the martyr holocausts of Smithfield, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or the complicated cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition.

The magnificent architecture, splendid engineering works, exquisite craftsmanship, and sane social arrangements of these native races of Mexico (or Anahuac, as it was called in pre- Conquest days) mark them out as a people of ancient lineage and advanced culture. Compared with the Conquistadores they were enlightened, peaceable, and humane, and if the practices of their priesthood (a small and degenerate section of the master class) bring a shudder to the modern mind, it must be remembered that the barbarity they betray is not an Aztec peculiarity, but the common barbarity of priestcraft in all ages and climes : it is an essential component of class rule wherever it be found, and as such it is a class characteristic — not a race characteristic. The Spanish Conquest was, in fact, the triumph of a nation brutal and ignorant, but warlike, over a highly intelligent, artistic people so long accustomed to peace as to know but little of arms. And thus the history of Mexico from the Spanish Conquest of the sixteenth century to the Revolution of Independence in 1810 is the history of the domination of a small foreign element, backed, however, by a large foreign army, over a subjugated but intrinsically superior nation.

At the time of the Revolution of Independence in 1810, when the history of Mexico as an independent political entity begins, there were thus two main classes in Mexican society divided by the deepest racial and economic distinctions: the pure Spanish aristocracy — the official and large land-owning class, con-

THE REAL MEXICO 5

stituting not more than 10 per cent, of the population, and the dispossessed and enslaved native class — the peons,* constituting about 80 per cent, of the population. Between these two lay a third class, of mixed Spanish and native blood — the trading and professional class constituting the remaining 10 per cent, of the population.

This distinction of blood between the three economic divisions of Mexican society has remained, with some modifications, to the present day. Consequently, with the exception of the glorious period of the native supremacy beginning with the Ayutla Revolution of 1856, and ending with the accession of Diaz to power in 1876, the government of the country has been entirely in the hands of the Spanish and mixed Spanish element; and the chain of disasters which constitutes this hundred years of Mexican history is the direct outcome of the atrocities committed by this element — the master class of the country — upon the native element — the working class of the country.

To-day, of course, the Mexican people may be fairly regarded as a homogeneous race, but they cannot be regarded as a half-caste race in the general acceptance of the term, for 60 per cent. of the population still retain the ancient blood in all its purity. As for the mixed class the term half-caste is only applicable to them in the sense that they are the result of an alliance between a European blood and a superior Western blood — itseK partially European in origin. The superiority of this mixed class — essentially the Mexican intellectual class — over the pure, Spanish class, shows that the native blood is dominant, ar/1 that eventually it will overcome the evil legacy of Spanish blood in the Mexican nation. The Revolution of Independence in 1810, therefore, was the revolt of the native races against the power of Spain for national independence and possession of the land. Its issues, consequently, were both racial and economic.

*Wliile the strict meaning of the word "peon" in Mexico is "farmhand," to-day its actual meaning is serf — the man held in bondage by indebtedness or other legal trickery

Finally and summarily the history of Mexico is the history of a class struggle in which the opposing classes, master class and working class, are of distinct bloods, traditions, and psychologies, with the balance of racial development entirely in favour of the latter. Thus all that we know of the evil that is Mexican is the product of a small, parasitic and originally alien section of the nation; and all that we know of the good that is Mexican (and the world in general knows little enough) — the arts, the crafts, the poetry, the gentleness and good faith, the heroic struggle for democracy — is the product of the working class native races.

Bearing these simple basic facts in mind the maze of Mexican history may be threaded with ease. It is a record of profound significance and dramatic interest, the record of a struggle for racial expression and economic freedom on the part of an oppressed people, unusually gifted, of abandoned valour, of wonderful human kindness and gentleness — a struggle carried on against the most bloodthirsty and depraved master class the world has ever witnessed.

Since it is the Spanish and mixed Spanish master class which has controlled Mexico throughout the larger part of her modern history, it will be necessary for us to consider the origin of that master class, its psychology, and the economic, topographical and ethnological conditions with which it had to cope in the conquest and colonization of the country. We shall thus, as the first step in our study, find the key to that bewildering Saturnalia of crime which constitutes Spain's gift to the land of the Aztecs.

Chapter II The Genesis Of The Mexican Master Class

IN ORDER thus to investigate our subject from the roots we shall endeavour to trace the two distinct economic and psychological evolutions which have resulted in the present civilization of Mexico, on the one hand, and of the United States on the other. In this way we shall be able to take advantage of a number of illuminating comparisons between the two processes which will throw into relief the particular idiosyncrasies of the former.

PSYCHOLOGICAL

In the sixth century of the Christian era, Mohammed began preaching his doctrine to the Arabians; and a few years later Mohammedanism entered upon its bloody conquest of the Christian world. These two religions, Christianity and Mohammedanism, in their gigantic struggles for dominion in Europe and in northern Africa, converted the shores of the Mediterranean into one vast amphitheatre of slaughter. For over a thousand years the sun rose and sank on the carnage of the hosts of Islam and Christ, and millions of human lives perished by the sword before equihbrium between these two huge forces was obtained. This thousand years of combat profoundly modified — as might be expected — the psychology of the nations involved. In the case of Spain, which far more than any other nation in Europe bore the brunt of the fight, it evolved in the national character a distinctive idiosyncrasy which has remained the key to the Spanish and Spanish-American psychology to this day.

In their setting forth to the conquest of the world the hordes of Islam first overran Asia Minor and the Valley of the Nile. They swept northward and westward along the southern shores of the Mediterranean until by fire and sword they had carried the word of the prophet into all those regions now known as Barca, Tripoli, Tunis, and Morocco. Here, at the Straits of Gibraltar, but a narrow ribbon of water withheld them from the glorious subjugation of Spain, and through Spain, all Europe. Djeb Al Tarik, the Moorish general, at the head of his hosts walked into the strait, crying above the murmur of the waters: "Bear witness, God of Mohammed, that the conquest of this land is but a small thing, but not my faithfulness to you." He advanced into Spain at the head of an army, continually reinforced by the uncounted legions of Asia, and planted the Crescent in the very citadel of the Cross. In the meantime the Mohammedan conquests had stretched over Arabia, Palestine, Asiatic Turkey, and the lower Roman Empire. When at last Constantinople fell, the last stronghold of ancient Rome had become the appanage of the all-conquering Mussulman. Northward and westward the invading hordes swept on until they dominated the whole territory known to-day as the Balkans.

All Europe was alarmed by that tremendous conflict. Already, as we have seen, Spain and the lower Roman Empire lay in the clutch of Islam. The Spaniards, contesting every inch of the ground, were slowly driven backward into the mountains of Asturias, where Palayo and a handful of his followers hid themselves in the caves of Covadonga, still fighting for Christ and their country; while at sea the battleships of Spain maintained an equally dismal and stubborn resistance.

It is well for us to examine the important modifications wrought in the economic and psychological development of the peoples of Europe by this thousand years of war, for

THE MEXICAN MASTER CLASS 9

it will supply us with the keynote of our historical investigations.

Standing at the gate of Europe, Spain, desperately fighting for her own preservation, was the bulwark which prevented the Moors from invading the northern, central, and western states. Her daily sacrifice of blood was the safeguard of her sister Christian nations. For in the whole eight hundred years during which the Islamic invasion was principally concentrated on her conquest, Spain was never actually vanquished. The mountains of Asturias constituted a line of defence beyond which the Moors were unable to penetrate, and Europe remained inviolate. This tremendous struggle for religion and country left an indelible impression on the psychology of the Spanish people. The passion for Catholicism and country became the very substance of their souls. It is easy to understand, then, that when, at the surrender of Boabdil in Granada, the Spanish people under Isabella and Ferdinand inflicted the last blow on the Moorish power in Spain, nothing short of the Inquisition could satisfy their spirit of burning fanaticism. The discovery of the New World at the same time opened to them a sphere for the expression of that lust of blood and conquest developed in them during their long, cruel struggle with the Moors.

On the other hand, England, France, and Germany, sheltered behind Spain, had been spared all direct contact with the Mussulman. Indeed, the Holy War was of distinct service to these countries, in that it provided a beneficent sewer through which from time to time they were enabled to drain off from the body social the scum of their brigand kings, parasitic noblemen, adventurers, and vagrants, both titled and untitled. Thus, the conflict which impoverished and perverted Spain performed a genuine social service for the rest of Europe, and permitted these more favoured nations to develop their arts, industries, and commerce in comparative peace.

Wars there were, of course. But, whereas the intense religlous nature of the Holy War served only to pervert the Christianity of Spain to bloody fanaticism, these lesser wars of the northern nations were either sheer economic conflicts or struggles between Catholics and reformed Catholics, which resulted in the purification, rather than in the perversion of the Christian faith among them; and in the long intervals of peace and prosperity their material progress gave rise in turn to a proportional development of political science, philosophy, and the liberal arts. Thus, while Spain was exhausting her best blood in the incessant strife with Mohammed, the rest of Europe conserved their best blood for the enrichment of society, casting only their social offal to the dogs of war. Truly Spain had become "her brother's keeper" at the cost of her own misery and retrogression.

In these comparisons Italy occupies a place apart. In a position less exposed than that of Spain, and more exposed than that of the central and northern states, to the attacks of the Mussulman, she shared with the former the miserable consequences of the protracted struggle, but not nearly in the same degree.

Thus we have in Europe two well-defined psychologies, Spanish and non-Spanish, which were to influence profoundly the history of the New Worlds, South and North. The first was to impart to the great Continent of Latin-America its own characteristic lust of blood, despotism, and intolerance; and the second, which, owing to the small part played by the Latin peoples in the colonization of the United States and Canada, was essentially a Saxon psychology, was to impart to the great Continent of North America its own characteristic love of peace, justice, and industry.

By the light of the foregoing comparisons we have been able to investigate the genesis of the Mexican master class. Later we shall examine that tremendous tragedy which constitutes Mexico's history — the unceasing struggle of the native working class against this foreign master class, for human liberty and

THE MEXICAN MASTER CLASS 11

democratic institutions. The most backward and least favoured of the nations, her brilHant Aztec intellect tinged with the Iberian fire, has not suffered her to rest content in degradation and stultification; but has impelled her to make almost inhuman efforts to reach the rank of the most advanced nations of the world. It is this great struggle for human liberty and national development which is the one continuous and consistent force beneath all her upheavals so often characterized by the unreflective as sporadic explosions without aim or meaning.

ECONOMIC AND ETHNOLOGICAL

While England in the north was engaged in the conquest and colonization of the territory afterward known as the "Thirteen Colonies," and the eastern part of Canada, Spain was occupied in the south in the conquest of Mexico and South America. The history of the conquest of Mexico and of its subsequent development is a type of all Latin- American history, just as the history of the Thirteen Colonies is the type of all Saxon- American history. In drawing our comparisons, therefore, between the colonial evolution of the Spaniard and the Saxon we shall confine our considerations to Mexico on the one hand, and the Thirteen Colonies on the other.

First, let us glance at the respective physical conditions with which the Saxons and the Spaniards had to cope in their settlement of the New World. In the area now known as the Thirteen Colonies the Saxon colonists found themselves in possession of an immense area of fertile land, level, easily worked, and ready to respond to the roughest cultivation with bounteous crops. The snowy mantle of winter protects these lands from the frost and leaves them at the spring thaw, warm, moist, and in ideal condition for the rapid and vigorous sprouting of seed. Immense rivers — the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, St. Lawrence, and others — cross the land in divers directions, sufficiently deep and slow moving to permit the ready use of their waters for navigation. In addition to these great assets of fertile land, and efficient communication and transportation, the settlers were enriched by the discovery of great deposits of coal — the food of machinery. Here, then, were combined all the conditions most favourable to the development of a rich and varied agriculture and industry.

In Mexico, on the contrary, the land is not level, but interlaced and fretted throughout its length and breadth with mountain ranges, which constitute a serious hindrance to communication and transportation, and are perfectly useless for agriculture. The valleys between these mountain ranges are uneven and arid. There is no snow in winter, and consequently no snow-water in the spring; in summer the rains are scarce, and even in the rainy season the tempestuous torrents which rave down the arroyos are too deeply channelled for use in irrigation. As for navigation, there is not a mile of navigable river in all Mexico. Under such conditions as these, the land, in colonial times, could scarcely provide for its inhabitants, much less produce — as was the case in the Thirteen Colonies — that accumulation of capital necessary for further development.

Again, another powerful differentiating factor in the evolution of the two civilizations is to be found in the immense difference existing between the aboriginal races which they respectively displaced and absorbed — between the haughty nomadic hunters of the north, barbarous tribal communists, among whom slavery and subjection were unknown; and the gentle, intellectual Aztecs, Toltecs, and Mayas of the south, not Indians at all, but highly civilized peoples of Aryan origin — feudal agriculturists, among whom a mild form of serfdom had existed for centuries.

In spite of the utmost effort on the part of the Saxon invaders to enslave the Indian, he remained free. A nomad, a hunter, living in brotherly equality with his fellows, he either succumbed to the bullets of the white man in desperate defence of his hunting grounds, or retreated to remoter fastnesses. Slavery, sub-

THE MEXICAN MASTER CLASS 13

jection, restraint, were all utterly against his nature. The Saxon colonist, unable to possess himself of slaves, was compelled to perform his own labour; and, therefore, confined himself to the appropriation of just as much land as he could conveniently cultivate unaided. Of what use was more to him? His fellow-colonists, his equals on the physical, social, and economic fields, were by no means fit subjects for servitude. Hence arose, by economic necessity, a relative agrarian democracy, in which a very large proportion of the colonists became owners of as much land as they could personally cultivate. It was not till a later period that the introduction of the negro destroyed to some extent this democratic equilibrium.*

In Mexico, on the other hand, the invading Spaniards found not barbarism, but a feudal civilization, private ownership of land in place of communal ownership, and serfdom in place of nomadic liberty. With fire and sword they laid waste a civilization in many respects superior to their own; and the fighting element among the natives, once subjugated or exterminated, the serfs fell perforce into the most abject servitude to their new masters. Thus the Spanish colonists in Mexico, far from being limited, like the Saxon colonists in the north, to as much land as they could personally cultivate, were enabled to appropriate immense tracts, limited in extent only by the number of natives whom they could force to perform serflabour for them. Through the private ownership of these immense estates and the corresponding servitude of the toilers of the soil, there arose in Mexico an economic system closely resembling the feudal system then predominant in Europe. But, while in Europe and all the European colonies capitalism has superseded feudalism, in Mexico, feudalism still remains to a large extent the economic foundation of the country. Now, as then, Mexico is a country of great land-owners and landless peons.

*We take into account only the ordinary private land owners, and not the exceptional feudal land holdings established by a few privileged individuals and chartered corporations.

To this contrast of the respective natural conditions met by the Saxon and the Spaniard in their colonial enterprises must be added the psychological differences of the two races themselves. In freedom from the pressure of the Asiatic hordes the Saxon nations had achieved a well-developed civilization characterized by a purified form of faith, and a high degree of religious tolerance. Spain, on the other hand, brought to Mexico an arrested civilization, and a fanatic Romanism embittered and perverted by the fierce conflict with Islam. The Holy Inquisition set its bloody fangs in the heart of the people; persecution, fire, and torment quenched all liberty of conscience, and the soul of Mexico lay degraded and shackled as even her body. The ignorant priests went so far in their hatred of all enlightenment that emanated from any source other than the Vatican, that they burned to ashes the invaluable library in the Imperial Palace of the Aztecs, destroying at a blow the records of a culture beyond their comprehension.

Thus, summing up our comparison between the two colonial evolutions, we have : in the north, Nature rich and abundant in her gifts; in the south. Nature arid and niggardly; in the north, a vast field for labour and a plentiful reward for the labourer; in the south, labour without reward to the many, idleness and luxury for the few; in the north, an agrarian democracy in which a very large proportion of the males shared, to some extent at least, in the administration of society; in the south, a despotic feudalism, under which the administration of society remained in the hands of the few, utterly without responsibility to the many; in the north, the peaceable habits of the Saxon and a spirit of cooperation; in the south, the lust of blood and selfish individualism which characterized the perverted Spanish psychology; and, finally, in the north, religious tolerance and general intellectual enlightenment ; in the south, religious bigotry and intellectual darkness. On these two foundations have arisen what we know to-day as the United States, and modern Mexico.

Chapter III The Origin Of The Mexican Agrarian Revolts

WE HAVE examined the deep roots of Mexico's history. Let us now investigate the immediate causes of her modern social movements. To those unaccustomed to view the historical process as an unbroken, evolving continuity, it may seem a strange assertion that the agrarian revolt which gloriously founded the democracy of America, and the agrarian revolt which is now agitating Mexico, are the true and lineal descendants of the great agrarian revolt which arose in England in the fourteenth century. But such is the fact. In England — the home of all the great mediaeval and modern revolutionary movements — broke out in 1381 A. D. the first powerful uprising of the peasantry against the feudal system. John Ball, a bold priest of those times, marched up and down the country arousing the people to their first vision of democracy with his famous quip:

' ' When Adam delved and Eve span Who was then the gentleman? "

His harangues to the peasantry sound curiously like the harangues of another bold priest four centuries later, the heroic Hidalgo, who first aroused the democratic spirit of Mexico.

"My friends," said Ball, "things will never go well in England till there shall be no longer lords or masters, till we be our own masters, as much as they are now. What right have they to keep us in bondage? How ill they use us! Are we not all descendants of Adam and Eve? Our masters are clothed in velvet and ermine, while we must be content with the poorest rags! They have wines and spices and fine bread, and handsome houses, while we have only rye and water for food and drink, and we must brave the wind and rain in the fields. Let us go to the King, who is young, and tell him of our servitude, and let us tell him that we must have it otherwise, or we shall find a remedy for ourselves."

The rebellion was suppressed with terrible slaughter by the feudal aristocracy of the time, but it was the first spark of the fire destined ultimately to envelop the world. A century and a half later the peasants of Germany arose likewise in revolt against their feudal oppressors, and the dawn of a great era of widespread revolution seemed close at hand. Two powerful agencies, however, combined to divert, retard, and stifle the power of this tremendous awakening: the Reformation under Luther, and the colonization of America.

In regard to the former we quote the following passage from "Riforma e Rivoluzione Sociale" by the great Italian sociologist, Labriola :

The German peasants, reduced to the condition of beasts through centuries of untold oppression, made their masters suffer all that savagery which the feudal regime had developed in them, without pity for sex, state or condition. As they had been made by their masters, so did they act. Luther, who was the mouthpiece of the master class, before they gathered their great armies to crush the insurrection, used the prestige of his name to reduce the peasants to obedience, hurling at them his pamphlet " Wider die morderischen und rauberischen Rotten der Bauer, " which is considered the code of the future oppression. Lu' ther, fuming with rage before the revolt of the peasants, called down upon them the wrath of God and the revenge of men. "This ass needs to be whipped," he said, "and the people to be shaken with violence." And he did not hesitate to compel the princes to sink their petty differences and combine to show a resolute front to the revolt, and to suppress it without mercy or consideration. The princes obeyed him. They combined and crushed the rebellion. Then followed the most dreadful reprisals that the imagination can conceive, dwarfing, indeed, the terrible ravages of the Roman emperors upon the Christians."