Feral Jundi

     This website has some cool photos of some forgotten history.  During the Mexican Revolution, there were many soldiers of fortune from all over the world applying their trade on both sides of the conflict.  This was a very interesting period in which at the same time, you had wars like World War 1 going on in which many battlefield innovations were going on.  You could say it was the time period in which the horse and repeating firearm was being trumped by machine guns, tanks, artillery and barbed wire.

     But back to this collection of postcards.  It is a fascinating look at the characters of that time period.  I got a kick out of the names of some of these guys.  Like Diablo or Slim.  Slim was actually the name of quite a few American mercenaries back then.

     The other thing I looked at was the amount of guys hired for their machine gun expertise.  Guys like Tom Fountain, Sam Dreben, Alfred Lewis, and of course Maximillian Kloss and his work at the Battle of Celaya. Very interesting round up of some highly specialized folks that applied their trade all over the world, to include Mexico. It kind of reminds me of the long bow mercenary archers of the 14th century and how sought after they were. (the White Company comes to mind)

     Finally, and this is what is really interesting about the mercenaries of this time period.  They were the ones importing the know how of how to use these latest tools of warfare. It was these guys working in Mexico who introduced new and interesting ways of how to use the machine gun in warfare. The war in Europe was also emphasizing how effective these weapons were, and demonstrating how they could be used.

    These soldiers for hire were the same guys who picked up battlefield innovations in other countries and wars they worked in and further evolved their ideas on how to wage war.  That to me is a very interesting area that really hasn’t been studied when it comes to the dynamic of the globe trotting soldier for hire.  Anyway, check out this link to see the other interesting characters and photos at this website. -Matt

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American, Canadian and other foreign mercenaries in Mexico

From Wikipedia

Members of Pancho Villa’s American Legion of Honor

Many adventurers (e.g. Sarah “Wildwoman” Horn), ideologues and freebooters from outside Mexico were attracted by the purported excitement and romance, not to mention possible booty, of the Mexican Revolution. Most mercenaries served in armies operating in the north of Mexico, partly because those areas were the closest to popular entry points to Mexico from the U.S., and partly because Pancho Villa had no compunction about hiring mercenaries. The first legion of foreign mercenaries, during the 1910 Madero revolt, was the Falange de los Extranjeros (Foreign Phalanx), which included Giuseppe (“Peppino”) Garibaldi, grandson of the famed Italian unifier, as well as many American recruits.

Later, during the revolt against the coup d’état of Victoriano Huerta, many of the same foreigners and others were recruited and enlisted by Pancho Villa and his División del Norte. Villa recruited Americans, Canadians and other foreigners of all ranks from simple infantrymen on up, but the most highly prized and best paid were machine gun experts such as Sam Dreben, artillery experts such as Ivor Thord-Gray, and doctors for Villa’s celebrated Servicio sanitario medic and mobile hospital corps. There is little doubt that Villa’s Mexican equivalent of the French Foreign Legion (known as the “Legion of Honor”) was an important factor in Villa’s successes against Huerta’s Federal Army.

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From the Post Cards Of the Mexican Revolution webpage

By John Hardman

This webpage is a work in progress to document as much as possible about foreign nationals who participated in the actual conflict during the Mexican Revolution 1910-1920. Additional and/or corrected information on this subject actively sought. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

When the Mexican revolution erupted in late 1910, adventurers, soldiers of fortune, filibusterers, insurrectos, call them what you may, traveled to Mexico to join the fight.

They came from all walks of life – professional soldier, cowboy, tradesman, businessman, doctor and newspaperman. They were rich men, poor men, thieves, murderers, and cattle rustlers. A couple of movie stars claimed to have fought with Madero in 1911.

They came from all over the globe – the U.S., France, Sweden, South Africa, Germany, Italy, Holland and Switzerland. Haldeen Braddy called them “a menagerie of international warriors” in his book COCK OF THE WALK.

Whether they joined Madero’s El Falange De Los Estranjeros – also known as the “Gringo Rag-Tag Battalion,” Villa’s American Legion, Obregon’s or Carranza’s armies, they came to Mexico for gold and glory – most of them received neither.

Brief biographies of several of these intrepid adventurers are detailed below.

Frank McCombs

Born circa 1874-1876. Son of wealthy Seattle, WA farmers who was always a soldier of fortune. Served in Greece, China, Nicaragua and with the British and U.S. navies. Joined Mexican insurgents in 1910. He was called El Diablo. Fought in the battles of Mulato and Ojinaga. Tex O’Reilly described him as stone deaf and unable to speak Spanish. He didn’t know the meaning of fear – liked to crawl off at night and kill Federal sentries.

Ivor Thord-Gray

1878-1964 Born April 17, 1878 in Stockholm, Sweden. He spent 12 years in the British Army in Africa, fought in the Boer War and later in the Philippines with the U.S. Army. He went to Mexico in late 1913 and after a short stint as Villa’s chief of artillery, he soldiered with Carranza, Obregon and Blanco. In 1914, he left Mexico for service in Europe with the Northumberland Fusiliers. In 1918, he went to Russia as Assistant to the Director of Information, Canadian Siberian Expedition. He transferred to the White Russian army, was wounded, captured by the Red army and released to return to the U.S. because of his wounds. He died on August 18, 1964.

Sam Dreben

Dreben enlisted on June 27, 1899 in the 14th Infantry Regiment[1] and was shipped to the Philippines (acquired by the U.S. as a result of its victory in the Spanish American War) to help put down a native insurrection led by Emilio Aguinaldo. He quickly distinguished himself in battle. Later, he participated in the rescue of westerners besieged in Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion. Mustered out in 1902, he took a succession of unsatisfactory jobs, including an attempt to fight for the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War,[1] before reenlisting in 1904. This time, he was stationed at Fort Bliss. It was here that he was trained how to use a machine gun, a skill for which he became well-known (and would need in later years). He made friends in nearby El Paso, Texas before his second army hitch ended in 1907.

Dreben’s wanderings then took him to the Panama Canal Zone. After several unsuccessful business ventures, he was recruited to fight for various liberation movements in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Mexico. It was in Guatemala that he suffered his only combat wound – a shot in the rear. In the Mexican revolution, Dreben fought with and against such famous leaders as Francisco Madero and Pancho Villa. When the latter made his infamous raid on Columbus, New Mexico on March 9, 1916, killing some civilians, Dreben joined the Punitive Expedition sent by an outraged America to bring his former comrade-in-arms to justice. Dreben served as a scout and became good friends with the expedition’s commander, General John “Black Jack” Pershing. The Americans were never able to catch the elusive bandit, and the fiasco eventually came to an end in 1917.(from wikipedia)