The Mexican National Army, 1822-1852

The Mexican army that emerged from its war of independence from Spain was a loose affiliation of royalists and insurgents. Their zeal for self-determination temporarily transcended their ideological differences, but partisan rancor soon polarized an officer corps caught up in postwar regional politics. The political infighting promoted dissension and impeded professionalism, and army solidarity was further damaged, as provincial authority was handed to commandants-general. In an atmosphere of political instability, all attempts to professionalize the army and subordinate it to civilian authority were subverted.

William A. DePalo, Jr., presents the first English-language study of the birth and tumultuous adolescence of the Mexican national army. A comprehensive and cohesive analysis of the army's first thirty years, it fills a void in nineteenth-century Mexican historical studies. DePalo examines the institutional development of the army amid crisis, as Mexican territorial sovereignty between 1822 and 1852 was challenged by such external forces as the Spanish expeditionary army, the Texian rebels, the French armada, and a U.S. invasionary force. Internal military threats such as peasant uprisings and Indian hostilities also provide a backdrop for DePalo's portrait of a poorly trained and decentralized army that was incapable of reacting decisively.

DePalo evaluates the ideological, regional, social, and economic factors that had a corrosive effect on the Mexican army's institutional framework and on the separate governmental attempts at military reform. His conclusions provide insight into how the army's makeup and politicization affected Mexican military affairs in the first half of the nineteenth century, including the Texas Revolution and the U.S.–Mexican War. Latin American and military historians will find DePalo's carefully wrought and well researched study to be a valuable contribution to the literature. The Mexican National Army, 1822–1852 will also engage a reading public interested in the Mexican army and its colorful and controversial role in the nineteenth century.