In this game, I played out Scenario 7 "The Siege of Tecate, March 19th, 1911," recreating a historic battle in which Leyva lead a large rebel force of 150 in an attempt the dislodge the 80 soldiers in the town. Seven days prior, the revolutionary Luis Rodríguez led twenty Liberals to take Tecate--where Rodríguez grew up--driving out the police. They did not have long to celebrate, however, for a few days later, the 8th Battalion of the Federal Army arrived, laid siege to the town, and soundly defeated the rebels. The soldiers took no prisoners, and only 4 rebels survived by escaping to the US. Rodríguez died there on the streets of his childhood town.
When Leyva and the main group of the Baja Division of the Liberal Army, numbering 150 rebels, finally arrived on the 19th, most of the 8th Battalion had marched on, leaving only 80 Federal soldiers in Tecate, prepared to hold it against the revolutionaries at all costs.
Here is Tecate, with the Baja Division of the Liberal Army arriving on the hill to the east.
Directly facing the rebels, the soldiers of the 8th Battalion set up a defensive line around the town, focusing east, from where they expect the rebels to arrive. On the Federal left flank, on a rocky ridge next to the US border on the north end, the army has a machine gun. A platoon of soldiers waits behind the ridge and a farmer's wooden fence south of that. Reinforcements wait by the truck behind them.
The farmer's south-facing wall offers more protection, being made of stone. A second platoon covers the southern line, with their own reinforcements waiting further into town. A stream rambles by to the south of the town.
From the center of town, a single bridge crosses the stream headed south. A squad of soldiers from the 2nd platoon guards the bridge.
On the hill to their west, soldiers set up an outpost with a machine gun, effectively covering the southern approach to town.
The Federal forces headquarters are in the plaza of Tecate.
And so the battle is set up and ready to go. The Baja Division faces off against an emery half its size, which is, however, inside of a well-fortified town.
Hindsight is 20/20. I know that the rebels lost this battle, and that Leyva was blamed for the defeat. His soldiers and other commentators accused him of being too timid, and even cowardly. As a result, he lost his command of the Baja Division, and the power vacuum that opened contributed greatly to the overall failure of the Liberal cause in Northern Mexico.
The long southern approach, though it had some tree cover, seemed too dangerous, with the machine gun looming on the hill and the soldiers waiting behind barricades. So I decided to try to focus my attack on the eastern-facing line only.
My main concern on the eastern edge was the machine gun on the northern ridge, directly facing the approach. I decided to send the foreign section, or group 3, right up along the border to flank the machine gun. There was a ridge along the border they could take some cover behind. Many of them would have been US citizens, the US soldiers were not yet heavily-policing the border, and anyway I haven't painted up my US forces yet. So the third group came down off the hill to hug the northern edge, ready to charge the machine gun nest.
I detached a small fire team from group 2 to give some covering fire.
Leyva's forces were in position, and ready to launch the full frontal charge against Tecate. At the start of turn three, Leyva gave the signal and all three groups advanced.
The Federals behind their lines fired at the approaching rebels.
The Federal officer on the line moved one squad of soldiers across the stream to lengthen the frontline and get a better angle on the rebels advancing in the river bed.
Meanwhile, back in the plaça, the Federal commander, Captain Justino Mendieta, sent a man up to the roof to get a view of the assault. He could report that the reds were charging in two prongs, and that, so far, their lines held.
Group three charged along the border. Though the ridge provided some cover, it took them two turns to get behind the enemy lines. The machine-gun and rifle fire killed many.
But the charge of the foreign section achieved its important goal, silencing the machine-gun and breaking the defensive line.
As expected, the revolutionaries rushing across the open terrain suffered many losses, but the two large sections continued on.
The advance halted when it reached the fence. Both sides fired at close range and with accuracy. The small squad of soldiers across the stream on the south end took losses quickly, but refused to budge, and shot down many rebels from group one.
A Liberal bullet, however, felled the first platoon's officer. With no other officer in the area, this triggered a morale test, which they failed. The survivors of the platoon on the line fled into the stone farm house. Their reinforcements by the truck ran back to the center of town.
Leyva watched from the hill as the Tecate defensive perimeter broke.
In the plaça, Captain Mendieta reorganized the defenses. He ordered the soldiers in the square to cover the barricade.
The Captain also sent a few squads to hold the border crossing, in case they could not hold the town.
The Federal soldier watching from the roof informed Captain Mendieta that the revolutionaries were now pouring into the town. Most of the third group set up on the north ridge they had just won from the army, taking control of the abandoned machine gun.
Their vanguard moved forward to garrison a two-story house. On their left, group two had advanced through the cattle enclosure and pinned the platoon of soldiers inside the stone barn. The 8th Battalion defenders rushed up to stop the rebels.
The Magónista group number one, who had faced the brunt of the fighting on the south flank, advanced toward the bridge. They stayed in the creek bed in hopes of avoiding machine-gun and rifle fire from the soldiers up ahead.
The cover wasn't;t great, but the machine-gun misfired. The front of the column reaches the building on the edge of the plaça.
At the start of turn seven, the Baja Division has advanced the line into Tecate. Leyva sent some mounted captains ahead to coordinate the push on the plaça.
The Federal platoon by the bridge held strong, and fired at the revolutionaries in the creek bed. Behind them, the outpost garrison did the same. The machine-gun was accurate this time, and a handful of rebels fell in the creek. In the town square, Captain Mendieta pulled up the third platoon, which had been protecting the back side of the town, and rallied the routed soldiers fleeing from the front line.
The reinforced third platoon took up positions at the barricades of the plaça. A squad of soldiers held the L-shaped building on the plaça, and unloaded their weapons at the entire first group of Liberals, charging the building from the stream.
With the heat of the action now nearing the plaça, the captain removed the headquarter section back toward the border.
He also sent a runner to order the outpost garrison to abandon their position and set up the machine gun at a fall-back position on the west side of town.
The advanced section of the Magónista third group reached the second floor of the house and set up their weapons. Soon, they could fire down from a few windows at the soldiers behind their barricade in the plaça.
At the same time, the soldiers guarding the neighboring building decided (by dice) to withdraw. Outnumbered seven to about thirty, it would be hard to blame them for abandoning the building.
They fired one last round, missing, but delaying, their enemy, then abandon the building.
The first section of the Liberal Division in Baja rushed out of the stream bed. The machine-gun and the rifles at the outpost and by the bridge killed many rebels before they reached the building.
Once inside, however, the anarchists lined up at the doors and windows facing out onto the plaça.
The rebels fired at the fleeing defenders, killing three and alerting the soldiers at the barricade that their flank was now exposed.
Back at the farm, the soldiers holed up in the stone barn finally surrendered. They exited the building into the custody of the rebels.
Leyva's captain had arrived at the edge of town to organize the advance on the plaça. He ordered a section of group three to advance and join their comrades in the two-storied house, but they failed to comply.
A small detachment from the second group escorted the captured soldiers out of town, while the rest of the group prepared to charge.
In the following round, the first group fired again from the safety of the L-shaped building at the soldiers in the square. They killed many of the soldiers who had previously defended the building, including their officer. There was no route, however, as the other platoon's officer was nearby.
Meanwhile, the captain's runner crossed the town just west of the action. He approached the stream, carrying his urgent message for the outpost garrison to retreat.
In the north of town, the bulk of the third group of rebels got moving and rushed toward the house on the corner of the plaça. Most of them made it, though four fell by the door, and three ended up pinned behind the house.
On the south side of town, the second group of the Baja Division charged ahead to join the first group fighting in the square. The section of the second group which advanced by the stream also came under machine-gun fire from the hill, and suffered casualties.
The bulk of the second group, however, advanced up the main road, directly at the barricade.
The reinforced platoon of soldiers guarding the barricade where now beset from all sides. Indigenous revolutionaries of the first section fired at them from the L-shaped building to the south, the Magónista second group sprinted up the road at them, and the foreigners of the third section fired down on them from the building to the north. Half of the platoon broke and fled the plaça.
They left but a couple soldiers pinned down by rebel fire in the square, and a squad trapped in the shadow of the two-story building. They couldn't retreat down the road by the plaça, for the rebels now fired from all of the windows on the east side of the square.
The pinned soldiers could not make a break for the border either. The rebels on the north-east ridge finally put their new machine-gun to use, and fired on the platoon holding open the border crossing.
At the other machine-gun position, on the south-western hill, Mendieta's runner's arrival confirmed what their eyes had already told them. The rebels had overrun the town, and they were in danger of being cut off from the border. The captain ordered them to withdraw. The infantry raced back across the stream and into town, while the machine-gun crew packed up their equipment.
At the same time, the Liberal first group continued their push, rushing into the plaça.
The revolutionaries gunned down the soldiers whom had been pinned down and unable to escape.
The first group of the Baja division, however, lost more men in this exchange of gunfire and was now running dangerously low on ammunition. They had been in the thick of the battle since the first shots were fired.
Captain Justino Mendieta attempted to hold onto their foothold in Tecate. He tried to rally the groups of fleeing soldiers, though he did not always succeed.
By this time in the game, Tecate Plaça was firmly in the hands of the Liberals, with the first and second group of the Baja Division rallying in the square. Diaz's soldiers fled west and north.
The garrison of the Federals' southern outpost was now inside the town. They had hoped to set up the machine-gun at a fall-back position on the western edge of town. Instead, they ran into their retreating compatriots. The machine-gun team, who had begun to set up a position which was now too close to the front line, worked desperately to pack up their equipment again. The rifles fired down the ally at the revolutionaries in the square.
The rebels took cover and returned fire. This was the third time the Magónistas were able to break the government's defensive line, and the third time the soldiers managed to rally and present a new defensive line. The soldiers halted the rebel advance from the plaça. The machine-gun team reached the main road, and began to emplace their weapon behind a barricade.
On the north flank, however, the captain tried desperately to keep the largest group of soldiers left in the field, the third platoon, from fleeing into the United States.
The rebels pursued, firing from the cover of houses, trees, fences, and wagons. The advanced section of the Liberal thrust turned north to fire on the fleeing third platoon.
Meanwhile, the southern outpost's garrison continued to fight their way north.
As they moved, they fired down the ally into the plaça, holding up the advance on the southern end for another turn. Now, their machine-gun team was ready to go.
The garrison continued north until they came out onto the main street, flanking the advanced line of rebels firing toward the border.
Both the rebels and soldiers had already fired their guns for the round, however, so they turned and began clubbing each other with rifle butts and stabbing with knives and swords. The Federals, though they struck the first blows, were sorely outnumbered, and quickly broke. The surviving soldiers sprinted west out of town, leaving the machine-gun team and a few stragglers behind.
The battle still wasn't over, however. The fleeing remnant of the outpost garrison rallied itself on the western edge of town.
At the same time, the captain convinced the routed third platoon to turn around and face the enemy.
The third platoon turned to fire on the Liberals, who had advanced even further up the road to the border.
The first volley caused carnage for both forces. Face to face, the combatants reloaded their weapons for the next round.
For the next two rounds, the two sides blasted each other from close range. The soldiers also had to contend with fire from the rebels' machine-gun, though inaccurate and at a far range. Neither group would break, however.
Rebels and soldiers continued to fire at each other, until hardly anyone remained standing. The first group of the Liberals ran out of ammunition and fled back toward the square.
More revolutionaries came up to take the positions of those who had fallen and fled, but the Federal third platoon withered away under the hail of bullets, their backs pressed up against the northern border.
Captain Mendieta himself now lay dead on the grassy hill. His detachment's flag still flew in the breeze, but only the bearer and one other soldier remained on the table. There was nothing for them to do but leave behind the carnage and flee to the United States.
As I mentioned in the introduction to this AAR, aware that the Liberals lost this historical siege and that Leyva received much criticism and lost his command for his caution and alleged cowardice, I threw caution to the wind and planned a full frontal charge on the town. While the results differed from the historic event--my revolutionaries clearly conquered the town--Leyva's fears proved true. Around 40 rebels perished in the assault.
Given the relative difficulty the anarchists faced in recruitment during the Baja campaign--as so few people lived in Baja at the time--and the issues the leadership already faced with the disproportionate numbers and relative power of the foreign elements in their ranks--the sheer number of good veteran revolutionaries lost in this engagement may have spelled the end of the campaign. It would have proved very difficult to defend Tecate, Mexicali, Los Algodones, and El Alámo from Vega's Federals with the remaining forces. On the other hand, after previous victories of this magnitude, dozens and even hundreds of new recruits swarmed into Mexicali, both from north of the border, but also from small towns, indigenous villages, and work camps in Mexico. While 40 rebels died, hardly any of the 80 Federal soldiers survived the battle, leaving the remainder of the 8th Battalion fairly isolated in Northern Baja. Perhaps, had Leyva proved himself a bold and able commander on March 19th, he would have regained the respect and loyalty of the Division, retained his command, and helped the Liberals to avoid the embarrassing and disastrous political blunders that awaited them on the horizon.
Great looking game, some excellent terrain and a good AAR - thanks for posting
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