Page:Historia Verdadera del Mexico profundo.djvu/205

 thought, provoking a civil and religious war in the Anahuac. It is clear, that a handful of adventurers, poorly armed, without training and military discipline, full of struggles, ambitions and internal rivalries; were not going to defeat, by themselves, the powerful indigenous world and especially the feared and formidable mexica empire, that had hundreds of thousands of soldiers, perfectly trained and organized, with a long tradition and military experience. The number of soldiers could overwhelm any military technological superiority of the spaniards of the time. Spain at that time had approximately 9 million people, and in what is now Mexico it is estimated that there were then between 20 and 25 million inhabitants.

"In Spain, and throughout Europe, did not then exist urban conglomerates even comparable with Mexico, which, although there are some who assign one million and a half inhabitants, it is likely it had half a million (London did not have more than 40 thousand and Paris, the largest city barely had 65 thousand), and not to considering other cities in the Valley, with less population, as Texcoco, Aztcapozalco, Ixtapalapa, Tacuba, etc., which totaled more than one million and a half "(José Luis Guerrero. 1990) 

Cortés was able to skillfully grasp the religious problem and rivalries of the indigenous peoples, to take over as Quetzalcoatl captain, reach Tenochtitlan with thousands of indigenous allies, stopping over at the Holy City of Cholula and executing the first great massacre, to strengthen the Alliance with the Tlaxcalans, since at that time were rivals. For the mexicas, the conflict was religious and the war was religious. They were not facing an invading and predatory enemy, they were in the midst of a great religious—philosophical schism and a civil war.

"Such disproportion, however, was only apparent: other than the sudden large number of allied indians was so great that it can be said that really it was not a conquest, but rather a civil war from which a few foreign invaders benefited, given that both fought more on a religious ground than military, the spanish war conception conferred them a crushing force, while the Mexican paralyzed its believers, making