Page:Mexico of the Mexicans.djvu/247

Rh States. For many months, large detachments had been patrolling the Mexican border, on the plea that the interests of the United States required their presence there; and on 21st June, 1916, they came into conflict with a detachment of Carranzista troops at Carrizal, about 90 miles south of the El Paso. The Americans lost about forty killed and seventeen taken prisoners, and it is said that they were decoyed into an ambush by a white flag. On the Mexican side, General Gomez was killed. Public opinion in America was wildly excited, and so many contradictory statements were made on either side that it is, indeed, difficult to get at anything like the truth. The situation was indeed a dangerous one, and war might have been precipitated at any moment. Much was made by the enemies of America of the fact that she was ready to go to war with Mexico but not with Germany, but the two questions were by no means on all fours, for, while it was obvious that America was desirous of acting pacifically towards Mexico, it was difficult for her to do so in the face of the policy of pinpricks which she had to put up with. Every day the citizens of the United States were agitated by the news of some new outrage upon their countrymen or upon American property. This situation, full of evil potentialities, was certainly being augmented and aggravated by the German agents in Mexico, who were said to have spent money with both hands in the hope of keeping the United States so busy on its own borders that it could not enter into the world war. The north of Mexico was said to be teeming with German officers who openly boasted of the thrashing they were going to inflict upon the "Gringoes." Mobilisation was resolved upon. The Mexican Provisional Government wholly denied that its intentions were bellicose, but, in spite of those denials, a note of a somewhat warlike character was dispatched to the United States Government. Mr. Lansing's reply to this note, if it is a little reminiscent of matters which must have been only too well within the