El general cristero Jesús Degollado Guízar y la toma de Manzanillo en 1928

Abstract

This article uses the incident of the thwarted “taking” of Manzanillo as a case study to examine whether the cristeros, using the tactics of guerilla warfare, had any real possibility of defeating the government of Mexico at the time. The author suggests that the cristero army, far from being a monolithic and well-disciplined force, comprised groups of poorly-organized rebels incapable of following the orders of their leaders. Using a wide array of published and unpublished sources, Ortoll questions the official pro-cristero stance that considers the attack on Manzanillo as a triumph for the rebel troops.