The Mexican Revolution was one of the last old-fashioned, pre-industrial wars, in which modern techniques and machinery had only an occasional role to play. It was a war of epic battles and mythical warrior-heroes, two of whom - Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata - have achieved fame throughout the world. And since it was a war in which people were more important than machines, it provided a generation of Mexican novelists with an abundant source of inspiration and material.

It began in November 1910. The president, Porfirio Díaz (1830-1915), had ruled, in person or by proxy, since 1876, retaining power for so long by imposing a right-wing dictatorship on a country which, despite some industrialization, retained social and economic structures based on the quasi-feudal system of the hacienda. For some years before 1910 a brave and idealistic northern liberal, Franciso I. Madero (1873-1913), had been campaigning for a revision of the political system and the establishment of a democracy based on the principles of universal suffrage and no presidential re-election. Seeing that his peaceful campaign was achieving nothing, for in fraudulent presidential elections in July 1910 Diaz was reelected yet again, Madero called for an uprising against the dictator on November 20.

It seemed a hopeless cause. However, Díaz was a tired old man, and his government and his generals had grown old with him. The federal army was incapable of quashing this minor revolt, which gathered support as the months went by. In May 1911 the rebels won their first serious battle, capturing the northern frontier town of Ciudad Ju´rez.