Scholars are all too aware of the numerous eulogistic accounts of the career of “el heroe, el pacificador, el regenerador,” Porfirio Díaz. This work by General Bernardo Reyes is in some ways a bigger disappointment than most. As the Porfirista governor of Nuevo León and, in some quarters, the heir-apparent by 1903 when this book first appeared, Reyes might at least have been expected to shed some light upon the details of Díaz’s military activities. This he fails to do.
Although more than two-thirds of the work deals almost exclusively with military engagements from the Revolution of Ayutla to the capture of Mexico City in 1867, there is virtually nothing added by the author to Díaz’s own accounts in his Memorias and various Apuntes. That which is added amounts only to praise of the modesty, skill, and courage of the great Porfirio.
There is, for example, no adequate explanation for the defeat of González Ortega at Borrego in 1862, nor is the failure of Comonfort to assist the defenders at Puebla in 1863 explained. The military failures of Díaz are either ignored or passed over lightly. There is no evidence of the failure of the Plan of La Noria and the military defeat suffered. One might have hoped that Díaz’s various disagreements with others concerning military strategy would have been explored, but little or no notice is taken of these events. Díaz, himself, states in his Memorias that González Ortega should have attacked the French at the beginning of the siege of Puebla, but Reyes omits any reference to such criticism.
The fourteen pages on the Juárez and Lerdo administrations are obviously inadequate even when it is remembered that the life of Díaz is the subject of the book. There is no indication that Reyes recognized that many of the successes of the dictatorship of Díaz had their beginnings in the Lerdo administration and, to some extent, in the Juárez period. There is no real description of the political backing given to Díaz during this period and just what it aimed for. The Plan of Textepec in 1876 that brought Díaz to power is hardly described at all.
The approximately seventy-five pages dealing with the presidential administrations of Díaz and González contain the usual listing of figures on railroads, telegraph lines, foreign trade, and the like, as if these were the exclusive products of Porfirio’s genius.
Of the hundred or more biographical studies of Porfirio Díaz, this would seem to be one of the least worthy of reissue. If one remembers that the author approved of Díaz’s achievements to the point that he later went into exile to avoid endangering them with civil war, it is easy to know what to expect.
The review copy was badly bound, having several pages repeated, and the photographs reproduced are quite poor. There is no evidence of editing and no index has been added.
