Mexican Revolution so short a time would not occur with volunteers, and the army resorted to the "leva", forced conscription. The revolutionary forces had no problem with voluntary recruitment. Most Mexican men avoided government conscription at all cost and the ones dragooned into the forces were sent to areas far away from home and were reluctant to fight. Conscripts deserted, mutinied, and attacked and murdered their officers. In April 1914, U.S. opposition to Huerta culminated in the seizure and occupation of the port of Veracruz by U.S. marines and sailors. Initially intended, in part, to prevent a German merchant vessel from delivering
Tampico Affair destroyed to prevent their falling under U.S. control. By the spring of 1914, diplomatic relations between the US and Mexico were strained. US President Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize the presidency of Mexican General Victoriano Huerta, who had been installed as president the previous year after Huerta and the conservative rebel General Félix Díaz, a nephew of Porfirio Díaz, had signed the Embassy Pact with the approval of US Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, who had since been removed by the president. The instability caused by the ongoing Mexican Revolution threatened US lives and economic interests in Mexico. Although Tampico was