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
Corps of Colonial Marines Marines attacked an artillery battery at Chesconessex Creek (although this failed to prevent the escape of the Chesapeake Bay Flotilla, which left St. Leonard's Creek two days later). The arrival on 19 July of a battalion of Royal Marines, which had left Bermuda on 30 June, enabled the squadron to mount further expeditions ashore. After a series of diversionary raids, the Marines were again landed at Benedict on 19 August accompanied by recently-arrived Peninsular War army veterans. The battalion was to accompany the Colonial Marines in attacks on Bladensburg and Washington in August 1814. A company fought at the Battle