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
SMS Dresden (1907) guns. On 15 April 1914, "Dresden" steamed to Tampico on Mexico's Caribbean coast. That month, the German-flagged merchant ship arrived in Mexico, carrying a load of small arms for the regime of Mexican dictator Victoriano Huerta. The United States had put an arms embargo into effect in an attempt to reduce the violence of the civil war. The US Navy intercepted "Ypiranga" on 21 April. "Dresden" arrived, confiscated the merchantman, and pressed her into naval service to transport German refugees out of Mexico. Despite the American embargo, the Germans delivered the weapons and ammunition to the Mexican government on 28