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
James Dutton (Royal Marines officer) Division, 16 Air Assault Brigade along with troops from multiple other nations, including US Marines, the first time American troops had been under the operational command of a British officer since the Second World War. Royal Marines from 40 Commando under Dutton's overall command, along with United States Navy SEALs, secured oil fields on the Al-Faw Peninsula to prevent them from being burned in the first days of the ground operation, after which 40 Commando and others from 3 Commando Brigade moved up the peninsula and took the port city of Umm Qasr, where they encountered resistance into the fifth