Francis Loraine Petre maintained, he used statistical information supplied by the President of Columbia. The book includes photographs that he took himself. His second book on South America was "Simon Bolivar—El Libertador; a life of the chief leader in the revolt against Spain in Venezuela, New Granada and Peru." Francis Loraine Petre Francis Loraine Petre (22 February 1852 – 6 May 1925) was a British civil servant in India and a military historian upon his retirement. He wrote a two-volume regimental history of the Norfolk Regiment, but is best known for his works on the Napoleonic Wars. The grandson of the 11th Baron
History of Latin America there were several military incursions into Central America and the Caribbean, mostly in defense of commercial interests, which became known as the "Banana Wars." The greatest political upheaval in the second decade of the century took place in Mexico. In 1908, President Porfirio Díaz, who had been in office since 1884, promised that he would step down in 1910. Francisco I. Madero, a moderate liberal whose aim was to modernize the country while preventing a socialist revolution, launched an election campaign in 1910. Díaz, however, changed his mind and ran for office once more. Madero was arrested on election day