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This is a few of the minute-long films on the Mexican Revolution/Punitive Expedition.

1916 - Federal gunners fire during a battle in Mexico.

https://dissolve.com/video/1916-Federal ... 78-110-414

1916 - A church-hospital is fumigated for soldiers of the Mexican Expedition. Soldiers from both sides are brought to Red Cross hospitals in Presidio, Texas.

https://dissolve.com/video/1916-church- ... 78-110-419

1916 - Newsreel footage shows action of the Mexican Expedition.

https://dissolve.com/video/1916-Newsree ... 78-110-422

1916 - Federal gunners fire during a battle in Mexico, ultimately proving victorious.

https://dissolve.com/video/1916-Federal ... 78-110-423

1916 - Texan soldiers take the train to Mexico to help with the search for Pancho Villa. Meanwhile, Revolutionists march to join his camp in Chihuahua.

https://dissolve.com/video/1916-Texan-s ... 78-110-438

1916 - Mexican revolutionaries capture and execute a Federal sharpshooter.

https://dissolve.com/video/1916-Mexican ... 78-110-443

1916 - American soldiers watch the Battle of Ojinaga from the roof of their barracks.

https://dissolve.com/video/1916-America ... 78-110-477

Can you imagine how unpleasant it was to travel any distance in those vehicles?

By way of reference, that same time-frame was a period of EXPERIMENTAL cross-continental drives by various clubs and manufacturers. Even here in America to say nothing of Mexico, there were few paved roads outside good-sized towns, and few reliable road maps, and few roads that were even marked. They just went where they went. A driver either knew where they went or didn't. Getting fuel was an adventure in itself. Tires failed frequently.

What fun!

That is why horses and mules were in the forefront in Mexico and the armored cars weren’t. There was an increasing use of mechanical transportation carrying supplies to the point where they were picked up by wagons or mules.

Good point on the roads. We really don’t appreciate how good our road system is in this country.

Joseph Sullivan wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2020 6:21 pm Can you imagine how unpleasant it was to travel any distance in those vehicles?

By way of reference, that same time-frame was a period of EXPERIMENTAL cross-continental drives by various clubs and manufacturers. Even here in America to say nothing of Mexico, there were few paved roads outside good-sized towns, and few reliable road maps, and few roads that were even marked. They just went where they went. A driver either knew where they went or didn't. Getting fuel was an adventure in itself. Tires failed frequently.

What fun!

Indeed I've sometimes thought that riding in them must have been a nightmare.

Right after World War One the U.S. Army did a cross country trip with a collection of vehicles it had acquired during the war. A fairly decent book has been written about it called American Road. Certain sections of the road, what would become the Lincoln Highway, were almost as good as no road at all. A stretch of it in Wyoming, for example, was the original abandoned road bed for the Union Pacific railway, and indeed the road itself followed the UP for much of Wyoming. It's amazing to think how much roads, and vehicles, had improved by World War Two.

When I was in the Army, and shortly afterwards, I was acquainted with MG Ralph McT. Pennell, who was a lieutenant on that Post WWI cross-country trip. I met him several times in the barber shop as we apparently had the same haircut schedule. He was just a nice old man I visited with in the barber shop, and I had no idea he was who he was. He was instrumental in establishing the Field Artillery School at Fort Sill in 1911.

After I got out of the Army, I worked in the Post Cemetery. One day I was on a backhoe digging a grave and someone grabbed me from behind and said, “HEY! You are digging my grave!” It was the same old guy from the barber shop, and, indeed, I had been given the wrong number for the plot upon which to dig the grave. Later, I actually did dig his grave.

The 1919 Motor Transport Convoy kept a journal of the trip that's pretty interesting and occasionally amusing:

https://web.archive.org/web/20101206123 ... %20log.pdf

I've read the journal before, and I can't recall if it is in it, but there was even an instance of an enlisted man meeting a young woman in one town and then getting engaged shortly thereafter and then married on a subsequent road stop.

Love knows no bounds!