PUNITIVE FORCE

About the Book

At the start of World War I, Mexico and America were embroiled in a quarrel that had resulted from cross border raids for over seventy years. At the start of the Mexican Civil War in 1911, the patience of America had grown thin and a Mexican-American war almost erupted. Most of the leading characters of this true story come together during the Great Earthquake and Fire in San Francisco. The story follows them to the Mexican border where Germany and Japan plotted to exacerbate America's quarrel with Mexico in order to prevent the American Army from joining the European Allies on the Western Front.

A young military officer and his oriental wife are dispatched to Mexico as secret agents for the American War Department because of the Army's distrust of the State Department and President Woodrow Wilson's pacifism. The couple are soon caught up in the American invasion and occupation of Vera Cruz, Mexico, provoked by an alleged insult to the American flag. Two years later, a small Mexican army bloodily invaded the American territory of New Mexico.

The protagonist joins the retaliatory invasion of Mexico by General John Pershing's Punitive Expedition that was thwarted in part by a German and Japanese plan to join Mexico in an invasion of America. The German reward for Mexico's alliance was to be the return to Mexico of her "lost territories" of California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. The officer's wife in New York City works with the British secret service to intercept a telegram from Germany's Foreign Minister to the German Ministers in Washington DC and Mexico City that revealed the plot. Luckily, the Mexican President faced reality and war was averted. After the American Army returned from France in 1919, the problem of the border warfare was largely settled.

About the Author

Gene Denson is a retired college history professor and veteran of two wars who enjoys life in central Florida with his family. His previous two historical novels, The Tartar Wall and Port Arthur, form a trilogy with Punitive Force, but each novel stands independent of the others. He has traveled extensively in Latin America and Europe and has lived in Asia. His current effort is the completion of his twin brother’s hilarious novel of yakusa-menaced Miami, tentatively titled Goodbye, Yamaguchi.