On January 23, Mexican rebels under the command of Col. Ortega defeated a government army at Ojinaga. Of a a Federal force of about 200, only 50 survived. Forces loyal to Diaz lost another key battle to a force of 300 rebels at Casas Grande, leaving “railroads at the mercy of insurgents
General Navarro completely cut off,” according to a telegram from Madero’s chief of staff. A telegram from the US Consul in Ciudad Juarez reported that on January 20 a Federal force of 500 had been defeated by a rebel force estimated at 600. On January 18, rail traffic on 1,000 miles of branch line of the Southern Pacific Railway in Mexico was shut down by a strike of Mexican and American train engineers.
Texas was the primary staging ground of the revolution at this stage. Madero was in Texas, as was Abraham González, a leader of the Maderista Junta Revolucionaria Mexicana, who was appointed as the provisional governor of Chihuahua in October 1910.
A member of the Mexican elite whose family had gained great wealth and land during the long rule of Diaz known as “the Porfiriato,” Madero hoped to maintain the power of the ruling elite by offering political reforms, but no significant changes to the social order, such as land reform. However, Madero’s call to arms, the “Plan of San Luis Potosi” issued in November 1910, which declared the recent presidential elections rigged and won by Diaz null and void and himself the president of the provisional Mexican government, awakened a mass movement.
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