The history of Mexico is one fraught with civil war, dictatorships, revolutions and political intrigue. Religious persecution was a part of this history from the moment Mexico gained independence from Spain, which was in 1821.

Mexico became a republic, but the country had no experience in self-government and the economy was seriously depleted. The economic decline was a direct result of this very independence. There was pervasive distrust of Spaniards, which lead them to leave Mexico. This virtually eliminated capital reserves and the working class. In 1824 a republican constitution was adopted, based loosely on the constitution of the United States. The Mexican constitution created a federal republic of 19 states, four ter

By all accounts Greene was an intelligent man; I say this because he was literally bored with his life from an early age and dabbled in many unusual adventures for himself, which included Russian roulette, just to experience the excitement and to banish boredom.

On Feb. 14, 1911, Madero crossed into Mexico near Ciudad Juarez to head his forces. In the next few months rebels learned how incapacitated the Diaz army had become; led by aged generals, the Federalist troops lacked discipline, cohesion, unity of command, and effectiveness (Mabry 3-4). The revolution quickly gained ground and momentum. On May 10 the Federal commander surrendered at Ciudad Juarez, which marked the beginning of the end. An agreement negotiated with the Diaz regime provided that he would resign, an interim president, Francisco Leon de la Barra, would call general elections, and revolutionary forces would be discharged. On May 25 Díaz resigned and sailed for Paris. The new government was able to stay in power for only 15 months. In February 1913 the government was overthrown and Victoriano Huerta, commandant of government forces, betrayed the president and arranged for his death so that he (Huerta) could assume the presidency himself (Camin and Meyer 103-04). On Huerta's orders, Madero and Pino Suarez were shot while being transferred from one prison to another; their deaths rekindled revolutionary fires. The revived revolution took on highly local and regional aspects. Combined revolutionary forces unseated Huerta in 1914, but then split over who was to exercise presidential power. Zapata in Morelos and Villa in the north joined to fight the revolutionary groups under Carranza, the most important of which was headed by General Álvaro Obregón. Obregon won a decisive victory over Villa at Celaya in April 1915 but failed to bring the civil war to an immediate end (Gonzalez 45-6). Sporadic fighting continued for the next five years. In 1916 Carranza began a revision of the constitution of 1857, enforcing the articles on religious freedom (Camin and Meyer 171).

Not much is known of his childhood. He was born in England into a family that would ultimately have six children. His father was the headmaster of a school. John Gray's biographical essay of Greene stated that he did not enjoy his boyhood, would skip classes, and find any reason not to go to school. Sometime in his youth he suffered a mental breakdown and his parents sent him to London for treatment. It was then that he began to read, write poetry and mingle with some famous people; "Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein became lifelong mentors to him before he returned to high school (Gray 2)." Greene attempted to make his studies and his life more interesting; while in college he contacted the German embassy and volunteered to write some pro-German articles for the Oxford newspaper, dabbling in Communism as well. After becoming engaged, Greene converted to Roman Catholicism, began his writing career and worked for the London Times (Gale 1). In some of his first products Greene develops an infatuation with evil, cruelty, betrayal, the struggle of man against God and corruption that become major themes in the remainder of his body of works (Gale 2).

Many people questioned the nation's indifferent acceptance of peace. The most vocal critics were members of the Regeneration. Even though the group was small, it had significant influence. Many of the reforms and programs

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