On January 16, 1917, in the midst of World War I, the German foreign minister, Arthur Zimmermann, sent a telegram to his ambassador in Mexico, with instructions for him to propose that the Mexicans attack the United States in exchange for recovering Texas. , New Mexico and Arizona once Germany won the war.
The telegram was intercepted by the British, who used it to force the United States into the war. In this context of suspicion and distrust, added to the American distrust of the Mexican revolution, the only battle of the First World War that took place in North American territory is inscribed. It was the Battle of Both Nogales (in Mexico known as the Battle of August 27 ).
It occurred on August 27, 1918 in the town of Ambos Nogales , a population divided between both countries. One part of the city was in the state of Arizona and the other in the Mexican state of Sonora. At that time, the border between the two countries ran along a wide boulevard called Calle Internacional . And the conflicts between both parties were constantly happening.
Since April 1917, with the entry into the world war of the United States, access restrictions had been established for Mexicans who worked across the border from Nogales. Which had been the cause of various unfortunate incidents.
On August 27, 1918 at four in the afternoon, an involuntary gunfight broke out when a Mexican carpenter named Ceferino Gil Lamadrid tried to cross the border with a bulky sack, without having been examined at customs. Suspecting that they could be weapons, Inspector Arthur G. Barbero orders him to stop, while at the same time Mexican officials on the other side of the border urge him not to stop and cross immediately.
An American soldier named William Klint pointed his rifle at Lamadrid to force him to stop. In the confusion of the moment someone fired a shot, and the battle began. Mexican officers, thinking the Americans were shooting at Lamadrid, opened fire on the customs guards, killing William Klint.
Many Mexican citizens, hearing the shots, grabbed their rifles and joined the fight. On the American side came the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry, who charged through the streets on the Mexican side. When the American infantry managed to capture the hills surrounding the city, the end of the battle was precipitated. Earlier, the mayor of the Mexican side had tried to raise a white flag, but was shot down in the middle of the street.
When things calmed down the Americans had lost 3 men, to about 15 of the Mexicans (125 according to US sources). Among those killed in the battle were two German military advisers , whose documents were examined before burial. A few days after the battle their bodies were exhumed and their final fate is unknown.
Lamadrid, who survived the battle of Ambos Nogales, would die in an altercation in a bar in the Mexican part of the city in 1935, very close to where the battle began.