A coded telegram to González Garza warning of a mutiny, 19 May 1911

01 The telegram

A Western Union form of 19 May 1911 from Mexico City, addressed to “W. Olliphant” at Missouri 1008, El Paso, Texas (a pencil note adds “F. Gonzalez Garza”), signed Fausto E. Miranda and S. Herrera Moreno and received at 10:55 pm. It is in clear Spanish with ten words in cipher. The archive’s record calls it “Texto en clave y palabras descifradas” with the subject “Armisticio fue firmado”, but no decipherment stands on the sheet and its pencil notes do not touch the coded words. The ledger entry that listed it (catalogue 1462, the Maderista junta’s coded telegrams with no decipherment) listed it as part-deciphered on the strength of that record.

The contributor, Prabal Gupta, read it from the CEHM scan; the project could not reach the scan and worked from his files.

02 The key card

The key is the archive’s own: a card headed “Herrera. Moreno.” in the same fonds (CMXV.16.1557.1, scan 7), and one signer of the telegram is S. Herrera Moreno. It is a shifted alphabet of 26 cipher signs, counting ch, ll and ñ as signs and having no c or j: the cipher signs p q r s t u v x y z a b ch d e f g h i k l ll m ñ n o stand for a b c d e f g h i j k l m n ñ o p q r s t u v x y z. The key was not recovered from the ciphertext.

Checked here: the 26-row key is one-to-one and a shifted alphabet, and the ten coded words decrypted again with it agree letter for letter with the contributor’s table. The contributor adds a check that the project could not repeat: the same card reads the next day’s telegram by the same signers (CMXV.18.1777.5-6), whose ten coded words agree with a pencil gloss of the time, one with a wrong letter.

03 The reading

Ocurra [a] Julio Peña [para la] traducción. Anoche salieron tres AZENTES KINEDA norte. ZENERAL HUERTA díjome témese [en] ésta MOTÍN MILITAR CONTRA usted, causa renuncia DÍAZ. Creo necesario tome PRECAUCIONES, o no VENFA.

In English: go to Julio Peña for the translation; last night three agents [of Pineda?] left for the north; General Huerta told one of the writers (the verbs are first-person singular) that a military mutiny against the addressee is feared in the capital on account of Díaz’s resignation; the writer thinks precautions necessary, “or do not come”. Díaz resigned six days later, so the wording may refer to the resignation then awaited (the record’s subject is “Armisticio fue firmado”); the sources do not settle it. The “usted” may be González Garza or Madero, for whom the contributor says he acted; the telegram does not say. The contributor adds that Díaz resigned on 25 May 1911, six days later, and that Huerta led the coup against Madero in 1913 (this background is his, and was not checked here).

04 What remains uncertain

• “kineda”: a name or word the card does not settle; ten coded words give no second occurrence to fix it.
• “venfa” is read as “venga” with one wrong letter, and “ono” is typed together and read as clear “o no”.
• The scans were not seen by the project, so neither the transcription nor the key card has been compared with them, and no human has repeated the check.
• Printed work: the contributor searched the archive’s records and the fonds’ typed list of period decipherments (none for 19 May) but not Narváez’s 2019 book on Mexican cryptography, the recipients’ papers or González Garza’s printed work, so the telegram may already be in print.
• No statistical validation is recorded: ten words are too few for a language-model test.

Full texts

The transcription and the decryption of every document on this page, so that the reading can be used and checked. Short files are shown here; all are in the repository.

Telegram of 19 May 1911 to Federico González Garza (CEHM-Carso CMXV.18.1770.2-4) read in part

A coded telegram from Mexico City to "W. Olliphant", a pencil note adding Federico González Garza, at El Paso: go to Julio Peña for the translation; three agents left for the north the night before; General Huerta told one of the writers that a military mutiny against the addressee is feared in the capital on account of Díaz's resignation; precautions are advised, or do not come.

Builds coherent sentences, but under the read bar of 95% of words read as sense (91% here); the holes are marked in the reading.

CEHM-Carso, Fondo CMXV (Archivo Federico González Garza), CMXV.18.1770.2-4.
Western Union telegram form, stamped 501.

114 g ws  42/31 - 3 exa  Via Galvn
Mexico-City Mex May 19th'11
Sr. W. Olliphant, (F. Gonzalez Garza) [the name in brackets is a pencil note]
Missouri 1008, Elpaso Texas.

Ocurra Julio pena traduccion anoche salieron tres potdltk aydtsp
norte otdtipb xlltilp dijome temese esta chflyd chybylpi rfdlip
usted causa renuncia sypo creo necessario tome gitrpllryfdtk
ono mtdup.

Fausto E. Miranda,
S Herrera Moreno.
1055 pm

Coded word	Letter-for-letter reading with the card	Word meant
potdltk	azentes	agentes (the writer uses z for the sound of g and j here)
aydtsp	kineda	unsure: Pineda is a guess, and it needs one wrong letter
otdtipb	zeneral	general
xlltilp	huerta	Huerta
chflyd	motin	motín
chybylpi	militar	militar
rfdlip	contra	contra
sypo	diaz	Díaz
gitrpllryfdtk	precauciones	precauciones
mtdup	venfa	venga (one wrong letter: f for g)
ono	not coded	"o no", run together in clear

# Telegram of 19 May 1911, the text read (Spanish)

Coded words in capitals. Accents and punctuation are the contributor's.

Ocurra a Julio Peña para la traducción. Anoche salieron tres AZENTES KINEDA norte. ZENERAL HUERTA díjome témese en ésta MOTÍN MILITAR CONTRA usted, causa renuncia DÍAZ. Creo necesario tome PRECAUCIONES, o no VENFA.

# Translation of CMXV.18.1770.2-4

Square brackets mark my additions. A question mark marks an unsure reading.

> Go to Julio Peña for the translation. Last night three agents [of Pineda?] left for the north. General Huerta told me that a military mutiny against you is feared here, because of Díaz's resignation. I think it necessary that you take precautions, or do not come.

Fausto E. Miranda, S. Herrera Moreno. Mexico City, 19 May 1911, received at El Paso at 10:55 pm.

Díaz resigned on 25 May 1911. Huerta led the coup against Madero in February 1913.

Key: key.tsv

05 Sources

• CEHM-Carso (Centro de Estudios de Historia de México, Fundación Carlos Slim), Fondo CMXV, Archivo Federico González Garza: the telegram CMXV.18.1770.2-4, the key card CMXV.16.1557.1 (scan 7) and the sibling telegram CMXV.18.1777.5-6, as the contributor reports; the scans are not reproduced here (cehm.org.mx).
• Prabal Gupta, issue #330, and his repository prabal-rje/branicki-1757 (folder mexico-1911, commit af80f5e, CC BY 4.0): the transcription, the key, the reading and his notes.

The documentation, the key, the transcription, the reading and the check are in targets/mexico1911.