The German government decided in the fall of 1914 to corner the U.S. arms and ammunition market to the detriment of England and France. In New York German Military Attaché Franz von Papen and Naval Attaché Karl Boy-Ed could not think of anyone more effective and with better connections than Felix A. Sommerfeld to sell off the weapons and ammunition to Mexico. A few months later, Sommerfeld received orders to create a border incident. Tensions along the U.S. - Mexican border suddenly increased in a wave of border raids under the Plan de San Diego. When Pancho Villa attacked the town of Columbus, NM, on March 9, 1916, virtually the entire regular U.S. Army descended upon Mexico or patrolled the border. War seemed inevitable. Federal agents could not prove it, but suspected German involvement. Felix A. Sommerfeld and fellow agents had forced the hand of the U.S. government through some of the most intricate clandestine operations in the history of World War I.

Outstanding. Loved your manuscript. You have a winner. Congratulations!   - Louis R. Sadler
Professor Emeritus, New Mexico State University

Thank you so much for sending me The Mexican Front in the Great War. I found it so fascinating and instructive that I read it twice. You have done a masterful job not only of analyzing Sommerfeld’s pivotal role but also of describing the role of lesser figures such as Meloy and Krumm-Heller. And all this based on an impressive array of archival sources. Congratulations! - Charles H. Harris III, Professor Emeritus, New Mexico State University

Once again, von Feilitzsch mines mountains of archival documentation, bringing the story of German intrigue in revolutionary Mexico into the sharpest focus yet. After President Madero’s death in 1913 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, provoking conflict on the US-Mexico border became a vital part of Germany’s strategy to keep U.S. arms and troops from aiding the Allies. The names of German spies Felix Sommerfeld and Dr. Arnoldo Krumm-Heller, among others, emerge from their shadowy pasts in footnotes and mere asides, as men at once brilliant, dangerous, and far more influential than previously imagined. - C.M. Mayo, Author of Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution