This special presentation of the Borderlands Forum acknowledges the centennial year of this important event in U.S. - Mexico border dynamics and is presented by Nogales native and the former director of Nogales' Pimeria Alta Museum, Axel Holm. 

Some historians have rejected the notion that German had any influence in the Battle of Nogales, August 27, 1918. Was Germany interested in the US-Mexican borfder? What evidence exists that Germany was trying to turn Mexico, absorbed by its own revolution, against the United States? Is there any evidence, however circumstantial, that points to German influence and meddling in Mexico? Movites for the Battle of Nogales are generally overlooked and attributed to alleged tensions between Mexico and its revolutionary leaders and the presence of the U.S. military on the border. What was President Wilson's motive in the spring of 1916 to order 100,000 U.S. troops after Pancho Villas' raid on Columbus, New Mexico? This presentation attempts to demonstrate that German ambitions in Mexico contributed to Battle of Nogales