Maximilian I of Mexico

• 1. Introduction

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  Maximilian I of Mexico stood before a Republican firing squad on the Cerro de las Campanas on the 19th of June 1867 and handed each of his executioners a gold coin. It was a gesture of courtly European dignity from a man who had crossed an ocean to rule a country that never fully wanted him, backed by a foreign army that ultimately abandoned him. His last words, spoken only in Spanish, were: "I forgive everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood which is about to be spilled end the bloodshed which has been experienced in my new motherland. Long live Mexico! Long live its independence!"

  Born Fernando Maximilian Josef Maria von Habsburg-Lorraine on the 6th of July 1832 in Vienna's Schönbrunn Palace, he was the younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. He arrived in Mexico on the 29th of May 1864 as emperor of the Second Mexican Empire, a regime built on a fraudulent plebiscite, French bayonets, and the ambitions of Mexican conservatives. He would reign for just three years.

  How did an Austrian archduke end up on a Mexican throne? Why did he govern as a liberal when conservatives put him there? And why, when escape was still possible, did he choose to stay? The answers reveal a man caught between the court of Vienna, the ambitions of Napoleon III, and the stubborn determination of Benito Juárez.

• 2. An Archduke in Search of a Role

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  Baroness Louise von Sturmfeder-Oppenweiler cared for Maximilian until his sixth birthday, after which his formal education began in earnest. By age seven he was attending 32 hours of classes per week; by seventeen, that number had risen to 55. The curriculum ranged from history, geography, and law to fencing, military studies, and diplomacy. From the very beginning, he competed fiercely with his older brother Franz Joseph, trying to prove himself the more capable of the two. With primogeniture settled against him, that ambition had nowhere obvious to go.

  His mother, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, was described by historian Richard O'Conner as far more formidable than her husband Archduke Franz Karl, whom he characterized as "an amiably dim fellow whose main interest in life was consuming bowls of dumplings drenched in gravy." Maximilian inherited his mother's will and his own natural charm. He was joyful and charismatic, but also undisciplined: he mocked his teachers and pranked even his uncle the emperor. That charisma drove a widening rift between himself and the aloof Franz Joseph that would define both of their lives.

  When revolutionary unrest swept Europe in 1848, the young Maximilian accompanied his brother on campaigns to suppress rebellions across the empire. He was horrified by what he witnessed. He would later write: "We call our age the Age of Enlightenment, but there are cities in Europe where, in the future, men will look back in horror and amazement at the injustice of tribunals, which in a spirit of vengeance condemned to death those whose only crime lay in wanting something different to the arbitrary rule of governments which placed themselves above the law." That liberal conscience would shape every major decision of his adult life.

• 3. The Making of an Admiral

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  In October 1850, Maximilian was commissioned as a navy lieutenant in the small Imperial Austrian Navy, embarking on the corvette Vulkan for a cruise through Greece. His direct connection to the emperor helped redirect resources toward a service that had long been neglected. On the 10th of September 1854, he was named Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian Navy and given the rank of counter admiral.

  Maximilian proved a reforming commander. He was instrumental in building the naval ports at Trieste and Pola, and laid the foundations of a battle fleet that Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff would later use to win decisive victories. He also launched a large-scale scientific expedition from 1857 to 1859 that became the first circumnavigation of the globe conducted by the Austrian Empire. Critics faulted him for diverting funds toward shipbuilding at the expense of sailors' training, sea-going experience, and morale.

  Among his naval voyages was a voyage aboard SMS Novara in early 1851 that took him to Lisbon, where he met Princess Maria Amélia of Braganza, daughter of the late Brazilian Emperor Pedro I. The pair fell in love and his family approved a prospective marriage. Maria Amélia contracted scarlet fever in February 1852, developed tuberculosis, and died on the 4th of February 1853, deeply shocking Maximilian. His travels also included Italy, Spain, Madeira, Tangiers, Algeria, Beirut, Palestine, Egypt, and Brazil. During a visit to Granada in 1854, he stood at the tombs of his ancestors Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabel I of Castile, and in an 1859 letter to his father-in-law King Leopold I of Belgium he described feeling as though he was "the first descendant of Ferdinand and Isabela who since early childhood has thought it his mission to tread on the continent."

  At the end of 1855, caught in poor sailing weather, he sheltered in the Gulf of Trieste and was so struck by the setting that he began construction in March 1856 of what would become Miramare Castle, near the city of Trieste. It was from that castle that he would sail to Mexico eight years later.

• 4. Viceroy and Liberal

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  On the 28th of February 1857, Franz Joseph named Maximilian viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia, the Italian-speaking region of the Austrian Empire. The appointment was a calculated response to growing discontent with the aging General Joseph Radetzky von Radetz. Installing the emperor's own brother was intended to encourage personal loyalty to the House of Habsburg among the local population.

  Maximilian and Charlotte arrived in Milan on the 6th of September 1857, taking up residence at the Royal Palace and occasionally the Royal Villa of Monza. Charlotte worked to win over the population by speaking Italian, visiting charitable institutions, founding schools, and wearing native Lombard dress. On Easter 1858, the couple sailed down the Grand Canal of Venice in ceremonial dress. Despite these efforts, anti-Austrian feeling continued to spread.

  Maximilian's actual record as an administrator was substantial. He revised the tax registry for greater equity, established medical districts, dredged the Venetian canals, expanded the port of Cuomo, drained swamps to combat malaria, and carried out urban development in both Milan and Venice. The Biblioteca Ambrosiana library was restored. The British minister of foreign relations wrote in 1859 that the Lombard-Venetian provinces were administered "with great talent, and both a liberal and conciliatory spirit."

  That liberalism proved fatal to his tenure. When Maximilian went to Vienna in April 1858 to ask Franz Joseph for both military and administrative jurisdiction, the emperor refused, leaving him functioning essentially as a prefect of police. Franz Joseph considered his younger brother too generous toward what he regarded as a rebellious population. On the 10th of April 1859, Maximilian was relieved of his post. His dismissal was received in Italy with what the Count of Cavour described as relief: Cavour declared that Maximilian had been "about to triumph" in winning over the Milanese, and that the emperor's intervention was "most fatal to Austria, but most advantageous to Piedmont."

• 5. The Crown Nobody Else Would Take

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  The road to a Mexican monarchy had been laid decades before Maximilian was born. In 1840, the statesman José María Gutiérrez de Estrada published an essay arguing that Mexico's republic had failed after two decades of chaos and that a European prince should be invited to establish a Mexican throne. Conservative factions kept the idea alive through the presidencies of Mariano Paredes and Santa Anna. When liberals won the three-year civil war of 1858-61, conservatives regrouped and went looking for foreign allies.

  Mexican diplomat José Hidalgo had been tasked by the Santa Anna administration to sound out European courts on a monarchy, but lost his official accreditation after Santa Anna's fall in 1853. His childhood friend was Eugénie de Montijo, now wife of Napoleon III of France. Through her, Hidalgo reached the French emperor. The name Maximilian came up quickly among the monarchists. A member of the Habsburg family, he carried associations with the Viceroyalty of New Spain, which the Habsburgs had ruled until the Spanish throne passed to the Bourbons. He was unlikely to inherit anything in Europe given his elder brother's position.

  In 1859, a delegation of Mexican monarchists led by José Pablo Martínez del Río first approached Maximilian with the offer. He declined. Then came his dismissal as viceroy. When the offer came again, this time through Gutiérrez de Estrada himself, circumstances had changed. Napoleon III suspended repayment demands from France alongside Britain and Spain at the Convention of London on the 31st of October 1861, ostensibly to renegotiate Mexico's debts. Privately, Napoleon's aim was to overthrow Juárez's government and install a friendly regime that would also serve as a buffer against the expanding United States.

  Maximilian set two conditions: the Mexican people themselves had to spontaneously request him, and France and Great Britain had to guarantee their support. A plebiscite held in French-occupied territory was, in the source's own word, "a farce," but Maximilian accepted its proclaimed results. On the 9th of April 1864 he reluctantly signed the Family Pact, renouncing all rights to the Austrian throne. On the 10th of April 1864, he formally accepted the crown at Miramare Castle.

• 6. Emperor Against His Own Base

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  The new emperor of Mexico landed at Veracruz on the 29th of May 1864 to a sparse reception, the townspeople kept away by a yellow fever outbreak. The arrival at the capital was more festive, with fireworks and hundreds of triumphal arches. Maximilian and Carlota were crowned at the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, then moved from the National Palace to Chapultepec Castle, a hilltop residence that had sheltered both Aztec emperors and Spanish viceroys.

  Maximilian immediately proved a disappointment to the conservatives who had installed him. Rather than reversing the liberal Constitution of 1857, which had curtailed the power of the Catholic Church and the Mexican army, he upheld its reforms. When the papal nuncio Pier Francesco Meglia arrived in December 1864 and demanded the return of Church property and the reinstatement of Catholicism as the sole religion, Maximilian refused. He decreed freedom of worship and confirmed the sale of Church property. The Church had backed the empire, but now threatened to withdraw support if the regime proved "ungodly."

  He offered Juárez both amnesty and the post of prime minister. Juárez refused and continued to govern from Mexico's north, never leaving national territory, always recognized by the United States. Meanwhile Maximilian issued eight volumes of laws covering forest management, railroads, roads, canals, postal services, telegraphs, mining, and immigration, most of which were never implemented. He attempted to guarantee a living wage for indigenous Mexicans, outlaw corporal punishment, and limit the inheritance of debt. He published laws in both Spanish and Nahuatl. He appointed the Indigenous scholar Faustino Galicia as an advisor to his government and later named him president of the Council for the Protection of the Impoverished.

  His conciliatory offer of amnesty to liberals eventually won over some moderate figures such as José Fernando Ramírez, Manuel Orozco y Berra, and Santiago Vidaurri, a former Juárez ally. But the center could not hold. Without conservative legitimacy and without liberal loyalty, his regime floated on French military power alone.

• 7. Collapse and Capture

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  In April 1865, the American Civil War ended and the United States began pressing France on the Monroe Doctrine in earnest. In December of that year, a private American loan worth $30 million was approved for Juárez. American volunteers joined the republican forces. The prospect of direct American intervention caused a number of Maximilian's supporters to abandon him.

  In October 1865, Maximilian signed what became known as the Black Decree, authorizing the court martial and execution of anyone found aiding or participating with republican guerrillas. It is calculated that more than 11,000 Juárez supporters were executed under it. The measure backfired badly, turning more Mexicans against the empire. In January 1866, Napoleon III announced to the French Corps législatif that he intended to withdraw French troops from Mexico. Carlota traveled to Europe to plead for the empire's survival, but found no support. After the failure of her mission, she became increasingly mentally unstable and spent the rest of her life in seclusion in Belgium, living until 1927.

  By October 1866 Maximilian had moved his cabinet to Orizaba and was rumored to be preparing to abdicate. On the 25th of November, his ministers voted narrowly against abdication. In February 1867, as the last French troops departed, Maximilian rode to Querétaro to join his remaining Mexican forces, numbering about 10,000 men. Liberal generals Mariano Escobedo and Ramón Corona besieged the city with 40,000. On the 11th of May, Maximilian resolved to break through the republican lines toward the coast. Colonel Miguel López betrayed the plan, opening the gate for republican forces, apparently believing Maximilian would be allowed to escape. The city fell on the 15th of May 1867. Maximilian was captured the following morning after a failed escape attempt led by the hussar brigade of Felix Salm-Salm.

• 8. Death and Aftermath

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  Maximilian's trial opened on the 13th of June in the Teatro Iturbide of Querétaro, with Colonel Rafael Platón Sánchez presiding. He was charged with conspiring to overthrow the Mexican government and with carrying out the Black Decree. His lawyers, including the conservative statesman Mariano Riva Palacio, defended both the legitimacy of the empire and his record as a ruler. After a single day of proceedings the court returned a verdict of guilty.

  Victor Hugo and Giuseppe Garibaldi were among the prominent figures who sent telegrams and letters requesting clemency. Juárez, who respected Maximilian personally, refused to commute the sentence. He believed Mexico had to send an unambiguous message that it would not tolerate foreign invasions. Felix Salm-Salm and his wife devised a bribery plan to free Maximilian from prison, but Maximilian refused to proceed unless his generals Miramón and Mejía could escape with him, and he would not shave his beard to avoid recognition if recaptured, considering it beneath his dignity.

  At 6:40 in the morning on the 19th of June 1867, Maximilian, Miguel Miramón, and Tomás Mejía Camacho were shot by a Republican firing squad on the Cerro de las Campanas. Maximilian's body was embalmed and displayed in Mexico before being repatriated six months later. Austrian admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff was sent aboard SMS Novara to collect the remains; the coffin was placed in Vienna's Imperial Crypt on the 18th of January 1868.

  French painter Édouard Manet, who held Republican sympathies, depicted the execution in a series of three paintings. His third version dressed the Mexican soldiers in uniforms nearly identical to French troops, and gave the soldier preparing the coup de grace the conspicuous features of Napoleon III. The painting was banned from public display in Paris. Composer Franz Liszt included a funeral march in memory of Maximilian among the pieces of his collection Années de pèlerinage. One of the less visible but durable consequences of the empire's collapse was musical: the Central European marching bands and folk musicians Maximilian had brought to Mexico fled north after his execution, carrying polkas, waltzes, and accordion music into northern Mexico and the southwestern United States, a current that would eventually help generate the genres of norteño and tejano.