Second French intervention in Mexico

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 19th of June 1867, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria stood on the Cerro de las Campanas outside Querétaro and faced a firing squad alongside two Mexican generals, Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía. The man who had been Emperor of Mexico for barely three years died by order of the very republican government he had displaced. How did an Austrian archduke end up ruling Mexico? How did Napoleon III of France come to install him there? And why did the whole enterprise collapse so quickly, leaving the French emperor humiliated and the Mexican conservatives who had invited him in utterly ruined? Those are the questions this story will answer.

• 2. The Invitation

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  The idea of placing a European monarch on a Mexican throne did not begin with Napoleon III. Mexican conservative exiles José María Gutiérrez de Estrada and José Manuel Hidalgo y Esnaurrízar had spent decades lobbying European courts for exactly that outcome. They found their audience through an unlikely personal connection: Napoleon III's Spanish wife, Empress Eugénie de Montijo. Through her, the two monarchist exiles reached the French emperor directly. Napoleon was initially cool to the scheme, knowing that the United States would resist any European monarchy in the Americas. Then, in 1861, the American Civil War broke out, removing that obstacle for the foreseeable future.

  Mexico at that moment was already exhausted. After the Mexican-American War the country had fragmented politically, with elite factions staging repeated coups and secessionist attempts under both federalist and centralist constitutions. A 1857 coup by conservative forces had deposed President Ignacio Comonfort and plunged the country into a three-year civil war known as the Reform War. The liberals, led by Benito Juárez, won that war, but the conservatives were not finished. They turned to France. Their defeat on the battlefield became an invitation for regime change from outside.

  Napoleon III's motives were not purely ideological. He told his public that the mission served free trade and would guarantee French access to Mexican silver. More candidly, he believed a French-dependent Mexico would slow the growth of the United States and extend French influence across Latin America. Maximilian himself, however, held different views on Mexican resources; he later made clear that those resources belonged to Mexicans, not to France.

• 3. A Pretext Built on Debt

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  President Juárez handed the European powers their opening in July 1861 by placing a moratorium on foreign debt payments and expelling all Spanish diplomats, accusing Spain of having backed the conservatives during the Reform War. Spain, France, and a reluctant United Kingdom responded by signing the Convention of London, which committed the three governments to force repayment.

  On the 14th of December, Spanish General Juan Prim arrived at Veracruz with 6,200 soldiers drawn from Cuba. French and British forces joined them on the 7th of January 1862. The allies had chosen an unusual figure to lead the operation. Prim was respected in military circles for his work as governor of Puerto Rico, his observation of the Crimean War, and his campaign in the Moroccan War. He was also a liberal by temperament and was married to a Mexican citizen, Francisca de Agüero, who had family connections to Juárez's own government.

  Prim's politics soon showed. He issued a manifesto on the 10th of January insisting the alliance had not come to conquer or impose a government. Talks with Mexican Foreign Minister Manuel Doblado produced an agreement on the 23rd of January to move allied forces inland to Orizaba and hold a conference there; the agreement formally recognized Juárez's government. By early April those negotiations collapsed as France made plain it intended to invade regardless of prior commitments. Prim consulted with the British, and both armies agreed to leave, securing an arrangement under which 80 percent of Veracruz customs revenues would go toward settling foreign debts. France was furious. Prim's exit was seen as abandoning a Spanish-led venture and stranding France without its Spanish cover.

• 4. Cinco de Mayo and Its Aftermath

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  A French force of 6,500 men began moving toward Mexico City in early 1862. On the 5th of May, they met Mexican forces commanded by Generals Ignacio Zaragoza and Porfirio Díaz outside Puebla. The Mexican army numbered around 5,000 men; the French, roughly 6,000. The French tried to climb steep terrain toward the city and were stopped. Mexican defenders at the Cerro de Guadalupe inflicted 476 French casualties against 227 of their own. The French retreated to Orizaba to wait for reinforcements. The victory would come to be commemorated as Cinco de Mayo.

  The battle strengthened Juárez's political standing and drew some conservative officers toward the republican cause. But Napoleon III's response was not to retreat. He dispatched 30,000 troops under General Élie Frédéric Forey. By October 1862, Forey was at Orizaba planning a second assault on Puebla, whose defense had now passed to General Jesús González Ortega after Zaragoza died of typhoid on the 8th of September.

  The second siege of Puebla began in March 1863. González Ortega had spent months building up the city's fortifications and declared martial law on the 10th of March. After weeks of fighting, General François Achille Bazaine and the defecting Mexican General Leonardo Márquez intercepted a relief column under former president Ignacio Comonfort before it could reach the city. Cut off from supplies and ammunition, González Ortega held a council of war and agreed to surrender on the 17th of May. Most officers were taken prisoner; González Ortega and Díaz managed to escape. Forey would later criticize Bazaine for not executing Díaz on the spot, a failure that would haunt the empire.

• 5. Empire Installed, Resistance Continued

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  After the fall of Puebla, Juárez directed his government to evacuate Mexico City, and Congress granted him emergency powers before closing its session on the 31st of May. French forces occupied the capital on the 10th of June 1863. Conservative Mexican elites quickly aligned with the French, and a Junta of 35 citizens was nominated to choose an executive triumvirate, consisting of General Almonte, Archbishop Labastida, and José Mariano Salas. An Assembly of Notables followed, and on the 11th of July it resolved that Mexico would become a constitutional monarchy with Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian invited to take the throne.

  The new empire collected recognitions from France, Austria, Belgium, Prussia, Portugal, Spain, Russia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the Ottoman Empire, as well as from both the Papal States and the Kingdom of Italy, which wanted to maintain good standing with France while pressuring Austria diplomatically. In the Americas, only Guatemala under conservative president for life Rafael Carrera and the Empire of Brazil extended recognition. Every other republic in the hemisphere refused.

  Maximilian and his wife Charlotte of Belgium arrived in Veracruz in the summer of 1864 and were crowned in the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral. But he proved to be a surprise to his conservative backers: he held liberal views and continued many of the Juárez government's reforms. French commanders were directed to delay broader conservative changes, and Maximilian clashed with the French over resources and governance. Meanwhile, Juárez had never left Mexican territory. Republican guerrillas kept fighting in the countryside, and the northern frontier states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Tabasco, and Chiapas held out under commanders including Porfirio Díaz, who had again escaped captivity after his surrender at Oaxaca and raised a new army in Guerrero.

• 6. The Turning Point

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  The effective end of the American Civil War in April 1865 changed the equation. Abraham Lincoln had never recognized the government of Maximilian but had been unable to act. His successor Andrew Johnson stopped short of direct military intervention, but he allowed demobilized Union veterans to head south and volunteer for the Republicans. In 1865, Mexican agents sold bonds in the United States and raised between $16 million and $18 million to buy American war material. General Herman Sturm acted as a supply agent from 1865 to 1868; General Philip Sheridan transferred additional weapons in 1866, including some 30,000 rifles drawn directly from the Baton Rouge Arsenal in Louisiana.

  The United States also applied diplomatic force. Secretary of State William H. Seward made clear that American neutrality did not mean American indifference. In January 1866, Napoleon III announced that French troops would leave Mexico. When France asked the U.S. for neutrality in return, Seward replied that the withdrawal should be unconditional. Napoleon III then laid out a phased plan to pull troops out in stages from November 1866 through November 1867. Seward pushed for faster action.

  Back in Mexico, Maximilian's own response to the rising republican tide only deepened the crisis. On the 2nd of October 1865, he issued the "Black Decree," ordering that captured combatants be shot without prisoner exchange: "The troops under your orders will take no prisoners. Every individual of whatever rank, taken with arms in his hands, shall be put to death." The decree backfired, creating republican martyrs and hardening resistance.

• 7. Collapse and Execution

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  French units began pulling out of northern Mexico in 1866. City after city fell back to the republicans as the withdrawal accelerated. Guadalajara was abandoned in December, Bazaine evacuated Mexico City on the 5th of February 1867, and the last French troops embarked for Toulon on the 12th of March.

  Maximilian refused to abdicate. After a council at Orizaba he chose to stay and fight, dividing Mexico into three military districts under Generals Miramón, Mejía, and Márquez. He joined his remaining army at Querétaro, arriving on the 19th of February with 1,600 men, twelve cannons, and 50,000 pesos. A review of troops days later showed roughly 9,000 men and 39 cannons, including about 600 Frenchmen who had chosen to remain in Mexico rather than return home.

  The siege of Querétaro tightened through the spring. Márquez was sent to Mexico City for reinforcements and never returned with them. On the night of the 14th of May, imperial Colonel Miguel López opened the city gates and admitted Republican troops in exchange for gold. Miramón, Mejía, and Maximilian were captured. A court-martial sentenced Maximilian to death. Victor Hugo and Giuseppe Garibaldi were among those who pleaded with Juárez to spare his life. Juárez refused, saying he had to send a clear message that Mexico would not tolerate government imposed by foreign powers. Maximilian, Miramón, and Mejía were shot on the Cerro de las Campanas on the 19th of June 1867. Mexico City surrendered the following day.

  Juárez returned to the capital and made relatively few policy changes, partly because the liberal-minded Maximilian had kept most of his reforms in place. The Conservative Party was so thoroughly discredited by its French alliance that it became effectively defunct. As for Porfirio Díaz, who had fought the French across multiple campaigns, captured Oaxaca City on the 1st of November 1866, and advanced into Puebla, he would remain a force in Mexican politics. In 1876, after two failed bids for power, he launched the Plan de Tuxtepec, seized the presidency, and held it for eight terms, a period now known as the Porfiriato.