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Second French intervention in Mexico
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Second French intervention in Mexico
The second French intervention in Mexico (Spanish: segunda intervención francesa en México), also known as the Second Franco-Mexican War (1861–1867), was a military invasion of the Republic of Mexico by the French Empire of Napoleon III, purportedly to force the collection of Mexican debts in conjunction with Great Britain and Spain. Mexican conservatives supported the invasion, since they had been defeated by the liberal government of Benito Juárez in a three-year civil war. Defeated on the battlefield, conservatives sought the aid of France to effect regime change and establish a monarchy in Mexico, a plan that meshed with Napoleon III's plans to re-establish the presence of the French Empire in the Americas. Although the French invasion displaced Juárez's Republican government from the Mexican capital and the monarchy of Archduke Maximilian was established, the Second Mexican Empire collapsed within a few years. Material aid from the United States, whose four-year civil war ended in 1865, invigorated the Republican fight against the regime of Maximilian, and the 1866 decision of Napoleon III to withdraw military support for Maximilian's regime accelerated the monarchy's collapse.
The intervention came as a civil war, the Reform War, had just concluded, and the intervention allowed the Conservative opposition against the liberal social and economic reforms of President Juárez to take up their cause once again. The Catholic Church, conservatives, much of the upper-class and Mexican nobility, and some indigenous communities invited, welcomed and collaborated with the French empire to install Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico. However, there was still significant support for republicanism in Mexico. Mexican society was most resistant to European models of governance, including monarchies, during and after the French intervention. The emperor himself however proved to be of liberal inclination and continued some of the Juárez government's most notable measures. Some liberal generals defected to the empire, including the powerful, northern governor Santiago Vidaurri, who had fought on the side of Juárez during the Reform War.
The French army landed in January 1862, aiming to rapidly take the capital of Mexico City, but Mexican republican forces defeated them in the Battle of Puebla on 5 May 1862 ("Cinco de Mayo"), delaying their march on the capital for a year. The French and Mexican Imperial Army captured much of Mexican territory, including major cities, but guerrilla warfare by republicans remained a significant factor and Juárez himself never left the national territory. The intervention was increasingly using up troops and money at a time when the recent Prussian victory over Austria was inclining France to give greater military priority to European affairs. The liberals also never lost the official recognition of the United States of America in spite of their ongoing civil war, and following the defeat and surrender of the Confederate States of America in April 1865 the reunited country began providing material support to the republicans. Invoking the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. government asserted that it would not tolerate a lasting French presence on the continent. Facing a mounting combination of domestic political discontent, diplomatic pressure and the growing military threat of Prussia on the borders of Metropolitan France itself, French units in Mexico began to redeploy to Europe in 1866. Without substantial French support, the Second Mexican Empire collapsed in 1867. Maximilian and the two conservative generals Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía were executed by firing squad on 19 June 1867, ending this period of Mexican history.
Some Mexican conservatives had hopes of restoring Mexico to a monarchical form of government, as it had been pre-independence and at its inception in 1821, the First Mexican Empire of Agustín I. Through his Spanish wife, empress Eugénie de Montijo, the French emperor Napoleon III came into contact with monarchist exiles José María Gutiérrez de Estrada and José Manuel Hidalgo y Esnaurrízar, who exposed him to their decades long effort to import a European prince to ascend a Mexican throne. Napoleon III was initially not interested, due to the inevitable opposition that the effort would invite from the United States, but the outbreak of the American Civil War provided an opportunity. After the Mexican–American War, the country was weakened and politically fragmented. Power was divided between central and peripheral elites, and elite rebellions, secessionist attempts, and major uprisings by opposition factions were recurrent under both federalist and centralist constitutions. The 1857 coup led by conservative forces that deposed President Ignacio Comonfort deepened the instability, leaving Mexico trapped in a virtual stalemate between rival elites. Only the eventual victory over the French would end this cycle of endemic political anarchy in Mexico.
Napoleon III would also claim that the military adventure was a foreign policy commitment to free trade and that the establishment of a European-derived monarchy in Mexico would ensure European access to Mexican resources, particularly French access to Mexican silver. However, his choice emperor Maximilian would later disagree on Mexican resources going to anyone but Mexicans. More importantly, a French-dependent Mexico would restrain the growing power of the United States, and replace it with French power in Mexico and the rest of Latin America.
The support for monarchism in Mexico would also inspire strong resistance against European visions of modernity which were frequently accompanied or driven by imperial campaigns. Many Mexicans would question claims to power and the use of gruesome militaristic violence as a means to progress civilization.
The pretext for intervention came in July 1861, when Mexican president Benito Juárez placed a moratorium on foreign debt payments and expelled all remaining Spanish diplomats (the ambassador had been withdrawn over unpaid debt claims already in 1857), as he accused the Spanish of having supported the Conservatives in the Reform War. In response, Spain, France, and a reluctant United Kingdom agreed to the Convention of London to ensure that debt repayments would be forthcoming. On 14 December, Spanish general Juan Prim occupied Mexico's main port, Veracruz, with 6,200 Spanish soldiers from Cuba. 2,000 French and 700 British forces joined them on 7 January 1862. Historians have considered Prim, who was given powers as minister plenipotentiary to negotiate with the Mexican government, an unusual choice to lead the intervention. While well-regarded by the people and in military circles for his experience as governor of Puerto Rico, observer in the Crimean War, and leader in the Moroccan War, he was also of liberal tendency and married to a Mexican citizen, Francisca de Agüero, who was related to a member of Juárez's government.
On 10 January, Prim issued a manifesto disavowing rumors that the allies had come to conquer or to impose a new government. It was emphasized that the three powers merely wanted to open negotiations regarding their claims of damages. On 14 January, a bill of claims was presented to the government in Mexico City. Foreign Minister Manuel Doblado invited the commissioners to travel to Orizaba with two thousand of their own troops for a conference while requesting that the rest of the tripartite forces embark from Veracruz. The proposal to embark most troops was rejected, but negotiations then resulted in an agreement, ratified on 23 January, to move the forces inland and hold the conference at Orizaba. The agreement also officially recognized the government of Juárez along with Mexican sovereignty.
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Second French intervention in Mexico
The second French intervention in Mexico (Spanish: segunda intervención francesa en México), also known as the Second Franco-Mexican War (1861–1867), was a military invasion of the Republic of Mexico by the French Empire of Napoleon III, purportedly to force the collection of Mexican debts in conjunction with Great Britain and Spain. Mexican conservatives supported the invasion, since they had been defeated by the liberal government of Benito Juárez in a three-year civil war. Defeated on the battlefield, conservatives sought the aid of France to effect regime change and establish a monarchy in Mexico, a plan that meshed with Napoleon III's plans to re-establish the presence of the French Empire in the Americas. Although the French invasion displaced Juárez's Republican government from the Mexican capital and the monarchy of Archduke Maximilian was established, the Second Mexican Empire collapsed within a few years. Material aid from the United States, whose four-year civil war ended in 1865, invigorated the Republican fight against the regime of Maximilian, and the 1866 decision of Napoleon III to withdraw military support for Maximilian's regime accelerated the monarchy's collapse.
The intervention came as a civil war, the Reform War, had just concluded, and the intervention allowed the Conservative opposition against the liberal social and economic reforms of President Juárez to take up their cause once again. The Catholic Church, conservatives, much of the upper-class and Mexican nobility, and some indigenous communities invited, welcomed and collaborated with the French empire to install Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico. However, there was still significant support for republicanism in Mexico. Mexican society was most resistant to European models of governance, including monarchies, during and after the French intervention. The emperor himself however proved to be of liberal inclination and continued some of the Juárez government's most notable measures. Some liberal generals defected to the empire, including the powerful, northern governor Santiago Vidaurri, who had fought on the side of Juárez during the Reform War.
The French army landed in January 1862, aiming to rapidly take the capital of Mexico City, but Mexican republican forces defeated them in the Battle of Puebla on 5 May 1862 ("Cinco de Mayo"), delaying their march on the capital for a year. The French and Mexican Imperial Army captured much of Mexican territory, including major cities, but guerrilla warfare by republicans remained a significant factor and Juárez himself never left the national territory. The intervention was increasingly using up troops and money at a time when the recent Prussian victory over Austria was inclining France to give greater military priority to European affairs. The liberals also never lost the official recognition of the United States of America in spite of their ongoing civil war, and following the defeat and surrender of the Confederate States of America in April 1865 the reunited country began providing material support to the republicans. Invoking the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. government asserted that it would not tolerate a lasting French presence on the continent. Facing a mounting combination of domestic political discontent, diplomatic pressure and the growing military threat of Prussia on the borders of Metropolitan France itself, French units in Mexico began to redeploy to Europe in 1866. Without substantial French support, the Second Mexican Empire collapsed in 1867. Maximilian and the two conservative generals Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía were executed by firing squad on 19 June 1867, ending this period of Mexican history.
Some Mexican conservatives had hopes of restoring Mexico to a monarchical form of government, as it had been pre-independence and at its inception in 1821, the First Mexican Empire of Agustín I. Through his Spanish wife, empress Eugénie de Montijo, the French emperor Napoleon III came into contact with monarchist exiles José María Gutiérrez de Estrada and José Manuel Hidalgo y Esnaurrízar, who exposed him to their decades long effort to import a European prince to ascend a Mexican throne. Napoleon III was initially not interested, due to the inevitable opposition that the effort would invite from the United States, but the outbreak of the American Civil War provided an opportunity. After the Mexican–American War, the country was weakened and politically fragmented. Power was divided between central and peripheral elites, and elite rebellions, secessionist attempts, and major uprisings by opposition factions were recurrent under both federalist and centralist constitutions. The 1857 coup led by conservative forces that deposed President Ignacio Comonfort deepened the instability, leaving Mexico trapped in a virtual stalemate between rival elites. Only the eventual victory over the French would end this cycle of endemic political anarchy in Mexico.
Napoleon III would also claim that the military adventure was a foreign policy commitment to free trade and that the establishment of a European-derived monarchy in Mexico would ensure European access to Mexican resources, particularly French access to Mexican silver. However, his choice emperor Maximilian would later disagree on Mexican resources going to anyone but Mexicans. More importantly, a French-dependent Mexico would restrain the growing power of the United States, and replace it with French power in Mexico and the rest of Latin America.
The support for monarchism in Mexico would also inspire strong resistance against European visions of modernity which were frequently accompanied or driven by imperial campaigns. Many Mexicans would question claims to power and the use of gruesome militaristic violence as a means to progress civilization.
The pretext for intervention came in July 1861, when Mexican president Benito Juárez placed a moratorium on foreign debt payments and expelled all remaining Spanish diplomats (the ambassador had been withdrawn over unpaid debt claims already in 1857), as he accused the Spanish of having supported the Conservatives in the Reform War. In response, Spain, France, and a reluctant United Kingdom agreed to the Convention of London to ensure that debt repayments would be forthcoming. On 14 December, Spanish general Juan Prim occupied Mexico's main port, Veracruz, with 6,200 Spanish soldiers from Cuba. 2,000 French and 700 British forces joined them on 7 January 1862. Historians have considered Prim, who was given powers as minister plenipotentiary to negotiate with the Mexican government, an unusual choice to lead the intervention. While well-regarded by the people and in military circles for his experience as governor of Puerto Rico, observer in the Crimean War, and leader in the Moroccan War, he was also of liberal tendency and married to a Mexican citizen, Francisca de Agüero, who was related to a member of Juárez's government.
On 10 January, Prim issued a manifesto disavowing rumors that the allies had come to conquer or to impose a new government. It was emphasized that the three powers merely wanted to open negotiations regarding their claims of damages. On 14 January, a bill of claims was presented to the government in Mexico City. Foreign Minister Manuel Doblado invited the commissioners to travel to Orizaba with two thousand of their own troops for a conference while requesting that the rest of the tripartite forces embark from Veracruz. The proposal to embark most troops was rejected, but negotiations then resulted in an agreement, ratified on 23 January, to move the forces inland and hold the conference at Orizaba. The agreement also officially recognized the government of Juárez along with Mexican sovereignty.
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