The second French intervention in Mexico, also known as the Maximilian
Affair, Mexican Adventure, the War of the French Intervention, the
Franco-Mexican War or the Second Franco-Mexican War, was an invasion of
Mexico in late 1861 by the Second French Empire, supported in the beginning by
the United Kingdom and Spain. It followed President Benito Juárez's
suspension of interest payments to foreign countries on 17 July 1861, which
angered these three major creditors of Mexico.
Emperor Napoleon III of France was the instigator, justifying military
intervention by claiming a broad foreign policy of commitment to free trade. For
him, a friendly government in Mexico would ensure European access to Latin
American markets. Napoleon also wanted the silver that could be mined in Mexico
to finance his empire. Napoleon built a coalition with Spain and Britain while
the U.S. was deeply engaged in its civil war.
The three European powers signed the Treaty of London on 31 October 1861, to
unite their efforts to receive payments from Mexico. On 8 December the Spanish
fleet and troops arrived at Mexico's main port, Veracruz. When the British
and Spanish discovered that France planned to seize all of Mexico, they
quickly withdrew from the coalition. The subsequent French invasion resulted
in the Second Mexican Empire. In Mexico, the French-imposed empire was supported
by the Roman Catholic clergy, many conservative elements of the upper
class, and some indigenous communities; the presidential terms of Benito Juárez
were interrupted by the rule of the Habsburg monarchy in Mexico.
Conservatives, and many in the Mexican nobility, tried to revive the
monarchical form of government when they helped to bring to Mexico an archduke
from the Royal House of Austria, Maximilian Ferdinand, or Maximilian I.
France had various interests in this Mexican affair, such as seeking
reconciliation with Austria, which had been defeated during the Franco-Austrian
War of 1859, counterbalancing the growing American Protestant power by
developing a powerful Catholic neighboring empire, and exploiting the
rich mines in the north-west of the country.
After heavy guerrilla resistance led by Juárez which had never ceased to exist
even after the capital had fallen in 1863, the French were eventually
expelled from Mexico and Maximilian I was executed in 1867.
1862: Arrival of the French The British, Spanish and French fleets
arrived at Veracruz, between 8 and 17 December 1861 intending to pressure the
Mexicans into settling their debts. The Spanish fleet seized San Juan de Ulúa
and subsequently the capital Veracruz on 17 December. The European forces
advanced to Orizaba, Cordoba and Tehuacán, as they had agreed in the
Convention of Soledad. The city of Campeche surrendered to the French fleet
on 27 February 1862, and a French army, commanded by General Lorencez, arrived
on 5 March. When the Spanish and British realised the French ambition was to
conquer Mexico, they withdrew their forces on 9 April, their troops leaving
on 24 April. In May, the French man-of-war Bayonnaise blockaded Mazatlán
for a few days. Mexican forces commanded by General
Ignacio Zaragoza defeated the French army in the Battle of Puebla on 5 May
1862. The pursuing Mexican army was contained by the French at Orizaba,
Veracruz, on 14 June. More French troops arrived on 21 September, and General
Bazaine arrived with French reinforcements on 16 October. The French
occupied the port of Tampico on 23 October, and unopposed by Mexican forces
took control of Xalapa, Veracruz on 12 December.
1863: The French take the capital The French bombarded Veracruz on 15
January 1863. Two months later, on 16 March, General Forey and the French Army
began the siege of Puebla. On 30 April, the French Foreign Legion
earned its fame in the Battle of Camarón, when an infantry patrol unit of
62 soldiers and three officers, led by the one-handed Captain Jean Danjou, was
attacked and besieged by Mexican infantry and cavalry units numbering
three battalions, about 3000 men. They were forced to make a defence in
Hacienda Camarón. Danjou was mortally wounded at the hacienda, and his men
mounted a glorious bayonet attack, fighting to nearly the last man; only
three French Legionnaires survived. To this day, 'Camerone Day' is the most
important day of celebration for Legionnaires.
The French army of General François Achille Bazaine defeated the Mexican
army led by General Comonfort in its campaign to relieve the siege of Puebla,
at San Lorenzo, to the south of Puebla. Puebla surrendered to the French shortly
afterward, on 17 May. On 31 May, President Juárez fled the city with his
cabinet, retreating northward to Paso del Norte and later to Chihuahua. Having
taken the treasure of the state with them, the government-in-exile remained
in Chihuahua until 1867. French troops under Bazaine entered
Mexico City on 7 June 1863. The main army entered the city three days later
led by General Forey. General Almonte was appointed the provisional President
of Mexico on 16 June, by the Superior Junta. The Superior Junta with its 35
members met on 21 June, and proclaimed a Catholic Empire on 10 July. The crown
was offered to Maximilian, following pressures by Napoleon. Maximilian
accepted the crown on 3 October, at the hands of the Comisión Mexicana, sent by
the Superior Junta. 1864: Arrival of Maximilian
On 28 and 31 March 1864, men from the French man-of-war Cordelière tried to
take Mazatlán, but were initially repelled by Mexicans commanded by
Colonel Gaspar Sánchez Ochoa. The French under Bazaine occupied
Guadalajara on 6 January 1864, and troops under Douay occupied Zacatecas on
6 February. Further decisive French victories continued with the fall of
Acapulco on 3 June, occupation of Durango on 3 July, and the defeat of
republicans in the states of Sinaloa and Jalisco in November.
Maximilian formally accepted the crown on 10 April, signing the Treaty of
Miramar, and landed at Veracruz on 28 May 1864 in the SMS Novara. He was
enthroned as Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, with his wife Charlotte of
Belgium, who had taken the name Carlota. In reality, he was a puppet monarch of
the Second French Empire. Maximilian expressed progressive
European political ideas, favouring the establishment of a limited monarchy
sharing powers with a democratically elected congress. He inspired passage of
laws to abolish child labour, limit working hours, and abolished a system of
land tenancy that virtually amounted to serfdom among the Indians. This was too
liberal to please Mexico's conservatives, and the nation's liberals
refused to accept a monarch, leaving Maximilian with few enthusiastic allies
within Mexico. On Sunday, 13 November 1864, three
French men-of-war shelled Mazatlán 13 times, and Imperial Mexican forces under
Manuel Lozada entered and captured the city.
1865: Beginning of Republican victories The French continued with victories in
1865, with Bazaine capturing Oaxaca on 9 February. The French fleet landed
soldiers who captured Guaymas on 29 March.
But on 11 April, republicans defeated Imperial forces at Tacámbaro in
Michoacán. In April and May the republicans had many forces in the
states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua. Most towns along the Rio Grande were also
occupied by republicans. The Belgian volunteers were defeated by the
republicans at the Second Battle of Tacámbaro on 11 July.
The decree known as the "Black Decree" was issued by Maximilian on 3 October,
which threatened any Mexican captured in the war with immediate execution. This
was later the basis for the next government to order his own execution.
Several high-ranking republican officials were executed under this order
on 21 October. 1859-1867: U.S. diplomacy and
involvement As early as 1859, U.S. and Mexican
efforts to ratify the McLane-Ocampo Treaty had failed in the bitterly
divided U.S. Senate, where tensions were high between the North and the South
over other issues. Such a treaty would have allowed U.S. construction in Mexico
and protection from European forces in exchange for a payment of $4 million to
the heavily indebted government of Benito Juárez. On December 3, 1860,
President James Buchanan had delivered a speech stating his displeasure at being
unable to secure Mexico from European interference:
“European governments would have been deprived of all pretext to interfere in
the territorial and domestic concerns of Mexico. We should have thus been
relieved from the obligation of resisting, even by force, should this
become necessary, any attempt of these governments to deprive our neighboring
republic of portions of her territory, a duty from which we could not shrink
without abandoning the traditional and established policy of the American
people.” United States policy did not change
during the French occupation but it had to use its resources for the American
Civil War, which lasted 1861 to 1865. President Abraham Lincoln expressed his
sympathy to Latin American republics against any European attempt to
establish a monarchy. Shortly after the establishment of the Imperial government
in April 1864, United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, while
maintaining U.S. neutrality, expressed U.S. discomfort at the imposition of a
monarchy in Mexico: “Nor can the United States deny that their own safety and
destiny to which they aspire are intimately dependent on the continuance
of free republican institutions throughout America.”
On April 4, 1864, Congress passed a joint resolution:
“Resolved, &c., That the Congress of the United States are unwilling, by silence,
to leave the nations of the world under the impression that they are indifferent
spectators of the deplorable events now transpiring in the Republic of Mexico;
and they therefore think fit to declare that it does not accord with the policy
of the United States to acknowledge a monarchical government, erected on the
ruins of any republican government in America, under the auspices of any
European power.” Near the end of the American Civil War,
representatives at the 1865 Hampton Roads Conference briefly discussed a
proposal for a North-South reconciliation by a joint action against
the French in Mexico. In 1865, through the selling of Mexican bonds by Mexican
agents in the United States, the Juarez Administration raised between
$16-million and $18-million dollars for the purchase of American war material.
In 1866 General Philip Sheridan was in charge of transferring additional
supplies and weapons to the Liberal army, including some 30,000 rifles
directly from the Baton Rouge Arsenal in Louisiana.
By 1867, Seward shifted American policy from thinly veiled sympathy to the
republican government of Juárez to open threat of war to induce a French
withdrawal. Seward had invoked the Monroe Doctrine and later stated in
1868, "The Monroe Doctrine, which eight years ago was merely a theory, is now an
irreversible fact." 1866: French withdrawal and Republican
victories In 1866, choosing Franco-American
relations over his Mexican monarchy ambitions, Napoleon III announced the
withdrawal of French forces beginning 31 May. The Republicans won a series of
crippling victories taking immediate advantage of the end of French military
support to the Imperial troops, occupying Chihuahua on 25 March, taking
Guadalajara on 8 July, further capturing Matamoros, Tampico and Acapulco in July.
Napoleon III urged Maximilian to abandon Mexico and evacuate with the French
troops. The French evacuated Monterrey on 26 July, Saltillo on 5 August, and
the whole state of Sonora in September. Maximilian's French cabinet members
resigned on 18 September. The Republicans defeated imperial troops in
the Battle of Miahuatlán in Oaxaca in October, occupying the whole of Oaxaca
in November, as well as parts of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and
Guanajuato. On 6 December the Austrian and Belgian volunteers disbanded and
were supposed to join the Mexican Army; however, 3500 of the 4648 volunteers did
not enlist, and tried to flee the country.
On 13 November, Ramón Corona and the French agreed to terms for the
withdrawal of the latter forces from Mazatlán. At noon, the European invaders
boarded three men-of-war, Rhin, Marie and Talisman and departed.
1867: Republicans take the capital The Republicans occupied the rest of the
states of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí and Guanajuato in January. The French
evacuated the capital on 5 February. On 13 February 1867, Maximilian withdrew
to Querétaro. The Republicans began a siege of the city on 9 March, and Mexico
City on 12 April. An imperial sortie from Querétaro failed on 27 April.
On 11 May, Maximilian resolved to try to escape through the enemy lines. He was
intercepted on 15 May. Following a court-martial, he was sentenced to
death. Many of the crowned heads of Europe and other prominent figures sent
telegrams and letters to Mexico pleading for Maximilian's life to be spared, but
Juárez refused to commute the sentence. He believed he had to send a strong
message that Mexico would not tolerate any government imposed by foreign
powers. Maximilian was executed on 19 June on
the Cerro de las Campanas, a hill on the outskirts of Querétaro, by the forces
loyal to President Benito Juárez, who had kept the federal government
functioning during the French intervention. Mexico City surrendered
the day after Maximilian was executed. The republic was restored, and President
Juárez was returned to power in the national capital. He made few changes in
policy, given that the progressive Maximilian had upheld most of Juárez's
liberal reforms. After the victory, the Conservative
party was so thoroughly discredited by its alliance with the invading French
troops that it effectively became defunct. The Liberal party was almost
unchallenged as a political force during the first years of the "restored
republic". In 1871, however, Juárez was re-elected to yet another term as
president in spite of a constitutional prohibition of re-elections.
Porfirio Díaz, one of the losing candidates, launched a rebellion against
the president. Supported by conservative factions within the Liberal party, the
attempted revolt was already at the point of defeat when Juárez died in
office on 19 July 1872, making it a moot point. Díaz ran against interim
president Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, lost the election, and retired to his
hacienda in Oaxaca. Four years later, in 1876, when Lerdo ran for re-election,
Díaz launched a second, successful revolt and captured the presidency. He
held it through eight terms until 1911, a period when he jailed many political
opponents at the fort off Veracruz. See also
France's invasion of Mexico features heavily in Ian Colquhoun's 2014
historical novel 'Le Boudin - The Demons of Camerone'
List of battles of the French intervention in Mexico
Notes References
Notes Bibliography
External links Chronology of the Mexican Adventure
1861–1867 Bibliography for the French intervention
in Mexico