Hi, I'm the History Guy, I have a degree in history and I love history,
and if you love history too, this is the channel for you.
Today is May the fifth, in America that is celebrated as Cinco de Mayo, which has become the
general celebration of Mexican American culture in the country that has by far the largest number
of residents of Mexican descent outside of Mexico itself. But America doesn't really understand what
May the fifth was really intended to celebrate, and no it's not Mexican Independence Day,
that's actually celebrated September 16th. Instead Cinco de Mayo celebrates the victory of the
Republican Mexican army over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May the 5th of 1862, and while
that battle and why we celebrate it is itself interesting, it's the broader war of which that
battle was a part, that is really not understood on either side of the border, and that's kind of
too bad because that..that war really kind of helps to understand the relationship between
Mexico and Europe and the United States that defines much of the politics and conflict of
the 19th century in North America. And so today the History Guy is going to try to make some sense
of The Maximilian Affair, or What was going on in Mexico while the US was fighting the Civil War.
To give you an idea of the instability of Mexico in the 19th century the Maximilian affair, or the
War of the French Intervention, was a war that was fought because of a war. And that war was called
the Reform War, was a civil war fought in Mexico between 1857 and 1861, between the Conservatives,
who represented traditional power structures in Mexico like the army, the landed elite and the
Catholic Church, versus the Republicans who wanted to do a broader constitutional reform that would
reduce the power of the traditional elite. And the Reform War, which was a horrible fratricide that
destroyed the country, was largely a continuation of conflicts that had been going on since the
Mexican war for independence, and it really showed how unstable Mexico was at the time. To
give you an idea, in the 36 years between 1821 and 1857, Mexico had seen 50 different governments.
Now in the Reform War, America generally supported the Republicans and we gave some
loans and some arms and even did a small bit of intervention with the Navy, and by March of 1861,
the Republicans had generally won the war and installed a Republican president,
but there was still some fighting going on in the mountains. Ostensibly,
the war of the French Intervention was caused by the Reform War because the Reform War had so
devastated the Mexican economy, that the new Republican president Benito Juarez,
had been forced to withhold interest payments on foreign debts for two years. Mexico just
didn't have the money. And that angered Europe, who held most of those debts, and so France and
Britain and Spain decided to get together and invade Mexico in order to force them to pay
their war debts. And Mexico which had just ended a war in March, was then back at war by December.
But it turns out that the War of the French Intervention was actually much more directly
caused by the Reform War than it originally appeared. Because secretly the conservatives
of Mexico had been working with the Emperor of France to bring in the French Intervention,
to overthrow the republican government of Benito Juarez, and install a new monarchy. And so it was
really just a continuation of the Reform War, with France serving the Conservatives. And once Britain
and Spain figured that out, and realized that the French goals were far different than theirs,
they decided to back out and so having invaded Mexico in December they left in April, and left
behind a war between France and Mexico. And the U.S. likely would have been very interested and
probably intervened on behalf of Mexico, except that we were distracted by our own civil war.
And it was there, early in the war when a large French force attacked the Republican
Mexican forces that were in the fortresses in the city of Puebla, and attacking these
fortresses despite outnumbering them and have better equipment the French were pushed back. And
that is the victory that is celebrated as Cinco De Mayo, and it was significant, it represented
a great moral victory for the Mexican troops, and it showed to Europe that this war would not
be quickly and easily won. But it was really more of a symbolic victory than a strategic
victory, as the French forces would take those fortresses in that city a year later by siege.
The reason that the French were willing to fight this war is actually kind of complex and part of
it was certainly economic, they wanted to ensure open markets with Latin America and
they wanted control of rich mining interests in the northeast of Mexico. But it also had to
do with French American relations, the French really opposed the growing Protestant power of
America and they wanted to make sure that the southern border was a major Catholic power, and
to that extent the French were taking advantage of the America distraction of the U.S. Civil War.
But strangely it also had to do with Franco Austrian relations,
which had been stretched since the Franco Austrian war of 1859, and so when France took the capital,
Mexico City in 1863, they installed an Archduke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire who
was the brother of the Austro-Hungarian Emperor as the new emperor of the second Mexican Empire.
And so this new Austrian Emperor of Mexico, who was married to a Belgian woman, brought with
him some Austrian and Hungarian volunteers, as well as Belgian volunteers and all these
European forces pressed the Republicans under Juarez almost to the end. They were reduced to
just a little part of northern Mexico, although they did still have substantial forces there.
But in 1865 the U.S. Civil War ended and America started to become much more involved in what was
going on, partly through loans, partly because we provided arms and several troops from both the
Union and Confederate forces went down to fight in the war, but the American interest was mostly done
through diplomacy, and putting pressure on France to give up its support of the conflict in Mexico.
The war was already becoming unpopular in France due to the expense and the threat of conflict
with the United States and damaging economic relationships with the United States was more
than the Emperor of France, Emperor Napoleon the third, could bear and so he put Franco American
relations above supporting Maximilian, and in 1866 he withdrew the French troops. Austro-Hungary
for a while considered replacing those French troops and intervening on behalf of Maximilian
but the United States threatened that if that happened then they would directly intervene in
the conflict, and the threat of war with America was too much for the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
and they stayed out. And Maximilian once he was deprived of his European allies was
then defeated by Juarez's forces, and in May of 1867 they captured Maximilian and executed him,
and essentially put an end to the War of the French Intervention.
Yeah I know that it's hard to distinguish this conflict from all the other conflicts in Mexico
in the 19th century, but actually the War of the French Intervention, or what was called The
Maximilian Affair, ends up being very important. First of all it ends the era of European
intervention in Mexico, it was the last time that Europe would try to invade and control Mexico,
and secondly it discredited the conservatives who had supported the French Intervention,
to the point where they become really irrelevant and the Republicans take over
and make constitutional reforms that really change Mexico, reduce European influence,
and reduce the influence of the army and the political influence of the Catholic Church.
The American role in the conflict can't be ignored and not to denigrate the Republican victories,
but it really was American diplomacy which forced out the European army intervention,
which allowed Juarez to win the war. And there was participation by Americans in the war,
a lot of veterans of the Civil War went and volunteered to fight in the war, and their
contribution should not be forgotten. This caused a temporary thaw in US-Mexican relations, to the
point where there was some consideration that the two might actually combine governments, and
the United States and Mexico would have become one nation but eventually we would start fighting over
the border enforcement, and all of that goodwill would be gone by the end of the 19th century.
You would hope that this would lead to a good era of peace in Mexico with the
conservatives gone and with no more European intervention, but actually almost immediately,
the Republicans started fighting amongst each other and that would eventually lead
to a couple of coup attempts, and then a coup and then the Mexican Revolution
in 1910. But at least the end of the Maximilian Affair meant that Mexico was
no longer dominated by Europe, and that's what we really celebrate on Cinco de Mayo.
I'm the History Guy and I hope you enjoyed this edition of my series,
5 minutes of history, short snippets of forgotten history five to ten minutes long,
and if you did enjoy then please go ahead and click that thumbs up button which is there on
your left. If you have any questions or comments then feel free to write those
in the comment section and I will be happy to respond, and if you'd like five minutes
more forgotten history all you need to do is click the subscribe button that is there on your right.