The Second Mexican Empire It was a historical period in the history of Mexico during which a monarchical state was established in the country. At the head of this empire, which lasted between 1864 and 1867, was Maximilian I, of the Habsburg royal house.
The establishment of the empire is part of the second French invasion of Mexico. The formal reason for this invasion was the non-payment of the debt contracted by the Mexican governments with France. In addition, the French ruler, Napoleon III, was trying to weaken the power of the United States on the continent to further his colonial pretensions..
Another important factor that contributed to the implementation of a monarchical system was the dissatisfaction of Mexican conservatives with the liberal laws that the government of Benito Juárez was passing. Even before the French intervention, the conservatives were looking for candidates to establish the empire.
Conservative support for the emperor began to disappear when he, of enlightened ideas, promulgated laws that they considered too liberal. On the other hand, France stopped supporting the empire economically and withdrew its troops from Mexico. Maximilian I, with hardly any supporters, was defeated by the liberal troops and executed.
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At the end of the War of the Reform, Mexico had a debt that amounted to about 80 million pesos. Thus, he owed 69 million to England, 9 to Spain and 2 to France.
The delicate situation in the country forced Benito Juárez, president at that time, to suspend payments in October 1861. The reaction of the creditor countries was, at first, to join forces and threaten the country militarily. Troops from the three European nations arrived at the port of Veracruz in 1862.
The negotiations undertaken by the Mexican government convinced England and Spain that the suspension of payments was only temporary. France, on the other hand, refused to withdraw its troops.
Napoleon III, Emperor of France, decided to invade Mexico with the intention, among other causes, of establishing a monarchy that would serve as a base to support the Confederates in the American civil war..
French troops advanced from the coast to the center of the country. Despite the defeat suffered in the battle of Puebla, on May 5, 1862, his soldiers continued to advance until occupying Mexico City on June 10, 1863..
General Frédéric Forey, commander-in-chief of the French army, ordered a governing junta to be formed. This was to appoint a regency board pending the arrival of the future emperor.
The board was made up of conservative generals Mariano Salas and Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, the natural son of José María Morelos. The other member was Archbishop Pelagio Antonio de Labastida.
This board of regency ignored the Constitution of 1857, the republican system and the Reform laws.
The only thing missing to establish the monarchy was a true Catholic nobleman who wanted to occupy the throne. Mexican conservatives sought him out in Europe.
The representatives of the Mexican conservatives, who were accompanied by members of the Catholic Church, contacted Maximiliano de Habsburgo through the wife of Napoleon III, Eugenia de Montijo.
Among the members of the commission were José María Gutiérrez de Estrada, Miguel Miramón, Juan Nepomuceno Almonte and Francisco Javier Miranda.
The meeting took place at Miramar Castle, in the Italian city of Trieste, where Maximilian and his wife, Carlota of Belgium, lived. There, on October 3, 1863, the Mexicans offered the Austrian archduke to become emperor..
To convince him, the commission claimed that the Mexican people longed to be ruled by a monarchy, with a European prince on the throne..
The Austrian nobleman showed his willingness to occupy the throne and, after obtaining the approval of both the French and Austrian emperor, began his journey to Mexico..
Before leaving, Napoleon III and Maximilian signed the Treaty of Miramar, where all the terms for the taking of Mexico were established..
The frigate Novara, with Maximiliano on board, arrived at the port of Veracruz on May 28, 1864. The conservatives received it with great joy, but the archduke soon verified that the supposed desire of the Mexican people to have a monarchy was far from being generalized..
The Chapultepec Castle, in the center of Mexico City, was chosen as the official residence of the emperor and his wife..
Even before the arrival of the emperor in the country, the board of notables had approved the following points:
1.- The Mexican nation adopts as a form of government the moderate, hereditary monarchy, with a Catholic prince.
2.- The sovereign will take the title of Emperor of Mexico.
3.- The imperial crown of Mexico is offered to S. A. I. and R., Prince Maximiliano, Archduke of Austria, for himself and his descendants.
4.- In the event that, due to circumstances impossible to foresee, Archduke Maximilian does not take possession of the throne that is offered to him, the Mexican nation refers to the benevolence of His Majesty Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, to indicate another catholic prince.
The creation of the Second Mexican Empire was the consequence of several political and economic events that were taking place both inside the country and abroad..
The French invasion that led to the creation of the Second Empire had as a formal cause the suspension of debt payments decreed by the liberal government of Benito Juárez.
However, there were other underlying causes such as Napoleon III's desire to increase the colonial power of France..
The confrontation between Mexican conservatives and liberals had been constant since the country's declaration of independence.
The War of the Reform (1858-1861) broke out after the liberals passed a series of laws that sought to end the influence of the Catholic Church in the country and its economic power.
The conflict ended with the defeat of the conservatives, who immediately began to seek support among the European royal houses to establish in Mexico a conservative monarchy related to Catholic beliefs..
Some conservative sectors saw the French intervention as an opportunity to achieve their goals and offered their forces to defeat the government of Juárez..
In addition to the issue of war, France became involved in the invasion of Mexico and the creation of the Second Empire for two other important reasons: its colonialist interests and the existence of an imperialist ideology that made Europeans think that they were civilizing the countries. that they occupied.
The first of these reasons was influenced by the civil war that was being experienced in the United States. Napoleon III planned to support the Confederate side to weaken the power that the Americans were gaining in the area. His intention was, in addition, to create a vassal state of France that would facilitate his commercial interests in the area..
Maximiliano I had at first the almost unanimous support of the conservatives and part of the Catholic population of Mexico. Instead, he encountered fierce opposition from liberals.
However, Maximiliano I soon began to develop a policy considered liberal by Mexican conservatives. This caused that, little by little, he was losing his support, without that meaning that the liberals began to support him.
On April 10, 1865, the Provisional Statute of the Mexican Empire was promulgated, which established the moderate hereditary monarchy as the system of government in the country. The same document indicated the establishment of an empire, whose owner symbolized national sovereignty and assumed executive power..
This executive power was to be exercised through a government formed by a Council of Ministers, whose members would be appointed by the emperor..
One of the novelties of this regulation was the appointment of the empress consort as regent in the absence of the emperor..
A Council of State was to assume legislative power until the country was pacified and a Congress could be elected. The conflict, however, never came to an end and that body could never be established..
The judiciary, for its part, was divided into a series of courts described by the Statute. One of the most important was the Court of Accounts, which among its functions had to oversee the acts of the government.
The Statute also created a figure called Imperial Commissars, a kind of auditors with power over the eight regions into which the country's departments were divided..
Finally, the imperial government created a foreign service called the Diplomatic Corps. Its main task was to achieve the recognition of the Empire by the international community and defend its interests.
On April 3, 1865, Maximilian I approved a treaty that reorganized the country territorially. Mexico was divided into 50 departments, subdivided based on natural limits.
Each of these departments should have the greatest possible equality of resources, since it was intended that there would be a certain population and political equality between all of them..
The departments, according to the decree, would be administered by the Prefects, high officials appointed by the emperor. Its functions were to organize government councils with economic and social powers..
On the other hand, these departments were made up of districts and these, in turn, were made up of municipalities. All of them had to have their own governing bodies, with local offices elected by direct popular vote..
Contrary to what the Mexican conservatives expected, the government of Emperor Maximilian showed a clear liberal, open-minded, secular and developmentalist tendency..
The emperor had taken up some of the enlightened ideas and some of his policies were more like those of Juárez than those of his conservative allies..
Some of the laws he passed were freedom of the press and the law of divorce. In addition, it refused to return to the clergy the assets nationalized during the Juárez government and gave the State control of the civil registries. All this, together with the proclamation of tolerance of worship, made the Church soon antagonize his figure.
Maximilian I also passed the country's first Labor Law, which defended workers and offered them better wages. He was also responsible for implementing pensions.
Maximiliano's economic policy is considered by experts as one of his great weaknesses. To begin with, the Empire was completely dependent on French aid, both military and financial. Distrust towards Mexicans made the emperor leave all the management of the accounts to foreigners, especially to French.
When France, in conflict with Prussia, decided to end its loans to Maximilian, the country was left with almost no resources. In addition, the French had exploited the Mexican mineral riches.
It is estimated that Mexico's foreign debt, which was estimated at 65 million in 1863, tripled during the Empire, without the reforms introduced by the government in the departments having any positive effect.
The fall of the Empire of Maximiliano was greatly influenced by the international situation, in addition to the constant military pressure of the army led by Benito Juárez..
The end of the Civil War in the United States and the victory of the Federalists was one of the key factors for the end of the Empire. Napoleon III had positioned himself in favor of the Confederates and, after they were defeated, the Federals began to support Juárez.
On the other hand, the French emperor withdrew his troops from Mexico as of December 1866. At that time, the war against Prussia was imminent and France needed all its military force to face the threat..
In the interior of Mexico, Maximiliano had been losing the support of the conservatives due to his liberal measures. The same happened with the Church, which had been harmed by the emperor's decisions.
Napoleon III himself never wanted the government of Maximilian I to be conservative and instructed his representatives in Mexico to avoid it..
Although some moderate liberals approached the new regime, this did not compensate for the loss of support from a large part of the Mexican conservatives. For their part, the Republican Liberals of Juárez did not cease in their attempt to recover the country.
After their victory, the American federalists began to help Juarez with weapons and other supplies. In addition, he granted a loan of 2.6 million dollars to reorganize his army.
Juárez had established a parallel government in Paso del Norte, present-day Ciudad Juárez and, from there, commanded a guerrilla war against French troops.
With American help, Republican victories began to arrive. Thus, the imperial army suffered defeats in battles such as Santa Gertrudis, La Carbonera and Miahuatlán, among others..
Without French support, with the conservatives abandoning him and with his military forces greatly weakened, the emperor made one last attempt to maintain the throne..
According to sources, his own wife advised him to abdicate, while other historians maintain that his refusal to leave the throne had to do with a telegram he received from his mother, Sophia of Bavaria. Its content was very simple: "a Habsburg never abdicates".
Maximiliano reorganized his army, led by Generals Márquez, Miramón, and Mejía. However, as the French withdrew, the Republicans were occupying the territory they had left free.
On March 6, 1867, General Mariano Escobedo, of the Liberal Army, besieged Querétaro, where Emperor Maximiliano I was located. Meanwhile, General Porfirio Díaz did the same with Mexico City, thus preventing the imperial troops from Querétaro received reinforcements.
The siege of Querétaro lasted for 71 days until the city fell into Republican hands. Maximiliano gave his sword to General Ramón Corona as a sign of surrender.
The deposed emperor was tried before a military court. Among the charges attributed to him was his signature on the so-called Black Decree, which ordered the immediate shooting of all Republican troops captured in the battle that took place in Michoacán..
Requests for clemency from Europe were not heard. Found guilty, Maximiliano de Habsburgo was shot on June 19, 1867 in the Cerro de las Campanas, along with Generals Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía..
On June 21, 1867, Porfirio Díaz recovered Mexico City. On July 15, Benito Juárez entered the Mexican capital.
Fernando Maximiliano de Habsburgo (1832-1867), Emperor of Mexico under the name of Maximiliano I, was born in Vienna on July 6, 1832. By birth, he had the titles of Archduke of Austria and Prince of Hungary and Bohemia
The Mexican emperor was a passionate traveler, as well as a skilled military man. At the age of 32, he received the offer to occupy the throne of the Second Mexican Empire, for which he had to renounce his royal rights in Europe.
When he received the offer from the Mexican conservatives, Maximiliano was living in retirement with his wife in the Castle of Miramar, in Italy..
During his time as emperor, he promulgated several laws of a liberal nature, something in keeping with his enlightened training. This cost him the loss of the support that the conservatives had lent him, in addition to confronting it with the Church.
The withdrawal of French troops from Mexico and US support for Juarez were decisive for the Empire to fall. Maximiliano was captured in Querétaro and, after being tried, he was executed on June 19, 1867.
Benito Juárez (1806-1872) was one of the most important Mexican politicians in history. Known as Benemérito de las Américas, this lawyer of indigenous origin always fought to improve the condition of minorities and the underprivileged.
Before the Second Empire was established, Juárez had stood out for the enactment of a series of laws that sought to modernize the country. His performance during the War of the Reform was essential for the liberals to achieve victory.
After the French invasion, Juárez did not stop trying to fight the occupiers despite the fact that they controlled much of the Mexican territory..
Once the Empire was overthrown, Juárez tried to pacify the country and decreed the release of those detained for supporting Maximiliano. In the elections held at the beginning of 1868, he won a comfortable victory.
Juárez died on July 18, 1872, after winning the presidential elections held the previous year..
Descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III (1808-1873) became Emperor of France between 1852 and 1870.
The cessation of payments on the debt that Mexico owed to France was the excuse used by Napoleon III to invade the country. The desire to extend French dominions to other areas of the world and the intention to weaken the power that the United States was acquiring in the American continent weighed in this decision.
Napoleon III agreed with Maximilian on the conditions to establish the empire in Mexico and supported him with troops and money. However, before the imminence of the war between France and Prussia, he decided to withdraw his soldiers, which left the Mexican emperor without sufficient forces to resist the republican attacks..
The French emperor was captured during the war against Prussia. The defeat cost him the crown and, in addition, he had to go into exile. He died in England on January 9, 1873.
Frédéric Forey (1804-1872) was the commander of the French troops that invaded Mexico. For that mission, he had received full political and military powers from Napoleon III..
After taking the capital, he organized a government meeting while waiting for Maximilian to arrive in the country. With his mission accomplished, Forey gave command of the expedition to Achilles Bazaine and returned to France. There he performed various military activities until 1867, when he suffered a stroke..
Juan Nepomuceno Almonte (1803-1869) was a military man, diplomat and politician who participated in some of the most important historical events during the first half of the 19th century. Born in Nocupétaro in 1802, he was the natural son of José María Morelos.
Even being very young, he participated in some battles with his father during the War of Independence. After his execution, Almonte went into exile in the United States, from where he did not return until the Plan of Iguala was proclaimed. However, during the First Empire he left the country again.
Upon his return, he held various political and military positions, always in the liberal ranks. His passage to the conservative side took place in 1846, when, being Secretary of the Treasury with Anastasio Bustamante, he refused to sign the Dead Hands Law..
Almonte participated in the search for a monarch for Mexico and, once Maximiliano became emperor, he became one of the monarch's lieutenants and, later, Marshal of the Empire.
Maximiliano commissioned him to travel to Mexico to try to convince Napoleon III not to withdraw the troops. The mission ended in failure and Juan Nepomuceno Almonte decided to settle in Paris. He lived in the French capital for three years, until he died on March 21, 1869.
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