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TTBR HISTORY ARTICLE -  MAXIMILIAN: THE RISE & TRAGIC FALL OF A
CHRISTIAN MONARCH AND THE END OF WHITE RULE IN MEXICO

WAS MAXIMILIAN OF MEXICO a patsy for the globalists? Just a puppet of
the French? Undoubtedly he meant well and was a compassionate ruler.
But history has yet to render a final judgment on the character and
reign of Maximilian, the second emperor of White Mexico. One thing is
for sure: he was not the power-crazed madman that the mainstream has
portrayed in television shows and books for over 150 years. 

BY JOHN TIFFANY

Most Americans have probably never heard of the second Mexican empire.
If you go by Wikipedia, it never existed. The entry in History of
Mexico says: “After a protracted struggle (1810-1821) Mexico
declared its independence from Spain in 1821 via the Treaty of
Cordoba. A brief period of monarchy (1821-23), called the first
Mexican empire, was followed by the founding of the Republic of
Mexico, established under a federal constitution in 1824. Mexico
continues to be constituted as a federated republic.”

A tragic man was his imperial majesty Don Maximiliano I (Maximilian
I although there was no second), by the grace of God and the will of
the people, emperor of Mexico. And indeed the fate of his wife
Charlotte of Belgium, known in Mexico as Empress Carlota, was almost
as tragic.

Yet the ill-starred couple’s story is romantic and colorful as well
as sad.

Americans tend to forget our southern neighbor once had emperors in
the post-Aztec era. The first Mexican empire was ruled by Don Augustin
de Iturbide, a sort of Mexican Napoleon if you will, but that’s a
story for another time. We should mention that Augustin, who was of
Basque blood, was declared a traitor and executed by a firing squad in
1824—a fact Maximilian should have taken careful note of.

One would think a king or emperor, by definition, could not be deemed
a traitor; but this had happened to English King Charles I (Jan. 30,
1649).

Maximilian of Hapsburg is described as trusting, even gullible.
Evidently he was not brought up right. He was idealistic. Some would
call him a starry-eyed liberal. In other words, he was entirely the
wrong man for ruling an unruly empire of discontented mestizos. Mexico
needed a Mussolini, not a Little Lord Fauntleroy. On the plus side
Maximilian was brave, personable and handsome, with a beard
distinctively parted in the middle, at least when he was emperor, and
stood 6 feet 2 inches tall. He spoke passable English and several
other languages, including German, Hungarian, Spanish and some kind of
Slavic. However, he was not as skilled with tongues as Carlota.

Maximilian was a complex man, whose early critics were often unable to
understand his poetic sensibilities and artistic enthusiasms; they
imagined he was effeminate, possibly impotent. Later, in Mexico,
ironically his enemies would denounce him as a libertine, a skirt
chaser, a corrupter of public morals. You can’t have it both ways,
and neither view was accurate. In reality he was a mixture of vanity
and idealism, bravery and weakness, pride and modesty.

Maximilian was born at beautiful Schoenbrunn Palace, a short distance
outside Vienna, on July 6, 1832, the second son of Archduke Francis
Charles , which made him the brother of the Austrian emperor, Franz
Joseph. Although he grew up in splendorous wealth, he received a
liberal, cosmopolitan education. By an early age he had already
traveled widely.

When old enough (22), he served his country well as commander of the
imperial fleet and later as ambassador to Paris. 

He took his duties seriously as admiral and established the port of
Trieste. He also greatly reformed and expanded the fleet, undertaking
several scientific expeditions (he was a great botanizer and
lepidopterist) and circumnavigated the globe. 

While ambassador to Paris he met and married the beautiful Princess
Charlotte, the only daughter of Belgium’s King Leopold I, on July
27, 1857. Seventeen years old, she was a radiant bride that morning,
and the attractive groom looked wonderful in the full dress uniform of
an Austrian admiral, with the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece
around his neck. The couple were utterly devoted to each other.

She wrote in a letter: “I could not be happier than I am. Max is
perfection in every way.”

This puts paid to the lying rumors of his political enemies about his
adequacy as a husband. Charlotte was very much her father’s
daughter, with the strong appetites of the Coburgs, and for all her
inexperience, Maximilian must have been a satisfactory husband to rank
as “perfection” in her eyes. (Haslip, 101)

Also in 1857, Maximilian was sent as viceroy to the Italian province
of Lombardy-Venetia, where he sought for two years to bring about
liberal reforms and a conciliatory policy, unlike the harsh approach
adopted by the Austrians after the 1848 revolution in Italy. But this
aroused the ire of the court, which then assigned him to the Adriatic
fleet.

Soon, however, he retired from public life (not forever, as it turned
out). He visited the empire of Brazil, which he found enchanting,
although he hated the institution of slavery that existed there, and
returned to Austria, where he built the palatial castle of Miramar on
his estates.

Meanwhile the liberals had taken over Mexico, and many Mexican
conservatives were in exile, attracted to the French court of Louis
Napoleon (Napoleon III) and Empress Eugénie. Bankers hoping to milk
Mexico’s wealth allied themselves with these exiles and pressured
Louis to help them take Mexico back. The liberals had canceled
Mexico’s debt, which Louis took as a pretext to invade, in 1862.

Monroe Doctrine or no Monroe Doctrine, the United States could not
stop the Europeans (and the Europeans knew it), because U.S. armed
forces had their hands full fighting the Confederate States of America
at the time. And the Confederacy saw no reason to worry about the
situation in Mexico as long as it did not pose a threat.

After securing the important coastal city of Veracruz, the French sent
a 6,000-man army toward Mexico City in the interior. But on May 5,
1862, the liberal Mexicans defeated the French force at Puebla with a
loss of almost 1,000 French troops. No one really knows how many
fought on the Mexican side, with guesses ranging from 4,500 to 12,000.
Mexico lost a mere 230 killed or wound- ed in the battle.1

France next sent an army of 40,000, under Gen. Frederic Forey, who
reorganized his forces and took Puebla in May 1863. He entered Mexico
City on June 10 to the cheers of the clergy and remaining
conservatives.

To the conservatives and the French, Maximilian was just the man to
cement their victory. A junta of conservatives in Mexico City declared
a monarchy and offered him the crown of Mexico.

Maximilian wavered a bit. Some advisers thought it better to decline;
but Charlotte was more ambitious than Maximilian and pressured him to
accept the offer. He was more inclined that way anyhow, and so he did
accept, on April 10, 1864.

Before leaving Austria, Maximilian renounced any claim to the Austrian
crown and made a pact with the French, the Treaty of Miramar, in which
Louis promised to keep troops in Mexico until the end of 1867;
Maximilian in return promised to pay all costs of the intervention,
and all prior debts due England, France and Spain, or the bankers
thereof,
including the exorbitant Jecker loan—bonds extorted by a greedy
Swiss banker from the Mexican conservatives in the 1850s.

Jecker was partners with the duc de Morny. French bankers then floated
Mexican loans. By his first actions, Maximilian had already tripled
Mexico’s already exorbitant external debt.

Maximilian then visited the pope but did not promise to return church
lands that had been confiscated by the liberals. The pope was not
pleased.

The royal couple set sail in May 1864, expecting to be welcomed by
their new subjects. Maximilian passed his time on the trip composing a
600-page book on court etiquette.

They reached Veracruz, a liberal hotbed, on May 28 and were greeted
with such coldness that they had to dine aboard the ship. There was no
reception committee.

Benito Juarez, a liberal leader who was a full-blooded Zapotec Indian
from the mountains above Oaxaca, had earlier been elected president of
Mexico (March 1861) and fancied himself as a dictator, modeled after
Abraham Lincoln. Juarez and his allies, such as Gen. Juan Alvarez,
immediately declared they would do battle with the invaders, which
they considered Maximilian and his entourage to be.

When at length they got to Mexico City, at last the royals received a
convincing show of support. And most foreign governments,with the
conspicuous exception of the United States,
immediately recognized Maximilian’s government. At any rate,
Maximilian and Carlota had high hopes for success.

Maximilian adopted Mexican garb and customs. This would be his great
opportunity, he believed. He would be the savior of Mexico and open a
new era of enlightened monarchy in the New World. He would be grand
without being remote, dignified without being snobby; he would stand
apart and unite the feuding factions, bring unity out of division,
order out of chaos, advancement from stagnation, prosperity from
penury. His dreams for Mexican greatness were boundless. He would
establish peaceful relations with the United States and the empire of
Brazil. Imperial Mexico would expand into Central America on his
vision and he would build a powerful navy that would rule the Gulf of
Mexico. As the U.S.A. dominated North America and the Brazilian empire
dominated South America, his Mexican empire would balance the two by
dominating the middle. He would make Mexico City the most magnificent
city in the world.

Such were his dreams, and they seemed reasonable at the time. But in
reality he had no chance.

Instead, his impartiality and fair mindedness often succeeded in
making enemies of both sides. The gulf between conservatives and
liberals was too wide, and Mexicans were not inclined to compromise.

Furthermore, in the view of the liberals, he was too much a puppet of
the French.

The French army dominated the Mexican empire. Gen. Francois Achille
Bazaine, Louis’s proconsul, took his orders directly from Paris and
spent imperial Mexicans funds recklessly. Mexican officials, even if
of pure Spanish blood, were treated with contempt, like the redcoats
had treated American officers and privates in America. Frenchmen took
over the treasury and customs revenues.

Almost immediately, Maximilian angered his church allies by officially
refusing to restore confiscated church lands and the clerical courts.
He alienated conservatives by trying to win the support of the
liberals; he even spoke of far-reaching religious reforms, which
concerned the Roman church. Clerical support dropped off.

Maximilian dreamed of expanding the new Mexico, to take in Central
America, which had been part of the former emperor’s realm. He
believed the advance of the French army into Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas
foreshadowed the final defeat of Juarez.

As the year of 1864 wound down to an end, Maximilian remained full of
optimism. He felt Mexico was free of the decadence of old Europe. But
Louis was realizing he had made a bad bargain in establishing
Maximilian on the throne of Mexico. In areas apparently pacified, war
would spring up againas guerrilla war.

Many guerrilla leaders were legendary, even proud, bandits. The
French struck at these bands with counter-guerrilla measures of their
own, and terrorism was the rule of the day for both sides. Col.
Jean-Charles Dupin, infamous for his conduct of the Mexican civil war,
was recalled to France on that account but insisted he had been quite
merciful to his adversaries whom he had hanged by the neck until dead.
The enemy _bandoleros_, he explained, were uncivilized and strung up
their captives upside down and facing the Sun to die of thirst.
(Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley, _The Oxford History of
Mexico_, Oxford University Press, 2000, 387)

In April 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox; the War
for Dixie Independence was drawing to a close, except for a few
isolated events like the stunning exploits of the _CSS Shenandoah_.
Now the Yankees would feel free to move against the French in Mexico.

Napoleon was disillusioned by the bad financial news from Mexico, and
began to consider some degree of withdrawal from this adventure
(Krauze, Enrique,_Mexico: Biography of Power_, HarperCollins
Publishers, 1997, 182). With naive optimism, Maximilian was
unconcerned, feeling his regime could win the support of the United
States.

Oddly, Maximilian understood his military situation was deteriorating
rapidly. Juarista troops and assorted guerrillas were fighting in the
states of Michoacan, Jalisco, Sinaloa and Nuevo Leon. None of his
victories seemed to endure.

Maximilian was not stupid or ignorant. He had reliable information on
the strategic situation but saw it from the wrong perspective and
failed to draw the logical conclusions. Perhaps we can attribute this
to the fact that he was at heart a liberal himself.

He came up with what seemed to him a bright idea: He would adopt a
young grandson of Agustin de Iturbide as successor to the throne
(seemingly Maximilian was sterile). Clearly he expected his dynasty to
be around for a good long while.

Sept. 16, 1865 rolled around, the anniversary of Mexican independence,
and what mattered most was still in place: Maximilian continued to
have the support of Napoleon. But the French leader kept sending a
stream of advice, criticism, reprimands and veiled warnings.
Maximilian gave a patriotic speech at one of the Independence Day
celebrations, stealing the thunder of Benito Juarez and other
liberals.

Maximilian sincerely wished to make the Mexican people happy; he had
adopted them like he had the child Agustin. Maximilian and Carlota
desired to be considered as much Mexican as anyone else.

But in October came a harsh decree (inspired by Bazaine), called the
Black Decree. Anyone suspected of belonging to an armed band could be
executed by order of a military court. Essentially when Maximilian
signed this decree, he signed his own death warrant, as his enemies
could never forgive him for granting Bazaine discretionary power over
the life or death of the civilian population.

Maximilian thought Juarez was practically finished, holed up on the
American border and controlling only a small bit of territory. He
sought to neutralize him once and for all by offering him the plum job
of chief justice of the supreme court. But Juarez wouldn’t go for
it. He wanted all of Mexico, and he expected to get it.

Maximilian boasted that by now “the empress and I were completely
Mexicanized.”

Then bad news arrived. On January 15, 1866, Napo- leon had decided to
withdraw his troops from Mexico; within 12 months they would all be
gone. Napoleon was faced with pressure from the United States and
threatened by Prussia (Prussia would defeat Austria at the Battle of
Sadowa, July 3, 1866); public opinion in France was against continuing
the intervention; and there was the problem of gross mismanagement of
funds in Maximilian’s empire and the parasitical bankers.

It was the beginning of the end, although Maximilian could not see it.
Without French troops his government could not sustain itself against
Juarez and his Yankee allies. Not entirely deluded, he did start to
waver: Should he seek support from Britain? Should he abdicate?

Carlota was furiously against abdication, viewing it as a defeat and
dishonor to her lineage. She acted decisively. She determined to go to
Europe and speak personally to Napoleon’s wife Eugénie, to
Napoleon, and to the pope, Pius IX, who had blessed Maximilian and
Carlota when they had set off for Mexico, but was very displeased when
Maximilian failed to reverse the anti-clerical measures instituted by
Juarez. Carlota failed to persuade Napoleon and his wife to keep
French troops in Mexico, and failed in turn with the pope. While
staying in the Vatican (she and her assistant were the first women to
stay the night there), she had a mental breakdown and became
completely paranoid, convinced someone was trying to poison her. She
would eat nothing but the foods prepared for the pope himself.

“I suppose,” wrote Juarez ironically to a loyalist governor,
“you will be very saddened by the departure of Mama Carlota. . . .
This hurried departure of the so-called empress is a clear symptom of
the disintegration of Maximilian’s throne.”

Maximilian was ready now to abdicate. He issued a decree repealing the
Black Decree of Oct. 3, 1865, that permitted summary executions, but
it was too late. (Several high-ranking liberal leaders had been
executed under the Black Decree on Oct. 21.)

“Leave, leave that country,” a loyal friend in Havana advised,
“because in a few weeks time it will become a theater for the
bloodiest of civil wars.”

The Juaristas had Gen. Mariano Escobedo and other liberal commanders
advancing from the north, Porfirio Diaz from the state of Oaxaca in
the south, Ramon Corona in the west and Nicola Regules and Riva
Palacio in the state of Michoacan. The republicans (liberals) had been
winning victories since 1865.

Maximilian was unsure at this point; he decided he would not go until
he could leave peace and order behind him in Mexico, which
unfortunately was impossible under the circumstances.

He agreed with his mother, who had written him with tears in her eyes
saying “. . . in spite of everything, I am obliged now to hope you
will stay in Mexico as long as possible and that you can do it with
honor.”

Maximilian had fits of optimism. His State Council of the five
M’s—Miguel Miramon, Tomas Mejia, Ramon Mendez, Leonardo Marquez
and Maximilian—decided to march their conservative army to
Queretaro, under siege now for 70 days. But the reinforcements
promised by Marquez never arrived thanks to a defeat handed them at
Puebla by Gen. Porfirio Diaz and the cowardice of Marquez himself,
whose fate was to die in bed in 1913, about 50 years after his
comrades in arms.

Marquez’s failure to act broke Maximilian’s spirit; he began to
seek an encounter with the redemptive bullet. Still he had hopes of
survival. Perhaps he could make his way back to Miramar, and write his
memoirs.

Taken prisoner, he surrendered his sword to Gen. Escobedo. As he sat
in his prison quarters that night, he could hear the liberal soldiers
in their camps in the distance singing “Adios, Mama Carlota.”
Mendez having already been shot, Juarez ordered the courts-martial of
Miramon, Mejia and Maximilian. All were assigned high-quality liberal
lawyers. Maximilian refused to attend his trial, denying that the
court had any jurisdiction over him.

Maximilian instead sent noble telegrams to Juarez, who, he thought,
would show him mercy.

Even the U.S. representative would appeal to Juarez, and Garibaldi of
Italy, the noted liberal, tried as well. A seductive European princess
even threw herself at Juarez’s feet. The wife of Miramon entreated
Juarez to spare the prisoners’ lives. But nothing would move that
stony heart; nothing could soften that vindictive soul.

Even with death staring him in the face, Maximilian looked for the
silver lining. He commented to the physician who attended him: “I am
happy; Altamirano has told me that the liberal government will retain
some of my laws.”

So it was that on June 19, 1867, on a place called the Hill of the
Bells outside of Queretaro, the emperor of Mexico, 35, together with
Mejia and young Miramon, met the most Mexican of deaths: execution by
the firing squad.

Juarez arrived at Queretaro in his trademark black coach and viewed
the body of the emperor. He callously commented that he merely had
short legs.

Maximilian could never face the obvious facts of his paradoxical
position as a liberal in a country already ruled by liberals; nor how
he had been misled by the Mexican monarchists and used by the French.
For him it seemed better to continue deceiving himself, to accept the
calls to honor from his family, from his mother, from Vienna. It was
better to die.

ENDNOTE:

1 Strange as it seems, the Mexicans have celebrated the “cinco de
Mayo” ever since, more so than the actual Mexican Independence Day
(Sept. 16, 1810 the day of the _Grito de Dolores _(“cry” or
“shout ” of Dolores, a small town near Guanajuato). A speech by
the priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, who would pay with his life for
it, was a Mexican declaration of independence from Spain, which
started an 11-year war. Hidalgo, a respected priest, was also an
unconventional one, with a love of gambling and a rejection of
celibacy. Radically, his declaration not only called for the end of
Spanish rule in Mexico but also the redistribution of land and racial
equality. Not a nice guy, he called for the death of all Spaniards
(except himself) and succeeded in killing many Spaniards in the
central state of Guanajuato. Surprisingly his actions are
ceremoniously repeated annually by the current Mexican government. He
later abolished slavery in his liberated territory. Hidalgo died by
execution 
—a common fate in Mexico, and well deserved in his case. His head
was placed on display for 10 years as a warning to other insurgents.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
 

[link removed]

Alba, Victor, _The Horizon Concise History of Mexico_, American
Heritage Publishing Co., NY 1973.

Cunningham, Cushman, _The Secret Empire_, TBR, 2005.

Haslip, Joan, _The Crown of Mexico_, Holt, Rinehart and Winston., NY
1971.

Krauze, Enrique, _Mexico: Biography of Power_,
HarperCollinsPublishers, 1997.

McAllen, M.M., _Maximilian and Carlota _, Trinity University Press,
2014.

Meyer, Michael C., and William H. Beezley, _The Oxford History of
Mexico_, Oxford University Press, 2000.

Pearce, Kenneth, _A Traveller’s History of Mexico_, Interlink
Books, 2002.

Perl, Lila, _Mexico: Crucible of the Americas_, William Morrow and
Co., New York, 1978.

Prince Michael of Greece, _The Empress of Farewells_, Atlantic
Monthly Press, 2002.

Ridley, Jasper, Maximilian and Juarez, Ticknor and Fields, 1992.

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