Amberson - Maximilian and Carlota: Europes last empire in Mexico

THE PUBLISHER GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF GLORIA GALT, TED AND SHARON LUSHER, AND THE SUMMERLEE FOUNDATION TOWARD THE PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK.

Published by Trinity University Press

San Antonio, Texas 78212

Copyright 2014 by M. M. McAllen

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Jacket design by Rebecca Lown

Book design by BookMatters, Berkeley

Jacket illustrations:

Santiago Rebull, Maximilian von Habsburg, Emperor of Mexico, 1865. Courtesy Castello di Miramare, Trieste, Italy.

Albert Graefle, Carlota Amalia de Saxe Coburg, 1865. Courtesy Museo Nacional de Historia, INAH, Chapultepec, Mexico City, DF.

Coat of Arms of the Second Mexican Empire. Courtesy Museo Nacional de Historia, INAH, Chapultepec, Mexico City, DF.

Frontispiece: Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota enter Puebla, 1864

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ISBN 978-1-59534-185-3 ebook

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To my wonderful family
and friends who remind me that
none of us lives in isolation and that
we must bloom where we are planted.

Contents

The Empire is the only way to save Mexico. When one takes charge of the destiny of a nation, it is done at ones own risk, and one never has the right to abandon it.

Carlota, Princess of Belgium, Empress of Mexico, ca. June 1866

The violent collapse of the Second Empire of Mexico in 1867 was one of the most spectacular personal tragedies and political failures of the nineteenth century. At the time and over the next one hundred years, the story remained a sensation in Europe and the Americas, though often hidden against the backdrop of the American Civil War. The rise of Mexicos Second Empire succeeded in part because, in the early 1860s, the Civil War so debilitated the United States that it left Mexico, recently emerged from its own War of the Reform under the leadership of new president Benito Jurez, seemingly defenseless. A number of European countries, especially France, continued to stalk territory in the Western Hemisphere, and with the United States otherwise distracted by its own struggle between the North and South, the French recognized an opportunity to prey on Mexico, perceived by them to be feckless but strategic. Europeans believed that it was only a matter of time before the United States annexed additional lands from its southern neighbor, as they had in 1848 and 1853, so they saw a race to grab territory. The path to establishing the Second Empire of Mexico began with an 1861 invasion by the French army under Emperor Napolon III (Louis Napolon Bonaparte) using the pretext of reclaiming unpaid bond debt. With a deep-seated desire to defeat U.S. influence in Latin America and to enrich France in the process, Napolons experienced and impressive armies were determined to win against a sturdy resistance by Mexicos Republican armies. The French prevailed in pushing President Benito Jurez out of the capital and to the far desert expanses of

This curious story highlights the incongruities that occur when people of numerous cultures, in this case not only from Mexico and Europe but also Asia and Africa, come together under tense circumstances. The liminal qualities of this storyso many foreigners in a foreign landmake for a fascinating glimpse into the nineteenth century, the philosophies of European heads of state, a newly emerging Mexico, and the shake-up of the United States. Maximilians attempts to anchor an empire in this convulsive climate proved to be a test of Old World methods against a new paradigm in America. During this turbulent time, occupied by armies, officers, and diplomats from abroad, Mexico became a microcosm of erupting European geopolitics, especially in view of Prussias intent to wage war against Austria and France.

In this book, readers should note that adherents to the Mexican empire are also referred to as Imperialistas and Monarchists. Conservatives and Clerical party members who wanted to maintain a strong central Catholic Church at times encouraged a monarchy or denounced it, depending on Maximilians actions. Supporters of Jurez are also termed Liberals or Republicans, just as they were in their day. The princess Charlotte was known in Mexico and elsewhere as Carlotaso the history begins and ends with this spelling.

Over the years, the story of the reign of Maximilian and Carlota has been told in myriad ways. Authors have written of this strange and complicated saga as history, but a good many others, inspired by the raw emotion of the epic, fictionalized the story further. A number of plays and songs were written about the Second Empire, as well as a 1939 Warner Brothers motion picture simply entitled Jurez (screenplay by John Huston, with Bette Davis, Paul Muni, Brian Aherne, and Claude Rains). Clearly, however, the absurd, complicated, and tragic tale of an Austrian archduke and a Belgian princess on the throne of Mexico produced enough innate drama to stand on its own, without further fictionalization.

Authors note: In 1865, 1 Peso = 1 U.S. Dollar. 1 U.S. Dollar in 1865 = $16.25 in 2010.

Bouchout Castle, Meise, Belgium, 1900

Inspired by the spring breezes and emergent blossoms signaling the time for adventure, Carlota, a beautiful, waiflike woman, nearly sixty, princess of Belgium, and, for a brief time, the empress of Mexico, walked gently down the pier on the lake at Bouchout. Wearing a shawl, her cropped gray hair tucked into a chignon and crowned by a straw hat woven with ribbon, her chambermaid steadied her. Carlota placed her slipper on the gunwale of the small wooden rowboat, rocking it in the water. Today we leave for Mexico, she said, before stepping into the boat for a brief excursion. Rowed about by her attendants, she saw herself gliding over Lake Texcoco escorted by French military officers.

May 28, 1864, two oclock in the afternoon, Port of Veracruz, Mexico

The captain of the frigate Novara advised Maximilian and Carlota to make ready for port at the sultry bay of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico. The two emerged from their suites into the swirling, smoky air of the steamships quarterdeck and strained to see the peak of Mount Orizaba, the highest mountain in Mexico, which stood shrouded in a snowy fog, nearly ninety miles west. The sight of the bastion San Juan de Ula, where battalion commanders fired cannon salutes to the sovereigns, encouraged them that their arrival in the new empire of Mexico had been acknowledged. The thirty-one-year-old emperor, Austrias Ferdinand Maximilian von Habsburg, perfectly at home on the