Maximilian of Mexico
Fernando Maximiliano José María de Habsburgo-Lorena (in German, Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph María von Habsburg-Lothringen; Vienna, July 6, 1832-Querétaro, June 19, 1867) was a nobleman Austrian politician and soldier. He was born with the title of Archduke of Austria as Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria , however he renounced that title to be Emperor of Mexico under the name Maximilian I . His reign was the only one of the Second Mexican Empire, parallel to the government headed by Benito Juárez. In addition, within Mexican historiography he is known as Maximilian of Habsburg .
He was the younger brother of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I. In 1857 he married Princess Charlotte of Belgium, the same year he was appointed viceroy of the kingdom of Lombardy-Veneto, acquired by Austria at the Congress of Vienna. Two years later, the kingdom revolted against the House of Habsburg. His policy towards the Italians—too lenient and liberal in the eyes of the Austrian authorities—forced him to resign on April 10, 1859.
With the suspension of foreign debt payments, France —an ally of Spain and the United Kingdom— began an intervention in Mexico in 1861. Although their allies withdrew from the battle in April 1862, the French army remained in the country. As a strategy to legitimize the intervention, Napoleon III supported a group of monarchists from the Conservative Party —opponents of the liberal government of Juárez— who met in the Assembly of Notables and established the Second Imperial Regency. On October 3, 1863, a delegation of conservatives offered Maximilian the crown of Mexico; he conditioned his acceptance to the holding of a referendum accompanied by solid financial and military guarantees. Finally, after months of doubt, on April 10, 1864, he accepted.
The Second Mexican Empire gained international recognition from various European powers (including the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, Austria, and Prussia). The United States, for its part, due to the Monroe Doctrine, recognized the Republican side of Juárez that could not be defeated by the Empire. In 1865, with the end of the Civil War, the United States sponsored Republican forces which, together with the withdrawal of the French army from the territory the following year, further weakened Maximilian's situation. His wife returned to Europe with the aim of winning back the support of Napoleon III or any other European monarch. But her efforts were unsuccessful. Defeated at the Cerro de las Campanas in the city of Querétaro, Maximiliano was captured, tried by a court martial and ordered to be shot on June 19, 1867. After his death, the republican system was reinstated in Mexico, which began the period known as the Restored Republic.
Early years and childhood (1832-1848)
Maximilian was born on July 6, 1832 in the Schönbrunn Palace, located near Vienna, the capital of Austria. He was the second son of the archdukes Francisco Carlos of Austria and Sofía of Bavaria; He was also a grandson —by paternal line— of the reigning Emperor Franz I of Austria and younger brother of the future Emperor Franz Josef I. His secular name was Ferdinand Maximilian Jose Maria: Ferdinand paid homage to Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria (godfather and paternal uncle of his), Maximilian in honor of King Maximilian I of Bavaria (maternal grandfather) and José María as a traditional Catholic name.
During his childhood, Maximilian was constantly in poor health: he tended to catch colds due to the poorly heated rooms of the Hofburg Imperial Palace, the residence of the Austrian emperor.
Maximilian's fondness for naturalist disciplines (such as botanical drawing and landscaping) was also born during this period, since he appreciated the emperor's private garden of said palace, since it had a space made up of a grove of palm trees and tropical plants where parrots nest; That taste spread and was reflected forever with the drawings that he himself made of the gardens of the residences that he came to inhabit throughout his life and with different recreational activities such as butterfly hunting.
Sofía declared that among all her children he was the most affectionate. While she described Francisco José as "precociously thrifty", she described Maximiliano as having "a more dreamy and extravagant nature". Maximilian's uncle, Ferdinand II of Austria, had ruled since 1835. Maximilian and Franz Joseph were very close, to the point that both often mocked his uncle as intellectually deficient. Under Marshal Joseph Radetzky, Maximilian—just turned thirteen years—in 1845 he toured the kingdoms of the Italian peninsula with Francisco José.
All of the children of Francisco Carlos and Sofía were raised in the same way and had to bow from an early age to the rigors of court etiquette in Vienna. Maximilian was first raised by a governess, Baroness Louise Sturmfeder von Oppenweiler, and then by tutors, headed by Count Heinrich de Bombelles, a French-born diplomat in the service of Austria. Both Franz Joseph and Maximilian shared a busy school schedule: when Maximilian was seventeen, they were both up to fifty-five. hours of study per week. Throughout his education he was instructed in piano, modeling, philosophy, history, canon law and horsemanship. He also became a polyglot as, in addition to his native German, he learned English, French, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian and Czech; throughout his life he continued to learn more languages: Portuguese, Spanish and even, already as emperor of Mexico, Nahuatl.
Adolescence and adulthood (1848-1856)
In February 1848, the Italian revolution quickly conquered the entire empire. The dismissal of Klemens von Metternich marked the end of an era. Emperor Ferdinand I was recognized as incapable of governing. His brother and legitimate successor, Archduke Francisco Carlos, encouraged by his wife Sofía, renounced his claim to the throne in favor of his eldest son Francisco José, who began the reign. from him on December 2, 1848.
From the beginning, Francisco José took power seriously and effectively. The Hungarians held out until the summer of 1849, when Franz Joseph put Maximilian in command of military operations. Standing impassive, Maximilian reported: "Bullets are whistling over their heads and the rebels are shooting at them from burning houses." shot in the presence of the archdukes. Unlike his brother, Maximiliano was impressed by the brutality of the executions, Maximiliano admired the ease with which his brother received the homage of ministers and generals; now, he too had to request an audience to see his brother.
Analyses of his personality are contrasting: O. Defrance presents Maximilian as less gifted and more complex in character than his older brother, while L. Sondhaus indicates, on the contrary, that he had often outshone his older brother. his brother since childhood and that the latter seemed, by comparison, duller and less talented. Maximilian at eighteen was described as attractive, dreamy, romantic and dilettante.
In 1850, Maximilian fell in love with Countess Paula von Linden, daughter of the Württemberg ambassador in Vienna. His feelings were reciprocated, but due to the countess's lower rank, Franz Joseph put an end to this idyll by sending Maximilian to Trieste to familiarize him with the Austrian navy, in which he would later make a career.
Maximilian embarked on the corvette "Vulcain" for a brief cruise around Greece. In October 1850 he was made a lieutenant in the navy. At the beginning of 1851 he made another voyage now aboard the SMS Novara. He loved that trip so much that he expressed in his diary: «I am going to fulfill my dearest dream: a trip by sea. With some knowledge, I leave the beloved Austrian land. This moment is a source of great emotion for me."
This trip took him in particular to Lisbon. There he met the nineteen-year-old princess Maria Amelia de Braganza, the only daughter of the late Emperor Pedro I of Brazil and who was described as beautiful, pious and witty and of a refined education.The two fell in love. Francisco José and his mother authorize a possible marriage. However, in February 1852, Maria Amelia contracted scarlet fever. As the months passed, her health worsened before the tuberculosis outbreak. His doctors advised him to leave Lisbon for Madeira, where he arrived in August 1852. By the end of November, all hope of regaining his health was lost. Maria Amelia died on February 4, 1853, which provoked Maximilian's a deep pain.
Maximiliano perfected his knowledge in commanding crews and received a solid technical naval training. On September 10, 1854, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian Navy and promoted to rear admiral. From those experiences in the navy, his taste for travel and discovering new destinations—especially exotic—developed, he even went to Beirut, Palestine and Egypt.
At the end of 1855, due to the rough waters of the Adriatic Sea, he found refuge in the Gulf of Trieste. He immediately thought of building a residence there, a wish that he put into practice in March 1856, when he began construction of what he would later call the Miramar Castle, specifically in the city of Trieste.
The end of the Crimean War with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on March 30, 1856 brought pacification in Europe, so Maximilian, still aboard the Novara, went to Paris to meet the French Emperor Napoleon III and his wife the Empress Eugenia, two characters who decisively influenced his life in subsequent years. Maximilian wrote about that event in his diary: «Although the emperor does not have the genius of his famous uncle, nevertheless he has, fortunately for France, a very great personality. He dominates his century and will leave his mark on him." He also declared: "What I have for him is not admiration, but adoration."
Engagement and wedding with Charlotte of Belgium (1856-1857)
In May 1856, Franz Joseph asked Maximilian to return from Paris to Vienna with a stopover in Brussels to visit King Leopold I of the Belgians. On May 30, 1856, he arrived in Belgium where he was received by the Philippe of Belgium, youngest son of Leopold I. Accompanied by the princes of Belgium, he visited the cities of Tournai, Cortrique, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, and Charleroi. In Brussels, Maximilian met the only daughter of the King and the late queen Louise of Orleans, the sixteen-year-old Princess Charlotte, who immediately fell under his spell.
Leopold I, realizing these feelings, suggested to Maximilian that he ask for her hand. Following his advice he accepted. He received a cordial welcome at the Belgian court, but he could not help judging the sobriety of Laeken Castle—where he noted that the stairs were made of wood and not marble—so far removed from the luxury of Viennese imperial residences.
Prince George of Saxony, who had previously been rejected by Charlotte, warned Leopold I of the "calculating character of the Archduke of Vienna". Regarding Leopold I's son, Duke of Brabant Leopold (future King Leopold II), wrote to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom: "Max is a boy full of wit, knowledge, talent and kindness. […] The Archduke is very poor, he seeks above all to enrich himself, to earn money to complete the various constructions that he has undertaken », since Victoria was also Carlota's cousin. Maximilian himself wrote to his future son-in-law: «In May you earned [...] all my trust and my goodwill. I also noticed that my girl shared these dispositions; however, it was my duty to proceed with caution."
On the other hand, far from the future wedding, Austria obtained in the Congress of Vienna the acquisition of the kingdom of Lombardy-Veneto for the House of Habsburg. On February 28, 1857, Francisco José officially named Maximilian Viceroy of Lombardy-Veneto.
In fact, after accepting the marriage with the Belgian princess, he did not appear to show enthusiasm or signs of being in love. He bitterly negotiated for his fiancée's dowry, and as the complex financial transactions between Vienna and Brussels continued with a view to the marriage, King Leopold requested that an act of separation of property be drawn up to protect his daughter's interests. Charlotte, who was little concerned with the settlement of those "purely material" considerations, declared: "If, as is in question, the Archduke was invested with the Viceroyalty of Italy, that would be lovely, that's all I want."
The engagement was formally concluded on December 23, 1856. On July 27, 1857 Maximilian and Charlotte were married in the royal palace in Brussels. Distinguished ruling houses in Europe attended the event, including Charlotte's cousin-in-law and Victoria's husband of the United Kingdom, Prince Consort Albert. The marriage alliance increased the prestige of the recent Belgian dynasty, which was once again allied with the House of Habsburg.
Viceroy of Lombardy-Veneto (1857-1859)
A Liberal Archduke
On September 6, 1857, Maximilian and Carlota entered Milan, the capital of Lombardy-Veneto. During their stay there the couple inhabited the Royal Palace of Milan and sometimes the Royal Villa of Monza. As governor, Maximilian lived like a sovereign surrounded by an imposing court made up of chamberlains and majordomos.
During his government, Maximilian continued the construction of the castle of Miramar, which would not be finished until three years later; Carlota's dowry was undoubtedly a significant aid to its construction. The future Leopold II once noted in his diary: "The construction of this palace these days is endless madness."
Inspired by the Austrian navy, Maximilian developed the imperial fleet and encouraged the expedition of the Novara which carried out the first maritime world tour commanded by the Austrian Empire, a scientific expedition that lasted more than two years (between 1857 and 1859). and where various Viennese scholars participated. Politically, the Archduke was greatly influenced by the progressive ideas of the moment. His appointment to the viceroyalty, replacing the old Marshal Joseph Radetzky, responded to the growing discontent of the Italian population over the arrival of a younger and more liberal figure. The choice of an archduke, brother of the Emperor of Austria, tended to encourage a certain personal loyalty to the House of Habsburg.
But Maximiliano and Carlota still did not achieve the expected success in Milan. Carlota did everything possible to win the sympathy of "her people": speaking Italian, visiting charitable institutions, inaugurating schools... She even dressed as a Lombard peasant girl to seduce the Italians. At Easter In 1858, dressed in ceremonial clothing, Maximilian and Carlota walked down the Grand Canal in Venice. Despite all the attempts made by the couple, anti-Austrian sentiments grew rapidly among the Italian population.
Maximilian's work in the provinces he governed was fruitful and quick: revision of the cadastre, more equitable distribution of taxes, establishment of cantonal doctors, deepening of the Venetian passes, expansion of the port of Como, drainage of the marshes to curb malaria and fertilize the soil, irrigation of the plains of Friuli, sanitation of the lagoons. There was also a series of urban improvements: the Riva was extended to the royal gardens of Venice, while in Milan, the promenades gained importance, the Duomo square was widened, a new square was drawn between La Scala and the Palazzo Marino and the restored the Ambrosian Library. The British Foreign Secretary wrote in January 1859: "The administration of the Lombard-Venetian provinces was directed by Archduke Maximilian with great talent and a spirit imbued with liberalism and the most honorable conciliation.".
Disgrace and revocation
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Even though he was officially viceroy, Maximilian's authority was limited by the soldiers of the Austrian Empire, who were opposed to any kind of liberal reform. Maximilian went to Vienna in April 1858 to ask Francisco José I to personally concentrate administrative and military powers, while following a policy of concessions; His brother rejected that request and made it difficult for him to lead a more repressive policy.
Maximilian was reduced to the limited role of prefect of police, while tensions rose in Piedmont. On January 3, 1859, Maximilian for security reasons and for fear of being attacked in public, sent Carlota back to Miramar and sent her most precious objects out of the territories she governed. Alone in the palace in Milan he shared her complaints with her mother Sofia: «So here I am banished and alone as a hermit. […] I am the prophet who is ridiculed, who must prove, piece by piece, what he predicted word for word to deaf ears ».
In February 1859, numerous arrests were made in Milan and Venice. The prisoners belonged to the wealthy classes of the population and were transported to Mantua and various fortresses of the Monarchy. The city of Brescia was occupied by the militia, while many battalions were encamped in Piacenza and along the banks of the Po River. The Archduke tried to moderate the severe dispositions of General Ferencz Gyulai. Maximiliano had just obtained permission from his brother to reopen the private law schools in Pavia and the University of Padua. In March 1859 incidents broke out between the police and Milanese and Veronese. In Pavia, one of the states ruled by Maximilian, Austria created a real military siege crew. The situation in Italy became even more critical: order could no longer be maintained there except by foreign troops.
Maximiliano's conciliatory work ended up collapsing when his different projects to improve the welfare of the population had to be aborted. In turn, those attempts at welfare were contrary to the position in Austria, which combated any element that disturbed his "unitary program". Francisco José considered Maximilian too liberal and wasteful with his reforms and too lenient with the Italian rebels, for which he forced him to resign from his position, which occurred on April 10, 1859.
The resignation was welcomed by an important actor in Italian unification, Camilo Cavour, who declared:
In Lombardy, our most terrible enemy [...] was the Maximilian Archduke: young, active, entrepreneur, who surrendered himself completely to the difficult task of conquering the Milanese and who was to succeed. Never had the Lombard provinces been so prosperous and so well managed. Thanks to God, the good government of Vienna intervened and, as usual, took advantage of the opportunity to commit madness, a discourteous act, the most fatal for Austria, the most advantageous for Piedmont [...]. Lombardy couldn't escape us anymore.
Exile and formation of the Second Empire (1859-1863)
The Golden Exile
On April 26, 1859, Austria declared war on the King of Sardinia Victor Emmanuel II, later known as the Second Italian War of Independence or the Franco-Austrian War. Sardinia emerged victorious in the war thanks to the support given by Napoleon III, resulting in a blow to relations between France and Austria. The conflict ended with the Treaty of Villafranca on July 11, 1859, which brought Napoleon III and Francisco José back into friendship. As for Venice, during their meeting in Villafranca Napoleon III proposed to the Austrian emperor to create an independent Venetian kingdom, headed by Maximilian and Charlotte, but Franz Joseph categorically refused the idea. The good Franco-Austrian relationship was reconfirmed with the Treaty of Zurich in November 1859, which confirmed the annexation of Lombardy to the Kingdom of Sardinia.
At the age of twenty-seven, the Archduke, now without official activity and without any real prospects, left Milan to retire to the Dalmatian coast where Charlotte had just acquired the island of Lokrum and its ruined convent. He quickly transformed the former Benedictine abbey into a second home before he was able to move into his Castle in Miramar at Christmas 1860, where the work was almost complete. While workmen were still working on the castle, the couple first occupied the apartments on the ground floor before being able to do it with the rest of the castle.
Meanwhile, Maximilian and Carlota embarked on a voyage aboard the yacht Fantasia that took them to Madeira in December 1859, the same place where Princess Maria Amelia of Brazil had died six years earlier. Maximilian was imprisoned there. of melancholic laments: «I see with sadness the valley of Machico and the friendly Santa Cruz where, seven years ago, we had lived such sweet moments... Seven years full of joys, fruitful in trials and bitter disappointments. […] But a deep melancholy seizes me when I compare the two eras. Today I already feel fatigue; my shoulders are no longer free and light, they have to bear the weight of a bitter past... It is here that the only daughter of the Emperor of Brazil died: an accomplished creature, she left this imperfect world, like a pure angel of light, to return to the heaven, their true homeland."
While Carlota was left alone in Funchal for three months, Maximilian continued on his own pilgrimage beyond Madeira in the footsteps of the late princess: first Bahia, then Rio de Janeiro and finally Espírito Santo. The journey included a stay at the court of Emperor Pedro II and also presented scientific and ethnographic aspects. Maximilian embarked on an adventure in the jungle and visited several plantations, in which he enlisted the help of his personal physician August von Jilek, an oceanographer and specialist in the study of infectious diseases such as malaria. During this period Maximilian collected much information on topics such as botany, ecosystems or agricultural methods. It is also worth noting that during his journey he saw the use of slaves in the latifundia system that he judged cruel and stained with sin; as for the priests, he considered them immodest and too powerful in the Empire.
On board the Fantasia Maximiliano sailed from the Brazilian coast until he reached Funchal where he met Carlota again to return to Europe. They made a stopover in Tetouan (Morocco) where they arrived on March 18, 1860. Already in Lokrum Maximilian left his depressed wife there while he escaped to Venice where it is known that he was unfaithful, but even that life quickly tired him. Months passed and Maximilian returned to Miramar Castle, where Carlota would return later. They would inhabit that place together for almost four more years. Carlota painted her family an idyllic portrait of her marriage in exile, golden but forced, but contrary to reality in which the distance between the spouses was very marked and her marital life had been reduced to Practically nothing.
Context in Mexico
Far from the exhausting marital life of Maximiliano and Carlota, in Mexico throughout the governments of Juan Álvarez (1855), Ignacio Comonfort (1855-1858) and Benito Juárez (since 1858) the Reform Laws had been issued Through them, the privileges of the Church and the Army were abolished, freedom of the press was decreed, ecclesiastical property and civil corporations were confiscated, parochial taxation was prohibited, freedom of worship was decreed, created the Civil Registry and monopoly control of marriages and deaths was taken from the Church. These laws polarized Mexican society. The situation spilled over when the Reform War began from 1858 to 1861, which pitted the liberals —headed by Juárez— and the conservatives —headed by Félix María Zuloaga—, since the latter wanted to maintain their privileges. In the end the liberals won the war, but the large landowners in support of the conservative side asked Europe for help.
In France, Napoleon III, drugged by imperialist ambitions, decided to intervene in Mexican politics. Taking advantage of the Civil War (1861-1865) that paralyzed the United States and under the pretext of obtaining repayment of the debts that the Juárez government had suspended due to lack of resources, France ratified the London Agreement on October 31, 1861.. That treaty, contrary to the Monroe Doctrine —which condemned any European intervention in the affairs of the Americas—, was the prelude to the Intervention in Mexico in which France allied with the Spanish and English. After the departure of both allies in April 1862, France decided to stay and nurtured the ambitious plan to occupy the country so that it would become an industrialized nation that would compete with the United States. French troops soon landed in Veracruz and soon after he took Puebla in May 1863, which opened the way to the Valley of Mexico; finally under the command of generals Frédéric Forey and François Achille Bazaine they occupied Mexico City in June of the same year.
Napoleon III's goal was for Mexico to be a French protectorate. If Mexico became theoretically independent and soon endowed itself with a sovereign who bore the title of emperor, everything concerning foreign policy, the army, and defense could be administered by the French. In addition, France would become the country's main trading partner: favored for investments, purchases of raw materials and other import products. France intensified the shipment of settlers (particularly those from Barcelonnette and the Ubaye valley, in the Alpes de Haute-Provence) to strengthen its presence on Mexican soil.
Election of the new emperor
In French territory Napoleon III planned to offer the Mexican imperial crown to Maximilian, whom he knew personally and whose qualities he appreciated. This esteem was reciprocal as had already been demonstrated by his visit to Paris in 1856. In July 1862 Napoleon III cited directly the name of Archduke Maximilian as a candidate, especially since he was already familiar with America from his previous visits to the Empire of Brazil, the only great monarchy on the continent.
After the Republican defeat in Mexico, the conservatives agreed to restore the traditional system of government in the Mexican Empire, with which the Conservative Party was entrusted with a search to find a European prince who met certain aptitudes to govern a territory as complex as Mexico was, since it was required to be Catholic and also to respect the traditions of the nation —something that the republican governments had "breached" due to the Reform Laws.
On July 21, 1864, the Superior Government Junta (also called the Assembly of Notables or Junta de los thirty-five, due to its number of members) was formed, with its president Teodosio Lares assigned by Frédéric Forey, plenipotentiary minister of the French. For several months, possible candidates were discussed, among whom was also Enrique de Borbón, Duke of Seville. Finally Napoleon III decided to formally propose Maximilian because he met the requirements. Furthermore, since Napoleon III was the only one who actually knew European princes personally, his candidate enjoyed more credibility than any other candidate.
At the conclusion of the long discussions, the proposed candidacy was approved and a commission of notable personalities was created to go and meet with said candidate and ask him to accept the throne of the empire. Evidently that candidate was Maximilian of Austria, who at the time was in retirement at Miramar Castle on the Adriatic coast.
On July 10, 1863, the Superior Government Junta was officially dissolved, issuing as its last act the following opinion that was published the following day:
- The Mexican nation adopts the moderate, hereditary monarchy in the form of government with a Catholic prince.
- The sovereign will take the title of Emperor of Mexico.
- The imperial crown of Mexico is offered to S.A. I. and R., Prince Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, for himself and his descendants.
- In the event that, by circumstances impossible to foresee, the Maximilian Archduke did not come to take possession of the throne offered to him, the Mexican nation refers to the benevolence of S. M. Napoleon III, emperor of the French, to be instructed by another Catholic prince.
Offer and acceptance of the proposal
The conservative delegation was carefully chosen since they all had to be worthy of representing Mexico and its history; great care was taken to ensure that they were adequate to show a dignified image of the country in front of the Archduke. Napoleon III had already notified Maximilian and he had had time to seriously consider it. On October 3, 1863, the delegation headed by the diplomat José María Gutiérrez de Estrada and followed by other characters such as Juan Nepomuceno Almonte (biological son of the insurgent José María Morelos), José Pablo Martínez del Río, Antonio Escandón, Tomás Murphy arrived at the Castle. and Alegría, Adrián Woll, Ignacio Aguilar y Marocho, Joaquín Velázquez de León, Francisco Javier Miranda, José Manuel Hidalgo y Esnaurrízar and Ángel Iglesias as secretary.
As head of the deputation, Gutiérrez Estrada claimed to be the spokesman for the Assembly of Notables that met in Mexico City on July 3. Maximilian officially responded: «It is flattering for our house that the eyes of his compatriots have turned towards the family of Carlos V as soon as the word monarchy was pronounced. […] However, I recognise, in perfect agreement with H. M. the Emperor of France, whose initiative allowed the regeneration of his beautiful homeland, that the monarchy could not be established there on a legitimate and perfectly solid basis only if the entire nation, expressing its will, comes to ratify the desire of the capital. Therefore, it is the result of the votes of the generality of the country that I must make depend in the first place, the acceptance of the throne that is offered to me".
Maximilian therefore procrastinated before accepting the proposition. Advised by his mother-in-law, Leopold I, Maximilian demanded the holding of a popular referendum accompanied by guarantees of financial and military support from France.
In March 1864, Maximilian and Carlota traveled to Paris, where they were warmly welcomed by Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenia to encourage them to accept the throne of Mexico. The emperor promised to keep twenty thousand French soldiers in Mexico until 1867. Maximilian contracted an obligation to Napoleon III of five hundred million Mexican pesos, equivalent at that time to two thousand five hundred million gold francs, destined to subsidize his projects when reigned in Mexico. As for King Leopold, he promised to send a Belgian expeditionary force to Mexico to support them.
Later the same month Maximilian went to Vienna to visit his brother Franz Joseph I, who asked him to sign a family pact obliging him to renounce for himself and his descendants his rights to the Austrian crown, a possible inheritance, as well as his movable and immovable patrimony in Austria, otherwise he will not be able to reign in Mexico. Maximiliano tried to add a secret clause that would allow him, in case he fails in Mexico, to recover his family rights if he returned to Austria. Francisco José I rejected the addition of this clause, however he promised subsidies and volunteer soldiers (six thousand men and three hundred sailors), as well as an annual pension. The parents of the two tried, in vain, to influence Francisco José's decision I. However, accompanied by his brothers Carlos Luis and Luis Víctor, as well as by five other archdukes and dignitaries of the Austrian Empire, Francisco José I landed in Miramar because Maximilian finally resolved to accept the severe conditions imposed by his brother. Discouraged by these drastic requirements, Maximilian considered giving up going to Mexico. However, after a long and very violent discussion between the two brothers, Francisco José I and Maximiliano signed the desired family pact on April 9, 1864. Although, when they were left on the station platform, they embraced each other with great emotion..
S. A. I. Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian renounces by his august person and in the name of his descendants, the succession of the crown in the empire of Austria, as well as the kingdoms and countries and that depend on him, without any exception in favor of all other members who find themselves in the attitude of succeeding in the male line of the house of Austria and their descendants of man in man; so that in any time there exists one of succession
Emperor of Mexico (1864-1867)
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Road to Mexico
The next day, April 10, 1864, Maximilian declared to the delegates in Miramar that he accepted the imperial crown, officially becoming Emperor of Mexico. He affirmed that the wishes of the Mexican people allowed him to consider himself the legitimate elected representative of the people. Although, in reality, Maximiliano was deceived by some conservatives, including Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, who assured him of hypothetical massive popular support. In order to have a supposed document that ratified support for the emperor, the Mexican deputation produced it by adding to the margin the number of the population in the town where each of the delegates resided, as if all the inhabitants had gone to the polls.
That same April 10, an official dinner was scheduled in Miramar in the great hall of Les Mouettes. Due to a nervous breakdown, Maximilian did not attend and retired to his bedroom where he was examined by doctor August von Jilek. His doctor found him bedridden and so overwhelmed that he suggested that he rest in the Gartenhaus ward to calm down. Carlota, therefore, presided over the banquet alone.
The departure for Mexico was set for April 14, 1864. That day they set sail aboard the SMS Novara escorted by the French frigate Thémis, so Maximilian found himself more serene. Carlota and he made a stopover in Rome to receive the blessing of Pope Pius IX. On April 19, 1864, during the pontifical audience, everyone avoided directly mentioning the looting of the clergy's property by the Mexican republicans, but the pope could not fail to emphasize that Maximilian had to respect the rights of his peoples and the of the Church.
During the long voyage, Maximilian and Carlota rarely evoked the diplomatic and political difficulties they would soon face, but they conceived in great detail the etiquette of their future court. They began to write a six-hundred-page manuscript related to the ceremonial, studied in its most minute aspects. The Novara stopped at Madeira and Jamaica. The travelers endured heavy storms before a final stopover in Martinique.
Arrival and installation in Mexico
Maximilian arrived on May 28, 1864 at the port of Veracruz. Due to an epidemic of yellow fever in that town, the new imperial couple crossed the city without stopping. Added to this, the early hour of their landing earned them a poor reception from the people of Veracruz. Carlota was particularly impressed: crossing hot lands with bad weather conditions and a car accident helped cast an inauspicious shadow over her first steps in Mexico. However, in Córdoba Maximiliano and Carlota were hailed by the natives who saw them as liberators.
The ovations continued en route to Mexico City. With the arrival in other cities, the receptions were very jubilant and of great hullabaloo, which was especially expressed in Puebla. Closer to Mexico City, they were offered a different panorama: a country wounded by the war and deeply divided in its convictions. Maximiliano fell in love with the beautiful landscapes of his new country and its people in a short period of time. On June 12, 1864, the imperial couple made their official entry into the Capital. They stopped at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe where an important part of the capital's society was waiting for them, and the councils of the interior provinces also gave testimony of their enthusiasm. Meanwhile, the French troops continued fighting to acquire the entire Mexican territory.
The National Palace —which had historically been used, since the consummation of Independence, as the official residence of the heads of the executive branch— did not correspond to the idea that Maximilian and Carlota had of an «imperial residence». Delivered to bedbugs, the building was a kind of austere and dilapidated barracks that required major work. A week after their arrival, Maximiliano and Carlota preferred to settle in the Chapultepec Castle, located on a hill near the city, which they they renamed Castillo de Miravalle to match Miramar. Centuries before the castle was built, the Mexicas had inhabited the area.
Shortly after his arrival, Maximilian asked that an avenue be drawn from Chapultepec Castle to the center of the capital; the avenue was named in honor of Carlota as Paseo de la Emperatriz, which a few years later was renamed to the current name: Paseo de la Reforma. It is worth mentioning that later in the summers, the imperial couple also enjoyed the Palace of Cortés in Cuernavaca. Maximiliano made numerous and expensive improvements to his various properties —with a catastrophic situation at the Treasury.
Politics of Maximilian
Immediately upon his arrival Maximiliano began building museums with the aim of preserving Mexican culture, while Carlota began organizing parties for national charity in order to raise funds to build things for the poor.
The Empire used the phrase "Equity in justice". Initially it had the support of the Catholic Church in Mexico headed by Archbishop Labastida y Dávalos and it remained constant with the support of a good part of the population of Catholic tradition, although he was fiercely opposed by liberals. During his rule, Maximilian tried to economically and socially develop the territories under his custody by applying the knowledge learned from his studies in Europe and from his family, one of the most important monarchical houses. ancient in Europe and openly Catholic tradition.
For Maximiliano, as his motto said, justice and well-being were the objectives that he declared to be the most important to him. One of the first acts of him, as emperor, was to restrict the hours of work and abolish the labor of minors. He canceled all peasant debts that exceeded ten pesos and restored common property. He also broke with the monopoly of the "tiendas de raya" and decreed that the labor force could not be bought or sold for the price of his decree. Maximiliano was also interested in peonage and the living conditions of the indigenous people on the haciendas.: Although most of the indigenous people of the towns enjoyed freedom, those of the haciendas were subjected to a master who could punish them with imprisonment or torture with iron or whip.
At the end of July 1864, six weeks after his triumphant entry into Mexico City, Maximilian complained about the inefficiency of the French fleet that did not leave Veracruz, leaving the ports of Manzanillo, Mazatlán and Guaymas in the hands of of dissidents where they collected the product from customs at the expense of the Empire. Juarista troops withdrew from everywhere, but the war turned into skirmishes led by guerrillas; for Bazaine, a marshal since 5 September, this form of combat was particularly disconcerting.
Maximiliano traveled on horseback from August 10 to October 30, 1864 through the interior of the Mexican lands escorted by two platoons of cavalry. It should be noted that the Empire had decreed a new administrative organization in which it was divided into fifty departments —although in reality it could only be applied in the spaces they controlled. He visited the department of Querétaro, then the cities of Celaya, Irapuato, Dolores Hidalgo and León de los Aldama (in the department of Guanajuato), Morelia (in Michoacán) and finally Toluca (in Toluca). Carlota accompanied him on the last city of the tour to act as a chaperone on a three-day excursion before returning to her home; but, even in the presence of Bazaine, Juarista troops galloped across the field less than two kilometers away, but nothing came of age.
As 1864 ended, the French army succeeded in having imperial authority recognized over most of Mexico's territory, though even so the empire's existence remained fragile. French military successes were the only foundations on which the imperial project rested. He did not put much in for new challenges to appear: the pacification of Michoacán, the occupation of the ports of the Pacific Ocean, the expulsion of Juárez from Chihuahua and the subjugation of Oaxaca.
To the dismay of his conservative allies who brought him to power, Maximiliano championed several liberal political ideas proposed by the Republican Juárez administration: land reforms, freedom of religion, and the extension of voting rights beyond the privileged classes. Maximilian's liberal temperament had already been expressed in Lombardy and, just as in Italian lands where he strove to defend the interests of those who had put him on the throne and the construction of the State was limited by troops, in Mexico a situation occurred similar in that he oscillated between liberal and conservative ideals but did not exercise indisputable real control over the country: the measures taken by his government only applied to territories controlled by French garrisons. Maximilian soon alienated the conservatives and the Clergy by ratifying the secularization of ecclesiastical property for the benefit of national rule, and he even decreed amnesty for all those liberals who wanted to join his cause. Pedro Escudo and José María Cortés y Esparza, who had participated in the Constituent Congress of 1856, joined the his council of ministers. He even went so far as to offer Juárez to join his council as Minister of Justice cia, but flatly refused to even meet him in Mexico City.
There is a letter awarded to Juárez whose authenticity is widely debated because the original is not preserved and which reads as follows:
You tell me that "abandoning the succession of a throne in Europe, your family, your friends and their properties and what is most dear to a man, the homeland, you and your wife doña Carlota have come to these distant and unknown lands obeying only the spontaneous call of the nation, which encrypts in you the happiness of your future". I really admire your generosity, but on the other hand I was greatly surprised to find in your letter the phrase called SpontaneousFor I had already seen before that when the traitors of my country stood on their own in Miramar to offer you the crown of Mexico, with the accessions of nine or ten peoples of the nation, you saw in all this a ridiculous outrageous farce that an honest and honored man would take it into account. In response to this absurd request, you answered by asking for the free expression of national will through universal suffrage. This was impossible, but it was the answer of an honorable man.[...] You cordially invite me to Mexico City, where you are heading, to have a conference with other Mexican leaders who are currently in arms, promising us all the necessary forces to escort us on our journey, pawning your word of honor, your public faith and your honor, as a guarantee of our security. [...] It's impossible for me, sir, to go to this call. My official occupations won't allow me. Here, in America, we know too well the value of that public faith, that word and that honor, as the French people know what the oaths and the promises of Napoleon are worth.
You tell me that you do not doubt that of this conference — in case I accepted it — will result the peace and happiness of the Mexican nation and that the future Empire will reserve me a distinguished position and that will be assisted by my talent and my patriotism.
Certainly, sir, the history of our times records the name of great traitors who have violated their oaths, their word and their promises; they have betrayed their own party, their principles, their history and all that is most sacred to a man of honor and, in all these cases, the traitor has been guided by a vile ambition of power and by the miserable desire to satisfy their own passions and even their own obscure dictates, but the presently appointed Republic [...] But there is one thing that cannot achieve either falsehood or perfidy and that is the tremendous sentence of history. She'll judge us.
On the other hand, when Maximilian was absent from Mexico City (even for several months) Carlota, as established in the Provisional Statute of the Empire, governed: she presided over the Council of Ministers and gave, on behalf of her husband, a public hearing on Sundays, perhaps with an influence from the Council of the Indies and the General Court of Indians. Carlota also carried out several of Maximilian's social policies, making her de facto the first female ruler of Mexico.
Since 1864 Maximilian had invited Europeans to settle in the "Colonia de Carlota" in the Yucatecan peninsula where six hundred families of farmers and artisans settled, predominantly Prussian with the aim of Europeanizing the country. Another plan for the creation of a dozen more settlements by ex-Confederate Americans was devised by oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury; To Maximilian's misfortune, this ambitious immigration project met with little success. In July 1865, only 1,100 settlers, more soldiers than farmers, mainly from Louisiana, settled in Mexico and remained stationed in the state of Veracruz, waiting for the imperial government directed them to the land they were supposed to farm. This plan naturally displeased the government in Washington, D.C., which frowned on its citizens for depopulating the United States to serve a "foreign emperor". Maximilian also tried, unsuccessfully, to lure the English colony of British Honduras (present-day Belize) to Yucatan. In fact, although the number of territories in Mexico was large, few belonged to the public domain: all the land had a master with more or less regular property rights; the large landed hacienderos therefore derived little benefit from the colonist establishment. It wasn't long before the new agricultural colonies quickly abandoned Mexico in favor of the Brazilian Empire.
On April 10, 1865, Maximilian instituted a political assembly "protective of the needy classes," whose mission was to reform the abuses committed against the seven million indigenous people present on Mexican soil. On November 1, 1865, the emperor issued a decree abolishing corporal punishment, reducing the working day, and guaranteeing wages. This decree, however, did not have the desired scope because the hacienderos refused to employ the peons, who often found themselves reduced back to their initial servitude. It began with legislative significance, since the second empire was the first Mexican government that established laws, regulations and norms that protected and promoted social rights. Outside of his governmental action, the fascination aroused by the monarchical system, life inside and outside the castle of both emperors and the pageantry of the court, was relevant, especially in the capital.
The closeness to the population that the couple always showed manifested in their attempt to adopt and disseminate the identity of the country they governed with actions such as the practice of charrería, the study of the plant and animal species of the Chapultepec forest and the interior of the Empire (which even led him to finance the Public Museum of Natural History, Archeology and History), the translation into Nahuatl of the imperial decrees, the castle parties organized by the empress to raise funds for charity and the visit from the Emperor to Dolores Hidalgo being, on September 15, 1864, the first ruler of Mexico to give the Cry of Independence in the original place where it was produced. There are a variety of books, novels, stories, plays and plays various literary works whose premise is based on the couple who ruled over a native country as their own, as seen in another section of the article.
You can also list other transcendent facts of this historical period. Maximiliano was the one who hired the engineer M. Lyons for the construction of the railway from La Soledad to Cerro del Chiquihuite, which later grew to the line from Veracruz to Paso del Macho, on September 8, 1864. He reorganized the Academy of Arts of San Carlos. The remodeling of the National Palace and the Chapultepec Castle would eventually contribute artistic and ornamental treasures that still remain on display in both venues. The construction of the Paseo de la Emperatriz began the reorganization and beautification of Mexico City, being this the model that would materialize the Porfiriato.
Maximilian and Carlota had not fathered any heirs. Much to Carlota's disapproval, Maximilian decided in September 1865 to adopt the two grandsons of the former Emperor of Mexico Agustín de Iturbide: Agustín de Iturbide y Green and Salvador de Iturbide y Marzán. With such adoptions he established that the official name of the ruling dynasty in Mexico would be the House of Habsburg-Iturbide. Agustín was only two years old when he was adopted and was to be separated from his mother, according to Maximiliano's wishes. The situation unanimously offended public opinion. As for the United States, the House of Representatives voted a resolution requesting the president to present to Congress: "The correspondence regarding the kidnapping of the son of an American in Mexico City by the usurper of that republic named emperor, under the pretext of turning this child into a prince […]. This resolution refers to Mrs. Iturbide's son."
From a personal point of view, a hypothesis that affirms Maximilian's belonging to Freemasonry, without calling for any real controversy, nevertheless makes it clear that it is not cited by any author or reference work of the time. According to Álvarez de Arcila Maximiliano was a Freemason. Such a hypothesis suggests that he would belong to a lodge that practiced the ancient and accepted Scottish rite; Arcila specifies that on December 27, 1865, the Supreme Council of the Grand Orient of Mexico was formed, which offered Maximilian the title of Sovereign Grand Commander, but he rejected it. On the other hand, the Masonic history of Mexico shows that he received an offer from the recently constituted Grand Orient of Mexico, which created a Supreme Council in 1865, proposing to Maximilian the quality of grand master and grand commander. He rejected this offer for political reasons and suggested instead that he be represented by his chamberlain Rudolfo Gunner and his physician Federico Semeler, who joined the orders in June 1866. However, Maximilian did position himself as protector of Freemasonry.
An impossible pacification
All the liberals of the Republican line, which were led by Juárez, openly and regularly opposed Maximilian. The progress of pacification among the populations, generally well disposed with the new empire, were hampered in the east and southwest of Mexico with a strong Juarista presence. The juaristas in 1865 began with military operations in Puebla that still did not recognize the imperial authority. Porfirio Díaz, one of Juárez's best generals, established himself in Oaxaca City with a sizeable army corps financed from local resources. The strategic position that Díaz chose —close to the main highway to Veracruz— forced Bazaine to maintain constant military posts around said line of communication for his observation.
The French expeditionary force began operations against dissident settlers in the state of Oaxaca for the construction of a road passable by convoys. After intense fighting, on February 9, 1865, Bazaine managed to seize Oaxaca, but the guerrilla leaders took refuge in the mountains, from where it was almost impossible to expel them. The incompleteness of happiness continued to be repeated in various parts of Mexico: Michoacán, Sinaloa and the Huasteca.
After the end of the American Civil War in April 1865, President Andrew Johnson—invoking the Monroe Doctrine—recognized the Juárez government as the legitimate government in Mexico. The United States exerted increasing diplomatic pressure to persuade Napoleon III to end French support and thus withdraw his troops from Mexico. The United States supplied the Republicans with arms depots in El Paso del Norte on the Mexican border. The possibility of a US invasion to reinstate Juárez in Mexico leads a large number of loyal Imperial supporters to abandon the imperial cause and change your residence from Mexico City.
Faced with pressure for a hypothetical American intervention, Maximilian lowered the pressure of Bazaine agreed to initiate an implacable persecution against the republicans. the dissidents of the Juarista cause, declared in its first article: «All persons belonging to armed bands or assemblies that exist without legal authorization, whether or not they proclaim a political pretext […] will be tried militarily by court martial. If they are found guilty, even for the mere fact of belonging to an armed gang, they will be sentenced to death and the sentence will be carried out within twenty-four hours." Hundreds of opponents were executed according to the decree.
Even with that decree, the Republican forces did not cease. Starting in October 1865, the imperialists reinforced the security of the highways with posts of Turkish inhabitants in the territory in charge of "summarily executing justice" against any armed passerby, especially in the Mexico-Veracruz section. This originated from the fact that in That month in Paso del Macho (Veracruz) around 350 assailants derailed a train and stripped, mutilated and massacred the travelers, including eleven French soldiers. From that moment each train was accompanied by a guard of twenty-five soldiers.
In January 1866 Napoleon III was pressured by French public opinion about the «hostility to the Mexican cause» and, on the other hand, he was concerned about the development of the Prussian army that required the reinforcement of the army present on soil French; It was then that he decided to break his promises to Maximilian and gradually withdrew the French troops from Mexico starting in September 1866. Furthermore, he found himself constrained by the official opposition of the United States, which sent him an ultimatum ordering the withdrawal of the French troops from Mexico. In New York during a ceremony honoring the late President Lincoln, diplomat and historian George Bancroft delivered a speech in which he described Maximilian as an "Austrian adventurer." The power and prestige of the Empire were greatly weakened.
At the beginning of 1866, without any support from France with the Empire, Maximilian only had the support of some Mexican soldiers loyal to him for his defense, the Austrians granted by his brother and the Belgians financed by Leopold II. On September 25, 1866 in Hidalgo the Belgian Legion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Alfred van der Smissen lost definitively in the battle of Ixmiquilpan: at the head of two hundred and fifty men and two companies of one hundred men, Van der Smissen attacked Ixmiquilpan penetrating to the main square, but was forced to retreat amidst great difficulty to bring back his troops before reaching Tula, leaving eleven officers and sixty men dead and wounded.
Carlota's return to Europe
In March 1866 Carlota took the initiative to directly attempt a final step with Napoleon III so that he could reconsider his decision to abandon the Mexican cause. Encouraged by this plan, she Carlota left Mexico for Europe on July 9, 1866. In Paris her petitions failed and she suffered a profound emotional collapse. Soon also the only two foreign backers supporting the Empire were withdrawn: his brother Leopold II found himself unable to ignore the hostility of the Belgians towards a country that "often brings them bad news" and Franz Joseph - who suffered a defeat by Prussia at Sadowa—lost his influence over the German states and had to withdraw his military. Charlotte, finding herself isolated and without the support of any European monarch, sent a telegram to Maximilian that read: "Everything is useless!"
As a last resort, Carlota went to Italy to seek the protection of Pope Pius IX. That is where she openly declared the first symptoms of mental disorders that would torment her until her death in the coming years. Ella carlota she was taken to the Gartenhaus ward in Trieste where she was confined for nine months. On October 12, 1866, Maximiliano received a telegram informing him that Carlota was suffering from meningitis. But it was when he was informed that the alienist doctor Josef Gottfried von Riedel was treating his wife that he was stunned to understand the true nature of her pathology. Maximilian would never see Carlota again, who spent the rest of her days in the care of her brother Leopold II. and cloistered suffering from serious health problems until his death on January 19, 1927.
The temptation to abdicate
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When Maximilian found out that Carlota's trip was a resounding failure, he thought about renouncing the Crown. Maximilian's decisions were torn between two contradictory pieces of advice: his friend Stephan Herzfeld—whom he had met during his military service on the Novara—predicted the end of the Empire and recommended that he return to Europe as soon as possible, while Father Augustin Fischer pleaded with him that he remain in Mexico. At first Herzfeld managed to entertain him with the idea of abdication.
On October 18, 1866, the Austrian corvette Dandolo was ordered to be ready to embark Maximilian and a suite of fifteen to twenty people to take them back to Europe. Load valuables from imperial residences and secret documents. Maximilian confides his resolution to abdicate to Bazaine. The decision is publicized and the conservatives are furious. Sick and demoralized, Maximiliano leaves for Orizaba, where the climate is milder and where he approaches the Dandolo that anchors in Veracruz. Along the way, Maximiliano and his entourage make many stops, but Fischer tirelessly tried to dissuade Maximiliano from leaving, evoking lost honor, flight, and the afterlife with Carlota now with madness.
Maximiliano once again found himself in the grip of indecision and asked the conservative government, presuming the positive answer, if he should stay in Mexico; Faced with the obvious positive response, Maximilian decided to stay and continue his fight against Juárez, where he was forced to finance military spending alone and collect new taxes. At the beginning of 1867 Maximilian —who in his letters to his family in Austria minimized their inherent difficulties— received a letter from his mother Sofía in which she congratulated him on the decision not to abdicate, alluding to dishonor: «Now that so much love, self-sacrifice and, no doubt also fear of future anarchy keep him there, I welcome his decision and hope that the rich countries will support him in fulfilling his task." Another brother of Maximilian, Archduke Carl Louis of Austria sent a similar message: «You have done well to allow yourself to be persuaded to remain in Mexico, despite the enormous sorrows that overwhelm you. Stay and persevere in your position as long as possible."
Entrenchment
French military support had ceased: Napoleon III gave the final order to return the troops to France, given that the protests of the French people were increasing, in addition to the fact that intellectuals wondered what they were doing in Mexico knowing that, Unlike other successful interventions such as in Algeria or French Indochina, it had become a war of attrition —both economically and in human lives— and in the face of such pressures, in January 1867 Maximilian was already without protection.
Meanwhile, in Mexico the liberals formed a homogeneous army and left the imperial troops only in Mexico City, Veracruz, Puebla and Querétaro. On February 13, 1867, Maximiliano left Mexico City accompanied by his doctor Samuel Basch, his personal physician José Luis Blasio, his private secretary, and two European servants. Maximilian headed for a city favorable to the Empire: Querétaro. He arrived on February 19, 1867 where he was greeted with warm ovations and an army almost entirely Mexicans loyal to the imperial cause.
Despite the tactical advice that his soldiers later recommended, Maximilian decided to stay in the city indefinitely. The geographical configuration of the region (surrounded by hills where it is possible to shoot from them and whose only possible defense is with a large number of troops, a resource that the Imperials lacked) made a hypothetical siege a serious problem. He was joined by a brigade of several thousand men under the command of General Ramón Méndez and the border guards of General Julián Quiroga, who together added a total of nine thousand soldiers. Márquez had actually headed for Mexico City, but he changed his course to Puebla to fight against Porfirio Díaz, who later defeated him.
The emperor assumed the superior command of his men headed by the generals in charge of defending the city: Leonardo Márquez Araujo (headquarters), Miguel Miramón (infantry), Tomás Mejía (cavalry) and Ramón Méndez (reserve). The soldiers received training in tactical maneuvers on the Las Carretas plain.
Liberal forces arrived to start a siege on March 5, 1867 led by the famous Republican general Mariano Escobedo. Two days later Maximilian established his headquarters on Cerro de las Campanas. Already on March 8, he held a council of ministers, where it was discussed that, due to lack of financial resources, they were unable to take any significant action. On March 12, Bazaine —who had already given previous and sporadic signs of wanting to abort the mission— fled the battlefield on his way abroad. The next day Maximiliano, who had been sleeping on the floor of a tent on the Cerro de las Campanas, reinstalled his quarters in the Convent of La Cruz, whose extremely poor situation was still just as latent but he maintained continuous personal visits to the defense maneuvers. and a normal rhythm of life. That same day he held another council of war in what is now the building of the Municipal Presidency of Santiago de Querétaro.
On March 17, Maximilian gave the order to counterattack, but the mission failed due to a disagreement between Miramón and Márquez. On the night of March 22, Maximilian entrusted Márquez with the special mission of riding to Mexico City to recruit reinforcements, an order that he complied with at dawn the next day with twelve hundred horsemen. In the afternoon of the same day, the republicans proposed to Maximilian to surrender in exchange for him leaving the war with honors, even so, Maximilian refused.
On March 27, a contingent commanded by Miramón achieved a victory. He spent a whole month of resistance and uncertainty in the siege where, despite the low number of the imperial soldiers and their low spirits, they resisted the liberal forces. A month later, on April 27, Miramón ordered an attack on Cerro del Cimatario whose main purpose was to raise the morale of his troops, dejected with boredom and tempted to desert; The mission consisted of attacking the Hacienda de Callejas occupied by Juaristas —which was located near the city cemetery—, where it turned out in favor of the imperialists and they captured twenty cannons, a herd of oxen and a chest with money. The next day, Miramón reinforced his lancers with some elements of Mejía's cavalry to occupy the cemetery, but this time the imperialists ran into a ten-cannon battery installed during the night that managed to decimate them. The Juaristas recaptured the Treasury and with this the withdrawal of the imperialists turned out to be a resounding defeat: the Juaristas almost entered the city.
On May 13, Maximilian held his last council of war, where he declared: «Five thousand soldiers hold this place today, after a siege of seventy days, a siege carried out by forty thousand men who have at their disposal all the resources from the country. During this long period […] fifty-four days were wasted waiting for General Márquez, who was due to return from Mexico in twenty days.”
Consequently, an escape plan was agreed upon that would be scheduled for two days later, that is, on May 15. However, at dawn on the scheduled day, Colonel Miguel López, commander of the Empress regiment, handed over to the enemy a gate of the besieged city that allowed access to the Convent of the Cross, where Maximilian resided. Querétaro fell in power of the Republicans.
Capture
Warned of the presence of the enemy with the capture of the city, Maximilian refused to hide. He easily and voluntarily left the Convent of La Cruz where he was staying since he preferred to be apprehended outside; In his company was his military guard, Prince Felix of Salm-Salm. Colonel José Rincón Gallardo, Escobedo's aide-de-camp, recognized them, but let them go on their way, considering them as simple bourgeois. Maximiliano went to Cerro de las Campanas, now in the company of his generals Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía. Mejía, wounded in the face and left hand, suggested to Maximiliano that he flee through the mountains; after his refusal, Mejía voluntarily stayed by his side. Once they reached Cerro de las Campanas, the emperor was captured at the hands of Sostenes Rocha.
Last days and death (1867)
Prison
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A captive in the Cerro de las Campanas, Maximiliano is forced to return to his old room in the Convento de la Cruz. He lay down and looked under his mattress hoping to find money where he also received the attention of the doctor Basch. Two days later, on May 17, the Republicans transferred Maximiliano to the Convent of Las Teresas —from which the nuns had just been expelled— since the cells were cleaner and the space lent itself to better surveillance.
Maximiliano made some negotiations prior to his trials to achieve his freedom: he met with Escobedo on May 23 where in exchange for his return to Austria he would return the two cities still in the hands of the imperialists: Mexico City and Veracruz; Escobedo rejected the proposal because both were already ready to fall into the hands of the Republicans. Deeply discouraged, Maximilian returned to the Convent of Las Teresas. The day after this interview, May 24, 1867, Maximilian was taken to the Capuchin Convent, which became his last prison.
Judgment
On June 13, 1867, Maximiliano and his generals Miramón and Mejía were to appear before a special court-martial held at the Iturbide theater, where they installed themselves at eight in the morning. It was made up of seven officers and chaired by Rafael Platón Sánchez, a soldier who had participated in the Battle of Puebla. Affected by dysentery, Maximiliano managed not to appear before that court, but he was represented by two Mexican lawyers: Mariano Riva Palacio and Rafael Martínez de la Torre. The accusation contained thirteen points; the next day, after the prosecutor Manuel Azpíroz read it and stated that the facts were "obvious", he received three votes in favor of the death penalty and three in favor of exile; Azpíroz's seventh vote concluded the death sentence.
In an attempt to protect his brother, Franz Joseph I fully reinstated him in his rights as Archduke of the House of Habsburg. Other European monarchs (Queen Victoria, King Leopold II, and Elizabeth II of Spain) sent letters and telegrams where they begged Juárez for the life of Maximiliano; other prominent figures of the time such as Charles Dickens, Víctor Hugo or Giuseppe Garibaldi also did so. When the verdict was concluded and the final arguments of the defense lawyers were present Juarez; Baron Anton von Magnus and a group of women from San Luis Potosí (imperialist state) begged him on their knees to spare his life; Inflexible, Juárez replied: "The law and the sentence are inexorable at this time, because public safety requires it."
Princess Inés de Salm-Salm (wife of Prince Félix), who was in Querétaro, tried to bribe part of the garrison that guarded the city in order to facilitate the escape of Maximilian and the other two prisoners, but the maneuver was discovered by Mariano Escobedo.
The conditions of the last days of Maximilian's captivity were extremely severe: he lived in a convent cell that measured 2.7 meters long by 1.8 meters wide; even with dysentery, a doctor's visit was not allowed; the guards guarding the cell were arguing loudly about how he could be executed and making jokes about Carlota. Later, and apart from the official, Maximilian managed to receive visits from his and Félix de Salm-Salm's private doctor.
In a last attempt, Maximiliano wrote to Juárez to ask for the forgiveness of the lives of Miramón and Mejía, but it was also in vain.
Execution
The execution was scheduled for Wednesday, June 19, 1867 at three in the afternoon. At dawn Maximilian dressed in a black suit and the Golden Fleece with the help of his servant and cook Tüdös. Maximiliano received Father Manuel Soria y Breña, with whom he confessed for the last time; Shortly after, Maximiliano felt quite ill, so they gave him vials of salt, but even so, Soria said a mass for both Maximiliano and Generals Miramón and Mejía. At the end of the mass they were given their last meal: bread with chicken and wine; they didn't even touch the chicken, but they drank some wine nonetheless. At half past six in the morning, Colonel Miguel Palacios, in charge of the firing squad, along with the rest of the men in the squad, entered the corridor of the Convent; when they both met, Maximiliano exclaimed: "I'm ready."
Three hired carriages awaited the condemned, who got in next to Soria. They walked through the streets of Las Capuchinas and La Laguna towards the Cerro de las Campanas —place of the execution— with the surveillance of the first battalion of Nuevo León. During the way, Maximiliano became doubtful and wondered if Carlota was still alive; he too observed the clear sky exclaiming: "It is a good day to die."
When they arrived at the place Tüdös exclaimed: «You have always refused to believe that this would happen. You see you were wrong. But dying is not as difficult as you think"; Maximiliano threw his cloth at Tüdös while saying in Hungarian: "Take this to my mother and tell her that my last thought was for her." He handed Soria his watch that contained a Carlota's portrait and told her: "Send this souvenir to Europe to my very dear wife, if she lives, and tell her that my eyes close with her image that I will take to the afterlife."
The three condemned men were placed in a line behind a rough adobe wall —which had been ordered to be built the day before by the Coahuila Battalion— and Maximiliano insisted to Miramón that he should take the place in the center, telling him: «General, a brave man must be admired even by monarchs». The platoon was made up of five soldiers led by Captain Simón Montemayor, twenty-two years old; Maximiliano gave each of the soldiers a gold coin asking them to aim well and not shoot at his head. Before the exact moment of being shot, Maximilian exclaimed in a clear voice:
[...] I will die for a just cause, that of Mexico's independence and freedom. May my blood reap the misfortunes of my new homeland! Long live Mexico! Long live Independence!
While Miramón spoke a few words in which he refused to be considered a traitor, Mejía said nothing, although he looked directly at the military.
After they pronounced their last words, Montemayor ordered to open fire on the prisoners: Mejía and Miramón fell almost immediately, but Maximiliano took a little longer, so Montemayor indicated the location of the heart to the sergeant with his sword Manuel de la Rosa, who following his order shot point blank straight to the heart. A young man, Aureliano Blanquet, claimed to have given him the coup de grace.Tüdös hurried to put out the fire and, as Maximiliano had asked him, removed the cloth that covered his eyes to take it to Carlota. With disdain Palacios declared: "This is the work of France, gentlemen."
Mortal Remains
An anonymous Austrian doctor, residing in Mexico City, was previously called to bring the necessary supplies for an imminent embalming. Already after Maximilian's execution, he was ordered to place a sheet over his body in the coffin, which was later taken by a group of soldiers who took him to the Convent of the Capuchins.
Baron Anton von Magnus asked Escobedo for the body, a request that he denied but, nevertheless, allowed Basch to enter the Convent to say goodbye to his body and order four doctors to carry out the embalming. The process was not carried out as planned. Basch planned it: it was done too quickly and carelessly, in addition to the fact that the hair from his beard was sold for eighty dollars at the time and a garment from Maximilian himself to the highest bidder.
Soon the news of Maximilian's death reached the US government, and from there it was referred to Europe, telegrams that arrived on July 1, 1867. Francisco José I asked the Mexican authorities for Maximilian's body to be able to bury him in Austria; Likewise, Von Magnus and Basch directly requested Juárez to deliver the body to them, to which he refused, for which he left the coffin abandoned in the residence of the prefect of Querétaro. The situation did not change until the arrival of a vice admiral sent by Francisco José, Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, and was soon able to encourage Juárez to reconsider his decision. Finally, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Juárez, Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, officially accepted Austria's request on November 4, 1867.
Due to the crudeness of the embalming of the body, it was necessary to make the corpse presentable for its future transfer: it was dressed in a black coat with shiny reflections, its real eyes were replaced by those of a black virgin from the Cathedral of Querétaro, his face was made up and he adorned himself with a false beard in the absence of his real hair. Once he was ready, he moved from Querétaro to the Chapel of San Andrés in Mexico City. Once there, his body was submerged in an arsenic bath for preservation. The Mexican government added a richly decorated coffin to the coffin as a gift.
His stay in the capital of the country did not last more than two weeks and after completing some paperwork, his repatriation to Europe was ordered. She arrived at the port of Veracruz on November 26, 1867, the same date that she left the SMS Novara, the same ship in which Maximiliano and Carlota had arrived in Mexico.
It took nearly three months for the Novara to reach European shores. On January 16, 1868, she docked in Trieste: Maximilian's two younger brothers, Archdukes Carlos Luis and Luis Víctor, personally received her brother's remains, which they escorted to Vienna. Francisco José I had ordered that the coffin be permanently sealed in Trieste so that Sofia could not see the remains of her son, an action that was carried out promptly and that fulfilled its mission. He arrived in the Austrian capital two days later, on 18 March. January, in which a funeral ceremony was held, in which all of Austria's allied countries sent their representatives, with the notable exception of the United States, as it was a conflict of interest.
The mortal remains of Maximilian of Habsburg were deposited on January 18, 1868 in the Austrian royal crypt, the Capuchin crypt in Vienna. To this day his remains currently rest there.
Honors
- 1871: statue of Maximilian I erected in Hietzing, Vienna by Johann Meixner.
- 1875: statue of Maximilian I in Trieste by Johannes Schilling: inaugurated in its current location in Piazza Giuseppina. Retired for political reasons at the end of World War I, then re-assembled at the Miramar castle park in 1961, returned to its original location on December 19, 2008.
- 1876: Rostral column by Heinrich von Ferstel, initially erected by the Austrian Navy in Pula before being moved to Venice in 1919.
- 1901: the Memorial Chapel of Emperor Maximilian is located in the Cerro de las Campanas in the city of Querétaro in Mexico. Built in 1901, the Emperor Maximilian I was executed on June 19, 1867 and is dedicated to his memory. It is located in the Cerro de las Campanas National Park created in 1937.
Legacy
Public opinion
With the news of Maximilian's execution reaching Europe, the press was divided between those who judged the act ethically correct or incorrect. The French journalist, essayist, diplomat and politician Arthur de La Guéronnière published an article with Maximilian as the protagonist, where he wrote: «Everything is over! The betrayal was only the hideous prelude to a bloody revenge […] What a shame! Eternal shame of the executioners who desecrate freedom." El Debate, a Spanish newspaper, published: "The lead [firearms] regicide has done its job in Mexico and it is the ungrateful person whom Maximiliano he wanted to bring peace and civilization that led the murderous weapon into the noble bosom in which a full heartbeat for his themes of love and devotion." A Belgian newspaper expressed a neutral stance; and although he disapproved of the act, he exculpated Juárez from being the intellectual author of the act: «Yes, the execution of Maximiliano is a reprehensible, barbaric act [...], but it is not for those who quote Juárez in front of the bar of the public opinion that they did not have a word of guilt when Maximilian, on October 3, 1865 [Maximilian] had outlawed those who defended their homeland against foreign invasion"; the British newspaper The Times mentioned in this regard that said decree was put into effect in the civil war and was never partially implemented.
In Europe the Second French Intervention in Mexico (including the execution of Maximilian) was a highly controversial issue. During the Second French Empire, Manet's painting The Execution of Maximilian (explored in the "Maximilian in Art" section of this article) was not even offered by its author to be exhibited at the Salon de Paris because its rejection would be predictable. The play Juárez was censored in France and Belgium and was not released from the ban until 1886; the Belgian Catholic population considered the work "offensive to the memory of Maximilian" because it had a perspective that favored the Mexican republicans.
Historiography
A constant rumor is that Maximilian's father was actually Napoleon II Bonaparte. The hypothesis is held that Napoleon II was raised in the Austrian court of the Habsburgs. After the birth of Francisco José, Sofia of Bavaria had become very close to Napoleon II. Napoleon II died on July 22, 1832 (sixteen days after Maximilian's birth) and Sofia is recorded to have been so volatile that even she was unable to nurse Maximilian. In any case, at that time her paternity was never seriously questioned.
Ideology
Maximilian considered himself ethnically German at a time when German nationalism aspired to unite all German-speaking territories into a single nation-state. On the other hand, Maximilian was a devout Catholic who prided himself on descent from the Catholic Monarchs.
He valued all natives of the Americas and this was confirmed in his national project for which he extensively tried to improve the living conditions of the indigenous Mexican peoples (explored in the "Maximilian Policy" section). He was firmly against slavery and always fought for the abolition of slavery at a time when it was common in various countries around the world.
His vision for America consisted of the formation of two great empires: that of Mexico in North America and that of Brazil in South America, which thanks to their success would end up attracting and absorbing the small neighboring republics.
Maximilian in art
Theater
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- Juárez (1880), work of Alfred Gassier.
- Maximilians Glück und Ende (1870), historical drama in 3 acts of Rudolph Bieleck;
- Maximilian (1902), drama in five acts by Edgar Lee Masters;
- Carlota (1904), historical drama of Fielding Burke;
- Maximilian (1906), historical drama in three acts and a prologue of Secundino Darquea;
- Maximilian: Or The Disilment of an Empire (1906), historical drama in four acts and prose of Segismundo Cervi and Campasol
- Juarez und Maximilian (1925), drama of Franz Werfel;
- Shadow crown (1947), drama of Rodolfo Usigli
- Beloved, Mother Carlota (1955), dramatic version of a possible historical event in three acts of Dagoberto de Cervantes
Operas
| Premiere | Opera | Auto |
|---|---|---|
| 1932 | Maximilien | R.S. Hoffman script based on drama Juarez und Maximilian by Franz Werfel; music by Darius Milhaud. |
| 1948 | Carlota | Francisco Zendejas libretto; music by Luis Sandi. |
| Unpublished | Carlota | Unknown author's book; Robert Avalon's music. |
| 2012 | The Empress of the Lie | Angel Norzagaray's book; music by Dmitri Dudin. |
| 2005 | The dream of a crown | Historical musical of Konrad and Wolfgang Ratz. |
Paintings
Édouard Manet, shocked by the death of Maximilian, worked for more than a year on various versions of his painting The Execution of Maximilian, which constitutes a forceful pictorial accusation against the politics led in Mexico by Napoleon III. Three versions were produced between 1867 and 1869.
The first can be seen at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; fragments of the second are collected in the National Gallery in London; the final sketch is in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen; while the final composition is kept at the Kunsthalle Mannheim.
The final version of the work (which may have been influenced by Goya's May 3rd in Madrid) personally satisfied Manet in that the firing squad soldiers are not dressed in Mexican uniform from the period but as from the Imperial French Army and the sergeant (in a red cap) reloading his rifle makes a reference to Napoleon III.
Novels
| Year | Novel | Author |
|---|---|---|
| 1868 | The hill of the bells | Juan A. Mateos |
| 1987 | News of the Empire | Fernando del Paso |
| 2010 | The last prince of the Mexican Empire | C.M. Mayo |
| 2011 | Empire | Héctor Zagal |
| 2014 | Juarez in the Capuchins Convent: The Secret Meeting with Maximilian | Adam J. Oderoll |
Movies
| Year | Movie | Actor | Director | Language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1939 | Juárez | Brian Aherne | William Dieterle | |
| 1954 | Vera Cruz | George Macready | Robert Aldrich | In English and bent to Spanish |
| 1972 | Those Years | Felipe Cazals | ||
| 2014 | Maximilian von Mexiko | Franz Leopold Schmelzer | In German |
Series
| Year | Movie | Actor | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | The flight of the eagle | Mario Iván Martínez | Enrique Krauze |
Titles and weapons
- 6 July 1832-2 September 1857: S. A. I. R., Archduke Fernando Maximilian of Austria and Royal Prince of Hungary and Bohemia.
- 2 September 1857-10 April 1859: S. A. I. R., Archduke Fernando Maximilian of Austria, Virrey of Lombardy-Venice and Royal Prince of Hungary and Bohemia.
- 10 April 1859-9 April 1864: S. A. I. R., Archduke Fernando Maximilian of Austria and Royal Prince of Hungary and Bohemia.
- April 10, 1864-19 May 1867: S. M. I., Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico.
Symbols
shield of the Austrian Empire between 1815 and 1866, used as an archduke of Austria
Lombardy-Venice Shield between 1815 and 1866, used as virrey
Lombardy-Venice Blason between 1815 and 1866, used as virrey
Shield of arms of the monarch, in turn shield of Mexico between 1864 and 1867
Lithography of this shield at the Fort Museum of Loreto (1865)
Mexican Imperial Flag (1864-1867), for the exclusive use of the emperor and his consort
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Ancestors
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