Subject to Change
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Subject to Change
The Last Emperor of Mexico - part 2
What happens when a Habsburg prince abandons European luxury to rule a bankrupt, divided Mexico? Emperor Maximilian's journey from triumph to tragedy reveals the human cost of imperial ambition and misguided honor.
After their triumphant entry into Mexico City, Maximilian and Carlotta faced the monumental task of governing a nation torn by civil war. Despite liberal reforms that surprised his conservative backers, Maximilian struggled with Mexico's bankrupted finances while making monthly payments to maintain French military support. The Catholic Church, expecting a champion of tradition, instead undermined him at every turn when he confirmed rather than reversed the nationalization of church property.
The tide turned dramatically when the American Civil War ended in 1865, allowing the United States to pressure France into withdrawing troops. Napoleon III, who had promised unwavering support, abandoned Maximilian to his fate. In desperation, Empress Carlotta embarked on a mission to Europe, confronting Napoleon directly before suffering a devastating mental breakdown at the Vatican—convinced the French emperor was plotting to poison her.
This fascinating episode explores the twists and turns of the story ending in Maximilian's defiant last stand.
Hello and welcome to Subject to Change with me, Russell Hogg, and welcome to part two of the story of how Maximilian and Carlotta, the Habsburg power couple, became emperor and empress of Mexico in 1864. In part one, we followed the story up to their triumphant entry into Mexico City. Let's see what happens next. So the entry into Mexico City, that's been a huge triumph and the celebrations have been fantastic. But now the hard work is starting and Maximilian is going to have to get down to governing. So what is the nature of his rule? My sense is that this isn't a constitutional monarchy. Exactly. It's Maximilian who's going to be taking the decisions, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're right, it's not a constitutional monarchy. Maximilian wants it to be one and in fact he draws up a constitution which he writes himself in league with Mexican politicians in Europe. But the situation in Mexico is so volatile Benito Cuar is undefeated that he's never able to implement that. So you're right, that personal power is and essentially, ruling by decree is how this empire is going to be governed be governed with the complication, which we'll come back to, that there's dual power, essentially because the French retain enormous control over what's going on in Mexico and indeed, in terms of the military command, that is entirely in the hands of the French, more or less. But what does Maximilian do? Is your question so well? His opponents would say very little. He is a man who loves to prevaricate, to discuss, to postpone.
Speaker 2:There's all kinds of problems in Mexico that need to be addressed, but perhaps the most crucial is the finances. Now remember listeners who've been paying attention the reason there was an intervention in the first place was that Mexico suspended its foreign debt payment. So the Mexican treasury was bankrupted after civil war and Maximilian government fares a little better. Enormous loans have been taken out in Europe to cover immediate expenditure, but Maximilian has to pay monthly sums to the French government to maintain the French army in Mexico, because Napoleon III, as he said, he wants glory on the cheap, and he's done what we might call today a leverage buyout. The cost of the conquest of Mexico is going to be paid for by maximilian's government. If it isn't, napoleon, the third can withdraw his troops, because this is a treaty, it's a legal agreement between two sovereign states, and mexico is essentially bankrupt. So, but rather than reforming the finances, what maximilian does is he sets up a commission, the. You know throughout history what any government does if it doesn't want to take immediate action. That will report back to him and he'll make reforms, and in the meantime, he's going to go on a tour of his kingdom.
Speaker 2:Now, this is something that he's often criticized, for. His opponents call him a royal tourist. He loves to go out in the countryside and see mexico and see his subjects. Maximilian would argue that, for a monarch who's completely unknown in me, that's exactly what you need to be doing. So I'll leave it to listeners to decide whether it's practical politics or not.
Speaker 2:On the flip side, what he does do very effectively is he's able to win over Juarez supporters of Benito Juarez because, as we said, he's a liberal.
Speaker 2:Now again, listeners who've been paying close attention will remember that the whole reason why a monarchy was required in the first place and called for by Mexican conservatives, was because Benito Juarez had attacked the Catholic Church, crucially nationalizing church property. Now, instead of overturning those reforms, those liberal reforms, which is what his allies expect, he confirms them. Now this does alienate his conservative supporters, but it does win over Juarez to his government and in fact, people who have served under Benito Juarez's government, who fought against conservatives in that civil war, come over into Maximilian's cabinet, become his supporters. So he's effective at winning over some supporters of Benito Juarez because of his supporters. So he's effective at winning over some supporters of Benito Juarez because of his charisma and his liberal policies. So it's a mixed record, I would say. He has a vision for the empire which is liberal. It does win over some high-profile converts, but perhaps the longer term, deeper problems of the Mexican government are not addressed as quickly as they should be government are not addressed as quickly as they should be.
Speaker 1:One of the things that puzzled me in this story is how the conservatives continually undermine Maximilian. He may be more liberal than they'd like, but compared to Juarez I mean, when you look at how the church behaves it seems like they're cutting their own throats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're absolutely right, Russell, and it's extraordinary. I suppose what the Conservatives would say and this is a very clerical, reactionary wing of the Conservative Party, Catholics who believe in the supremacy of the Pope would argue is that they're being true to the Catholic religion, but from a political point of view it's disastrous because they undermine the empire. So they withdraw active support. In some cases they openly clash with the government and work against it. There's a great quote by the Archbishop of Mexico, a man called La Vestida, who's one of the great reactionaries and refuses to compromise, and he says that the only thing that Mexico has in common with the current century, ie the 19th century, is the date, Nothing more. So this is when Maximilian and his French commanders tell them we need to have church-state relations similar to what we have in France. It's the kind of sort of this is the spirit of the century in progress. He says, yeah, it just doesn't apply in Mexico, and works to undermine Maximilian's government. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think there was one occasion and it may be before Maximilian got there when it was just the French, where the French ended up pulling up some cannons and pointing them at the church doors if the archbishop wouldn't open them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And this is because Labestida believes that the whole point of the intervention, and indeed the creation of the monarchy, is reactionary at heart and is going to overturn these reforms. And this is where the complexity of Napoleon III comes in. Because Napoleon III specifically writes to every single military commander and he says I will not allow my flag to become the flag of reaction in Mexico. And he says I will not allow my flag to become the flag of reaction in Mexico because Napoleon III sees himself as a liberal.
Speaker 2:But also, if you go back to the French Revolution the first one, 1789, one of the cornerstones of the settlement of the revolution is the nationalization of church property, which then goes into the hands of the peasants. So what is it by the mid 19th century? That's a very uncontroversial policy. In fact, you know, to overturn that in France would be sort of, you know, would be madness. I mean, it's hard to think of a sort of parallel, I don't know, you know, giving, returning the when Margaret Thatcher sold off, you know, social housing, returning that to councils or whatever, something like that. It's a sort of cornerstone of a certain kind of strand of politics In Mexico. Of course, it's only just happened. So there's this completely different and disjuncture really between the two visions for the countries.
Speaker 1:But things are going pretty well. I mean, even with the conservatives being difficult. The French armies are there. They've got some pretty competent generals. Bazaine, I think the French general is very competent. They've got Mejia, the indigenous general, and he's excellent. Juarez is being pushed back and back and back. Maximilian is perhaps in a slightly dilettante way. He's bringing the liberals on side, though. So what goes wrong?
Speaker 2:So you're right, they have. So Achille Bazin is the French commander-in-chief, so he's the fourth one, but he will be the last one. And you're right, he is very competent, although it's quite a low bar given what's gone before, and some listeners might be surprised to hear that he's competent in Mexico because he's better known for his role in the Franco-Prussian War, where he is, I don't think even with the best one in the world. Many people would say that he conducted himself well in that conflict, but I think that's a case of being promoted above his pay grade. He was a very brave, very heroic soldier who worked his way up from a private soldier to become a Marshal of France. He led from the front and at this point he's a man of action. He's cut his teeth in the Foreign Legion, in Carles Wars in North Africa, etc. And he's very good, you know, organising 30,000 men in Mexico.
Speaker 2:And remember that Benito Juarez's armies have been defeated at Puebla. So it's really now just guerrilla forces, except for a few regular units which are pretty prickly picked off by the French army, because of course the French army is well supplied and equipped and disciplined and is able to win when it's in open warfare. Add to that the Imperialistas. You mentioned Thomas Mejia. Mejia is an absolutely phenomenal military commander, a cavalry officer, again one of the indigenous peoples of Mexico. Actually, he cut his teeth fighting against the Apaches in North Mexico, then against the US, then in the Civil War, and he's a very effective commander. So they pushed the Juarez right back to the extremities of Mexico.
Speaker 2:But there is a problem, which is that Benito Juarez remains undefeated, and so there is a rival power, and while you do have effective military command under the French and indeed Imperial Easter Generals, you also have people like Charles Dupin. Now, charles Dupin is sort of the opposite of Bazaine. Bazaine is a ruthless soldier and is very happy for the sort of, you know, counterinsurgent tactics of colonial warfare to be deployed in Mexico, but they're carried out by people like Charles Dupin. Now Charles Dupin is basically a soldier of fortune. He was actually sacked from, kicked out of the French army for looting the palace in Peking during the Second Opium War and then selling all of that loot in Paris and that was too much even for the Second Empire and the French and he was fired. But as soon as the intervention in Mexico is launched, he gets involved because he says you know I excel in these conditions, and what that means is he's put in charge of something called the Counter-Guerrillas right. This is a force set up to deal with the Huarista insurgency, which by now has become guerrilla warfare, as Charles de Pannes' métier is torture, executions and burning down of whole villages at the slightest provocation. So this is a problem that you're going to see in much later.
Speaker 2:Western military interventions is how do you win over hearts and minds, no matter how noble your moderate liberal ideas are at nation building and regenerating Mexico, when you are burning down villages, killing innocent people and even people who may not be innocent in your eyes ie, maybe they are Juarezters are being brutally tortured, murdered and done away with. And actually, Chaudupin, he writes this extraordinary letter to his niece where he says Actually, charles Dupin, he writes this extraordinary letter to his niece where he says I have waged an atrocious war. If I were Mexican, how much hatred I would have for the French and how I'd make them suffer. And you just think, well, if that's what he's writing to his niece, I mean what's actually going on on the ground? I mean, how bad is it? And that's the version that he's presumably dressed up to be slightly more palatable for his family, dressed up to be slightly more palatable for his family. So you've got this contradiction between Maximilian's lofty ambitions and the reality on the ground, which is murder and rape and destruction from parts of the French army. And of course you've got Benito Juarez, you've got an opposition that people can rally to and this resistance is heroic. I mean, he's wandering the sort of northern deserts of Mexico with sort of 200, 300 people by the summer of 1865 and he's on the point of defeat.
Speaker 2:What goes wrong? What changes? Well, there's first the financial problems are never solved, but we'll come on to that, because the second thing that changes is is more important at this stage. The us civil war comes to an end in april 1865. Now napoleon iii shows himself to be a terrible foreign policy analyst because in march of 1865 he writes to maximilian, says don't worry, the us civil war is going to go on for a much longer. Uh, and within a month, you know, robert e lee is surrendered.
Speaker 2:This, this means that the united states, america, which had been terrified of meaningfully opposing the french intervention in mexico because it might bring France into the civil war, it might mean a recognition of the Confederacy. It could mean all kinds of terrible things. For the Union that's no longer a concern. There had been an arms embargo, ie you couldn't sell any arms to any country, but really that just means Mexico, because that's where the conflict is. That's lifted in May 1865.
Speaker 2:Parises are able to get credit from US supporters and there's a lot of sympathy in the US because they see this very much in terms of defending republics and democracies and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:So Benito Juarez is able to resupply, he's able to rearm and, crucially, french troops are withdrawn from the border of the US-Mexican border, because Napoleon III is terrified that what was meant to be a very simple plan, that would have been done in the year 1862, is going to spark a conflict, a clash, a border clash with US troops. And suddenly you've gone from a simple conflict that was meant to be over in 1862, raiding out the glory of France in Latin America, to war with the United States. So the French army is pulled back from the border, literally at the point that it's about. It's going to capture Benito Juarez, who's holed up in a place called El Paso del Norte, which listeners will know, which is on the US border. Listeners will know much better today as Ciudad Juarez, named after Benito Juarez, and it's a border town at the time and now, of course, a city.
Speaker 1:But eventually the French leave completely, don't they? Is this pressure from America, or is this that they've run out?
Speaker 2:of what it's both. It's. The difficulty of defeating Benito Juarez is the first point right, and that's the difficulty they've had since 1862. Combined with the fact that Maximilian is proving to be, in the eyes of Napoleon III, a woefully ineffectual ruler of Mexico, he's doing all kinds of things like expanding free education and opening academies of arts and sciences, and he writes all of these letters saying look how much I've achieved, to which the foreign ministry and Napoleon III respond no one appreciates more than us the benefits of universal education. However, the military, political and economic organization of the country is in complete disarray. When are you going to do something about it?
Speaker 2:Now Maximilian fails to resolve the finances. It's debatable whether anyone ever could have done and at the end of 1865, he's unable to maintain those monthly payments to keep the French army in Mexico. So he writes a letter to Napoleon III and says well, look, you know I can't make this month's payments, but obviously we're friends. We all want this to work. Can you just cover the cost? Napoleon III says absolutely not.
Speaker 2:He uses this as the occasion to do what he's been wanting to do for some time, which is announce that French troops are coming home. He's under pressure domestically because it's never been popular in France. No one really understands why 30,000 French troops are in Mexico. What's the possible benefit to France of that? You've got Prussia rising and problems in Europe kind of bubbling away and having 30,000 troops in Mexico doesn't seem to be a particularly useful deployment of the French army. But it's the US opposition that's crucial. In that same month that Maximilian writes to say I can't make the payments, william Surwood, the US Secretary of State, writes essentially gives Napoleon III an ultimatum get your troops out of Mexico or it will be war with the United States.
Speaker 1:So the French troops are leaving. They don't leave right away, do they? Napoleon gives them a bit of time, but they're on their way out. So this seems to be the ideal moment for Maximilian to say, to be the ideal moment for Maximilian to say I came here because of Napoleon III. He stabbed me in the back. I'm washing my hands of it, so why doesn't he?
Speaker 2:Well, that's absolutely in fact what he does do, because Napoleon III, in January 1866, announces to the French people that the troops are coming home. It's a mission accomplished moment. He says. The reason they're coming home is because we've won and that the government is consolidated, maximilian's regime is consolidated, mitterrand has been defeated and therefore French troops are coming home, mission accomplished moment. And, as you say, phase withdrawal. They're not going to come back until the end of 1867. So that gives Maximilian nearly two years of French support.
Speaker 2:When Maximilian hears that Napoleon III has broken his word and remember he was desperate to get Maximilian to go, because it's incredibly embarrassing to organize and orchestrate regime change with 30,000 French troops and hundreds of millions of Franks, only for the monarch not to turn up and govern that regime. So he writes maximilian several letters saying that you know, whatever happens, my support will not fail you. His support has massively failed because he's bringing troops home. Maximilian, when he learns of this, is he's sort of rather petulant. He says, well, fine, if you don't want me here, I'll abdicate. I'm coming, you know, that's, it's done, it's over, I'm going, I'm going home, which would have been a sensible option.
Speaker 2:But when his wife Carlotta discovers this decision, she goes apoplectic. She is furious. Now remember again. People have to have very good memories.
Speaker 2:She is the daughter of the Belgian king, but her mother is the daughter of a French king, louis-philippe. Louis-philippe was the king in 1848 of France who abdicated, and this was told to Carlotta as a humiliation and shame upon the family which would never be erased. So when she would have been eight years old. But her grandmother would tell her that this had ruined the family, that they were laughingstock and that Louis-Philippe didn't need to abdicate, he just needed to show a little bit of backbone.
Speaker 2:So Carlotta writes a 10-page memorandum to her husband explaining that he is a coward and an idiot and that he has humiliated the name of Habsburg, so on and so forth, and that he must not abdicate it. And I don't know if any listeners will ever receive a 10-page memorandum from their partner. But you know, you've got to seriously consider your life choices. If you do, which is what Maximilian does Now, carlotta has a plan. She will go back to Europe, she will speak to Napoleon III, she will lay the letters in front of him where he has said that his support will never fail, and she will shame him into changing his mind.
Speaker 1:And how well does that go?
Speaker 2:Well, as you might expect, napoleon iii and I have quite a lot of sympathy with him here very keen to avoid this meeting with carl otter. So she sails back to europe. She arrives in august of 1866 and we can say can I come to the you know palace? Can I see napoleon say well, no, I'm not feeling very well. Why don't you go to belgium and see your brother first? You know all of this stuff.
Speaker 2:Eventually, carlotta, as they say, she's made of sterner stuff than that. She says, I will literally break into the palace. Wherever you are, I will find you, sort of Liam Neeson style. And she manages to get the meeting with Napoleon III and she's done her homework. She's brought the letters. She's brought a memorandum explaining how the empire can work, how the finances can be reformed, etc. When she lays the letters that Napoleon III has written saying my support will never fail you in front of the emperor of the French, he reads them and he breaks down and he starts crying. But he doesn't change his mind. The decision has been made. And you know carlotta makes many arguments but all of them fall on deaf ears. There's no way that napoleon third will change his mind. He is not going to go to war with the united states of america and prop up his protege in mexico. And so, um, eventually, to cut a long story short, she's, um, she's sort of fobbed off, um, with this idea that she'll talk to his ministers and if she she can persuade the ministers, then they'll persuade Napoleon III. But a decision's been made and it comes to nothing.
Speaker 2:Now she's got one more trick up her sleeve, because, remember, maximilian's liberal reforms had alienated his Catholic constituency in Mexico. If the Pope can essentially he's terrible in that cruism sign off, if a concordat can be agreed with the Pope, then any good Catholic has to get behind them, because, although you might agree with or disagree with them, the Pope has agreed to them, and of course that trumps your own personal views on the situation. So Carlos will go to the Vatican, she will speak to the Pope and win over. Him to Maximilian's liberal reforms and thereby get Catholic Mexico on board, him to Maximilian's liberal reforms and thereby get Catholic Mexico on board. Now she has convinced her husband to stay in Mexico on the proviso that she will be able to persuade Napoleon III to support him, and she's failed in that, and so Maximilian's life, and indeed his decision to stay etc.
Speaker 2:Is essentially riding on this mission to the Vatican and it's an enormous amount of pressure. And it's under that pressure that Carlotta begins to become somewhat delusional. She thinks that Napoleon III is the principle of evil upon earth. That's what he, that's what she calls him, and is showing a little sort of alarming signs of paranoia. She thinks that you know, she's being watched by Napoleon III's spies and so on and so forth. But she's still operating fairly normally.
Speaker 2:And she goes to meet the Pope. The talks are inconclusive. There's another meeting and again not much is decided. And the Pope's slightly worried about her mental state, as many of her entourage are. But you know, they're not empresses, they can do what they want. There's going to be a follow-up meeting but she can't wait for it.
Speaker 2:So she very early one morning, she insists that her servants drive her to the Vatican. She breaks into the Vatican, just sort of walks past the man on the door. How do you stop? The Empress of Mexico Demands to see the Pope. Of course you know there's no appointment. This is highly irregular.
Speaker 2:But the Pope is eventually sort of roused in his papal pajamas to come out into the uh, into the um and see carlotta. Instead of discussing church stipulation, she collapses in uncontrollable sobs on the floor, screaming that napoleon iii is out to kill her and that her entire entourage, her servants, the politicians that have come from mexico, people she's known and worked with for, you know, for years now, are in his pay and are hired assassins. So this is, you know, the long and short of it is. Her mind is unraveled, she's lost all reason and she wouldn't have been able to convince the Pope anyway. Well, this is Pope Pius IX I think it's the ninth, I'll get my piouses wrong who had just declared that the liberalism was anathema to God, essentially an evil. So all of Maximilian's reforms would never have been accepted anyway. But perhaps more importantly, carlotta has completely lost all reason and in fact is eventually bundled out of the Vatican and sequestered in Miramar, and then later her Belgian family take her to Belgium and she never returns to Mexico.
Speaker 1:Do we know what her illness was? People say, oh you know, her mind collapsed or it unraveled, but is there any medical diagnosis of this?
Speaker 2:yeah, uh well, it's always tricky diagnosing from the past and I did speak to um a psychologist about this and um they they did explain what it might be, but I forgot what the term is, which is for just saying she went mad.
Speaker 1:Maybe she did so.
Speaker 2:When we have any listeners out there who are sort of amateur or professional psychologists, it's delusion and paranoia which comes across. In her writings, as I say, she calls Napoleon III the principle of evil on Earth. Paris is Babylon and that Napoleon III is trying to kill her right. She genuinely believes that she's trying to be poisoned. She refuses to eat any food that's um, that's not being prepared and and killed in front of her right. So which is one servant she trusts in the apartments in rome where she's staying?
Speaker 2:Um, she's sort of there's live chickens tied to tables, uh and or, which have to be slaughtered and cooked in front of her, um, and she will only eat nuts and oranges, so things that you know she can peel herself that haven't been poisoned. But then she also has moments of lucidity where she seems to be perfectly normal and understands what's going on, and other times where she isn't. So if anyone thinks that you know that's enough to go on, then they can perhaps get in touch. But she never recovers fully. And of course, you know, in the 19th century practice was to sequester and isolate people who exhibited these symptoms, which I think nowadays we would say is only going to exacerbate and make worse, so she never fully recovers.
Speaker 1:It's one of the saddest parts of the story, this formidable person collapsing completely. But anyway, now, at this stage, I think you can get a cable to Mexico. You can, and so presumably Maximilian knows pretty quickly that the mission has failed Fairly quickly yeah. And at this stage you would think right, that's it, Now is the time to leave. Yeah, but it doesn't work out like that.
Speaker 2:The cable is interesting, the transit lines of cable. It's laid in 1865, but then doesn't work out like that. The cable's interesting, the transatlantic cable, it's late. It's late in 1865, but then doesn't, and there had been one earlier in fact, but it's 1865 that works, although then it stops working, comes back in 1866, you know, it's basically like bad Wi-Fi.
Speaker 2:And Maximilian, as he says he's a scientist, he sends this rather touching telegram to Napoleon III on the 15th of August 1866. So this is the Napoleon Day, which is a sort of national holiday under Bonaparte's regimes, and he says you know, greetings and happy birthday to your uncle using the most wondrous scientific device of our age Doesn't get a reply back from Napoleon III, and it's sort of in this tiny small communication. It shows a lot of Maximilian's kind of naivety, his love of science and also his delusion, and in the sort of about a sentence so that's really interesting, but you can't. But it does, it doesn't? It's not from mexico to, uh, to europe, it's by new york, and so actually it does take quite a long time for those messages to come back and forth. It's very unreliable, um, but he, yeah, he gets the message and it's towards the end of october.
Speaker 2:So she this, this whole episode happens at the beginning, and a few weeks later he finds out His universe shatters and he does, russell, exactly what you said he should do he decides to abdicate for the second time Remember, he'd only stayed there because of Carlotta. So he very quickly decides to abdicate. He leaves Mexico City, his furniture is packed up, his archive is packed up and in fact all of that is shipped to Europe. But he doesn't leave immediately. He goes to a town near Veracruz so that he can more quickly get information from Europe, and also, of course, he's decided to leave. So he's ready to leave. You can't stay in Veracruz because yellow fever is prevalent there and so it's sort of death house for any European travellers. So he's in the sort of hills outside, but not far away.
Speaker 2:He decides to abdicate, but he is eventually talked round by a number of people, not least his conservative allies, who know that if he leaves, as you said earlier, they have now realised that it might be okay to oppose the empire while the empire survives, because you can change the policy of the empire. If the empire goes, and of course, if the emperor leaves and the empire is finished, then Benito Juarez's liberal regime will take over and you know, there will be even worse situation than they would have been under Maximilian. And so they are determined to fight a civil war come what may. They give him all kinds of promises. They promise tens of millions of dollars, tens of thousands of men.
Speaker 2:They argue that once the French army has gone counterintuitively their fortunes will revive because, despite not having the French army, they won't have the taint of foreign intervention. And so Maximilian again does what anyone who's indecisive and prevaricates will do he summons his ministers and advisers, council of state, to the town he's staying in to hold a meeting and they will vote on the future of the empire. I suppose you know, for British listeners this is the no confidence vote. And rather than listen to his deliberations of his ministers and advisers, he actually goes butterfly hunting, which is something he's wanted to do at key moments, which doesn't reflect well on him. But you know, maybe he wanted them to speak independently and the result of that vote is that he should stay as emperor of Mexico and he is taught around.
Speaker 1:But the French Bazaine basically says they're going to kill you. Right, bazaine has no illusions.
Speaker 2:Bazaine has no illusions. Napoleon III sends one of his top aides to Mexico as well to convince Maximilian to abdicate. The French are convinced that once they leave, the empire will swiftly collapse. And Bazaine says something which is absolutely true is, once the French go, you will no longer be emperor of Mexico, you will merely be the head of a faction fighting a civil war that you will likely lose, which is rather prophetic.
Speaker 2:But Maximilian now has a deep hatred for the French because Napoleon III has abandoned him in his eyes. I mean, in fact he's not wrong in that has abandoned him in his eyes. I mean, in fact he's not wrong in that there's also the Mexican Conservatives, a very critical of French policy, and he had a very difficult relationship with Bazaine because of course he's emperor of Mexico but unlike most emperors, he's not commander-in-chief of his own armed forces and military policy always is from Paris and in fact actually a lot of other policies is quite dictated from Paris. By this point, his hatred of the French probably blinding him to the good advice that he's getting from the Knights of Bazaine, and in fact he actually refuses. This is sort of something. With the kind of petulance he now refuses to speak in French as well. So you know, when his French officers come to him, he'll answer them in Spanish, which is, you know, like within all of the kind of chaos and grandeur of the drama and sort of moments of pettiness that are quite enjoyable, I think.
Speaker 1:Does he have any chance in the war that follows? Because he then marches back to the capital? He has Mejia. So they organise their forces and they push out north to confront the liberal armies. So what's next? Right, so what's next?
Speaker 2:Right so well. Does he have a chance? Is a great question. The chance I think that he has rests on his generals. So we mentioned Tomás Pajilla. You've also got Leonardo Marqués and another guy, Miguel Miramón. And these are the three alongside Maximilian. They all begin with M because the imperialists sort of think, oh, it's some kind of sign. And these are the three alongside Maximilian. They all begin with M because the Imperial Easter is some kind of sign. And actually they've got another one called Mendez, so they've got five M's. I suppose it's, if you know, your 90s football, it's a sort of Sheringham and Shearer, the SAS. That's the sort of hope that they're applying. They are good generals, but Benito Juarez has got plenty of good generals, In fact one called Mariano Escobedo, who's going to become important in our story. He might have had a chance if the conservatives had delivered on the promises that could partially convince him to stay Right, If they could get hold of tens of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of men. They don't.
Speaker 2:So the plan is a desperate one. They are going to march out to what had been an imperialistic stronghold, a town called Querétaro, and Querétaro is about 130 miles northwest of Mexico City. It's where Tomás Mejía it's the region where he's from and, as I say, conservative stronghold, lots of convents and churches, and it's the sort of center of Catholic conservatives and popular conservatives. Max Minion will march out a relief force because the forces under Mejia and Nirmón are beleaguered and about to be attacked by Faristas. But it's on the 13th of February that Maximilian is going to lead out this relief force with Leonardo Marquez, another one of the M's, and he only has 1,500 men. So 1,500, and they only have to scrape together 50,000 pesos. Pesos is exactly the same as a dollar, so it's $50,000 that he has, which is nothing. The other thing is that he has to march this force out.
Speaker 2:His authority has dwindled so much that he doesn't control the countryside between, well, essentially, London and Birmingham much, much more rough terrain than that, and it's hilly country and it's controlled by aquarius. So he's constantly fighting um to get this for this. This military convoy through it resembles much more an armed crowd than an army, as we might think it, because many of these men have just been taken off the streets of mexico city as a press gang into this army. They, they don't have uniforms. You know it's the poorest of the poor. You know, there's the beggars, the homeless, just rounded up and wow, now you're in the imperialist army. And that is something that Maximilian had been.
Speaker 2:One of his flagship policies was to end forced conscription. So he's in real, you know, it's real desperation, desperate measures, and the plan is not a good one. The plan is that he would lead the small relief force, meet up with the larger Imperial Easter Army, which, by the way, is about 9,000 men, and with him as commander in chief, no longer encumbered by French troops and authority, he would lead the army to a glorious victory over the Far Easter and that will restore confidence throughout Mexico in the empire. So it's a last gasp hurrah. The problem with having so many good generals is that they all have very conflicting plans. So although Maximilian is commander-in-chief, he brings his usual indecision to the role, which is to have a council of war discuss for days on end what they should do, and there's difference of opinion.
Speaker 2:Miramon argues that there are three Juarista armies converging on Carretera. On the town which they're in, They'll be under siege by about 30,000 to 40,000 troops, so outnumbered at least three to one. Miramon says we march out and we defeat each army individually because they're coming for approaching from different sides of the town. But Miramon's advice is ignored. Marquez is in favour of this man called Leonardo Marquez, who argues we should wait for reinforcements. Those reinforcements never come. The city has been under siege and it's a disastrous place to be under siege because it's three sides surrounded by heights. The imperialists don't have the men to occupy the high ground, the hills, so the Far East artillery sets up on these hills and everywhere within the town is now in range of Far East artillery and a siege begins in the beginning of March.
Speaker 1:What do they do now? Do they try to escape?
Speaker 2:They don't. So initially the town is fairly well supplied and they do have troops in Mexico City. Initially the town is fairly well supplied and they do have troops in Mexico City and in fact, leonardo Marquez, who we just mentioned. He's now the sort of nominal second to Maximilian and he had insisted that Maximilian's foreign volunteers. Maximilian had thousands of foreign volunteers from Belgium and Austria. Most of those have gone home, but some, the sort of diehards, are still in City and they form a very effective fighting force.
Speaker 2:So Marquez argues well, what we'll do is we'll those other reinforcements. They will come and they'll break the siege. And Marquez is actually able to break out of the siege with about 1000 men, and so they're not too worried, initially Maximilian and the rest of the imperialist army because they managed to break out fairly easily. So you can do it with a thousand men. You can probably do it with nine thousand men if you have to. But more importantly, they're waiting for reinforcements and this, this is a sort of. These are austrian and um and belgian um soldiers who've been fighting for three years. This is not the people scraped off the streets. They're well, they're relatively well armed, equipped and trained, so they're hopeful that that force will come and break the siege, but weeks, weeks go.
Speaker 2:It's meant to be two weeks. Two weeks comes no sign of Marquez. Three weeks no sign of Marquez. Four weeks, et cetera, and in fact Marquez isn't coming back. He's disobeyed orders. He's gone to Puebla to try and break another siege. We're seeing himself as sort of the savior of the empire, and he's defeated disastrously, and a force that's meant to relieve Maximilian is defeated and then itself becomes a besieger of Mexico City. So then they try and break out. They very nearly do manage it on one occasion, but they're too slow to get their act together and actually march out towards Mexico City. And then you know, if they had done this, it would have been able to achieve anything. And so, yeah, it ends well, very dramatically, but it ends with Maximilian surrendering.
Speaker 1:Yes, he's betrayed, isn't he, by somebody who lets the liberal forces into the town and he's sort of grabbed. If I remember it right, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 2:So he's betrayed by one of his most loyal officers, a man called Miguel Lopez, who goes across into the Cuarista lines and essentially leads the Cuarista forces into the imperialist citadel, the strongholdhold, a convent where the headquarters are standing down. Imperialist, the guards um maximilian is, bizarrely, is allowed to. Um is not captured at that moment and makes a final stand on a nearby hill, overlooking the town called the hill of the bells um, which is going to be significant um, but he sees below him the town is overrun. He asks me here if they can break out and he saysjia says I don't care for my own life, but I'm not going to lead a suicidal charge that would kill you. And Maximilian is eventually surrendered to Mariana Escobedo, as we say, and that's a quite extraordinary moment as Maximilian Habsburg, born in the Imperial Palace of Vienna, surrenders his sword to Mariana Escobedo, a sort of farmhand from the northern states of Mexico, nuevo León. And you've got this sort of hugely symbolic moment as European royalty surrenders to a former Mexican farm labourer.
Speaker 1:So Maximilian? He's now a prisoner, so what are they going to do with him?
Speaker 2:Right, well, maximilian, fairly hopeful that he'll be let off, because you don't normally execute heads of state. The two kind of opposite examples would be Napoleon I, who, despite having the entire continent of Europe ranged against him, was put into exile not once, but twice. Right, you think the first time, okay. But once you come back then they hmm, but no, he's executed twice. Sorry, he's exiled twice, not executed. And in the US you've just had a civil war where Jefferson Davis, as president of the Confederacy, has committed the most egregious act of treason possible against the Union. He is imprisoned and then eventually pardoned and amnestied. So Maximilian is initially fairly confident. But Benito Juarez is made of sterner stuff than either, you know, those in charge of the Union or indeed all of the monarchies of Europe, because he wants to end a civil conflict that has been raging in Mexico since at least 1857. So you've got 10 years of conflict between liberals and conservatives, and so he is keen to have Maximilian court-martialed. And it's a show trial. It's held in an actual theatre, and the theatre and this will be as I say, we keep giving tests to the listeners, so this will be a really good test. The theatre is named after Itabide, who was the first emperor of Mexico who was shot. So it's not very subtle, it's political theatre. It's not very subtle.
Speaker 2:Maximilian actually manages to get out of the trial. He claims he's too sick and ill. And he is. He's very sick and ill. He's been suffering from fevers, he's got dysentery, his doctor thinks he might have malaria. He's taking opium pills for the pain. So he's not been well, or indeed, you know, particularly compesmentous, for some time. Now he's excused from the trial, but the trial lasts a day and a half I. It's nothing and the deliberation is, and it's a court martial, not a civil trial. And then their junior officers in the Mexican Republican army, and it's no surprise that they come to the verdict of execution.
Speaker 1:They've decided to execute Maximilian and, as I recollect it, the Americans are sending messages saying don't carry it out. The Europeans are sending messages. So what do they do and why?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the United States of America is very keen for Juarez not to execute Maximilian and makes very diplomatic pressure on him. Of course, the European courts say the same thing. Prominent Republicans like Garibaldi from Italy, victor Hugo from France, write to Juarez and say you know you'll stain the cause of republicanism if you execute Maximilian.
Speaker 2:But again as I said, benito Juarez doesn't care, he is thinking about what's Mexico and Mexican politics? And he argues that it's necessary for the future of the republic. And we focus on Maximilian. Of course my book focuses on Maximilian. He's executed alongside Tomás Mejia, who we've mentioned a few times, and Miguel Miramón. Now, miramón was the leader, and indeed president, of the Conservative Party in the Civil War, before Maximilian Mejia had fought alongside Miramón and, of course, alongside Maximilian.
Speaker 2:And you've got three men who represent different strands of conservatism in Mexico. Miguel Ramon is what we call the Creole elite, ie he's descended from Spaniards and is sort of gentry aristocracy of Mexico. Tomás Mejia, indigenous, representing popular, pious conservatism and rural movements that support the Conservative Party. And Maximilian, who, of course course, represents European monarchy and foreign intervention.
Speaker 2:And this is a sort of unholy alliance for Benito Juarez that has constantly been preventing Mexico becoming the modern, secular, liberal state he thinks it needs to be and, quite frankly, he has had enough, and this is his way of saying that that form of conservatism and that challenge to the Liberal Republic of Mexico will never, ever rise again. And in that it's fairly successful because, you know, even to this day, the word conservative is and you see this with the current president of Mexico is an insult, not a million miles away from how we might describe someone as a fascist. As a meaningful political project, conservatism in Mexico is ended by this conflict and by these executions. So, as I say, benito Juarez, as much as Maximilian and Carlotta and Napoleon III, is convinced of his destiny, and Benito Juarez's destiny is to end a decade of civil conflict and liberalism's triumph.
Speaker 1:I feel, just because you get invested in the story. I feel terribly sorry for Maximilian, but I do find it hard to forgive him for continuing a war once it's lost. And all these people that he brings, you know, just the ordinary soldiers, his generals, all these people who are brought to their deaths by his naivety, by his foolishness and by, I guess, his vanity.
Speaker 2:You're absolutely right and I think you know the first one the first time he doesn't abdicate, you could perhaps forgive. You know what Carlos is terrifying, but also there's a plan and if that plan works, maybe there's a future. The second time is, yeah, it's understandable, but it's difficult to forgive and it's tied to these 19,. As you say, he essentially brings thousands of people down with him and needlessly prolongs the conflict. I suppose, if you to look for sort of, you know of, explanations. He's isolated, he's deluded, he's sick, but also it's this idea of honour, it's a 19th century idea of honour, which I think is quite hard, well, I know it's quite hard for a contemporary audience to think about. So I'm a terrible coward and I would have. Well, I would never have gone, but if I had gone I would have abdicated. You know, probably, when I got there and I, you know, no, no, no, honor, um would not even be a. I wouldn't even enter my head that it was such a, such a thing. For a hapsburg who's grown up with this, this, I, these ideas of, of, of, the, the name of hapsburg, and honor is central, a phrase that is often used against him and he himself uses, as a true, hapsburg never leaves their post. This is something that he said said in one of his Independence Day speeches. But it's something I think, and also, just to illustrate it, when Carlotta the death of Maximilian is kept from Carlotta for about six months because her family are too worried about her mental state, when she is told she's distraught, throws herself into the arms of her sister-in-law. But she says that you know the arms of her sister-in-law, but she says that you know the pain of Maximilian's death is offset by the honor in which he faced it. Now I think if you look at the the Manet painting, which is the famous depiction of Maximilian's death, it does seem honorable. But if you look at what the actual depiction of it was and there's a quite good sort of early what we call photoshop, it's composite photo recreating what it looks like like you know, it looks much more like, if you know, if listeners might think of a sort of Western right where sort of three managers put up against a wall and shot. It's squalid, it's not honorable, I would say. But it is a different conception. Maximilian would have seen it as honorable.
Speaker 2:He's fond of quoting the line all this loss, save honor, which I'm going to get my, which was by a French king defeated by Habsburg in the 16th century. I forget his name, probably possibly Francis. I'm going to get it wrong. Anyway, that's actually a misquote, because the original letter that is sent by the French king is all is all is lost, save my life and honour. So the man he's quoting didn't die. He surrendered but he didn't die, whereas Maximilian thinks it's going to be heroic to die. So, yeah, he's weak. I think. Ultimately, he's too easily persuaded by Mexican conservatives and he's too worried about his honour and what people will think of him back in Europe.
Speaker 1:What's the fate of the man who sort of sent them out on this mission? What happens to Napoleon III?
Speaker 2:It's extraordinary what happens to Napoleon III, in the sense that it's a slight on a sort of a larger scale and in a much shorter time frame. Napoleon III sort of goes through exactly what Maximilian did so in 1870, the Franco-Prussian War breaks out and Napoleon III sort of goes through exactly what Maximilian did so in 1870, the Franco-Prussian War breaks out and Napoleon III is, despite being extremely ill and then not up to the job, becomes commander-in-chief. He marches out, although not like Maximilian, because he's actually driven out in extreme luxury, first by train and then by carriage with enormous sort of baggage trains. So he's not quite. I mean, what you have to say about Maximilian at the end is he's very brave and he's sharing the absolute hardship of his troops. Napoleon III isn't quite, because I say he's in luxury, but he's coasted to the town of Sedan on the French-German border and is encircled by a much larger and powerful German army. He holds out for two days Maximilian held out for 70 days plus, but holds out for two days. Maximilian held out for 70 days plus, but. But.
Speaker 2:But what Napoleon III does do, which Maximilian doesn't, is he. Napoleon III realises that the game is up and that if he they could fight on or they could try and break out. But he knows that tens of thousands of French soldiers will die, and so he does actually surrender, full well knowing that it will be the end of his regime. So you might say that actually, by a 21st century conception, that's a more honorable thing to do. And so his regime collapses and he is reviled.
Speaker 2:And his regime is reviled in French history for quite some time because he's seen as a traitor to the country responsible for this disastrous defeat, bazaine, the French commander-in-chief. He actually becomes of Mexico, he becomes the commander-in-chief of the French army of the Rhine, essentially the only organized military force that's left after Napoleon III's defeat at Sedan. And again a sort of bizarre, you know reenactmentactment, if you will, of what happens to Maximilian. He surrendered, he, he also surrendered his army, but this is seen as treason and he is actually put on trial in 1873 and sentenced to death, although that is eventually commuted to exile um oh no, sorry imprisonment, and then he escapes from prison. So both Napoleon III and Bazaine very much got a taste of what Maximilian himself went through only three years later.
Speaker 1:So Napoleon III. He ends up, I think, in England to live out a few more years of his life. Where does Bazaine end up? Does he also end up in England? It seems like we're the refuge of all these people.
Speaker 2:No, so he, yeah, napoleon III, ends up in Chislehurst in this rather beautiful golf club Today, a golf club wasn't that, of course, called Camden Place, and it's just, you know, and it's a wonderfully bucolic and lovely sleepy kind of English, still sort of really village, even though it's the suburb of London. I suppose it's an extraordinary place for a Bonaparte to live out his life, but he does. He dies in 1873. He is also, he's like, well, much worse than maxman. He's very ill, um, he's got um bladder stones, which is incredibly painful, and it's actually a botched operation that ends up killing him, which must have just been agony. So if, if you come away, um, you know, with the idea that the pony deserves the third, deserves some kind of comeuppance, and I think you probably argue that with the franco-Prussian War and this kind of agony that he dies in, he probably gets that. So his first wife was Spanish and then his second wife is.
Speaker 1:Mexican. His second wife is what 16 when he marries her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 17, and he's 54 off the top of my head, but certainly in his mid-50s and even by the standards of the 19th century that causes quite a lot of raised eyebrows, not least by Maximilian and Carlotta, who think it's quite ludicrous. His wife ends up, so she. Obviously it was an advantageous match in the sense that Bazaine was the most powerful man in Mexico and one of the most powerful people in France. But he dies in abject poverty, in a sort of you know, very insalubrious conditions in Spain, and his wife actually leaves him, goes back to Mexico and he doesn't die until I think it's 1888. And when he does, the French press is sort of delights. It's sort of headlines like hooray, death of a traitor. And it's an extraordinary sort of journey that he goes on and, yes, I say, dies in squalor and poverty in Spain.
Speaker 2:What happens to Eugenie? Sort of imperial throwbacks that live on into the 20th century, which I always think is quite remarkable. But it's the Prince Imperial, which is the son of Napoleon III Nugeni, who sort of has the full turnaround of the Bonaparte kind of sort of family legacy, because he died in the British army fighting in the Zulu Wars in South Africa in 1879. So it's, I'd say, kind of bizarre to think that what I suppose would be the great nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte and the next in line, the Napoleon IV, had it gone that way is killed in British army uniform.
Speaker 1:Good for Eugenie. She was another of the very powerful women in the story.
Speaker 2:Good for Eugenie, she was another of the very powerful women in the story. She was and she blamed herself for the Mexican intervention because she was instrumental in bringing it about and indeed alighting upon Maximilian as the candidate. That was very much her who was pushing that.
Speaker 1:So she expressed regret afterwards.
Speaker 2:You she did, and she bore full responsibility, although she was very careful in trying to rehabilitate and manage the reputation of of her, of her husband and the bonapartist legacy. So one must take what she says with a pinch of salt. She was the sort of soul surviving comms director of bonapartism, and so so she she's careful, she's careful to massage the image. But it's true that she played an instrumental role because she was Spanish, which I probably should have mentioned. She was Spanish, spanish aristocrat, and she had this kind of nostalgic view of the Spanish Empire in Mexico and also was a staunch Catholic. So she very much bought into the idea that the Catholic Church in Mexico was under attack from impious atheist liberals and therefore was able to provide access for Mexican conservatives to the French court and push them in front of Napoleon III. So she does play a key role.
Speaker 1:But, apart from Eugenie, for everybody else involved in the plan, you know it all ends pretty miserably, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It does Well, and Carlotta, she doesn't die until 1927, which I always think is extraordinary and you know. Obviously the book focuses on this extraordinary period in her life, from the age of about 17 to 25, but most of her life she spends in in seclusion and and semi-delusion and incredibly sad and had lonely lingering on into 1927.
Speaker 1:So, on that slightly depressing note, we should bring the podcast to a close. Thank you so much, edward, that was great.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. I really enjoyed it. Thank you, thank you.