Some years before, the Mexican Government under the clerical and militarist regime had made a contract with a Swiss banker who for a payment of $500,000 had received bonds worth more than fifteen times the value of the loan. When, therefore, the Mexican Congress undertook to defer payments on a foreign debt that included the proceeds of this outrageous contract, the Governments of France, Great Britain, and Spain decided to intervene. According to their agreement the three powers were simply to hold the seaports of Mexico and collect the customs duties until their pecuniary demands had been satisfied.
Learning, however, that Napoleon III had ulterior designs, Great Britain and Spain withdrew their forces and left him to proceed with his scheme of conquest. After capturing Puebla in May, 1863, a French army numbering some thirty thousand men entered the capital and installed an assemblage of notables belonging to the clerical and conservative groups. This body thereupon proclaimed the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under an emperor.
The title was to be offered to Maximilian, Archduke of Austria.
In case he should not accept, the matter was to be referred to the "benevolence of his majesty, the Emperor of the French," who might then select some other Catholic prince.
On his arrival, a year later, the amiable and well-meaning Maximilian soon discovered that, instead of being an "Emperor,"he was actually little more than a precarious chief of a faction sustained by the bayonets of a foreign army. In the northern part of Mexico, Juarez, Porfirio Diaz,--later to become the most renowned of presidential autocrats,--and other patriot leaders, though hunted from place to place, held firmly to their resolve never to bow to the yoke of the pretender. Nor could Maximilian be sure of the loyalty of even his supposed adherents. Little by little the unpleasant conviction intruded itself upon him that he must either abdicate or crush all resistance in the hope that eventually time and good will might win over the Mexicans. But do what they would, his foreign legions could not catch the wary and stubborn Juarez and his guerrilla lieutenants, who persistently wore down the forces of their enemies. Then the financial situation became grave. Still more menacing was the attitude of the United States now that its civil war was at an end. On May 31, 1866, Maximilian received word that Napoleon III had decided to withdraw the French troops. He then determined to abdicate, but he was restrained by the unhappy Empress Carlotta, who hastened to Europe to plead his cause with Napoleon. Meantime, as the French troops were withdrawn, Juarez occupied the territory.
Feebly the "Emperor" strove to enlist the favor of his adversaries by a number of liberal decrees; but their sole result was his abandonment by many a lukewarm conservative. Inexorably the patriot armies closed around him until in May, 1867, he was captured at Queretaro, where he had sought refuge. Denied the privilege of leaving the country on a promise never to return, he asked Escobedo, his captor, to treat him as a prisoner of war.
"That's my business," was the grim reply. On the pretext that Maximilian had refused to recognize the competence of the military court chosen to try him, Juarez gave the order to shoot him. On the 19th of June the Austrian archduke paid for a fleeting glory with his life. Thus failed the second attempt at erecting an empire in Mexico. For thirty-four years diplomatic relations between that country and Austria-Hungary were severed.
The clericalmilitary combination had been overthrown, and the Mexican people had rearmed their independence. As Juarez declared: "Peace means respect for the rights of others."Even if foreign dreams of empire in Mexico had vanished so abruptly, it could hardly be expected that a land torn for many years by convulsions could become suddenly tranquil. With Diaz and other aspirants to presidential power, or with chieftains who aimed at setting up little republics of their own in the several states, Juarez had to contend for some time before he could establish a fair amount of order. Under his successor, who also was a civilian, an era of effective reform began. In 1873amendments to the constitution declared Church and State absolutely separate and provided for the abolition of peonage--a provision which was more honored in, the breach than in the observance.
