By JAMES BARESEL
The Last Emperor of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World by Edward Shawcross. Basic Books, 2021.
When Americans have heard of the 1864-1867 Mexican Empire of Maximilian, it is probably for one of two reasons: 1) Annual Mexican commemoration of the May 5 Battle of Puebla. 2) Use of Maximilian’s empire as background for plots in some unforgettable actors’ more forgettable movies.
But the history of that empire is actually among the more unique stories of nineteenth-century North America — one that began with an attempt to create a conservative and Catholic monarchy and ended with Mexican liberals having a firm hold on power that has persisted with few interruptions until the present day.
In the four decades following Mexico’s attainment of independence from Spain in 1821, the country’s political history had been marked by a series of coups, counter-coups, and civil wars. In January 1861 a harshly anti- clerical and radically egalitarian regime headed by Benito Juarez solidified its military victory over conservatives and its control over Mexico by capturing the national capital. Mexican conservatives, however, easily gained the sympathy of France’s Emperor Napoleon III.
Though a liberal who had worked against the Papal States, the emperor favored the religious freedom of the Catholic Church. In true Bonapartist fashion, he favored both preserving and mitigating traditional social hierarchies — for example, by restoring the nobility’s official honorary status (previously abolished by the Second Republic) but not its political privileges. At a time of rapid imperialist expansion by major European powers, he was enthusiastic about acquiring a client state in the western hemisphere.
An alliance between the French Second Empire and Mexican conservatives might be partly one of convenience, but its mutual advantages were obvious. Agreement as to that form of government to be created helped smooth over (and perhaps conceal) differences. Mexican conservatives wanted a monarchy in a country without its own royal family. Napoleon III and his more famous uncle had both been elected emperors by plebiscite, providing a model for use across the Atlantic.
There was even an obvious candidate for emperor. From 1516 until 1700, Spain (and its colony of Mexico) had been ruled by a branch of the Austrian House of Habsburg. When its male line became extinct the senior succession through a female line went to a prince of the French House of Bourbon, but the Austrian Habsburgs were by then descendants of their family’s Spanish branch through another (junior) female line.
That seemed to make Archduke Maximilian von Habsburg — younger brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Josef — a near perfect candidate. He was a senior member of Europe’s preeminent royal family. He was descended from colonial Mexico’s sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spanish monarchs. And he was free from association with the Spanish Bourbon monarchy against which the Mexicans had rebelled half a century earlier.
Following France’s successful 1862 military intervention in Mexico, Maximilian was established in power in 1864, but his beliefs, priorities, and personality soon proved to be more of a handicap than his ancestral status was an asset. Philosophically, he was a liberal monarchist. He refused to return the land that Juarez had stolen from the Church. He marginalized some of Mexico’s conservative leaders — sending two of the most important to Germany and to the Ottoman Empire. He even proposed an alliance between himself (who would remain emperor) and Juarez (who would become chief minister).
Though some Mexicans came to see him as a compromise option that might bring stability, his orientation left him without a firm base of support. His chances of surviving without that base were undermined by his efforts to place himself at the head of Mexican patriotism and reject the role of a quasi-colonial French client ruler.
One of Maximilian’s strongest traditionalist inclinations — toward the outward show of monarchy — even served primarily as a distraction. Rather than work on solidifying his financial position or strengthening his military forces, he devoted considerable time and money to such matters as re-creating the elaborate protocol of the Austrian royal court and organizing lavish balls on a Parisian scale.
With his position weakening, Maximilian eventually turned to the Catholic Church and Mexican conservatives. But by then the French government was moving to end its military and financial support — because of a mixture of disillusionment, developments elsewhere, and pressure from an American government that had just attained victory in the Civil War. (Before that war, American liberals led by President James Buchanan had aided Juarez’s rise to power. Then the Confederacy had loosely aligned with Maximilian, the United States with Juarez.) Maximilian refused to accept that the end of his French backing combined with American support for Juarez had made his cause hopeless. He was captured and killed in 1867.
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