Second French intervention in Mexico

Second French intervention in Mexico
French assault during the Second Battle of Puebla
Date 8 December 1861[dubious – discuss] – 21 June 1867 (5 years, 6 months, 1 week and 6 days) Location Mexico Result Mexican victory
Belligerents
Mexico	France  Mexican Empire
Commanders and leaders
Benito Juárez Porfirio Díaz Ignacio Zaragoza # Jesús González Ortega Ignacio Comonfort † José María Arteaga  Carlos Salazar Ruiz  Miguel Negrete Antonio Rojas † Mariano Escobedo Jerónimo Treviño Pedro José Méndez † Vicente Riva Palacio Tomás O'Horán (1862–1863) José López Uraga (1862–1864) Luigi Ghilardi	Napoleon III Francois Achille Bazaine Élie Frédéric Forey Abel Douay Auguste Henri Brincourt  Pierre Joseph Jeanningros Armand de Catagny Georges Cloué Maximilian  Juan Almonte Santiago Vidaurri  Tomás Mejía  Miguel Miramón  Leonardo Márquez  Refugio Tánori  Manuel Lozada (1865–1866) Ramón Méndez  Tomás O'Horán  (1863–1867) José López Uraga  (1864–1867)
Strength
70,000	38,493[1] 16,200–24,000[2][3]
Casualties and losses
31,962 killed (including 11,000 executed)[4] 8,304 wounded 33,281 captured	14,000 dead

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The second French intervention in Mexico (Spanish: segunda intervención francesa en México), also known as the Second Franco-Mexican War (1861–1867),^[5] was a military invasion of the Republic of Mexico by the French Empire of Napoleon III, purportedly to force the collection of Mexican debts in conjunction with Great Britain and Spain. Mexican conservatives supported the invasion, since they had been defeated by the liberal government of Benito Juárez in a three-year civil war. Defeated on the battlefield, conservatives sought the aid of France to effect regime change and establish a monarchy in Mexico, a plan that meshed with Napoleon III's plans to re-establish the presence of the French Empire in the Americas. Although the French invasion displaced Juárez's Republican government from the Mexican capital and the monarchy of Archduke Maximilian was established, the Second Mexican Empire collapsed within a few years. Material aid from the United States, whose four-year civil war ended in 1865, invigorated the Republican fight against the regime of Maximilian, and the 1866 decision of Napoleon III to withdraw military support for Maximilian's regime accelerated the monarchy's collapse.

The intervention came as a civil war, the Reform War, had just concluded, and the intervention allowed the Conservative opposition against the liberal social and economic reforms of President Juárez to take up their cause once again. The Catholic Church, conservatives, much of the upper-class and Mexican nobility, and some indigenous communities invited, welcomed and collaborated with the French empire to install Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico.^[6] The emperor himself however proved to be of liberal inclination and continued some of the Juárez government's most notable measures. Some liberal generals defected to the empire, including the powerful, northern governor Santiago Vidaurri, who had fought on the side of Juárez during the Reform War.

The French army landed in January 1862, aiming to rapidly take the capital of Mexico City, but Mexican republican forces defeated them in the Battle of Puebla on 5 May 1862 ("Cinco de Mayo"), delaying their march on the capital for a year. The French and Mexican Imperial Army captured much of Mexican territory, including major cities, but guerrilla warfare by republicans remained a significant factor and Juárez himself never left the national territory. The intervention was increasingly using up troops and money at a time when the recent Prussian victory over Austria was inclining France to give greater military priority to European affairs. The liberals also never lost the official recognition of the United States of America in spite of their ongoing civil war, and following the defeat and surrender of the Confederate States of America in April 1865 the reunited country began providing material support to the republicans. Invoking the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. government asserted that it would not tolerate a lasting French presence on the continent. Facing a mounting combination of domestic political discontent, diplomatic pressure and the growing military threat of Prussia on the borders of Metropolitan France itself, French units in Mexico began to redeploy to Europe in 1866. Without substantial French support, the Second Mexican Empire collapsed in 1867. Maximilian and the two conservative generals Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía were executed by firing squad on 19 June 1867, ending this period of Mexican history.^[6]