THE EMPIRE OF MAXIMILIAN I 1864-65
I. MARSHAL BAZAINE
In October, 1863, the reins of power, so loosely held by General Forey,
at last passed into firmer hands. General Bazaine took command of
affairs. It was high time. The Juarists, profiting by the long respite
afforded them, were reorganizing in the interior, and were threatening.
The daily stage was attacked on its way to the coast as often as not.
Highwaymen tore up the rails of the Paso del Macho Railroad, attacked
the train, and killed passengers. Detachments of banditti, called by
courtesy guerrillas, everywhere infested the roads, even at the very
gates of the capital. A picnic was given to us at this time, by some
officers of General Bazaine's staff, at a wild, beautiful spot, where
the ruins of a graceful aqueduct, built by the Spaniards, formed the
principal attraction. It was less than a twenty-mile ride, yet it was
deemed unsafe to go without a strong escort, although we and the
officers who gave the affair formed, with their orderlies, a large
cavalcade.
General Forey's policy in letting the regency have its way, and in
countenancing reactionary legislation of an aggressive character, had
discouraged the honest partizans of order. The clergy now openly
declared that Maximilian was pledged to the holy see for the restoration
of the confiscated property of the clergy to its original owners. The
archbishop, newly landed, did all that was in his power to encourage
such a belief and to guide the regency to an uncompromising surrender to
the holy see.* As the security of immense transactions in clergy
property was involved, serious uneasiness was felt.
* Compare M. de Keratry, loc. cit., p. 31.
General Bazaine handled all these complications with firmness and skill.
He compelled the regency to repeal the decrees most objectionable to the
thinking portion of the community. He enforced the maintaining of all
bona-fide transactions in clergy property, but advocated the revision of
such contracts as might be proved fraudulent, and urged a concordat
proposing that the state provide for the support of the clergy. His
orders were to rally around him the Liberal chiefs, and he strove by a
wise, tactful policy to conciliate men of all shades of opinion. His
vigorous military action soon established order in the territory
surrounding Mexico. With the concurrence of General Almonte, who
earnestly wished the welfare of his country, he reduced Archbishop
Labastida to terms, if not to silence.
Having done this, he took the field, concentrated his army from the
various distant points where the different corps had been ordered in
view of the campaign which he was preparing, and within six weeks
defeated, by rapid and well-concerted blows, Generals Doblado, Negrete,
Comonfort, and Uraga, who at that time, thanks to General Forey's
procrastination, were holding the country with. the rallied forces of
the Liberal party.
From Morelia to San Luis, from Mexico to Guadalajara, the French flag
waved over every stronghold. The conquered cities received the
conquerors coldly, but acknowledged the archduke (of whom, we were told
by the officers, many did not even know the name) just as resignedly as
for over forty years of civil war they had been wont to acknowledge the
victor's chosen presidential candidate.
This campaign was little more than a race, and it was said that the
French conquered the country with their legs far more than with their
bayonets.
In February, 1864, the general, uneasy at the turn which political
affairs were taking in the capital, returned with an escort as suddenly
as he had departed. It was high time. In his absence, Mgr. Labastida,
not giving due consideration to the change of leadership that had taken
place at the French headquarters, had so far forgotten himself as to
fulminate, in the name of the church, against the French. But upon the
return of the commander-in-chief he reconsidered his action, and
publicly "gave them his blessing."*
* M. de Keratry, loc. cit., p. 33.
General Bazaine was at this time the most popular man in the army.
Hitherto eminently successful in all his military undertakings, he had
risen from the ranks, having won his honors step by step upon the
battle-field, at first by his courage, later by his remarkable military
ability.
He was a plain-looking man, short and thick-set, whose plebeian features
one might search in vain for a spark of genius or a ray of imagination;
and yet under the commonplace exterior dwelt a kindly spirit, an
intelligence of no mean order, and, despite a certain coarseness of
thought and expression too common among Frenchmen, a soul upon which the
romance of life had impressed its mark in lines of fire.
The story went that, when a colonel, he had in Spain come across a
little girl of great beauty and personal attractions, who seemed to him
out of place amid her surroundings. He picked up the little wild rose as
it grew on the roadside, and conceived the notion of transplanting it
into good, rich soil, and of giving it its share of sunshine. He took
the child to Paris, where he left her in a convent to be educated.
The soldier continued his brilliant career in the Crimea, Italy, Syria,
and Africa; and when, after some years, he returned to Paris, he found
the little girl grown into a beautiful and attractive woman, whose heart
was full of warm gratitude for her benefactor. He fell in love with her,
and, breaking through all rules of French matrimonial usage, married
her.
Her charm won for her many friends in the circle which his position
entitled her to enter; her attractions exposed her to temptations which
her early training had ill fitted her to meet; and her death, which
occurred under peculiarly distressing circumstances soon after his
promotion to the command of the army in Mexico, was a cruel blow. The
news of his loss reached the general while away from the capital on the
brilliant campaign which added the greater part of the country to the
projected empire (November, 1863). After a funeral mass, which he heard
with his officers, he retired to his tent, and, alone, fought that
hardest of all battles, and conquered his own heart. In a few days he
returned to his duty, and no one ever knew what had passed in his
innermost soul.
Two years later a ball was given at the quartier-general. Bazaine, who
had lately been promoted to the rank of marshal (1864), had stopped for
a moment to say a few words, when one of his guests, a young Mexican
girl who was waltzing by, suddenly stopped near us, having torn her
dress. Pins were produced, the damaged ruffle was repaired, and the girl
passed on. "Who is this?" asked the marshal, evidently much struck with
her appearance. "It is extraordinary," he muttered, "how much she
reminds me of my wife." He looked distrait, and shortly after excused
himself, and wandered off in the direction Mlle. de la Pena had taken.
The courtship was a short one. Maximilian, in order to facilitate a
union which he deemed to be in the interest of his government, gave the
young girl as a dowry the palace of San Cosme,* valued at one hundred
thousand dollars; and thus was May united, to December. Two children
were born to the marshal, one of them in Mexico,** and never was father
prouder of his young wife and of her offspring than was the marshal.***
* A suburb west of Mexico.
** Maximilian was his godfather,
*** When, after the Franco-Prussian war, the marshal, having been made a
sacrifice to France's wounded pride, was court-martialed, and, amid the
imprecations of his countrymen, was imprisoned in the Fort de Ste.
Marguerite, his young wife and her cousin contrived the perilous escape
of the old man. By means of a rope procured for him by them he lowered
himself from the walls of the fortress. Mme. Bazaine was awaiting him in
a small boat, the oars of which were held by her cousin. A ship was near
by, ready to sail, on which they sought refuge in Spain. And so it was
that a fallen marshal of France passed from a state prison into exile,
where he ended a life in which fame and romance had an equal share.
II. A BED OF ROSES IS A GOLD-MINE
The difficult task intrusted to General Bazaine had been triumphantly
performed.
The adhesion of the main part of Mexico to the empire was secured.
Oajaca and Guerrero, in the south, still held out, under General
Porfirio Diaz, and in the north Chihuahua and Durango had not submitted;
but enough of the Mexican territory was pacified to answer immediate
purposes. European criticism and the scruples of Maximilian must be
satisfied by this appearance of a popular election and a quasi-universal
suffrage. For forty years Mexico had not been so quiet. The defeated and
demoralized Liberal forces were scattered, and the Juarez government,
retreating toward the extreme northern frontier at Monterey, seemed to
have nothing left save its eternal rights.
On May 28, 1864, Maximilian of Austria and the Archduchess Charlotte
reached Vera Cruz on the Austrian frigate Novara. They were escorted by
the French man-of war Themis, By some unfortunate contretemps, the
deputation that had left the capital with much pomp and flutter in order
to greet them was not there. They arrived as ordinary passengers, the
people evincing little curiosity and less cordiality, as we have seen.
Vera Cruz is in itself not calculated to cheer the newcomer, and their
first impression of their venture was a painful one.
In due time, however, things righted themselves. General Almonte and his
suite appeared upon the scene, and all the necessary pageant was brought
into play to soothe the wounded feelings of the new sovereigns. They
landed on the following day at six o'clock in the morning. The early
hour interfered with any effective popular demonstration, and their
reception, as they proceeded to Loma Alta, at that time the terminus of
the railroad, was by no means a brilliant one. At this point they took
carriages and drove on, escorted by a body of cavalry commanded by
General Galvez and Colonel Miguel Lopez. Near the Cerro del Chiquihuite
the imperial carriage broke down, and the young sovereigns had to accept
that of General de Maussion. It was in the midst of a terrible tropical
storm, which put out the torches with which their escort lighted the
way, that the imperial cortege entered Cordoba. Here, however, they were
met by a crowd of torch-bearing Indians, whose enthusiasm made up for
the gloom and disappointments which had hitherto marked their arrival.
The rest of the journey was a well-prepared ovation. The priests, now
eager to come to the fore, had ordered out the Indian population. The
action of Maximilian in going to Rome, and in piously securing the papal
blessing before sailing to take possession of his new dominions, had
been received by the ultra-clerical party as a hopeful symptom of
returning papal ascendancy under the coming reign.*
* On April 19, 1864, Maximilian and the archduchess had repaired to Rome
in order, said the official papers, to "implore the benediction of the
august chief of the church, and to place their future effort under the
aegis of his paternal intercession and of his powerful authority." The
sermon preached by Pius IX in the Sistine Chapel on April 29, in which
the Holy Father encouraged the new sovereigns to accomplish the designs
of Providence in a mission which was but a part of a "grand scheme of
Christian propagandism," linked the empire to the clerical party.
At this time Napoleon III could no longer be unaware that the
recognition of the liberty of religious worship, of toleration, and of
the reform laws promulgated by Juarez, was a necessity of the situation,
and that the church could not be reinstated as in the past. His
representatives in Mexico knew that the reactionary platform was not
only an unsafe one, but an impossible one for the empire to stand upon
in Mexico; and they were endeavoring to extricate themselves from the
consequences of their faux pas with as much dignity and consistency as
circumstances would admit. The awkwardness of the situation was,
therefore, only added to by this demonstration of piety and filial
obedience on the part of the new Mexican rulers. Yet it had the effect
of rallying the clergy for the time being, who did their best to
increase their claims by a public display of devotion to the empire.
The new sovereigns might well imagine that they were the elect of the
people when, followed by a multitude of Indians, they entered the
capital.
It was under the scorching rays of a hot June sun that they made their
formal entry into the city of Montezuma.* Never had such a sight been
seen since the days of the Aztecs. The lavish ingenuity of the
French--anxious, for obvious reasons, to make the occasion a telling
one--vied with the interested patriotism of the clerical party to excite
the enthusiasm of the people, and to produce an impression upon the
Austrian travelers. Triumphal arches of verdure, draped with flags and
patriotic devices, were raised along the principal avenues leading to
the Plaza Mayor and to the palace. As far as the eye could reach, the
festively decked windows, the streets, and the flat roofs of the houses
were crowded with people eager to catch a glimpse of the new sovereigns.
As they slowly approached in the official landau, the crowd was so dense
as to be with difficulty held back.
* June 12, 1864. The Archduchess Charlotte was born in Brussels on June
7, 1840, and she was then twenty-four years old. The archduke was born
at Schonbrunn on July 6, 1832, and was therefore not quite thirty-two
years of age.
It was a singular spectacle. They seemed so tall and fair, these two
young people of another race, as they smilingly advanced through the
swarthy multitude of their small, ragged subjects, bowing in
acknowledgment of their acclamations! Involuntarily one thought of
visiting angels, or, better still, of the fair god Quetzalcohuatl, whom
the Mexican legend of olden times brought from the East to rule over and
to civilize the natives of this land by bringing them plenty. The
analogy spontaneously occurred to every thoughtful onlooker, and spread
like lightning throughout the city.
Dramatic as it might be, the situation was not without its comic
touches. Some one in the imperial entourage had the unfortunate idea of
imitating for the Emperor's body-guard the sky-blue-and-silver uniform
of Napoleon's tall Cent-Gardes. It is hard to imagine anything more
amusing than the caricature thus produced of the French picked regiment,
which saw the light for the first time on that occasion.
It was at first difficult to establish among the republican Mexicans the
rigid etiquette of the Austrian court, and some unsuccessful attempts to
do so were fruitful of heartache on both sides. For instance, when
Senora Salas, the wife of the regent, was first introduced to her young
sovereign, the poor little old lady amiably advanced, prepared to give
her the national abraso--a graceful greeting which closely simulates an
embrace. In Mexico its significance in good society was very much that
of a shake of the hand with us. Much to her consternation, the tall
Empress stepped back and drew herself up to her full height at what she
regarded an undue liberty, while tears of indignation came into her
eyes. Whereupon the poor senora was dissolved in tears, and the incident
came near to disturbing the good feeling that every one hoped might at
once be established between the sovereigns and their Mexican court.
For a brief space we all felt as though a new era were indeed about to
dawn upon this Western land. There is no doubt that at this time the
empire seemed a fact, and that, with the exception of a certain number
of outlying districts, the country was fast rallying around its banner.
It represented order and stability, while the Liberals occupied the
position of anarchists.*
* See Masseras, "Un Essai d'Empire au Mexique," p. 9, where he quotes a
letter addressed by Senor Zamacona to President Juarez, and bearing date
June 16, 1864.
General Bazaine did all in his power to inaugurate brilliantly the
advent of the empire. A splendid ball was given to the young sovereigns
at the quartier-general--such a ball as is seldom seen outside the great
European capitals. The general's aides-de-camp had been put in charge,
and all that unlimited funds and a large experience of such matters
could accomplish was done to make the occasion the memorable feature of
a memorable historic event.
The great patio of the palace of San Cosme was floored and roofed over
to serve as a ball-room. At the back of the great arcade surrounding it,
the arches and pillars of which were draped with French and Mexican
flags, was banked a profusion of plants and flowers, upon which was cast
the light of myriads of candles and colored lanterns. In the middle of
the huge improvised ball-room the great fountain played, and its
sparkling waters were seen through masses of tropical vegetation. Here
and there enormous warlike trophies reminded the spectator that he was
the guest of a great army. The artillery had supplied groups of heavy
cannon, stacked on end, and huge piles of cannon-balls, while at
intervals trophies of flags and drums, of guns and bayonets, tastefully
grouped about the French and the Mexican coats of arms, broke with
striking effect the expanse of wall above the arcades.
When the imperial cortege entered the crowded ball-room, the quadrille
d'honneur was danced by their Majesties, the general-in-chief, and the
more distinguished members of their respective suites, after which the
Emperor and Empress were respectfully escorted by the general to their
throne, set under a crimson-velvet canopy resting upon French cannon.
They were so young and so handsome in their imperial pomp! By them stood
Princess Zichy, tall and distinguished, in a simple white-tulle gown and
natural flowers, with a wealth of such diamonds as are seldom seen on
one person--a homely woman, but interesting to us as the daughter of the
Metternichs. Her husband, Prince Zichy, was the most striking figure in
the imperial party. He wore the full state costume of a Hungarian
Magyar; and his many orders, hanging around his neck and upon his
breast, as well as the marvelous hilt, belt, and jeweled sheath of his
ancestral sword, stood out finely upon his black-velvet costume, and
made him a conspicuous figure even in an assemblage where the ordinary
evening dress was almost unseen.
The glitter of all this court life, the revival of trade, the abundance
of money so freely brought and spent in the country, dazzled the people,
and a golden dust was thrown into the eyes of all, which for a brief
period prevented them from seeing the true drift of political events.
Indeed, the brilliancy of the scene was not entirely due to flash-light.
The revenues derived from the customs of Tampico and Vera Cruz were at
this time materially increasing. An official report, read to the French
Chamber in 1865, showed that the revenues from those ports, which for
three months in 1864 had been $96,000 and $900,000 respectively, had for
the same period in 1865 risen respectively to $431,000 and $1,645,000.
Large concessions for railroads had been asked for and granted under
solid guaranties--the line from Vera Cruz to Mexico to an Anglo-French
company, pledged to complete it in five years, and another concession
for three lines, for the carrying out of which $4,500,000 had been
subscribed. Telegraph lines were being established; coal, petroleum, and
gold- and silver-mines were being exploited, or were in a fair way to
be.
The good management of the regency under General Almonte's frugal
administration had accumulated a balance of 15,000,000 francs in the
treasury--a small surplus which must have been encouraging to the
Emperor upon his arrival. Moreover, the loan of 200,000,000 francs, so
readily taken up abroad, had given a substantial foundation for hopeful
anticipation, and it seemed as though France might possibly get out of
her rash venture with honor and profit.
The mirage that had lured Napoleon to these perilous shores now appeared
materially nearer, and its outlines seemed more vivid and attractive
than ever before.
But it was an easy matter to create an empire as the result of an armed
invasion of an unwilling land, it was quite another thing to organize it
upon a permanent basis. As Prince Napoleon--familiarly known as
Plon-Plon--very wittily remarked later, "One can do anything with
bayonets, except sit upon them." ("On peut tout faire avec des
baionnettes, excepte s'asseoir dessus.") For over two years Napoleon III
endeavored to make Maximilian perform the latter feat--with what result
we all know only too well.
III. THORNS
The details of Maximilian's court once settled, and the code of
etiquette to be used adopted, the new sovereign started forth upon a
tour of the provinces, to present himself to the loyalty of his
subjects. The Empress remained as regent, to govern under the guidance
of the Commander-in-chief. Ovations had everywhere been prepared, and a
semblance of popularity, so dear to Maximilian's heart, was the result.
But immense sums were expended, and more precious time was wasted.
Upon his return, Mexican society turned out en masse to do him honor. We
all sallied forth in a monster cavalcade by the Paseo de la Vega to meet
him some miles out of the city, and escort him back to the palace. All
this was pleasant and exciting, but wise heads saw that this was no time
for idle pleasure, and some impatience was manifested at this pageantry.
Then began a series of administrative experiments. Many projects were
mapped out with a view to placing Mexico abreast of the most advanced
countries of the civilized world.
Among other premature efforts made at this time, when the young Emperor
gave fullest flight to his dreams, was a Department of the Navy. Nothing
could more clearly demonstrate how whimsical was the mind of the
Austrian ex-admiral and how slight was his grasp of the situation.
Long-postponed issues, involving vital questions of policy and of
administration, were awaiting his decision, and he busied himself with
frivolities and with impossibilities. These early days gave the keynote
of his three years' reign.
Captain Destroyat, a French naval officer, was made secretary of the
navy. As the Mexican government did not own a canoe, and as there was at
that time no serious likelihood of its ever owning a battle-ship, this
sinecure caused no little merriment among us, and many were the
practical jokes of which the hapless cabinet officer was the victim.
His quarters were situated one block below our house, in the Calle de
Espiritu Santo. This street, owing to a depression in the level and to
bad drainage, was usually flooded, during the rainy season, after every
severe aguacero. So impassable did it then become that even men were
compelled to engage the services of a cargador to carry them across
"pickaback." When came the first shower after his new dignity had been
conferred upon Captain Destroyat, his comrades, bent upon fun, purchased
a toy flotilla, which they floated, flying the Mexican flag, down the
street. In mock dignity the tiny ships came to an anchor before his
door, much to every one's merriment, excepting, it was whispered, to
that of the powers that were, who found a sting in the harmless levity.*
* The new Navy Department, although substantial advances were made to
it by the French treasury for the purpose of guarding the coast against
smugglers, did little to justify its existence. Two years later, when
Empress Charlotte arrived in Vera Cruz, about to sail for Europe on that
the fruitless errand from which she was never to return, there was not
one rowboat flying the Mexican flag ready to convey her to the steamer
which was lying in port at anchor. A boat belonging to a French
man-of-war was placed at her disposal, but the unfortunate woman, then
embittered by the treatment received at the hands of the French
government, flatly refused to be taken, even over so short a distance,
under the French flag; and the incident gave rise to a painful scene. As
the Empress was then on her way as a suppliant to the court of the
Tuileries, there is every reason to believe this illogical and almost
childish sensitiveness was one of the first symptoms of the cerebral
derangement that was so soon to become evident. Other exhibitions of an
impaired judgment were related which then seemed incomprehensible.
Maximilian has been uniformly blamed by French writers for frittering
away the first precious months of his reign in dreams, or in the
settlement of minor details, the triviality of which was in glaring
contrast with the gravity of the issues before him. True as this
criticism may be in theory, it is perhaps to be regretted--if we
consider his Majesty's youth and inexperience, and his absolute
ignorance of the conditions which he was called upon to face, as well as
of the capabilities and personal history of the men with whom he was to
deal--that he did not longer continue to allow others, who had painfully
earned a clearer knowledge of the situation, to rule in his name. The
French, after a long series of preliminary blunders, were just beginning
to understand the country when the Emperor arrived and attempted
independently to acquire the same lesson, at the expense of the nation,
of his party, and of his allies.
It soon became obvious that the young monarch was not equal to the task
which he had undertaken, and a feeling of disappointment prevailed.
Unendowed with the force and clearness of mind necessary in an
organizer, he nevertheless insisted upon all administrative work passing
through his own imperial bureau. At the head of this bureau he placed an
obscure personal favorite, a Belgian named Eloin, who had risen to favor
through his social accomplishments. This man did not speak one word of
Spanish, hated the French, despised the Mexicans, and was more ignorant
than his master himself of American questions in general, and of Mexican
affairs in particular.
While in office he used his power to repress much of the impulse given
to enterprise by the French. His narrow views were responsible for a
jealous policy which excluded all that he could not personally
appreciate and manage. He and the Emperor undertook to decide questions
upon which they were then hardly competent to give an intelligent
opinion. The Mexican leaders were made to feel that they had no
influence, the French that they had no rights. A chill was suddenly felt
to pervade the official atmosphere. As a prominent member of the Belgian
legation once remarked:
"To eat priest for breakfast and Frenchman for dinner, when one has been
called to the throne by the clergy, and must rely upon France for sole
support, may be regarded as a dangerous policy." After doing much
mischief, M. Eloin was sent abroad upon a mysterious mission. It was
rumored that he had gone to watch over his master's personal interests
abroad.*
* On December 28,1864, Maximilian entered a protest against the family
compact exacted from him by his brother, the Emperor Francis Joseph, on
April 9, a few days before his departure from Miramar and communicated
to the Reichsrath on November 16th. In this curious document he stated
that it was upon the suggestion of the Emperor of Austria that the
throne of Mexico had been offered to him; that after the negotiations
were closed, when his withdrawal must have brought about the most
serious European complications, the Emperor Francis Joseph, accompanied
by his most intimate councilors, had come hastily to Miramar to force
from him an absolute renunciation of his birthrights; that, having given
his word to the Mexican delegation sent to offer him a throne, he had
signed this unqualifiable compact, but that experienced diplomats and
expert jurists, after studying the question, were of the opinion that a
document exacted under such conditions was null and void; and that the
diets, with the consent of the two interested emperors, were alone
competent to decide upon such rights. In this case the diets had not
even been consulted.
This protest, the text of which is published in M. Domenech's "Histoire
du Mexique" (vol. iii, p. 204), excited the suspicion that Maximilian
had not relinquished his European ambitions, and that the role of
Liberal ruler which he played upon the Mexican stage was played partly
to an Austrian audience.
A few months after this (May 3, 1865) M. Eloin was sent abroad,
ostensibly to treat of a new loan; he was no financier, and it is likely
that his mission was a confidential one, the political nature of which
comes out clearly in the intercepted letter, under date of September 27,
1866, which was published in the United States. (See p. 243.)
Indeed, the presence of the personal friends and countrymen of the
sovereigns who had accompanied them in their voluntary exile caused a
note of discord in the general harmony of the first days of the empire,
indicative of the cacophony which was soon to follow. Prince and
Princess Zichy and Countess Collonitz soon returned home, but a number
of men remained to occupy lucrative and confidential positions about the
person of the monarch.
It was natural that, so far away from their native land, these would-be
Mexican rulers, stranded among a people with whose customs and mode of
thought they had no sympathy, and of whose traditions they knew nothing,
should cling to the little circle of trusted friends who had followed
them in their adventure. It was natural also that the Mexicans, seduced
by the vision of a monarchy in which THEY hoped to be the ruling force
by virtue of their share in its inception and its establishment, should
feel a keen disappointment upon finding foreigners, whom they themselves
had been instrumental in placing at the head of affairs, not only
overshadowing them, but usurping what they deemed their legitimate
influence. It was likewise natural that the French, who had put up all
the stakes for the game, and who had sacrificed lives, millions, and
prestige in the venture, should look to a preponderant weight in the
councils of an empire which was entirely of their creating. All this was
the inevitable consequence of such a combination as that attempted in
Mexico; but apparently it was one which had entered into no one's
calculations, and for which no provision had been made. The imperial
dream of Napoleon III had been too shadowy to include such humanities.
The original "king-makers" soon became a troublesome element in
Maximilian's administration. His policy naturally led him to seek
supporters among the progressive Mexicans, and to devise the honorable
retirement of his early allies from the active management of affairs.
General Almonte from the first was set aside with empty honors.* In 1866
he was appointed to replace Senor Hidalgo as representative of Mexico to
France. General Miramon and General Marquez were likewise sent away in
honorable exile; and by degrees the more conspicuous among the
reactionary leaders were put out of the way.
* He was made great marshal of the court, minister of the imperial
household, and high chancellor of the imperial orders.
In March, 1864, Maximilian, about to sail from Miramar, had addressed a
letter to President Juarez. In this curious document he spoke of himself
as "the chosen of the people," and invited him to attach himself to the
empire. He even offered him a distinguished place in its administration.
This, of course, was haughtily declined by the President. But
persevering efforts were made to win over, by promises of preferment,
the leading men of the Liberal party. Some declined in noble terms, but
others succumbed to the temptation, and for a while a decided tendency
was shown to rally around the new order of things. Yet these conditions,
favorable as they were, added to the complications of the situation. In
a very short time, what with the difficulties arising from the
nationalized clergy property, and with the personal disappointment of
many of those who had made the empire, Maximilian found the men upon
whose invitation he had come to Mexico turning away from him. Moreover,
the influence of M. Eloin's policy had inaugurated the long series of
misunderstandings between the court and the French quartier-general,
which ultimately led to complications at first by no means unavoidable.
"Non es emperador, es empeorador," was the pun popularly repeated by
Mexican wags.* Six months had not elapsed since the regent Almonte had
turned over to the young Emperor the quasi-consolidated empire conquered
by Marshal Bazaine, and thinking men already foresaw the end. Never did
the tide of success turn so rapidly.
* "Ce n'est pas un empereur; c'est un empireur." Compare Masaeras, "Un
Essai d'Empire au Mexique," p. 42 (Paris, 1879).
In October, 1864, Comte de Thun de Hohenstein had been sent to Paris to
negotiate for the transportation of some four thousand Austrians for the
army of Maximilian in Mexico. Belgians were also rapidly enlisting under
Colonel Van der Smissen; and shortly afterward Austro-Belgian auxiliary
troops, numbering, from first to last, some eight thousand men, were
transferred to Mexico.* These soon developed into an additional source
of difficulty.
* See Galignani, October 14, 1864.
The officers of the Austrian contingent had not forgotten the yet recent
encounters with the French army at Solferino and Magenta, and, no doubt
at first unconsciously, an unconciliatory spirit was manifested in every
difference which arose between the French and their present allies.
Comte de Thun, the commander of the Austrian corps, felt more than
restless under Marshal Bazaine's authority. Eventually, in 1865,
Maximilian, whose confidence he enjoyed, further complicated the
situation by establishing alongside of the War Department a military
cabinet, through which the Austro-Belgian contingents were independently
administered. This broke up all chance of uniform action in military
matters. It placed the auxiliary troops beyond the jurisdiction of the
French commander, who, under the terms of the treaty of Miramar, was to
be regarded as the commander-in-chief.
The same lack of unity that existed between the imperial army and the
French was also found to exist between the foreign mercenaries and the
Mexican troops.
To the natives these foreigners, although countrymen of their
sovereigns, were interlopers and rivals. Their very presence defeated
the object of their Emperor's futile attempt at a show of Mexican
patriotism. The position of the French was a well-defined one. They were
there for a purpose, spent their money freely, fought their battles
victoriously, and would some day go back to France. But the Mexicans
hated these foreigners, and the confidential offices held by impecunious
Belgians and Austrians in the government and about the person of the
chief executive added to the instinctive suspicion with which their
permanent residence in the country was regarded.
Under the then existing conditions, where so many irreconcilable
interests were in presence, it is not to be wondered at if little
harmony prevailed amid the various conflicting elements gathered
together by fate for the enactment of this fantastic scene.
The attitude of the United States toward the empire had been
unmistakably emphasized on May 3, 1864, by the departure of our
minister, the Hon. Thomas Corwin, who left, ostensibly on leave of
absence, as soon as the approach of the new sovereigns was heralded.
His was an interesting personality. Tall, stout, and somewhat awkward in
his gait, his double chin was lost between the exaggerated points of the
stiff white collar so characteristic of our American statesmen at that
time. His kindly smile and natural charm of voice and manner, however,
soon attracted and held those who at first found him unengaging. With
all his attainments he had preserved unspoiled a certain natural
modesty, which led him to attribute his advancement to accident or fate.
He once told me that he owed all his success in life to the fact that,
as a country boy in Ohio, while driving his father's cart downhill at
daybreak, he fell asleep and was jolted off his seat, breaking his leg.
During the weeks of enforced seclusion that followed he taught himself
to read, and developed a studious turn of mind, which, his leg having
been permanently weakened by the accident, led him to seek a situation
in a lawyer's office. From these humble beginnings he rose to the place
he then occupied as one of our foremost orators and, since 1861, as
minister to Mexico,* so that, he merrily added, he owed his fortune to a
broken leg. Such men, however, are in no need of accidents to rise; Mr.
Corvin could not help doing so from the innate buoyancy of his brilliant
personality.
* He now left American affairs in the charge of his secretary of
legation, his son William Corwin.
On April 4 the Senate and House of Representatives at Washington had
passed a unanimous resolution in opposition to the recognition of a
monarchy in Mexico, as an expression of the sentiment of the people of
the United States. Secretary Seward, in forwarding a copy of the
resolution to Mr. Dayton, our minister to France, had, however,
instructed him to inform the French government that "the President does
not at present contemplate any departure from the policy which this
government has hitherto pursued in regard to the war which exists
between France and Mexico."*
* See "Diplomatic Correspondence," 1865, Part III, p. 357.
Notwithstanding the small encouragement which such an attitude gave him,
one of the earliest acts of Maximilian was to send Senor Arroyo to seek
an interview with the head of the United States government, with a view
to the recognition of the empire. Senor Arroyo was not even granted an
audience. In July, 1865, another attempt was made by Maximilian with the
same object in view.
Among the chamberlains of the Emperor at that time was a son of General
Degollado, a Liberal leader who had been killed at Las Cruces, while
fighting for the republic against General Marquez in 1861. Young
Degollado had lived in Washington, and there had married an American
woman. His attainments were mediocre and his personality was colorless,
but his wife was ambitious and energetic. She was eager to see her
husband come to the front, and, setting aside family traditions, did her
best to encourage the imperial court in the idea that the United States
government, if properly approached, might be brought to consider the
recognition of the empire. She was a good-looking, pleasant woman, who
readily made friends, and the couple were put forward as likely to bring
the undertaking to a favorable conclusion.
It had at first been suggested that an envoy extraordinary be sent in
full official pomp to Washington. General Almonte had been spoken of for
the mission, and Mr. and Mrs. Degollado were to have accompanied him as
members of the embassy. Senor Ramirez, the minister of state and a
moderate Liberal of high standing and ability, realized, however, that
the imperial government, in following such a course, must publicly
expose itself to a slight. He therefore urged upon Maximilian a
modification of the plan, and it was arranged that Mr. and Mrs.
Degollado should go in a semi-official manner to prepare the ground and
to feel the way.
Mrs. Degollado was much excited over the prospect, and even seemed
sanguine of success. It was hinted that Mr. Corwin, then in Washington,
was lending himself to certain intrigues designed to facilitate the
negotiations.
The Emperor's agents arrived in Washington on July 17, 1865. M. de
Montholon, who since 1864 had been minister of France to Mexico,
endeavored to obtain an audience for "the chamberlain of Maximilian" as
bearer of a letter from the Emperor of Mexico to the President.* But the
mission proved a failure, and only added one more to the many abortive
attempts made during those four years to "solve the unsolvable
problem."**
* "Diplomatic Correspondence," 1865, Part III, p. 484.
** According to Prince Salm-Salm, yet another attempt was planned in
the fall of 1866, in which he and his wife were intended to be the
principal actors, and were to be sent to Washington armed with a fund of
$2,000,000 in gold. He states that the news of the Empress's illness,
and the consequent failure of her mission abroad, prevented the carrying
out of the scheme.
On January 1, 1865, President Juarez issued from Chihuahua a
proclamation in which he confessed defeat, but in dignified tones
asserted the righteousness of the national cause, in which he put his
trust, and appealed to the nobler ideals of his countrymen.
At that moment, to the superficial observer, and in the capital, the
empire seemed an accomplished fact. The country at large, although by no
means pacified, was nominally under imperial rule. Almost alone, in the
south, General Porfirio Diaz held his own at Oajaca, and remained
unsubdued.
General Courtois d'Hurbal, who had been sent against him, had so far
been unable to deal with him. The commander-in-chief resolved once more
to take the field in person. As a result, Oajaca shortly afterward was
taken, and General Diaz, at last forced to surrender, was made prisoner,
and transferred to Puebla for safe-keeping.*
* He, however, boldly managed his escape a few months later, and again
took the field at the head of a band of fourteen men. These increased in
number, snowball fashion, as other guerrillas gradually rallied around
the distinguished chief; and, at the head of an army, he reappeared in
Oajaca. After defeating the Austrians, in whose keeping the state had
been left, he reentered the city in October, 1866.
In the course of these and other vicissitudes General Diaz conducted
himself not only as a patriot, but as a soldier. It was generally to him
that the French turned when called upon by circumstances to trust to a
leader's word or to his humanity. Yet General Forey, in the Senate,
March 18, 1866, declared him a brigand in time whose summary execution
would be warranted, as indeed would that of all the Mexican generals.
From Mexico to the coast the country was quiet, and things were
apparently beginning to thrive. But if to the residents of the capital
the national government was a mere theoretical entity, in the interior
of the country, and especially in the north, the small numbers of the
French scattered over so vast an expanse of territory were obviously
insufficient to hold it permanently. In order to please Maximilian, they
traveled from place to place, receiving the allegiance of the various
centers of population;* their battalions multiplied their efforts, and
did the work of regiments. But the predatory bands now fighting under
the republican flag were, like birds of prey, ever hovering near,
concealed in the sierras, ready to pounce upon the hamlet or the town
which the French must perforce leave unprotected, and wreaking terrible
vengeance upon the inhabitants.
* As Colonel de Courcy cleverly remarked, some of these regiments
"brought back eighteen hundred leagues of country on the soles of their
boots."
At this time there were some fifteen thousand French residents in the
country, and these naturally suffered most both in life and property,
especially toward the last.*
* The wholesale hanging which took place at Hermosillo in the autumn of
1866 was sufficient evidence of what those compromised by the empire
might have to face, and only those who were forced to do so by
imperative business interests remained.
Whether the small guerrillas fought under one flag or the other, the
result was much the same to the people, who had to submit to the
alternate exactions of both parties.
No wonder if the intervention grew in unpopularity. In certain parts of
the country, as in Mazatlan, the French had to resort to force to
constitute an imperial administration. It was made a penal offense to
decline an office, and the reluctant Mexicans were compelled to serve
against their will.
The war then waged was a cruel war, a war without mercy. Woe to the
small detachment that allowed itself to be surprised and overpowered! It
was sure death, death often embittered by refinements of cruelty and
generally dispensed in the most summary manner, with little of the
formality that obtains among civilized nations. To give but one
instance: One of the most popular among the Austrian officers was Count
Kurtzroch, a man of ancient lineage and of unexceptionable breeding. He
and his friend Count von Funfkirchen were favorites in the small foreign
coterie, the center of which was at San Cosme, and they did not seem to
be involved in the national feuds. During the campaign of 1865 he, with
a small corps of Austrians, was defending a town in the interior against
the Plateados, a far superior force. Hard pressed, the Austrians
retreated, fighting at every step until they reached the church, in
which they intrenched themselves and prepared for a siege. They hoped
that relief might reach them, but the Mexicans set fire to the church,
and the trapped men were forced to surrender. During the struggle Count
Kurtzroch had been wounded in the legs. Unable to walk, he was carried
out by his comrades on an improvised stretcher. As the defeated band
filed before the victors, the leader, Antonio Perez, approaching the
wounded man, asked his name, and, drawing his revolver, deliberately
shot him dead as he lay helpless before him. This is but one of many
such acts, and I mention it only because I knew and liked the man, and
the details of the story naturally impressed me when, upon my inquiring
about our friend, Count Nikolitz, a brother officer, after his return
from the campaign, gave me the above details of his death.
At the beginning of the year 1865 martial law was proclaimed. By this
measure Marshal Bazaine sought to check not only brigandage, but the
military disorganization which the then prevailing state of things must
inevitably create. In this effort he found but little support on the
part of the imperial government. Indeed, Maximilian insisted upon all
actions of the courts martial being submitted to him before being
carried out. Much acrimony arose on both sides in consequence of this
interference.
I remember once hearing the marshal refer to a controversy that was then
going on between himself and the Emperor with regard to prisoners taken
by him at Oajaca, and who, he felt, should be exiled. Maximilian,
unmindful of the prolonged effort which it had cost to subdue these men,
insisted upon releasing them, and eventually did so. The marshal
bitterly complained of his weakness, gave other instances of his
untimely interference with the course of justice as administered by the
military courts, and excitedly declared that he was tired of sacrificing
French lives for the sole apparent use of giving an Austrian archduke
the opportunity "to play at clemency" (de faire de la clemence). Such
difficulties steadily widened the breach between the court and the
French military headquarters.
In the autumn of 1865, the news having reached him that President Juarez
had passed the border and left the country, Maximilian, elated by the
event, and exaggerating its bearing upon the political and military
situation, issued the famous decree of October 3, now known in Mexican
history as the Bando Negro ("black decree"). In this fatal enactment he
assumed that the war was at an end, and, while doing homage to President
Juarez himself, attempted to brand all armed republicans as outlaws who,
if taken in arms, must henceforth be summarily dealt with by the courts
martial, or--when made prisoners in battle--by the military leader, and
shot within twenty-four hours.*
* See Appendix A.
This extraordinary decree was greeted with dismay in the United States.
It outraged the Mexicans, and excited the vindictiveness of the Liberal
party. At the time such men as General Riva-Palacio and General Diaz
were still in the field, and some of Mexico's most illustrious patriots
were thus placed under a ban by the foreign monarch.*
* General Diaz's record is well-known and requires no comment here.
General Riva-Palacio was a patriot and a gentleman. He was a man of
parts, and had achieved some reputation as a poet and dramatic author.
At the outbreak of the war he organized and equipped at his own expense
a regiment, and was with General Zaragoza at Puebla. His division was
one of the finest in the Mexican service, and, throughout the war, he
loyally conducted his military operations in strict accordance with
recognized usage. He cared for the wounded, exchanged prisoners, and, at
the last, even went so far as to extend his protection to small
detachments of French troops making their way to the Atlantic coast from
the shores of the Pacific. See note from Marshal Bazaine, quoted in a
letter from Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward, February 12, 1866 ("Diplomatic
Correspondence," 1866, Part I, p. 281).
It has been claimed that Marshal Bazaine entered an earnest protest
against the measure, the harshness of which he regarded as impolitic;
that he urged its inexpediency, and personally objected to it as likely
to weaken the authority of the military courts; that he, moreover,
observed that it opened an avenue to private revenge, and delivered up
the prisoners of one faction into the hands of another, a course which
could not fail to add renewed bitterness to the civil war now so nearly
at an end.* But although the famous decree certainly was the spontaneous
act of the Emperor, and of his ministers who signed it, there can be no
doubt that it embodied the policy of repression urged by the marshal,
and that, if he cannot be held responsible for its form, in substance it
"was approved by him.** "Whatever may have been its origin, when,
shortly afterward (October 13, 1865), Generals Arteaga and Salazar, with
others*** who, at the head of small detachments, were holding the
country in the north against General Mendez, were taken by the latter,
and shot, under the decree of October 3, such a clamor of indignation
was raised at home and abroad as must have demonstrated his mistake to
the young Emperor. This mistake he was soon to expiate with his own
blood.
* See M. de Keratry, loc. cit., p. 84 et seq. See also debate in Chamber
of Deputies, "Moniteur Universel" (Paris), Jan. 28,1866.
** See Louet, "La Verite sur l'Expedition du Mexique," etc., Part ii,
"L'Empire de Maximilien," by P. Gaulot; also Prince Salm-Salm's "My
Diary in Mexico," etc., in which the author states that he was told by
Maximilian that the decree was drafted and amended by Marshal Bazaine,
who urged its enactment. In the memorandum drawn up for his lawyers, and
published by Dr. Basch in "Erinnerungen aus Mexico," Maximilian, says:
"Bazaine dictated himself the details before witnesses."
*** Colonels Villagomez, Diaz Paracho, and Pedro Mina were among those
who were shot. General Mendez was one of the best and most brilliant
officers in the imperial army, and it may be said in extenuation of his
personal share in the tragedy that the cruelty of the mode of warfare
carried on by Arteaga and his lieutenants seemed to warrant stern
treatment. It is stated that only a short time before Arteaga had caused
the father of Mendez to be shot, and that but six weeks prior to his own
capture, the commander of the garrison of Uruapan, Colonel Lemus, an old
man of sixty-eight, and the prefect, D. Paz Gutierrez, had been put to
death by his orders without judgment, or even time to write to their
families (Domenech, loc. cit., vol. iii, p. 335).