page_title: Military history of Mexico
section_title: French Intervention, 1862-1867
hierarchical_section_title: Military history of Mexico / Era of the Liberal Reform / French Intervention, 1862-1867
caption_attribution_description: Español: Anónimo, Batalla del 5 de mayo de 1862, óleo sobre tela, Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones, Exconvento de Churubusco, INAH. Imagen tomada del libro: Eduardo Báez, La pintura militar en el siglo XIX, México, Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional, 1992, p. 102.
context_page_description: The military history of Mexico encompasses armed conflicts within what that nation's territory, dating from before the arrival of Europeans in 1519 to the present era. Mexican military history is replete with small-scale revolts, foreign invasions, civil wars, indigenous uprisings, and coups d’etat by disgruntled military leaders. Mexico's colonial-era military was not established until the eighteenth century. After the Spanish conquest of central Mexico in the early sixteenth century, the Spanish crown did not rely on a standing military, but the crown responded to the external threat of a British invasion by establishing a standing military for the first time following the Seven Years' War. The regular army units and militias had a short history when in the early 19th century, the unstable situation in Spain with the Napoleonic invasion gave rise to an insurgency for independence, propelled by militarily untrained, darker complected masses fight for the independence of Mexico. The Mexican War of Independence saw royalist and insurgent armies battling to a stalemate in 1820.
context_section_description: When Juárez repudiated the debts incurred by the rival conservative Mexican government in 1861, Mexican conservatives and European powers, especially France took the opportunity to place a European monarch as head of state in Mexico. The French sent an invading army in 1862, while the U.S. was engaged in its civil war (1861–65).
  Although the French, then considered one of the most efficient armies of the world, suffered an initial defeat in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862 (now commemorated as the Cinco de Mayo holiday) they eventually defeated loyalist government forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza and enthroned Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico. Maximilian of Habsburg favored the establishment of a limited monarchy sharing powers with a democratically elected congress. This was too liberal to please the Conservatives, while the liberals refused to accept a monarch, leaving Maximilian with few enthusiastic allies within Mexico. When the Civil War ended in 1865, the United States sent military aid to Juárez's government. In 1867, the French withdrew their military support of Maximilian, who refused the opportunity to return to Europe. He was captured and executed on the Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro, by the forces loyal to President Benito Juárez.
caption: The Battle of Puebla in 1862. The battle was an inspirational event for wartime Mexico, and slowed the French advanced to Mexico City.
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