Monarchism in Mexico in the context of "First Mexican Empire"

The second French intervention in Mexico (Spanish: segunda intervención francesa en México), also known as the Second Franco-Mexican War (1861–1867), 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. However, there was still significant support for republicanism in Mexico. Mexican society was most resistant to European models of governance, including monarchies, during and after the French intervention. 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 Second Mexican Empire (Spanish: Segundo Imperio mexicano; French: Second Empire mexicain), officially known as the Mexican Empire (Spanish: Imperio Mexicano), was a constitutional monarchy established in Mexico by Mexican monarchists with the support of the Second French Empire. This period is often referred to as the Second French intervention in Mexico. French Emperor Napoleon III, with backing from Mexican conservatives, the clergy, and nobility, aimed to establish a monarchist ally in the Americas as a counterbalance to the growing power of the United States.

The throne of Mexico was offered by Mexican monarchists, who had lost a civil war against Mexican liberals, to Austrian Archduke Maximilian of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, who had ancestral ties to the rulers of colonial Mexico. Maximilian's ascension was ratified through a controversial referendum. His wife, Belgian princess Charlotte of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, became the empress consort of Mexico, known locally as "Carlota."

Maximilian I (Spanish: Fernando Maximiliano José María de Habsburgo-Lorena; German: Ferdinand Maximilian Josef Maria von Habsburg-Lothringen; 6 July 1832 – 19 June 1867) was an Austrian archduke who became emperor of the Second Mexican Empire from 10 April 1864 until his execution by the Mexican Republic on 19 June 1867.

A member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, Maximilian was the younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. Before becoming Emperor of Mexico, he was commander-in-chief of the small Imperial Austrian Navy and briefly the Austrian viceroy of Lombardy–Venetia, but was removed by the emperor. Two years before his dismissal, he briefly met with French emperor Napoleon III in Paris, where he was approached by conservative Mexican monarchists seeking a European royal to rule Mexico. Initially Maximilian was not interested, but following his dismissal as viceroy, the Mexican monarchists' plan was far more appealing to him.