Second French intervention in Mexico in the context of "Second Mexican Empire"

Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundaries with the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Caribbean Sea to the southeast, and the Gulf of Mexico to the east. Mexico covers 1,972,550 km (761,610 sq mi), and is the thirteenth-largest country in the world by land area. With a population exceeding 130 million, Mexico is the tenth-most populous country in the world and is home to the largest number of native Spanish speakers. Mexico City is the capital and largest city, which ranks among the most populous metropolitan areas in the world.

Human presence in Mexico dates back to at least 8,000 BC. Mesoamerica, considered a cradle of civilization, was home to numerous advanced societies, including the Olmecs, Maya, Zapotecs, Teotihuacan civilization, and Purépecha. Spanish colonization began in 1521 with an alliance that defeated the Aztec Empire, establishing the colony of New Spain with its capital at Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City. New Spain became a major center of the transoceanic economy during the Age of Discovery, fueled by silver mining and its position as a hub between Europe and Asia. This gave rise to one of the largest multiracial populations in the world. The Peninsular War led to the 1810–1821 Mexican War of Independence, which ended Peninsular rule and led to the creation of the First Mexican Empire, which quickly collapsed into the short-lived First Mexican Republic. In 1848, Mexico lost nearly half its territory to the American invasion. Liberal reforms set in the Constitution of 1857 led to civil war and French intervention, culminating in the establishment of the Second Mexican Empire under Emperor Maximilian I of Austria, who was overthrown by Republican forces led by Benito Juárez. The late 19th century saw the long dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, whose modernization policies came at the cost of severe social unrest. The 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution led to the overthrow of Díaz and the adoption of the 1917 Constitution. Mexico experienced rapid industrialization and economic growth in the 1940s–1970s, amidst electoral fraud, the Tlatelolco massacre, and economic crises. The late 20th century saw a shift towards neoliberalism, marked by the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, amidst unrest in Chiapas.

The Political Constitution of the Mexican Republic of 1857 (Spanish: Constitución Política de la República Mexicana de 1857), often called simply the Constitution of 1857, was the liberal constitution promulgated in 1857 by Constituent Congress of Mexico during the presidency of Ignacio Comonfort. Ratified on February 5, 1857, the constitution established individual rights, including universal male suffrage, and others such as freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and the right to bear arms. It also reaffirmed the abolition of slavery, debtors' prisons, and all forms of cruel and unusual punishment such as the death penalty. The constitution was designed to guarantee a limited central government by federalism and created a strong national congress, an independent judiciary, and a small executive to prevent a dictatorship. Liberal ideals meant the constitution emphasized private property of individuals and sought to abolish common ownership by corporate entities, mainly the Catholic Church and indigenous communities, incorporating the legal thrust of the Lerdo Law into the constitution.

A number of articles were contrary to the traditional powers of the Catholic Church, such as the ending of Catholicism as official religion, the nationwide establishment of secular public education, the removal of institutional fueros (legal privileges), and the forced sale of Church property. Conservatives strongly opposed the enactment of the constitution, which polarized Mexican society. The Reform War (1858-1860) began as a result, with liberals winning on the battlefield over conservatives. The losing conservatives sought another way back into power, and their politicians invited Maximilian I of Mexico, a Habsburg, to establish a Mexican monarchy with the Church's support. The republican government-in-domestic-exile was headed by President Benito Juárez as the legitimate Mexican government under the constitution. With the ouster of the French and the defeat of the conservatives in 1867, the Restored Republic was again governed under the 1857 Constitution. The constitution was durable but its provisions not always followed in practice. It was revised in 1874 to create a Senate. It remained as Mexico's constitution until 1917 although many of its provisions ceased to be enforced.

Benito Pablo Juárez García (Spanish: [beˈnito ˈpaβlo ˈxwaɾes ɣaɾˈsi.a] ; 21 March 1806 – 18 July 1872) was a Mexican politician, military officer, and lawyer who served as the 26th president of Mexico from 1858 until his death in 1872. A Zapotec, he was the first Indigenous president of Mexico and the first democratically elected Indigenous president in postcolonial Latin America. A member of the Liberal Party, he previously held a number of offices, including the governorship of Oaxaca and the presidency of the Supreme Court. During his presidency, he led the Liberals to victory in the Reform War and in the Second French intervention in Mexico.

Born in Oaxaca to a poor rural Indigenous family and orphaned as a child, Juárez passed into the care of his uncle, eventually moving to Oaxaca City at the age of 12, where he found work as a domestic servant. Sponsored by his employer, who was also a lay Franciscan, Juárez temporarily enrolled in a seminary and studied to become a priest, but later switched his studies to law at the Institute of Sciences and Arts, where he became active in liberal politics. He began to practice law and was eventually appointed as a judge, after which he married Margarita Maza, a woman from a socially distinguished family in Oaxaca City.

The history of Mexico spans over three millennia, with the earliest evidence of hunter-gatherer settlement 13,000 years ago. Central and southern Mexico, known as Mesoamerica, saw the rise of complex civilizations that developed glyphic writing systems to record political histories and conquests. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the early 16th century established New Spain, bringing Spanish rule, Christianity, and European influences.

Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, after a prolonged struggle marked by the Mexican War of Independence. The country faced numerous challenges in the 19th century, including regional conflicts, caudillo power struggles, the Mexican–American War, and foreign interventions like the French invasion. Efforts at modernization during La Reforma included promoting civil liberties and the separation of church and state, but the country was still beset by internal strife and external threats, including the Second Mexican Empire.

Juan Nepomuceno Álvarez Hurtado de Luna, generally known as Juan Álvarez, (27 January 1790 – 21 August 1867) was a general, long-time caudillo (regional leader) in southern Mexico, and president of Mexico for two months in 1855, following the liberals' ouster of Antonio López de Santa Anna. His presidency inaugurated the pivotal era of La Reforma.

Álvarez had risen to power in the Tierra Caliente, in southern Mexico with the support of indigenous peasants whose lands he protected. He fought along with heroes of the insurgency, José María Morelos and Vicente Guerrero in the War of Independence and went on to fight in all the major wars of his day, from the "Pastry War", to the Mexican–American War, and the War of the Reform to the war against the Second French Intervention. A liberal reformer, a republican and a federalist, he was the leader of a revolution in support of the Plan de Ayutla in 1854, which led to the deposition of Santa Anna from power and the beginning of the political era in Mexico's history known as the Liberal Reform. According to historian Peter Guardino: "Álvarez was most important as a champion of the incorporation of Mexico's peasant masses into the polity of [Mexico] ... advocating universal male suffrage and municipal autonomy."

The military history of Mexico encompasses armed conflicts within 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'état by disgruntled military leaders. Mexico's colonial-era military was not established until the eighteenth century. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the early sixteenth century, the Spanish crown did not establish on a standing military, but the crown responded to the external threat of a British invasion by creating a standing military for the first time following the Seven Years' War (1756–63). 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 men fighting for the independence of Mexico. The Mexican War of Independence (1810–21) saw royalist and insurgent armies battling to a stalemate in 1820. That stalemate ended with the royalist military officer turned insurgent, Agustín de Iturbide persuading the guerrilla leader of the insurgency, Vicente Guerrero, to join in a unified movement for independence, forming the Army of the Three Guarantees. The royalist military had to decide whether to support newly independent Mexico. With the collapse of the Spanish state and the establishment of first a monarchy under Iturbide and then a republic, the state was a weak institution. The Roman Catholic Church and the military weathered independence better. Military men dominated Mexico's nineteenth-century history, most particularly General Antonio López de Santa Anna, under whom the Mexican military were defeated by Texas insurgents for independence in 1836 and then the U.S. invasion of Mexico (1846–48). With the overthrow of Santa Anna in 1855 and the installation of a government of political liberals, Mexico briefly had civilian heads of state. The Liberal Reforms that were instituted by Benito Juárez sought to curtail the power of the military and the church and wrote a new constitution in 1857 enshrining these principles. Conservatives comprised large landowners, the Catholic Church, and most of the regular army revolted against the Liberals, fighting a civil war. The Conservative military lost on the battlefield. But Conservatives sought another solution, supporting the French intervention in Mexico (1862–65). The Mexican army loyal to the liberal republic were unable to stop the French army's invasion, briefly halting it with a victory at Puebla on 5 May 1862. Mexican Conservatives supported the installation of Maximilian Hapsburg as Emperor of Mexico, propped up by the French and Mexican armies. With the military aid of the U.S. flowing to the republican government in exile of Juárez, the French withdrew its military supporting the monarchy and Maximilian was caught and executed. The Mexican army that emerged in the wake of the French Intervention was young and battle tested, not part of the military tradition dating to the colonial and early independence eras.

Liberal General Porfirio Díaz was part of the new Mexican military, a hero of the Mexican victory over the French on Cinco de Mayo 1862. He revolted against the civilian liberal government in 1876, and remained continuously in the presidency from 1880 to 1911. Over the course of his presidency, Díaz began professionalizing the army that had emerged. By the time he turned 80 years old in 1910, the Mexican military was an aging, largely ineffective fighting force. When revolts broke out in 1910–11 against his regime, a rebel forces scored decisive victories over the Federal Army in the opening chapter of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). Díaz resigned in May 1911, but Francisco I. Madero, on whose political behalf rebels rose against Díaz, demobilized the rebel forces and kept the Federal Army in place. "This single decision cost [Madero] the presidency and his life." Army General Victoriano Huerta seized the presidency of Madero in 1913, with Madero murdered in the coup d'état. Civil war broke out in the wake of the coup. Huerta's Federal Army racked up one defeat after another by the revolutionary armies, with Huerta resigning in 1914. The Federal Army ceased to exist. A new generation of fighting men, most of whom with no formal military training but were natural soldiers, now fought against each other in a civil war of the winners. The Constitutionalist Army under the civilian leadership of Venustiano Carranza and the military leadership of General Álvaro Obregón were the victors in 1915. The revolutionary military men were to continue to dominate Mexico's postrevolutionary period, but the military men who became presidents of Mexico brought the military under civilian control, systematically reining in the power of the military and professionalizing the force. The Mexican military has been under civilian government control with no President of Mexico being military generals since 1946. The fact of Mexico's civilian control of the military is in contrast the situation in many other countries in Latin America.

The Federal Army (Spanish: Ejército Federal), also known as the Federales (English: Federals) in popular culture, was the army of Mexico from 1876 to 1914 during the Porfiriato, the rule of President Porfirio Díaz, and during the presidencies of Francisco I. Madero and Victoriano Huerta. Under President Díaz, a military hero against the French Intervention in Mexico, the senior officers of the Federal Army had served in long-ago conflicts; at the time of the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution, most were old men, incapable of leading troops on the battlefield. When the rebellions broke out against Díaz following fraudulent elections in 1910, the Federal Army was incapable of responding.

Although revolutionary fighters helped bring Francisco I. Madero to power, Madero retained the Federal Army rather than the revolutionaries. Madero used the Federal Army to suppress rebellions against his government by Pascual Orozco and Emiliano Zapata. Madero placed General Victoriano Huerta as interim commander of the military during the Ten Tragic Days of February 1913 to defend his government. Huerta changed sides and ousted Madero's government. Rebellions broke out against Huerta's regime. When revolutionary armies succeeded in ousting Huerta in July 1914, the Federal Army ceased to exist as an entity, with the signing of the Teoloyucan Treaties.