“First tragedy, second farce”, said Karl Marx when Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, was proclaimed Emperor of France in 1852. He became the second Emperor of France after his uncle, and France continued the turbulent political struggle between republican and royalist forces that had begun with the French Revolution of 1798.
Louis, clearly too influenced by his uncle’s legacy and lust for greatness, transformed himself from a champion of democracy and liberalism into an elitist monarch and assumed the title Napoleon III. In keeping with family tradition, he also preserved and encouraged some of the elements of social progress, thus securing his popularity with the people. And, in keeping with family tradition, he was not stopped by the borders of France. His uncle wanted to subjugate Europe and its neighbourhood, his nephew wanted to go all over the world.
While on French soil, in the 19th century, revolutions one after another roiled political life, the forces of change in the Austrian Empire were somewhat calmer. The Spring of Nations and the awakening national movements of 1848 had, of course, a profound effect on it, but few doubted the existence of the monarchy. The Habsburg dynasty was one of the oldest and most influential in Europe, although its importance had steadily declined for three centuries after its absolute peak under Charles V.
One of the proudest representatives of the Habsburgs in the mid-19th century was not the famous and rigid Emperor Franz Joseph, but his charismatic and lively younger brother, Ferdinand Maximilian. Despite his origins, of which he was extremely proud, he claimed throughout his life to be a liberal, not a conservative. Unlike his brother, Maximilian was also much more in step with the times and sympathetic to social change, in which he was ideologically close to Napoleon III.
Soon, very unexpectedly, they became even closer. Napoleon’s colonial ambitions were perfectly aligned with Maximilian’s desire to highlight the ancient Habsburg heritage and to prove himself. More than anything, he was burdened by his brother’s shadow. And it was with Napoleon’s help that he was saved. By a strange combination of circumstances, Maximilian became Emperor of Mexico.
The nineteenth century was not only a time of radical change on the old continent, but borders and political systems were also changing like clockwork, especially in North America. In the USA, the Civil War raised questions of social and national identity for the young nation and almost finally split it apart. The wounds it inflicted are still healing today.
To their south, however, was a vast and in many ways untapped country, Mexico. But since 1821, when it finally gained its independence from the Spanish colonial yoke, it has been torn by internal strife, with the appetite of both the old European powers and its neighbour to the north.
And it was on Mexican soil that Maximilian’s tragic story unfolded, intertwined with the conviction of a vital mission to preserve Habsburg greatness and the boundless ambitions of the obsessive Napoleon III, who used Maximilian as a tool to spread French influence across the Atlantic.
It was Napoleon III who literally placed the Mexican crown on Maximilian’s naïve head, thus sealing his fate. Only three years later, sick, emaciated and alone, the Habsburg stood miserably in front of a firing squad and fell under the fire of the Mexicans who wanted the country for themselves.
Maximilian, recorded in history as Maximilian I of Mexico, was not up to the task and the scheming Napoleon III abandoned him to save himself and the French nation from humiliation. He was also let down by his own family, including his brother, the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph.
The only one who tried to stand by him to the end was his young wife, Princess Charlotte of Mexico of Belgium. But all the hardships she endured while trying to save her husband’s fame and position completely clouded her mind and she was never able to get out of her mental distress.
The tragic and very unusual story of the Mexican Emperor and Habsburg Archduke, Maximilian I, is, on the one hand, the result of the disappointment and unfulfilled dreams of another son, and, on the other, the swan song of the attempts by the old European monarchical dynastic powers to grab territories on the other side of the Atlantic and, without the consent of the new superpower on the world stage, the United States of America.
Mexico in the crossroads
When King Charles I of Spain inherited the Habsburg possessions of central Europe, much of Italy and the Netherlands from his grandfather in 1519 and became the West Roman Emperor Charles V, he was one of the most influential men in the world. In that very same year, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, with a small army of adventurers, subdued the mighty Aztec empire on the soil of modern-day Mexico, adding to the Habsburg possessions across the oceans. This was the culmination of the Habsburg dynasty’s global influence.
A colourful, interesting and complex Central American society was emerging, a mix of millennia-old indigenous cultures and diverse colonial influences. The larger cities resembled those of Spain, both architecturally and in their way of life, while in the more remote places it followed ancient traditional patterns and the people did not speak Spanish at all.
Mexico City had a special place, having been the centre of the Spanish empire in the western hemisphere for almost three hundred years. Before there was even a Washington DC, for example, Mexico City was a bustling metropolis from where they controlled territory from Florida to the Philippines and from Panama to California.
At the beginning of the 19th century, this centre of science and the arts had a population of around 140,000, more than New York and Philadelphia combined. Mexico’s population grew exponentially, and by the mid-19th century the country already had eight million inhabitants.
Slowly, their national consciousness was awakening and the long and bloody struggle for independence began. But Mexicans were unable to agree among themselves on what their future political order should be until Agustín de Iturbide united them, at least temporarily, and led them to independence in 1821.
But the liberator soon became a dictator, as Iturbide had himself crowned emperor. His reign lasted a meagre nine months, after which there was a long period of uncertainty and struggle between the fractious internal factions.
On the one side were the liberals, who wanted to weaken the power of the Catholic Church and get rid of all colonial institutions, while at the same time flirting with the young regime that had successfully experimented with republicanism in the North. On the other side were the conservatives, who swore by the kingdom that Mexicans had been used to for centuries under the Spanish. They were convinced that Protestant Americans would sooner or later encroach on their territory.
And so it was. The Americans were becoming more and more insatiable. Texas, for example, declared itself an independent republic in 1836 and became part of the USA in 1845. In 1846, the United States declared war against Mexico, invading a foreign country for the first time in its history.
Although for a time it looked as if Mexico would be able to compete successfully with the USA for the primacy of the greatest power in North America, its army soon proved to be totally inadequate, ill-equipped and ill-trained. Mexico lost every battle.
The peace treaty it was forced to sign in 1848 was one of the most humiliating and unequal in the history of international relations. It had to give up California, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado, in return for a paltry fifteen million dollars (today it would be around five hundred) and the withdrawal of American troops.
In 1855, the liberals took power with the aim of completely transforming Mexican society. Their main target was the Catholic Church. In addition to its key social influence, it owned most of the land and the Liberals nationalised it to fill the government’s coffers. The sale of church power was even endorsed by the new constitution, and the conservatives never forgave them. So they launched a coup d’état that started a civil war by deposing a liberal President.
The Conservatives were led by the young and attractive General Miguel Miramón and the Liberals by the lawyer Benito Juárez, who set up a parallel government in the port of Veracruz. The US supported Juárez, but the conservatives turned to Europe, from where they initially received little diplomatic sympathy.
At first Juárez prevailed, but he pushed Mexico into heavy debt. The European powers, Britain, France and Spain, soon agreed on a joint military intervention against the liberal forces and, indirectly, against the USA. And with civil war already raging there, the Americans were forced to deal with themselves instead of foreign policy.
This was a unique opportunity for the Europeans to challenge the Monroe Doctrine, the cornerstone of American foreign policy since 1823, which forbade European interference in the Americas, declaring them to be a US sphere of interest.
In October 1861, this changed and Spain, Britain and France signed the Treaty of London and sent a combined military force against Juárez, mainly to stop American republicanism and to force the repayment of the debt.
Napoleon III, self-proclaimed Emperor of France
France was then ruled by Napoleon III, a man who came to the title of Emperor of France in an unlikely way. In early 1848, shortly after Mexico was forced to give up almost half of its territory in exchange for peace, a revolution broke out in Paris. King Louis Philippe resigned and a second republic was born, striking fear into the bones of the European dynastic kingdoms. The new French President was none other than the nephew of the famous Napoleon, who was responsible for the complete upheaval of the European geopolitical order.
Louis Napoleon, often the subject of ridicule, was the last member of the Napoleonic family to take his uncle’s legacy seriously and himself too seriously. He had already unsuccessfully launched a coup d’état in 1836, but was caught by the French government and sent into exile on condition that he did not return to French soil.
He saw his chance again during the Revolution of 1848, after the abolition of the monarchy, when, to general surprise, he became a presidential candidate. He won the election by a landslide, as the name of Napoleon continued to evoke national pride in the popular memory. He was a vocal supporter of liberalism and democracy, but three years later, this strange phenomenon with his carefully groomed goatee and white tie had already proclaimed himself President for a ten-year term.
A year later (1852), he was self-proclaimed Emperor, the second Bonaparte in French history and the second Emperor ever. Even more unusually, he was endorsed by the citizens themselves, who had been asked for their support in a plebiscite. He had an unusual sense of the people. More than 90% of those questioned expressed their support for the Empire, even though only a few years earlier revolutionary fervour had been greater in France than anywhere else in Europe.
But the people wanted stability and, as the then-renamed Napoleon III found out, they were not against conservatism, especially when it took on some elements of liberalism. He thus introduced a number of progressive social reforms, such as universal suffrage for men. The economy also boomed during the peace and, after a successful decade of rule, he increasingly turned his attention to foreign policy. His narcissistic impulses led him not only to seek his own glory, but also that of France.
Under Napoleon III, the imposed French isolation that followed the Napoleonic Wars was over, and the country successfully allied itself with Great Britain, defeating Russia in the Crimean Wars (1853-1856), Franz Joseph in Italy in 1859, and the long and brutal conquest of Algeria in 1859.
But Europe and North Africa were too small and too close, and his voracious tentacles reached into the Indochinese peninsula, where France seized Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Then, together with Britain, he won the Second Opium War and set about building the Suez Canal. France was becoming a major global power, with little influence on the other side of the Atlantic.
He already had many admirers in Mexico, especially among conservatives, who watched enthusiastically as he saved France and Europe from the radical left. They felt that Mexico should follow his example of a strong authoritarian government, but they were also drawn to him because of their growing fear of the USA, which had been all but stopped by its victory in 1848.
The US was also in an admirable upswing, as shown by its population growth, not least as a result of territorial expansion. In 1763, there were two million Americans; a century later, there were 32 million.
With Napoleon’s help, the spread of republican and Protestant ideas could have been halted and the monarchy restored. It was clear that the Mexicans would not be able to resist the US on their own. And when the civil war began in the USA, temporarily weakening it and forcing it to look after itself, the opportunity was at hand. Napoleon had pledged his support to the Mexican conservatives and was already dreaming of the fabulous profits that would flow into his national coffers.
Thus was born the idea of a monarchy in Mexico, backed militarily and financially by France. The next question was where to find the most suitable candidate for its throne.
Ferdinand Maximilian
Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria was the younger brother of Franz Joseph, the longest-serving Habsburg Emperor, who came to the throne when the revolutions of 1848 swept his uncle, Emperor Ferdinand, from it.
The two brothers could not have been more different – Franz Joseph was a reactionary who crushed revolutionary movements in the Habsburg lands with an iron hand, strengthened the secret police, curtailed the freedom of the media and executed and buried thousands of rebels. Maximilian, always a supporter of progress, liberal ideas and an admirer of constitutional monarchies such as the British, was appalled by his brother’s actions.
But in their childhood, the brothers were very attached to each other. Born and brought up in the imperial grandeur of Vienna, they received the same education and discipline, although the elder was much more interested in the military and affairs of state, the younger in art, science and culture. But both spent their days in magnificent palaces, reminiscent in every detail of the former Habsburg grandeur.
Maximilian, in particular, was enchanted by the huge portraits of famous ancestors that adorned the sumptuous rooms, next to which the Habsburg motto AEIOU, which according to one interpretation is German for Alles Erdreich ist Österreich untertan or Latin for Austriae est imperare orbi universo (the whole world is subordinate to Austria), was inscribed on a large scale.
In Maximilian’s time, Austria had indeed long ceased to struggle for the global supremacy it had achieved in the 16th century, before the Habsburg Spanish line died out. But it was still one of the oldest and most enduring ruling families in Europe, and Maximilian was immensely proud of the legacy of his ancestors. From an early age he had wanted to stand alongside them, but then the unfortunate fate of his second son eluded him and he lost the throne by a paltry two years.
From a young age, he showed rather unusual interests, with a love of the exotic and nature, especially tropical plants and animals, a love of literature, history and art, and a mastery of many foreign languages. He dreamed of adventure and exploring the world.
He was no stranger to military parades and the rigidity of the court, but on the other hand, he loved court etiquette almost obsessively. He never cared to follow every step of the myriad court procedures meticulously, as he felt this added to the dignity of his position and the importance of the Habsburg identity he held so dear.
Tall, handsome, fair-haired and blue-eyed, he charmed his entourage with an attractive, charismatic and approachable personality. He had a friendly outlook and made all people feel at ease and accepted in his company. At the same time, he had a very turbulent inner world, prone to overthinking and, later in life, to frequent depression and melancholy. It was not uncommon for him to break down into tears at difficult or emotional moments.
But Maximilian, despite his gentle and emotional nature, was a determined man with good leadership skills. Because he loved ships, he was encouraged to join the Austrian Navy, where he quickly proved his worth and in a short time went from a midshipman at the tender age of twenty-two to Commander-in-Chief of the Navy. This allowed him to combine his love of travel and discovering new horizons with his professional duties.
He soon set about modernising the Austrian Navy, introducing a number of reforms that have led to his being credited as the founder of the modern Austrian Navy. Under his watchful eye, the first Austrian frigate, the Novara, sailed around the world.
He chose Trieste as his headquarters, which also suited his brother Franz Joseph, who was often jealous of his charming and lively brother, who was very popular in Viennese society, despite their fraternal attachment and affection. Above all, there was a constant silent rivalry between them – Franz Joseph did sit on the throne, but until he had an heir to the throne, Maximilian was next in line, and he could never hide his desire for the throne. That is why his elder brother wanted to see him as far away from the court as possible.
In addition, they were increasingly divided over the future of the empire, its subjects and the way it was to be ruled. Maximilian opposed his brother’s reactionary rule because, in a period of broader social change, Franz Joseph was denying rather than granting rights to the people. For him, the Empire should be dynamic and progressive, ready to embrace and adapt to the challenges of the times.
But Maximilian’s duty was to serve the Empire as his brother had imagined and shaped it. His fate also depended to a large extent on the Emperor, who ordered his official duties. Among other things, he regularly sent him on diplomatic missions, where his charming personality enabled him to successfully represent and represent the Austrian Empire.
However, a man he met on one of these missions in 1856 changed his life completely. The dream he had helped him to turn into a reality turned into a nightmare. This was Napoleon III, Emperor of France.
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Maximilian and Charlotte
Maximilian had already resigned himself to the fate of his second son and tried to devote himself to projects to pass the time and take his mind off his unfulfilled mission in life. So he built his dream home near Trieste, the fairytale castle of Miramar, with its breathtaking view of the heavenly blue Adriatic Sea, which still adorns the Adriatic coast today.
He transformed part of this rocky coastline into a paradise and, as he was also a keen botanist, he built a beautiful park next to the castle, planting tall trees and many rare exotic plants. When planning the castle, he looked for inspiration in his many travels and in books about faraway lands. The castle’s library was full of historical and anthropological books and pictures of the fauna and flora of South America.
Most telling, however, was the place he had set aside in the castle for the worship of his ancestors. Every wall was filled with their huge portraits and Habsburg grandeur radiated from every corner of the magnificent Gothic-Renaissance mansion.
The fairy tale he had created for himself had pushed him to the precipice of bankruptcy, and he needed a new diversion. This came quickly in the form of Princess Charlotte of Belgium, who confounded many a crowned head besides Maximilian’s. Charlotte was the beloved daughter of King Leopold I of Belgium, very young, very clever and very ambitious. She was also one of Europe’s most beautiful princesses.
The handsome Maximilian immediately fell in love with the slender beauty with her pale face, dark hair and deep eyes. They also shared a passion for history, literature and the arts, as she was highly educated and a gifted linguist. She listened with great interest for hours to Maximilian’s tales of his exotic travels and soon realised that the Archduke could offer her an escape from the stuffiness of the European courts to a life of adventure and discovery.
They married in July 1857, when Charlotte was 17 and Maximilian was 25. As befitted royal weddings, the celebrations were lavish and extravagant, and the young couple quickly settled into a comfortable married life on a large estate not far from Milan (they moved to Miramar as soon as it was finished).
But Charlotte quickly tired of the lackeys, the waiters, the ladies of the court, the daily guests, the visits and social engagements, and the monotonous life of luxury in general.
While she was bored, Maximilian was given a new assignment by his brother: he was appointed governor of one of the richest provinces in the Empire, Lombardy-Venezia. But this was no gift, for this region was a hotbed of revolutionary activity and nationalist revolt against the Habsburg rulers. They brutally crushed the rebellion that wanted to secede.
Maximilian regained the goodwill of the local people and nobility by introducing progressive economic and social measures, for example against unemployment and for freer expression, by supporting education and science, by setting up museums and so on.
Franz Joseph found his brother’s administration of the province too lenient and demanded that he expand the secret police, close down dissidents and universities, and generally suppress any revolutionary spark. In the end, he sacked him and installed a military governor. This did not help, however, as the French came to the aid of the Italians with an army of 200,000 men, and together they defeated the hitherto highly-regarded Austrian army. Austria lost Lombardy.
Maximilian fled Europe in frustration and took a long cruise with his wife. While he explored Brazil, Charlotte enjoyed Madeira. He was so overwhelmed by the journey that it was even harder for him to return to Europe. Charlotte and the fairytale castle of Miramar were his consolation.
Still convinced that he was destined for greater things in life, he fell more and more frequently into periods of depression, which at times left him so exhausted that he was in a state of mental paralysis for days at a time. It was particularly difficult when Charlotte was not with him.
Then, in 1862, the life of a young noble couple turned upside down.
An irresistible offer
After years of internal strife, civil war (1857-1860) and various interferences by foreign powers, Mexico was still boiling. Mexican conservatives were on the fast track to find a suitable candidate for the throne to replace the liberal President who had not yet been deposed – in fact, the search for crowned heads among established noble dynasties was a common practice when there were no suitable local candidates.
Napoleon III also did his sums. While the USA was caught in a civil war, he wanted to seize the opportunity to ensure a permanent French presence in Mexico. It was therefore imperative that he had a say in finding a suitable monarch who would dance as he would play.
Although Napoleon had several candidates in mind, Maximilian proved to be the most suitable, if not the most excellent. Not only did he come from one of the most prestigious royal families, he was available and willing. Of course, the ruler Franz Joseph also had to agree to the deal, but for him it was no loss, quite the contrary. He was too often compared to his more sympathetic younger brother to be seen as a beloved brother.
If Maximilian was delighted by the offer, Charlotte was downright elated. The decision was, of course, taken together, although evil tongues always suggested that she was the one who actually wore the trousers in the couple and made all the important decisions throughout their life together.
But Maximilian still had some misgivings, fearing that the USA would attack his new imperialist acquisition. He was also worried that he would be unpopular with his new subjects, since he had just enough information about the constant struggle for supremacy between liberals and conservatives.
He therefore demanded two things: firstly, that France and Britain sign a military pact obliging them both to defend the new kingdom and, secondly, that the Mexicans vote for him in the elections.
The wily Napoleon, determined to succeed, first persuaded Maximilian to do the first – though it was not true, as the British were sceptical of the whole enterprise. As for popular support, he convinced the naive Habsburg that there was undoubtedly some, but that it was too soon to be formally confirmed by a plebiscite.
Moreover, Maximilian had already become Emperor in his own mind and was no longer prepared to renege on an offer which he felt he had been unknowingly waiting for all his life. He even refused a new and perhaps more attractive offer, namely the Greek throne, which would have allowed him to stay closer to home.
He only had some doubts when some members of his family began to warn him against taking too many risks, and especially when he had to renounce all his rights to the Austrian throne at Franz Joseph’s insistence. The brothers argued until Maximilian broke down in tears.
In parallel with the negotiations with Maximilian, Napoleon III also negotiated with the Mexicans, offering Miramón a huge sum of money if the former President, together with French troops, would help overthrow Juárez and install Maximilian.
Progress was slow, as the French initially sent too few troops, and the Liberals won some important victories. One of these, for example, was in May 1862 at the Battle of Puebla, which Mexicans still commemorate every year on 5 May as a glorious victory over the Second French Empire.
But Napoleon was not deterred by this either, and simply sent more troops across the Atlantic. And so he managed to temporarily defeat and drive out the liberals, with Juárez at their head, and the French marched victoriously into the capital as liberators, to the loud accompaniment of cathedral bells and French trumpets, and the fluttering of the French and Mexican flags.
As many as 150,000 people turned out to greet the new rulers, many with portraits of Maximilian and Charlotte shouting “Long live the Emperor!”. and “Long live the Empress!”. Yet the young rulers were still across the Atlantic.
In anticipation of their arrival, the French organised a real political theatre – giving the most important posts to conservatives and choosing 215 men to represent the whole people fairly. But all these processes were staged, as was the proclamation by the Mexican Assembly on 11 July 1863 that Mexico would become an empire.
Meanwhile, Juárez withdrew only temporarily, reassembling his forces around him and directing a guerrilla campaign against the French, who controlled only a few strategic points. From the very beginning, and before the new emperor had even set foot on its soil, the empire stood on very shaky ground.
The Emperor of Mexico
Two years after the idea of a Mexican monarchy with Maximilian at its head first appeared, the official Mexican delegation formally offered him the crown and flatteringly asked him to save them from the abyss towards which their country was sliding. Although the French controlled only half of the territory and neither of Maximilian’s two conditions were met, it was Charlotte who forbade any further hesitation. This was despite the fact that Maximilian was not even willing to stand by his own brother, who refused to help him, saying that the whole affair had become too risky.
Maximilian and Charlotte’s preparations for their departure were at odds with reality – they had first sent cooks, musicians and architects across the ocean to ensure that everything was in place for their grand arrival.
At the same time, debts were piling up before they boarded the ship themselves. Napoleon had cleverly persuaded the new Emperor to take on the responsibility of paying all the debts of the French military intervention from January 1862 onwards. He was therefore forced to take out a hefty loan.
He suffered a nervous breakdown when he signed the memorandum renouncing his Habsburg inheritance. All the pressure of the last months was too much for him and while he was recovering, Charlotte was signing documents and arranging the last details of the trip. She even wrote a letter of thanks to Napoleon herself, which her husband wearily signed.
When they did set sail on board the famous Novara, the people of Trieste and the surrounding area greeted them enthusiastically and wished them well. Maximilian was unable to control his emotions and wept as if he knew that he was saying goodbye to his beloved court and Habsburg land forever.
During the 40-day journey, instead of dealing with the current and pressing affairs of government, he preferred to dwell on the details of court ethics, based on centuries of Habsburg tradition. The result was a book that described in detail the protocol for every court occasion, event and procedure. For example, it specified exactly when and to whom Maximilian would pass his hat and Charlotte her handkerchief during various occasions.
On the twenty-eighth of May 1864, they finally saw their new empire for the first time. But the port of Veracruz was deserted because of the deadly yellow fever. So the numerous caravan quickly set off for the capital, witnessing on the way scenes of poverty and a way of life that the Habsburg dignitaries could not have imagined.
But in Mexico City, no one could conceal their delight at its sumptuous beauty. It may have been ravaged by wars and revolutions, but it still exuded three centuries of colonial history with its wide avenues, countless churches, opera houses, theatres, shops selling goods from all over the world and magnificent government buildings. Few European cities could match it. Maximilian and Charlotte finally got what they deserved.
In line with his liberal convictions, Maximilian immediately set about introducing a number of reforms and establishing a modern and popular monarchy that would combine democratic ideas with tradition. He passed some of the most progressive laws in the world, including, for example, the abolition of corporal punishment, the regulation of child labour, the introduction of lunch breaks, days off work, access to water and housing for workers, and so on. He also dreamt of telegraph lines and railways connecting the whole country.
But the most important thing he did not address was the organisation of state finances, and most of his progressive laws were not implemented at all, because there were no mechanisms to monitor this. He was clearly more interested in trying out Mexican culinary specialities than in organising the army, finance and government in general.
Living under an illusion
He was supported in the major cities, but he did not realise that this support was far from universal. In some places, only Juárez was still recognised as the only legitimate President. It is true that Maximilian had surrounded himself with some influential liberals and had accepted a series of reforms already put forward by Juárez, but this was not enough.
At the same time, he thought too much of himself and his own well-being. He and Charlotte had built fabulously expensive palaces and residences for themselves, with architects and gardeners who had come from Europe especially for this purpose.
They both lived under an illusion, seeing only what they wanted to see. The richer women really adored Charlotte and tried to imitate her in everything, and her grand balls and receptions were the most popular events far and wide. Maximilian, on the other hand, attended fewer and fewer of these social occasions and the couple spent less and less time together.
Rumours spread that they could not have children because he had contracted syphilis in brothels. He was very fond of more than just looking after beautiful women. But there was still a succession to think about, and to everyone’s astonishment they adopted the grandson of the first Emperor of Mexico, Agustín de Iturbide.
Napoleon was rapidly losing faith and confidence in Maximilian as numerous critical reports of his ineffective rule reached him. At the same time, the civil war in the USA was ending and the Americans were again willing to help the liberals in their southern neighbour. Huge sums of money and arms began to flow in.
For Napoleon, this was a sign that the Mexican adventure was coming to an end. The treasury was empty, internal strife was flaring up again, Maximilian was an incompetent ruler and the US was once again encroaching on Mexican territory. In addition, Napoleon no longer had the support of Parliament at home for additional loans.
He therefore wrote to Maximilian in January 1866, proposing his resignation, as he himself was being forced to withdraw French troops for lack of money. If Maximilian wanted to remain on the throne, he would therefore have to rely solely on his own resources. Of course, he had none.
Even Franz Joseph, who had originally intended to send reinforcements to his brother, changed his mind when the Americans threatened him.
Maximilian resigned. But his wife did not. She forbade him to abdicate outright, and she herself resolutely went straight to Europe to try to persuade Emperor Napoleon to change his mind. She even tried to intervene with the Pope. She failed.
She strained so hard that in the end she herself succumbed to severe mental stress and suffered a nervous breakdown. At the same time, she became extremely paranoid and convinced that Napoleon was trying to poison her. She therefore stopped eating. Her irrational behaviour reached its peak when, frantic with hunger, she put her hand into a hot pot and burnt herself badly. Then her younger brother came looking for her from Belgium and escorted her to Miramar to rest.
When Maximilian learned of his wife’s fate, he was utterly depressed. But instead of abdicating then, he firmly clung to the Mexican crown again, fearful of a return and at the urging of the Mexican conservatives. If he had returned to Europe, he would have become an ordinary citizen and even faced the threat of being banned from Habsburg soil.
So he stayed. And that was a fatal mistake. The Liberals, who were regaining power in the country, arrested him, and, despite international pressure, had him shot and executed.
Charlotte never came to terms with her husband’s death and spent the rest of her life as a mental patient. Thus, two young, naïve, deluded and self-deluded people met a tragic end, largely of their own making.
