Alright, alright … So maybe it wasn’t the tequila. But Cinco de Mayo?

Mexico, 1862: For over a year, the civil war had been raging north of the border. The northern states, despite having a bigger population and industrial base, were losing. They did not look politically stable. Many northern cities relied on cotton and were against the war. The North embarrassingly lost battle after battle. It hated drafts for troops and a hurting wartime economy. The European powers (France, UK, Spain, etc.) were all officially neutral but clearly leaning toward the South for self interest reasons. “Cotton is king” was the expression of the day. Cotton was the oil of it’s era. The South was a slave system awash in cotton.

France was ruled by emperor Napoleon III. He wanted to make Mexico a vassal state to expand French power into what he called “Latin America.” Napoleon III made up that term to market French rule as palatable to the Spanish speaking peoples of South America. The North and South fighting each other meant the Monroe Doctrine was just words at the time. Napoleon III sent an army to seize Mexico so he could put a puppet French king on the “Throne of Mexico”. Mexico had been a constitutional republic, based on the United States of America, for 38 years at that point. The French army set out to invade Mexico, but the Confederacy was a potential spoiler. If the South intervened to help Mexico, Napoleon III’s grand scheme would be dashed. And of course there was cotton to consider …

Thus emperor Napoleon III was in secret negotiations with the Confederate States. Ideologically, they were very close so it might work like Hitler and Stalin cooperated in the beginning. The deal was simple: If the South supports the French invasion and the annexation of Mexico, then France will declare war on the North and join the war on the Confederate’s side. This would include much needed manufactured weapons the South could not make for them selves (guns, cannon, ammo, etc.). The powerful French navy was second only to the UK. And of course there was cotton to consider…

The Confederates took a wait-and-see position with France, just as France took a wait-and-see position with the Patriots during the Revolutionary War. And for good reason. Thus the first order of business for France was to demonstrate it was a viable partner in crime. To seize Mexico.

The battle near Puebla, Mexico on May 5, 1862 stopped the French cold. The Mexicans, outnumbered 2:1, halted the French adventures in Mexico for just one year. The French came back with an army three times the size and won (The Second Battle of Puebla in 1863). They did take Mexico and did install a “Emperor of Mexico” but much changed since the first Battle of Puebla the year before. Those 12 months bought time for the Northern States to set up a win against the Confederacy. By 1863, the French and Confederates were no longer willing to be joined at the hip. Mexico’s “French throne” only lasted three years. Note: The UK also refused to join with the French on this anti-Northern adventure for self-interest reasons.

The Confederacy did not get desperately needed help from the French as was secretly offered the year before. The Zimmermann telegram would be 56 years later.

What if the 4,000 Mexicans, poorly led with crappy guns and almost no training, did not stop the French? What if the Confederacy got a mass supply of weapons from Napoleon III? What if the French navy blockaded New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia as they did to the UK’s navy during the Revolutionary War? In all likelihood, the nation we now know would not exist. The South came close more than once to taking Washington D.C. during the Civil War all on their own.

Under Napoleon I, France was moving to re-establishing slavery in it’s overseas possessions (Haiti, etc.). Slavery was abolished in Mexico in 1837. Although slavery was technically illegal when Napoleon III was in power, a horrific slave-like world did remain in French speaking overseas places just as Jim Crow existed in the South after Emancipation. Would France have reestablished slavery-by-another-name (with the Confederacy’s blessing and possible help) if the French take over of Mexico succeeded? All speculation at this point. The only thing certain is the Confederacy did not get the much-needed logistical and military aid from France or the UK due to the outcome at Puebla, 1862.

What a difference a year makes.

Just a thought … and … Don’t eat the worm ya crazy bastard!

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Ira Weinberg is a resident of Saranac Lake.