Cinco de Mayo Celebration Background Explained

To Mexicans everywhere Cinco de Mayo is a date that will live in glory.  On that day, in 1862, 139 years ago, a small Mexican army protecting the city of Puebla against a superior French army, actually turned a looming defeat into a glorious victory.

The French army, experienced and well equipped, was not able to take the city against the inspired and determined fierce resistance of the Mexican soldiers, and soon fled into the mountains with units of the Mexican Army in pursuit. Puebla was saved!

Military lore contains many examples of brave individual soldiers or small groups who fought against great odds putting their own lives in jeopardy to beat back superior forces.  This is what happened at Puebla.

Strategy, tactics, equipment, weather, all should mesh to execute a well-planned campaign, but it is still the trained, highly patriotic and devoted soldier who makes the high command’s  plans come true.

The fact that an invading army from France was scheduled to conquer Puebla on its way to capture Mexico City gave the Puebla defenders an advantage which the French Army apparently had overlooked.  It was the home field advantage which fired up the defenders to fever pitch, an emotional condition which resulted in deeds of heroism which could not be denied.

Multiply this feeling by thousands of individual soldiers and you may have a defense perimeter that can’t be broken.  The defensive posture became an aggressive force, so determined, that the French Army gave up.

Porfirio Diaz was one of Puebla’s generals who later became President of Mexico and ruled for about 30 years until l910.  Benito Juarez was the President at the time of this European invasion by French, British and Spanish forces.

What was the French Army doing in Mexico in the first place?

It is a story of unaccommodating high finance, international politics, and the usual intrigues with Mexico as the main victim.

In existence for only 25 years at that time, the Republic of Mexico was a newcomer to the arena of international politics, which was occupied by nations experienced in the nuances of high level intrigue.

In order to advance the building of a modern infrastructure in Mexico for the benefit of its people, Juarez arranged for millions of dollars in loans from England, France, and Spain.  When Mexico fell on hard economic times, Juarez decreed a moratorium on loan payments to these countries.

U.S.- style moratoriums or forgiveness of debts was not in the lexicon of international monetary assistance in those days.  Since Mexico could not pay, the procedure would be to seize her assets, so the three loaner nations sent their armies to collect.  They landed in Veracruz.

England and Spain, suspecting more than only debt collection on the part of France, pulled out.

French armies then marched on toward Mexico City.  Sixty five miles southeast of the capital lay the fortified town of Puebla, which might pose a threat to the capture of Mexico City. Puebla would have to be neutralized first.  But it was not to be.

Although outnumbered by a better equipped army, the Mexican defenders put up such an offensive defense that on the 5^th of May, known as Cinco de Mayo, the French Army gave up and fled Puebla.

Other unexpected historical events took place subsequently, such as the escape of Juarez from Mexico City and the installation of Maximilian as the Emperor of Mexico.

Embroiled in its Civil War, the United States could not at that time come to the aid of Mexico by invoking the Monroe Doctrine, which essentially warned  European nations to stay out of the Western Hemisphere.

Once the Civil War ended, the United States did send messages referring to the Monroe Doctrine to the Emperor of France.  Not wishing to engage in any type of hostilities with the reunited United States, Emperor Napoleon III ordered his troops to leave Mexico. In this sense the U.S. was an ally of the Mexican Republic.  Some reports state that U.S. troops were stationed at the border at Brownsville, Texas, on the Rio Grande.

Maximilian could also have left but he felt that his destiny was to stay in Mexico.  Now  with no French Army to contend with, and with Maximilian’s  remaining support group weak, Juarez regained his position as the legitimate ruler of Mexico.

Maximilian was captured and a military court condemned him to death.

Despite pleas from prominent persons throughout Europe to commute the sentence, Juarez, after deliberation, refused to overturn the decision of the military court. Maximilian, the first and only Emperor of Mexico was executed by a firing squad on June 19, 1867.

To the avid student of Mexican history, the Cinco de Mayo stands out as one of the acclaimed national events which has engendered pride in the Mexican psyche.  Many Fontana residents will celebrate Cinco de Mayo with appropriate festivities.