or: The Phantom Crown.

June 1864, Colonel Blanchot, a French officer serving with his regiment, part of the forces supporting Maximillian the Austrian Archduke recently installed as Emperor of Mexico, was attending the bullfights in Mexico City. As a foreigner he was engaged in watching not just the fight, but also the behaviour of the Mexican people. It interested him to see how one minute, when the bull seemed to have the upper hand, the crowd would call "Viva the Bull", but moments later when the matador had regained control the cry would become 'Kill the Bull". How long, he wondered, would it be before these crowds that today cried "Viva the Emperor" would cry 'Kill the Emperor"?

So, how did we get to this point? Essentially by accident, but what emerged was the most unusual of conflicts, a war where one has an Austrian monarch of a Latin American country, where Austrian Jagers, French Foreign Legionnaires, Belgians and Egyptians fight alongside sombrero wearing Mexicans and an incontinent Zorro...?

Okay, I admit the damp Zorro is an addition of my own, but the rest is all true of the Maximillian expedition to Mexico in the 1860s. To explain, I recently picked up a load of second hand figures almost by accident. I have been trying to get my US-Mexican war project off the ground for about three years now. I bought the figures at Salute 96 and they are still in the bag. Faced with a huge pile of unpainted metal my interest waned. Seeing an advert in WI for some painted figures for that conflict I rang only to be told that they had gone, but if Mexico was my bag some Maximillian figures were available.

Well, decision time. I'd considered gaming that conflict a couple of years previously, and had already bought a couple of books on the subject, so I decided that any Mexicans were better than no Mexicans and took the plunge.

What has occurred since, largely thanks to several articles in WI, has provided me with hours of excellent wargaming fun. So, in the light of recent articles on the Texan War of Independence and the US-Mexican war, I thought I would present a brief guide to wargaming this interesting period in Mexican history.

I am conscious that letters have appeared in this publication saying, basically, "cut the history lesson and get on with the gaming". I am in two minds about this approach, as I believe it is impossible to truly represent a war without an appreciation of what is being fought for. Were I covering the US Civil War or WWII, or even the FrancoPrussian War, I would not bother, but with such an obscure backwater I feel that this is unavoidable. The reader will, I hope, feel that this is balanced by the specific "wargaming" material that follows in the form of scenarios, game systems, rule amendments, orbats and troop evaluation.

Looking back over 140 years the idea that Mexico's internal problems could be solved by installing a European Emperor seems ludicrous. At the time, however, it was nothing odd. In the new states emerging in eastern Europe foreign monarchs were being installed on thrones of people whose language they could not speak. Even after Maximilian had failed in Mexico the Franco- Prussian War was started when Spain offered their Crown to a Hohenzollern Prince!

So, after 40 years of independence, with the country in a state of near anarchy, the Mexicans found themselves once again ruled by a European. But how had they arrived at this point?

Independence from Spain came in 1821. In the years following the country had lost Texas and then, in 1848, around one third of its northern lands to the United States following the US-Mexican War. During this time Mexico had had in excess of 30 governments, all of which drove the nation into deeper debt.

In 1857 a liberal government was brought to power. They effectively nationalized the Catholic Church. Since the days of the conquistadors Rome had treated Mexico as its own fiefdom It still owned over half the land from which it amassed a significant income. Add to this the charges it levied on the population to administer to them, and the fact that outside the major towns the church operated as the only bank to hold the savings of the people. To a bankrupt government whose own income fell well short of the church, but whose temporal responsibilities were rather more costly, this seemed like the only solution. Naturally the Church was not happy, and amongst the landed classes and the deeply religious peasants it fomented a civil war. In this the pro-church conservatives quickly replaced the liberals as the party of government, but, despite significant funding from the bishops, were unable to hold more than the larger towns. The countryside was controlled by the liberals and parties of bandits out for personal gain. After two years the conservatives surrendered the capital and headed for the hills themselves, some units holding together long after the official end of what was termed the War of Reform. Nevertheless, the "liberals" had won, and President Benito Juarez (whom, incidentally, Mussolini was named after) reintroduced the 1857 constitution.

How did the situation progress from there to a point where the Crowns of Europe were involved? The critical catalyst was the fact that, again attempting to balance the books of a bankrupt state, Juarez suspended repayments of all foreign debts. Big mistake?

Looking across the Atlantic we find a France at the height of her Second Empire. Victories in the Crimea and Italy had created an illusion of Imperial greatness, but Napoleon III was no fool. He recognised that to maintain the illusion, victories, (or perceived victories) must keep coming, along with the creation of more wealth for France. His wife, a Spaniard, presented a case to her husband based on what a number of Mexican exiles had told her. Mexico was crying out for order, and that could only be brought by a European style monarchy. For Napoleon III, ever seeking to raise his profile, this was the chance to kill several birds with one stone. He would establish a wealth- generating client state in the Americas, pleasing the public and business. He would please the Church by re-establishing her rights in that area, repair relationships with Austria by getting rid of Emperor Franz-Joseph's rather too popular/liberal brother, and produce another victory for French arms.

In Austria, recently defeated in northern Italy by the French and Piedmontese, the Habsburg throne was suffering the pains of an Empire in decline. Emperor Franz-Joseph was crowned after the revolutions of 1848 had humiliated the family. He was a conservative monarch who was to rule until his death half way through the First World War, and to whom Liberalism was a dangerous weakness. Indeed he had been annoyed by the popularity that his brother Maximillian had gained with the people. Indeed, during a time as Viceroy over Austrian controlled Milan and Venice he had even proved popular with their Italian subjects who generally loathed their Austrian overlords.

For a period Maximilian was retired to a castle near Trieste where he was frustrated by inactivity. When an offer of the throne of an Imperial Mexico was put to him he was naturally interested.

In 1861 Napoleon III co-ordinated an Anglo-Franco-Spanish reply to the suspension of loan repayments. A combined expeditionary force made up of troops from those nations was despatched to seize the customs house at Vera Cruz. Once in place they were to ensure the repayment of debts by seizing duties on any goods landed there, forcing the Mexicans to the conference table. The Spanish, sailing from their West Indian possessions landed in December 1861, and were reinforced by the British and French in the New Year. It is indicative of Napoleon's true plans that his fleet was accompanied by Mexican exile General Almonte as transitory President'.

Something of a farce from the start, the negotiations with the Mexicans resulted in Juarez promising to review the repayments at "some time in the future". This rather woolly statement marked a failure for the European intervention, but by now France's intentions were painfully clear. Britain and Spain evacuated their troops at the start of April 1862. The French government declared war on the Republic of Mexico.

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