Maximilian (born July 6, 1832, Vienna, Austria—died June 19, 1867, near Querétaro, Mex.) was an archduke of Austria and the emperor of Mexico, a man whose naive liberalism proved unequal to the international intrigues that had put him on the throne and to the brutal struggles within Mexico that led to his execution.
The younger brother of Emperor Francis Joseph, he served as a rear admiral in the Austrian navy and as governor-general of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. In 1863 he accepted the offer of the Mexican throne, falsely believing that the Mexican people had voted him their king; in fact, the offer was the result of a scheme between conservative Mexicans, who wished to overturn the liberal government of President Benito Juárez, and the French emperor Napoleon III, who wanted to collect a debt from Mexico and further his imperialistic ambitions there. Backed by a pledge of support from the French army, Maximilian sailed for Mexico with his wife Carlota, daughter of Leopold I, king of the Belgians.
Crowned emperor on June 10, 1864, Maximilian intended to rule with paternal benevolence, viewing himself as the protector of the Indian peasants. He upheld Juárez’ sweeping reforms (to the indignation of the landed proprietors) and was determined to abolish peonage, and he antagonized the Roman Catholic hierarchy by refusing to restore vast church holdings confiscated by Juárez. The treasury was so bare, however, that he had to use his own inherited income for daily expenses.
By April 1865 the French army had successfully supported Maximilian by driving Juárez northward almost into Texas. But that month the American Civil War ended, and the United States demanded the withdrawal of French troops from Mexico on the grounds that their presence was a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Carlota rushed to Europe to seek aid for her husband from Napoleon III and Pope Pius IX, only to suffer a profound emotional collapse when her efforts failed. The French forces withdrew in March 1867, and Juárez and his army moved back into Mexico City. Refusing to abdicate, feeling that he could not honorably desert “his people,” Maximilian was made supreme commander of the imperial army by his conservative Mexican backers. At Querétaro, Maximilian’s small force was surrounded, starved, and finally betrayed into capitulation (May 15, 1867). Even though Victor Hugo, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and many of the crowned heads of Europe petitioned Juárez to save Maximilian’s life, the Mexican president refused to grant clemency, given that thousands of Mexican lives had been lost in this latest struggle for independence from foreign domination. On June 19, 1867, Maximilian was executed on a hill outside Querétaro.