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Cinco De Mayo

Cinco De Mayo
    The French had landed in Mexico (along with Spanish and English troops) five months earlier on collecting Mexican debts from the newly elected government of democratic President Benito Juarez. The English and Spanish quickly made deals and left.   The French, however, had different ideas. Under Emperor Napoleon III, who detested the United States, the French came to stay.   They brought a Hapsburg prince with them to rule the new Mexican empire.   His name was Maximilian.   Napoleon's French Army had not been defeated in 50 years, and it invaded Mexico with the finest modern equipment and with a new foreign legion.   The French were not afraid of anyone, especially since the United States was embroiled in its own Civil War. The French Army left the port of Vera Cruz to attack Mexico City to the west, as the French assumed that the Mexicans would give up if their capital fall to the enemy, as European countries traditionally did. Under the command of General Zaragosa, and the cavalry under the command of Colonel Porfirio Diaz, the Mexicans awaited.   Brightly dressed French Dragoons led the enemy columns.   The Mexican Army was less stylish. General Zaragosa ordered Colonel Diaz to take his cavalry, the best in the world, out to the French flanks.   In response, the French sent their cavalry off to chase Diaz and his men, who proceeded to butcher them.   The remaining French infantrymen charged the Mexican defenders. When the battle was over,   many French were killed or wounded and their cavalry was being chased by Diaz' superb horsemen miles away.   The Mexicans had won a great victory that kept Napoleon III from supplying the confederate rebels for another year, allowing the United States to build the greatest army the world had ever seen.   This grand army smashed the Confederates at Gettysburg just 14 months after the battle of Puebla, essentially ending the Civil War. Union forces were then rushed to the Texas/Mexican border under General Phil Sheridan,...