A strange episode that is at once a central part of American history and a tragic tale of human ambition and cultural misunderstanding. In an ill-starred undertaking, Napoleon III attempted to install Archduke Maximilian of Austria as the Emperor of Mexico. The move pitted liberals against conservatives, and the New World against the Old--and ended with Maximilian's execution, the insanity of his wife, Charlotte, and the emergence of the United States as a world power. "Jasper Ridley has written a riveting account of an episode which is exciting throughout and tragic at the end; it is also essential reading to understand the history of the United States today."--Antonia Fraser. A strange episode that is at once a central part of American history and a tragic tale of human ambition and cultural misunderstanding. In an ill-starred undertaking, Napoleon III attempted to install Archduke Maximilian of Austria as the Emperor of Mexico. The move pitted liberals against conservatives, and the New World against the Old--and ended with Maximilian's execution, the insanity of his wife, Charlotte, and the emergence of the United States as a world power. "Jasper Ridley has written a riveting account of an episode which is exciting throughout and tragic at the end; it is also essential reading to understand the history of the United States today."--Antonia Fraser.

In this new telling of Mexico’s Second Empire and Louis Napoléon’s installation of Maximilian von Habsburg and his wife, Carlota of Belgium, as the emperor and empress of Mexico, Maximilian and Carlota brings the dramatic, interesting, and tragic time of this six-year-siege to life. From 1861 to 1866, the French incorporated the armies of Austria, Belgium—including forces from Crimea to Egypt—to fight and subdue the regime of Mexico’s Benito Juárez during the time of the U.S. Civil War. France viewed this as a chance to seize Mexican territory in a moment they were convinced the Confederacy would prevail and take over Mexico. With both sides distracted in the U.S., this was their opportunity to seize territory in North America. In 1867, with aid from the United States, this movement came to a disastrous end both for the royals and for France while ushering in a new era for Mexico. In a bid to oust Juárez, Mexican conservatives appealed to European leaders to select a monarch to run their country. Maximilian and Carlota’s reign, from 1864 to 1867, was marked from the start by extravagance and ambition and ended with the execution of Maximilian by firing squad, with Carlota on the brink of madness. This epoch moment in the arc of French colonial rule, which spans North American and European history at a critical juncture on both continents, shows how Napoleon III’s failure to save Maximilian disgusted Europeans and sealed his own fate. Maximilian and Carlota offers a vivid portrait of the unusual marriage of Maximilian and Carlota and of international high society and politics at this critical nineteenth-century juncture. This largely unknown era in the history of the Americas comes to life through this colorful telling of the couple’s tragic reign.

In an ill-starred undertaking, Napoleon III attempted to install Archduke Maximilian of Austria as the Emperor of Mexico. The move pitted liberals against conservatives and the New World against the Old-and ended with Maximilian's execution, the insanity of his wife, Charlotte, and the emergence of the United States as a world power. "It is also essential reading to understand the history of the United States today."-Antonia Fraser.

In this new telling of Mexico's Second Empire and Louis Napoléon's installation of Maximilian von Habsburg and his wife, Carlota of Belgium, as the emperor and empress of Mexico, Maximilian and Carlota brings the dramatic, interesting, and tragic time of this six-year-siege to life. From 1861 to 1866, the French incorporated the armies of Austria, Belgium--including forces from Crimea to Egypt--to fight and subdue the regime of Mexico's Benito Juárez during the time of the U.S. Civil War. France viewed this as a chance to seize Mexican territory in a moment they were convinced the Confederacy would prevail and take over Mexico. With both sides distracted in the U.S., this was their opportunity to seize territory in North America. In 1867, with aid from the United States, this movement came to a disastrous end both for the royals and for France while ushering in a new era for Mexico. In a bid to oust Juárez, Mexican conservatives appealed to European leaders to select a monarch to run their country. Maximilian and Carlota's reign, from 1864 to 1867, was marked from the start by extravagance and ambition and ended with the execution of Maximilian by firing squad, with Carlota on the brink of madness.

The "superbly entertaining and well‑researched" (Financial Times) history of Maximilian and Carlota, the European aristocrats who stumbled into power in Mexico--and faced bloody consequences. In the 1860s, Napoleon III, intent on curbing the rise of American imperialism, persuaded a young Austrian archduke and a Belgian princess to leave Europe and become the emperor and empress of Mexico. They and their entourage arrived in a Mexico ruled by terror, where revolutionary fervor was barely suppressed by French troops. When the United States, now clear of its own Civil War, aided the rebels in pushing back Maximilian's imperial soldiers, the French army withdrew, abandoning the young couple. The regime fell apart. Maximilian was executed by a firing squad and Carlota, secluded in a Belgian castle, descended into madness. Assiduously researched and vividly told, The Last Emperor of Mexico is a dramatic story of European hubris, imperialist aspirations clashing with revolutionary fervor, and the Old World breaking from the New.