How Mexico's IOUs Ignited a Royal Rumble
Mexico's unpaid debts sparked a royal rumble in 1862. France waltzed in for empire, while the Brits and Spanish cut a deal. Can Mexico make its way out of this debt-fueled drama?
1862. A year when America was embroiled in its own Civil War, Europe was humming with colonial ambition, and Mexico, well, Mexico was stuck in a polka of unpaid bills. Enter the grand stage, three foreign powers, their pockets jingling with pesos they weren't getting, their swords itching for a little debt collection with a side of regime change. We're about to step into the French Intervention in Mexico, a tale where cash talks, bullets fly, and a Habsburg prince gets a crown a little too big for his borrowed throne.
It all started with a bad case of the empty coffers. Mexico, fresh from a civil war hangover, had declared a moratorium on its foreign debts – a polite way of saying, “Hey, creditors, hold your horses, the tequila hasn't settled yet.” Naturally, this didn't sit well with the Europeans, who saw their pesos doing the fandango in someone else's pocket. So, like any self-respecting loan shark with a fleet of ships, they signed a pact: the Tripartite Convention, a fancy way of saying, “Let's go shake down Mexico, together!”
