Maximilian's lieutenant

In 1864, the Austrian archduke Maximilian was induced by Napoleon III to become Emperor of Mexico in furtherance of Napoleon's ambition to establish an empire in the western hemisphere favourable to French interests. Although ending in a Mexican victory, the campaign remains one of the most traumatic episodes in Mexico's history, and on both sides the costs were enormous. Maximilian was executed and the event came as a profound shock to European opinion. This book brings together the letters and excerpts from the Mexican diary of Lieutenant Ernst Pitner, a junior officer in Maximilian's volunteer corps. Pitner was one of the few European officers with Maximilian when he was captured, and he remained with him during his last days. Until a few years ago, Pitner's writings lay undiscovered in a cache of family papers in Vienna. Published for the first time, they represent a unique firsthand account of the campaign as it was fought and of life in Mexico from the point of view of an Austrian soldier. Pitner writes vivid descriptions of his journeys, his companions, the local peoples, and individual battles. He expresses the loneliness and tedium of nineteenth-century warfare on foreign soil and the reality of imperial conquest and then defeat. He also provides much spirited commentary on the political situation: describing the disputes between the French, Belgian, Austrian and Mexican contingents in Maximilian's army, giving his view of the role of the United States and, as a European of his time and an ardent supporter of the emperor, offering strong criticisms of his Mexican opponents. The book will be of great interest to all those concerned with Mexican history and nineteenth-century European history.