The Battle of Puebla
Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
I just wanted to wish all my readers a happy Cinco de Mayo. This holiday, which is not a Federal holiday in Mexico, and which many people assume is has something to do with the Mexican Independence Day, or the sinking of shipment of mayonnaise bound for Mexico by a German U-Boat during the First World War actually celebrates something entirely different. It celebrates the defeat of a French Army by Mexican forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5th 1862.
Mexico had already been independent for nearly forty years when this took place. The French had led an intervention in Mexico, and members of the conservative Mexican aristocracy asked Archduke Maximilian of Austria to be the emperor of a new Imperial Mexico, and he agreed, but I digress…
Before Maximilian took over, the French first had to conquer…
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