Talk:French intervention in Mexico

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French intervention in Mexico was the collaboration of the week for the week starting on October 9, 2005. For details on improvements made to the article, see history of past collaborations.

Contents 1 motivation unclear 2 anon edit 3 french and spanish version 4 Mexican constitution 5 Casualties 6 I might as well ask this... 7 Article Review 8 Egyptians! 9 Title

[edit] motivation unclear

"[The invasion followed] Juárez's suspension of payments of interest on loans to foreign countries made by previous governments". This is unclear to me. I am assuming these were loans to Mexico from France, Britain and Spain. Can this be explicitly stated? "Loans to Mexico", made by previous governments of ?...

-fl

[edit] anon edit

removed anons edit "French troops were defeated." from the end of the 1863 section. Astrokey44 05:48, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] french and spanish version

For a different view, this is the google translated version of the spanish wikipedia article: [1] and the french one: [2]. The french one lists five battles which have their own articles Astrokey44 05:58, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Mexican constitution

A comment was placed in the article, "--- not strictly true. see Constitutions of Mexico ---" (after it said in the article that "The republic was restored, and a new constitution was written" Astrokey44 00:27, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Casualties

Can anyone check on the casualties? I wanted to implement a war box here, but didn't have enough stats. Specific number of deaths, etc. Thanks -- WB 03:21, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I might as well ask this...

... what are the sources for this information? - Ta bu shi da yu 08:08, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

its shown in the reference section Astrokey44 14:48, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article Review

The following is a review of this article written for a history class: Although a growing number of people in the United States celebrate Cinco de Mayo each year, few individuals among them actually know the history of the holiday. Despite the fact that Mexico is such a close neighbor, its history is rarely discussed in the United States and so many do not know that the 5th of May is the day that Mexican forces defeated French invaders at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. In fact, the Second Empire of France under the leadership of Napoleon III went to great lengths in an attempt to colonize Mexico during this time period. The events 1862—1867 were interesting examples of French imperialism and intriguing part of French, Mexican, and even U.S. history. If the average person wished to learn about them, she or he may turn to the free, online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. For these reasons I have decided to critique the article entitled “French Intervention in Mexico,” and evaluate its usefulness, objectivity, and accuracy about this subject in French history. The author does a very good job of presenting the material without strong bias. Overall, the events are presented without a great deal of comment; mostly it is a listing of when and where certain events occurred. Unfortunately this means there is almost no analysis and no explanation of why things happened as they did. When the author takes any stance it is one of condemning the Second Empire’s actions and supporting a Mexican Republic. The author states that France was interested only in “exploiting” the mines in Mexico and had “ambitions of colonizing Mexico.” There is no sympathy towards Mexican Conservatives, or towards Maximilian (even regarding his execution). I believe that the author found Juárez, the Republicans, and the United States to be in the right when it came to the issue of European intervention in Mexico during this time. The author makes a few statements in the article that I would classify as assumptions because there are no citations for them. The author assumes that France invaded in order to colonize and control the wealth of Mexico, and did so at a time when the United States would not interfere. There is also the assumption that Maximilian could never be accepted by either political group in Mexico. I feel that many of the assumptions made by the author would be substantiated and repeated in other histories about this subject, but the lack of references does not allow the reader to validate these claims. Since the author is not overly concerned with opinions or analysis, there are few ideas she or he tries to convince the reader of. I do find it quite believable that Maximilian found few allies in Mexico, and the idea that France saw this time period as a prime opportunity to invade Mexico (since the United States was busy with its own Civil War) is quite convincing as well. Both these opinions make sense politically. However, I am not convinced that France invaded Mexico merely to control the mines in northwestern Mexico. Such an action seems hardly worth the lives and resources that would be lost in a foreign invasion. There are only two references listed directly following the article, which are links to pages on a website entitled www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/mexico. One is a timeline of the “Mexican Adventure,” and the other is a bibliography of about 55 books on the topic. The website does not appear very sophisticated, and most of the book titles are in German (I think). It is really anyone’s guess as to whether the author of the article used these references, or if they are meant to be resources for further investigation of the subject. There is no form of citation, and no information about who posted these “references”—was it the author, Wikipedia, or just anyone browsing around the site who felt like adding them? Given the vagueness of the references, I would certainly not judge this article as suitable for use as an academic resource, but I think I trust it enough to consider it a good addition to general knowledge—until it’s proven wrong by a “respected” source. The most glaring deficiencies of the article seem to be grammatical and spelling errors. There are not an overwhelming amount of typos, but it flips from past and present tense narration, and some of the wording throughout the article is a little awkward. It could definitely benefit from some harsh editing. I was a little confused when it discussed the events surrounding Maximilian’s execution, which were muddled in their presentation, but apart from that the article is direct and easy to understand. It provides a good general knowledge of the French intervention in Mexico during the 1860s. Although there is a fairly good base of knowledge in the article, there were many unanswered questions I had after examining it. Why did President Juárez suspend its payments to foreign governments? The author says, “The crown was offered to Maximilian, due to Napoleon’s effort,” but what exactly were these efforts? What were the French popular opinions towards Napoleon III’s actions in Mexico? How important was the role of the United States in forcing out the French, and how much did they support the Mexican Republicans? Why didn’t Maximilian abandon Mexico when advised to by Napoleon? And why did the 5th of May become a holiday when the battle it commemorates failed to rid Mexico of the French army completely? Clearly this article is just a jumping off place for further investigation. Wikipedia can provide a relatively accurate basis of knowledge, and point of departure for future research, but hopefully those that use it recognize its faults. The information presented cannot be assumed to be wholly accurate, and should certainly not be a source of information for academic papers; especially when it is presented without references and an anonymous author. And, of course, as with any article, it should be questioned in regards to its accuracy, attitudes, and assumptions.

I think a willingness to look at Maximilian objectively would make one arrive at the conclusion he was a man with good intentions but in the wrong place at the wrong time. Remember, he was very much a product of the progressive wave in vogue at the time and in some respects more liberal than Juarez himself. Perhaps, had he not been a foreigner, he would have been welcomed with open arms by the great majority of Mexicans.Alloco1 16:03, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Egyptians!

Would someone answerr this weren't there egyptian troops fighting under the french at the time or possibly ottoman, I'm pretty sure there was some egyptian troops fighting under french in mexico though it could have been in south america or I could be completely wrong. Zakaria mohyeldin 07:35, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Erm, pretty sure Egypt was a British colony at the time. You may be thinking of Zouaves, units who's uniforms and orginization were based on that of the units in Algeria, though not even these were significantly comprised of African soldiers.66.133.180.58 (talk) 19:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title

I reverted a unilateral move of this page, at "French intervention in Mexico" to "Franco-Mexican War" I personally have no strong feelings about what title is better, but any move should be discussed on the talk page before moving; also most wikilinks go to this present title, and any proper move should include fixing links and redirects. -- Infrogmation 15:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)