The Last Emperor of Mexico is the vivid history of this barely known, barely believable episode - a bloody tragedy of operatic proportions, and a vital debacle, the effects of which would be felt into the twentieth century and beyond. The ensuing saga would feature the great world leaders of the day, popes, bandits and queens intrigue, conspiracy and cut-throat statecraft, as Mexico became the pivotal battleground in the global balance of power, between Old Europe and the burgeoning force of the New World: American imperialism. Instead, Maximilian walked into a bloody guerrilla war - and with a headful of impractical ideals and a penchant for pomp and butterflies, the so-called new emperor was singularly unequipped for the task. Keen to spread his own interests abroad, the French emperor promised Maximilian a hero’s welcome, which he would ensure with his own mighty military support. He had been convinced to do so by a duplicitous Napoleon III. This is history’s judgement on the events surrounding the ill-fated reign of Maximilian of Mexico, the young Austrian archduke who in 1864 crossed the Atlantic to assume a faraway throne. ‘Ī madness without parallel since Don Quixote,’ said a future French president. Listen Free to Last Emperor of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World audiobook by Edward Shawcross with. ‘One of the most monstrous enterprises in the annals of international history,’ said Karl Marx. The bizarre and little known story of how a hubristic Archduke became the puppet Emperor of Mexico – with tragic results and pivotal historical consequences for Europe and America. ‘Baroque, page-turning and often grimly funny’ Tom Holland ‘Hilarious, heartbreaking and utterly extraordinary.’ Sunday Times
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