The Italian Diplomacy of the Mexican Empire, 1864-1867

Abstract

ON APRIL 10, 1864, at the Chateau of Miramar near Trieste, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian von Habsburg accepted the imperial crown offered him by a Mexican delegation. As Emperor Maximilian I, he became the embodiment of that newly created sovereign entity, the Mexican Empire.' Thenceforth his imperative task was to win the recognition of the other powers of the world.2 This study will concern his relations with one of them, the Kingdom of Italy. In 1864, Italy was an anomaly among the powers of Europe. Hammered into being between 1859 and 1861, the newest and weakest of Europe's great powers was an amalgam of lesser states unified by war and revolution. King Victor Emmanuel II, though scion of an ancient house, was the beneficiary of the spoilation of his princely brothers and neighbors. Thus Victor Emmanuel was, in the eyes of his conservative fellow sovereigns, hardly less revolutionary than the most wild-eyed American republican.3 Consequently the speed with which the European monarchical powers recognized the new Italy had become a sort of barometer measuring the willingness of old Europe to accept the new forces of nationalism and liberalism. No one was surprised when the anticlerical and radical republican government of Mexico's President Benito Juarez recognized the new kingdom.4 It was