On this day in 1838, the French army captured Veracruz in the Pastry War.
During the early years of the new Mexican republic there was widespread civil disorder as factions competed for control of the country. The fighting often resulted in the destruction or looting of private property. Average citizens had few options for claiming compensation as they had no representatives to speak on their behalf. Foreigners whose property was damaged or destroyed by rioters or bandits were usually also unable to obtain compensation from the Mexican government and they began to appeal to their own governments for help and compensation.
In a complaint to King Louis-Philippe, a French pastry chef known only as Monsieur Remontel said that in 1832 Mexican officers looted his shop in Tacubaya (then a town on the outskirts of Mexico City). Mexican sources said that the officers, from Santa Anna’s government, simply refused to pay their bills. Remontel demanded 60,000 pesos as reparations for the damage (his shop was valued at less than 1,000 pesos).
In view of Remontel’s complaint (which gave its name to the ensuing conflict) and of other complaints from French nationals (among them the looting in 1828 of French shops at the Parian market and the execution in 1837 of a French citizen accused of piracy), in 1838 prime minister Louis-Mathieu Molé demanded from Mexico the payment of 600,000 pesos (3 million Francs) in damages.
When President Anastasio Bustamante made no payment, the French king ordered a fleet under Rear Admiral Charles Baudin to declare and carry out a blockade of all Mexican ports on the Gulf of Mexico from Yucatán to the Rio Grande, to bombard the Mexican fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, and to seize the city of Veracruz, which was the most important port on the Gulf coast. French forces captured Veracruz and Mexico declared war on France.
The French forces withdrew on 9 March 1839 after a peace treaty was signed. As part of the treaty, the Mexican government agreed to pay 600,000 pesos as damages to French citizens, while France received promises for future trade commitments in place of war indemnities. The damages were never paid, and this fact was later used as one of the justifications for the second French intervention in Mexico of 1861.
Épisode de l’expédition du Mexique en 1838 Scene from the Mexican Expedition in 1838, the Prince of Joinville on the poop of the corvette Créole listens to the report from the vessel’s Lieutenant, Penaud, and sees the explosion of the tower of the Fort of Saint-Jean d’Ulloa on 27 November 1838. The frigate Gloire can be seen in the background.
Here’s a good Canadian poem…
Here are The Seekers… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKySE1Ukupg
