{"id":67556,"date":"2025-05-05T09:22:20","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T14:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=67556"},"modified":"2025-05-05T09:22:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T14:22:39","slug":"67556","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=67556","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Cinco de Mayo<\/a><\/p>\n

Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day, a popular misconception.
\nInstead, it commemorates a single battle.<\/p>\n

In 1861, Benito Ju\u00e1rez\u2014a lawyer and member of the Zapotec tribe\u2014was elected president of Mexico. At the time, the country was in financial ruin after years of internal strife, and the new president was forced to default on debt payments to European governments.<\/p>\n

In response, France, Britain and Spain sent naval forces to Veracruz, Mexico, demanding repayment. Britain and Spain negotiated with Mexico and withdrew their forces.<\/p>\n

France, however, ruled by Napoleon III, decided to use the opportunity to carve an empire out of Mexican territory. Late in 1861, a well-armed French fleet stormed Veracruz, landing a large force of troops and driving President Ju\u00e1rez and his government into retreat.<\/p>\n

The Battle of Puebla<\/strong>
\nCertain that success would come swiftly, 6,000 French troops under General Charles Latrille de Lorencez set out to attack Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in east-central Mexico. From his new headquarters in the north, Ju\u00e1rez rounded up a ragtag force of 2,000 loyal men\u2014many of them either Indigenous Mexicans or of mixed ancestry\u2014and sent them to Puebla.<\/p>\n

The vastly outnumbered and poorly supplied Mexicans, led by Texas-born General Ignacio Zaragoza, fortified the town and prepared for the French assault. On May 5, 1862, Lorencez gathered his army\u2014supported by heavy artillery\u2014before the city of Puebla and led an assault.<\/p>\n

The battle lasted from daybreak to early evening, and when the French finally retreated they had lost nearly 500 soldiers. Fewer than 100 Mexicans had been killed in the clash.<\/p>\n

Although not a major strategic win in the overall war against the French, Zaragoza\u2019s success at the Battle of Puebla on May 5 represented a great symbolic victory for the Mexican government and bolstered the resistance movement. In 1867\u2014thanks in part to military support and political pressure from the United States, which was finally in a position to aid its besieged neighbor after the end of the Civil War\u2014France finally withdrew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cinco de Mayo Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day, a popular misconception. Instead, it commemorates a single battle. In 1861, Benito Ju\u00e1rez\u2014a lawyer and member of the Zapotec tribe\u2014was elected president of Mexico. At the time, the country was in financial ruin after years of internal strife, and the new president was forced … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67556"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101711,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67556\/revisions\/101711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}