"Could 1st Puebla have influenced the ACW?" Topic

Napoleon III was famously sympathetic to the Confederacy (they provided the cotton France needed). Historians ask if a quick French victory at Puebla in 1862 would have allowed France to establish a base in Mexico and officially recognize or supply the Confederate States of America.

By the time the French eventually took Mexico City a year later (1863), the Union had won at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, making European intervention far more risky and less likely.

I am not that well read on the topic. Napoleon III certainly had delusions of grandeur. But I think the real spoke in the wheel was the delay allowed Pres. Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

This reframed the ACW as a crusade against slavery, making it politically impossible for France or Britain—both of which had already abolished slavery—to officially support the Confederacy without facing massive domestic backlash.

So, yes, a victory on the Cinque de Mayo might have allowed French interference in the ACW in that brief window.

What historians ask this?

I don't think a French victory at Puebla would have ended Mexican resistance to Napoleon III's colonial project. Mexico was never fully under French (or Mexican imperial) control. Taking Mexico City a year earlier probably would have just started the guerilla war a year earlier.

Mexico had only one short rail line in the 1860s, from Veracruz partway toward Mexico City. Everything in Mexico moved by wagon, mule, and human hands until well into the 20th C. Supplies moving to Texas would have been in constant danger from Juarista raiders and guerrilla action unless they moved by sea, in which case they would have been running the blockade like everything else entering the Confederacy.

Interesting thought but it would have required France to pretty actively support the Confederacy and as noted by the Yellow Admiral the supply chain in Mexico was thin at best – Santa Anna's invasion during the Texas Rebellion had a very tenuous logistical chain and this quite a problem for them – the Texans and native Americans also didn't help

Napoleon III's moustache was just too silly to take him seriously.

Supplies moving to Texas would have been in constant danger from Juarista raiders and guerrilla action unless they moved by sea, in which case they would have been running the blockade like everything else entering the Confederacy.

The Confederacy had a supply line through Matamoros, in Mexico. Matamoros is conveniently located just across the mouth of the Rio Grande from Brownsville Texas. So they could side-step the blockade by shipping their goods to neutral Mexico, and then move them across the border at night.

The Confederacy had a supply line through Matamoros, in Mexico. Matamoros is conveniently located just across the mouth of the Rio Grande from Brownsville Texas. So they could side-step the blockade by shipping their goods to neutral Mexico, and then move them across the border at night.

Excellent point, and not the least bit surprising. However, this also sort of proves my larger thesis: moving supplies into Texas from Mexico wasn't likely to decisively change the ACW. It actually happened, and it didn't.

Texas is a long way from the rest of the Confederacy, and had a lot of the same problems moving supplies as Mexico. There was a local-only rail network in Texas, but no rail links to the rest of the Confederacy.

After the war started, coastal shipping became unreliable. Once New Orleans fell, supplies had to travel a long way north to cross the Mississippi overland, and then after the fall of Vicksburg, supplies in the far west were useful only in the far west. The rivers were increasingly off limits in every year of the war.

Official recognition of the Confederacy by France would have been worth more than any new supply routes.

It might have also meant war on the high seas between the US and France, which is a really fun wargaming topic for "what if" gaming. The US arguably had the world's third-most-powerful navy at the start of the ACW, and the US and France were in competition to be second-most-powerful at the end of it.

- Ix

One thing that has been nagging at me lately, is that the United States went to war with Mexico in 1846, won every big battle, captured the enemy capital, and brought down a succession of governments, yet we were faced with an ongoing fighting, and finding just which Mexicans we could negotiate with (yeah, they were pretty clearly going to have to give up real estate, and no Mexican leader wanted to step forward and take responsibility for that). So, it was still hard to negotiate a peace. Yeah, it got worked out eventually, but it kind of looks like the French could have learned more from our experience.

Grelber