writes:We've had two songs about Diaz at Puebla so far – Lightning Bolt and The Sword of Oaxaka's Son. Same lyrics, different singers and tunes.
As it so happens, when Sonauto generated The Sword of Oaxaka's Son, several other tunes were also generated. All of the others were rejected for some reason or another (poor tune, pronunciation error, etc.), but one was nice and here it is.
Historical Notes
The big question is: who is the true hero of Puebla, Zaragoza or Diaz? Zaragosa, because he won the battle, and reportedly kept morale up by his exemplary leadership? Or Diaz, who supposedly ignored a 'cautious' order from Zaragoza to hold his position, and instead attacked the retreating French, which some say turned a French retreat into a rout?
According to the Gemini AI, English-language books on the Battle of Puebla are scarce (there isn't even an Osprey on the battle, the campaign, or the war!). It steered me toward Bancroft's 1887 History of Mexico, which is available free in PDF format (1914 edition) from the Library of Congress.
According to Bancroft, Zaragosa commanded five brigades of about 1,000 men each. Negrete's brigade held the twin forts, one was in reserve, and three held Puebla itself in expectation of the city being attacked directly.
Lorencez, however, took his 6,000 soldiers and divided them into three 'columns' – two being assigned to attack the forts, and one to approach Puebla. This meant, for the forts, about 4,000 French versus 1,000 Mexicans.
Seeing the French deployment, Zaragoza used his interior lines to extract two brigades from Puebla, and bring them (plus the reserve) to reinforce the forts from behind. This roughly evened the numbers of French versus Mexicans at the heights.
So where was Diaz? He commanded the only brigade left in Puebla, holding the entire line against the remaining French column (roughly 2,000 French vs 1,000 Mexicans). Interestingly, Zaragoza was also in the city, using the Los Remedios church/fort as his headquarters; he was not at the forts.
While the French columns were assaulting the forts, Bancroft says the third French column attacked Diaz's force:
His first line was driven in, but deploying to the right, free play was allowed for the artillery, while the Guerrero battalion made a dash against the French left. This being repulsed, Diaz ordered a simultenous advance against both flanks, in support of a charge, led by himself, against the enemy's front. Reserving his fire until the troops were within close range, he delivered a shattering volley along the entire line, and then led his men to the charge. The enemy broke and fled, pressed hotly by their assailants, until they were driven beyond a neighboring canal, where they rallied and continued their retreat.
If Bancroft's version is correct, Diaz did not charge the French retreating after the battle of the forts, but rather charged the French column in front of the city concurrently with the fight at the forts. Nothing is said here about Zaragoza holding Diaz back – in fact, Zaragoza is said elsewhere to have narrowly missed being shot when the French troops breached Los Remedios, so he might have been… distracted at the time.
Making the Music
This song used the same musical prompt as The Sword of Oaxaka's Son, except that 'Mexico' was changed to 'Mexican vocalist' in an attempt to get the singer to sound more Mexican. (Which failed.)
Sonauto chose to interpret this as two tags: 'orchestral rock, 2020s'.
I like this version, but I certainly didn't get the '19th Century Mexico' vibe I was looking for. It's a very modern, very American musical style.
Making the Video
Wanting fresh art for a fresh tune, I asked Nano Banana to review the lyrics and come up with something more 2020s in style:
I then enlarged the art, and had Flux Klein improve the quality. (It also removed the fallen French flag, which I didn't ask it to do. That's AI for you.)
Caption files were created for English, French, German, Spanish and Tagalog.
The final step was to combine the new music and new art with titles, using ClipChamp:
I've posted the video as a reel on the TMP Facebook page. It's had a mixed reception. Most people didn't finish listening to the song, so we know they didn't like it; yet the video also had strong positive reactions. 46% of viewers came from outside the wargaming community. As you might expect, it did well with the 35-44 age demographic.