War
In 1838 a French pastry cook, Remontel, claimed that his shop in the Tacubaya district of Mexico City had been ruined by looting Mexican officers in 1828. He appealed to France's King Louis-Philippe. Coming to its citizen's aid, France demanded 600,000 pesos in damages. This amount was extremely high: in comparison, an average workman's daily pay was about one peso. In addition to this amount, Mexico had defaulted on millions' of dollars worth of loans from France. Diplomat Baron Deffaudis gave Mexico an ultimatum to pay, or the French would demand satisfaction. When the payment was not forthcoming from president Anastasio Bustamante, the king sent a fleet under Rear Admiral Charles Baudin to declare a blockade of all Mexican ports from Yucatán to the Rio Grande, to bombard the Mexican fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, and to seize the port of Veracruz. Virtually the entire Mexican Navy was captured at Veracruz by December 1838. Mexico declared war on France.
With trade cut off, the Mexicans began smuggling imports into Corpus Christi, Texas, and then into Mexico. Fearing that France would blockade Texan ports as well, a battalion of men of the Republic of Texas force began patrolling Corpus Christi Bay to stop Mexican smugglers. One smuggling party abandoned their cargo of about a hundred barrels of flour on the beach at the mouth of the bay, thus giving Flour Bluff its name. The United States, ever watchful of its relations with Mexico, sent the schooner Woodbury to help the French in their blockade. Talks between the French Kingdom and the Texan nation occurred and France agreed not to offend the soil or waters of the Republic of Texas.
The battle celebrated as Cinco de Mayo, occasionally mistaken as taking place in this war, was connected with a later (1862) invasion of Mexico orchestrated by Napoleon III.
Read more about this topic: Pastry War
Famous quotes containing the word war:
“This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.”
—Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940)
“We make war that we may live in peace.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“Let the erring sisters depart in peace; the idea of getting up a civil war to compel the weaker States to remain in the Union appears to us horrible to the last degree.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)