Second Mexican Empire

The Second Mexican Empire (Spanish: Segundo Imperio mexicano; French: Second Empire mexicain), officially known as the Mexican Empire (Spanish: Imperio Mexicano), was a constitutional monarchy established in Mexico by Mexican monarchists with the support of the Second French Empire. This period is often referred to as the Second French intervention in Mexico. French Emperor Napoleon III, with backing from Mexican conservatives, the clergy, and nobility, aimed to establish a monarchist ally in the Americas as a counterbalance to the growing power of the United States. The throne of Mexico was offered by Mexican monarchists, who had lost a civil war against Mexican liberals, to Austrian Archduke Maximilian of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, who had ancestral ties to the rulers of.