Remarks:
Great Britain declared neutrality at the outset, and thereby implicitly, though not explicitly, recognized the Southern Confederacy as a belligerent Power. There was much sympathy with the South among the governing class, but the people were on the side of the North. The Trent affair brought Great Britain and America very near to war. (See [Treaty of Washington], p. 94.)
FRENCH EXPEDITION IN MEXICO
1862–1867
Belligerents:
France.
Mexican Republicans.
Cause:
From 1789, the date of the first conspiracy against Spain, down to 1857, when a Constitution was promulgated, Mexico was in a state of permanent warfare. In 1861 France, Spain, and Great Britain adopted joint measures against the republic in order to get better protection for their subjects and their property. In 1862 Great Britain and Spain withdrew. But Napoleon III conceived the project of establishing a monarchy in Mexico under his patronage, and so increasing French ascendancy beyond the Atlantic.
Occasion:
The financial misdemeanours of the Mexican Government were made the pretext for the advance of French troops into Mexico in 1862.