alternatehistory.com



Greetings. This is a timeline I’ve wanted to start for some time now. It will chronicle the history of a surviving Mexican Empire, hopefully thorough both the 19th and 20th centuries; the PoD is that Agustin de Iturbide is sent to subdue Guadalupe Victoria and not Vicente Guerrero in 1821, and that changes everything. The timeline will be written in a narrative “textbook” style, with maps and tables where appropriate to understand the situation better. This timeline will be continuously revised and updated.

That’s all for now.
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Birth of a Nation

Col. Agustin de Iturbide was a creole, which meant he had been born in Spanish North America but his ancestors had come from Spain, and like most members of his class. But it would be his strategic brilliance, and his zealous opposition to the insurgents, which would rise him to prominence in colonial Mexico — his successful defense of Valladolid (1813) was followed by the Battle of Puruarán (1814), in which he permanently broke the power of the insurgents and made himself famous.


Colonel Agustín de Iturbide
After a decade of fighting had drained the coffers and depleted the manpower of the Spanish North American colonies, most insurgent commanders had been methodically defeated and captured, while the insurgent movement itself was reduced to a few thousand scattered across the mountains and jungles of southern Mexico. The war was for all intents and purposes over, and the colonial government had emerged triumphant.

In the aftermath, Iturbide was given command of the Eastern Armies and instructed to crush the remnants of the insurgent forces once and for all. The insurgent remnants in the Veracruz region were of particular importance to the colonial government because they had evaded capture for too long, and emboldended, had now resumed raids on Spanish positions with some small garrisons in the area even joining them. It was feared that these events could breathe new life into the rebellion, something which could not be allowed to happen.

But considering the insurgents to be nonthreatening, Iturbide’s personal ambitions were turning somewhere else. Across the ocean, a brief revolution had forced Ferdinand VII to accept a constitution, which in itself wasn’t that much of a problem, except that it showcased the weakness of the Spanish ancien régime and increased fears that it could collapse into revolution at any given moment — while this was most certainly improbable, the specters of liberalism and republicanism still haunted much of Europe in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, and this attitude had very much spread to the American colonies.

Meanwhile, the colonial government failed to perceive the unrest spreading across the land among the traditionalist elements which had opposed the independence movement before. The realm was financially devastated, politically compromised, and insurgent bands still roamed the land despite lacking manpower and coherent leadership. To put it simple, the belief among traditionalists was that the colonial government was failing and could not be trusted to hold against a renewed tide of radicalism, and for this, they began planning a coup to seize control.


Guadalupe Victoria
Iturbide had arisen as a leading figure within this plot, but it wasn’t until Iturbide was granted command of the Eastern Armies that the plot could move forward.

After a couple of skirmishes in the mountains near Xalapa during the first weeks of 1821, Iturbide had found that much of the population still held sympathies for the insurgent cause of independence, and came to realize himself that independence was not only convenient at the time, but had become inevitable. With that, the plot began to involve something more than just seizing control of the colonial government.

Iturbide thus ceased military operations against the insurgents, and instead invited them to talk, believing that perhaps they could be convinced to support the plot in exchange for a limited independence scheme. Guadalupe Victoria, the most prominent insurgent commander in the region, at first ignored the colonel’s proposal for a ceasefire and negotiations, claiming that he would never surrender. But after subsequent communications in which Iturbide not only vindicated the insurgent’s efforts to achieve independence, but explained in detail his own efforts and the support he could muster for the cause among creoles, Victoria decided to go along with the colonel’s plan, realizing there wasn’t any hope for them to successfully overthrow the colonial authorities by themselves. Iturbide would write to the colonial government, which remained oblivious to his intentions, that the insurgents had been defeated.

The two men would proclaim the Reform Plan on February 24th, proposition for the colonial government to reorganize into a provisional council aimed to the establishment of an independent realm, with the crown being offered to Ferdinand VII. The Reform Army, created from both insurgent and traditionalist forces, turned around and began their march towards the capital.

The colonial government was unable to challenge the Reform Plan, confirming the structural weakness on which the traditionalists had counted. Before too long, the Reformists controlled the vast majority of the cities and the armies in the realm, and the colonial government was recalled — after decades of war, men who had been enemies now marched together for the same cause.

Constitutional Convention

On September 28th, the victorious Reformists entered the capital. The Mexican Empire was immediately proclaimed to the cheers of the populace, with an Imperial Council appointed to oversee the government.

The members of the Imperial Council were:

  • Agustin de Iturbide: Helped write the Reform Plan. During the conflicts of the previous decade, he was a traditionalist and fought the insurgents in several different battles, eventually he broke their power in 1814, and was appointed commander to the Eastern Armies.
  • Guadalupe Victoria: Helped write the Reform Plan. He fought for the insurgents during the conflicts of the previous decade, and was a lieutenant of the insurgent hero Jose Maria Morelos. Was never defeated or captured. Now the rising star of the liberal and republican movement within the Mexican Empire.
  • Juan O’Donojú: The last colonial governor, he had been appointed to replace his predecessor, who had been unable to stop the advance of the Reformists. Much to the surprise of all, he announced his willingness to discuss terms as soon as he arrived; when he realized that independence was inevitable, he and his retinue joined the ranks of the Reformists.

Juan O´Donoju
Iturbide and Victoria, while allied to consummate the independence, actually represented completely opposite interests — conservative monarchism versus liberal republicanism, two different forces that threatened to tear apart the young independent nation. In order to reconcile these two positions, Juan O’Donojú would work tirelessly the following weeks; most historians do not hesitate to attribute the eventual success of the Mexican Empire to the Spaniard’s valiant efforts to build a compromise between these two great men and the factions they represented.

The Imperial Council eventually agreed to move forward with the most pressing matter at hand, the Constitutional Convention. More precisely, its composition. After fierce debate, it was decided that a number of delegates would need to be appointed by the provincial governments based on the principle of proportional representation, with the sparsely populated northern territories each getting a flat amount of delegates — interestingly, the lack of reliable census data led the Imperial Council to use outdated information, which in turn meant that the regions which had been hit the hardest during the war would be over-represented. In the end, 152 delegates were expected in the capital at the time of the Constitutional Convention’s inauguration, to be held on the anniversary of the Reform Plan’s proclamation.

On February 24th, the Constitutional Convention was inaugurated. All of the delegates had arrived the previous weeks without incident, and after mass, began to work on the daunting task of drafting a Constitution.

On February 28th, it was brought to the attention of the delegates that Spain still refused to recognize independence, and thereby, Ferdinand VII was “unable or unwilling” to assume the offered crown. Furthermore, other members House of Bourbon were now expected to spurn the offer given the situation. In the midst of the crisis, the delegates began to split. Some began to push for the transformation of the Mexican Empire into a Mexican Republic, but overcome by both liberal and conservative monarchist factions, a resolution was passed for the creation of a “special delegation”, which would cross the ocean and attempt to obtain the recognition of the European powers.
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