Today in History—May 5: The Battlefield Tale of Cinco de Mayo

In the United States, Cinco de Mayo has—unfairly—been reduced to an excuse to drink tequila and eat guac. It’s a familiar and festive ritual (and listen, I like guac and tequila too), but it gives short shrift to what the day actually represents: It’s not a party but a battlefield victory—one that mattered a great deal to the still-young Mexican republic.

The real story deserves to be told. On this day in 1862, a largely untrained volunteer militia, mostly Indigenous Mexican farmers and laborers, led by bespectacled Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza, defeated the well-armed French forces of Napoleon III at the Battle of Puebla.

Their success halted the French advance, under Gen. Charles Latrille Laurencez, to Mexico City—and the French takeover of the country—for a while. (Yes, the French would eventually succeed in installing a short-lived regime in Mexico.)

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But on this day, improbably, Mexican forces held the line, under maybe the most improbable commander. Zaragoza had dropped out of seminary to join the army but was refused admission. He eventually managed to join up—and then quickly rose to general.

Zaragoza’s men were outnumbered, outdressed, and outgunned by elite French forces, generally considered the best in the world. But Zaragoza knew the terrain, and he had a plan that the OG Napoleon would have approved of. Zaragoza stationed his men on the high ground, hidden behind cacti, behind walls of dilapidated forts, in ditches.

The farmers—many barefoot, carrying a mélange of machetes, spears, and old guns—lay in wait.

At 11:45 am the French began shelling the fortifications. But the stone walls—shored up by Zaragoza’s men—held.

The French tried a more direct attack, three times, but they were repulsed. They ran out of ammunition, and the skies opened. The hillside became a mud slick.

The French retreated. It would take them a year to regroup.

And there is reason to raise a glass for us Americans too: If the French had succeeded, it’s possible that they would have encroached on the United States, which was then tangled up in the Civil War. They might have recognized the Confederacy as legitimate and made it harder for the Union to defend itself.

This is a good time to remember how very differently it all could have gone.

Famous Birthdays

1747: Leopold II—Holy Roman emperor

1855: Inukai Tsuyoshi—Japanese prime minister who was assassinated by ultranationalist naval officers

1864: Nellie Bly—American journalist

1988: Adele—British singer-songwriter