Dia 25 – 5 de Mayo – Thewesternprovinceblog

Day 25 – Cinco de Mayo

Hola todos. Time for another blog post. Today I decided to go check out forts Guadalupe and Loreto on the North side of town since I learned this was where the battle of 5 de Mayo took place.

Up I went and decided to walk it, turned out it was a longer walk than it looked largely because I initially spent 20 mins heading the wrong way but corrected course and soon reached the base of the hill. Getting up there was quite the climb but not as much as it would have been back in the day.

I get up top and luckily there’s a place to grab a brew and a light bite before heading up properly. In fort Guadelupe there is a museum where the church used to be. I paid the 3 bucks entrance fee and they gave me a little guided tour all in Spanish. The kid spoke very fast so he didn’t get everything perfectly but understood the gist of it.

It was all about the French invasion of Mexico to install Maximilian Von Hapsburg as a puppet monarch to France with the backing of a Mexican conservative faction. The backstory is a bit too much to put here in this limited space.

At that fort was where the French made their initial attack on Puebla in 1862. Numbers wise it was even with around 4000 Vs 4000 although the Mexicans were poorly armed Peasant militias while the French had the well equipped and veteran units of their African foreign legion.

While the Mexicans had the advantage of being atop a hill fort they were both outgunned and fearful. Every time they drove the French off they would regroup and come up again and they did get quite close to breaking the Mexicans until after a 3rd attempt while they were gearing up for round 4 a big rain storm came in wetting the French powder and making further ascents up the hill too hard causing them to withdraw after about 3.5 hours of fighting.

From what I believe happened after the Mexicans managed to make a cavalry counterattack which while it didn’t rout the French, it killed enough of them to stop them coming back the next day.

What’s the ‘So What’ of this rather small battle? Firstly the Mexican victory stopped the French from taking Puebla and quickly steamrolling their way to Mexico City from there, buying time for the republicans to regroup and resist. It is an important cultural event for Mexican identity to this day and is also celebrated to a certain extent in the states.

After this I head back and manage to hide from another rainstorm and then head out once again for some food and drinks. I stayed in touch with my new American friend now having done his 2nd day of school. Meet new best friend Sam, the captain of the Titanic himself!! He’s been one of the most normal people met on this journey so far and is quite a chill geezer. Tomorrow he learns the subjunctive fuck!! Wish him best of luck there hehe.
Been a bit of a longer one than planned here but now we’re back up to speed with events. Tomorrow I do Cholula.