Maximilan I of Mexico

Maximilan I of Mexico (Spanish: Maximilano; Born Ferdinand Maximilan Joseph; July 6, 1832 - February 3, 1900) was the first monarch of the Second Mexican Empire. He was the yonger brother of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. After a distinguished career in the Austrian Navy, he entered into a plan with Napoleon III of France to rule Mexico. France had invaded Mexico in 1861 with European approval. Seeking to legitimize French Rule, Napoleon III invited Maximilan to establish a new Mexican Monarchy. With the support of the French Army and Mexican conservatives and monarchists, Maximilan traveled to Mexico where he declared himself Emperor of Mexico on April 10, 1864.

The foreign governments of Europe and the Confederacy recognized his legitimacy at different times and in 1865 following the end of the War of Southern Independence the CSA intervened in the war in agreement with France.

Maximilan I is praised throughout Mexico for his liberal reforms and attempts to help the Mexican people. His crackdowns on outlaws and bandits and his use of the military to return order to some of the more wild regions of the nation. He however ruled Mexico through a period of economic hardships following his rise to power and in the 1870s he was forced to sell the states of Baja California, Chihuahua, and Sonora to the Confederate States of America.

He was married to Empress Carlota of Mexico, born Charlotte of Belgium. The couple had three children,  Maximilan II, María I, and José. After Maximilan I's death in 1900 he was succeeded on the throne by his eldest son Maximilan II as Emperor of Mexico.