The events that happened in Querétaro twenty years ago had now been removed by the publication of a booklet, written in French and published in Rome by Mr. Víctor Darán, with the title Le Général Miguel Miramón. It tells, among other episodes of our internal wars, the operations performed in Querétaro by the Republican Army. Being this narration written under inaccurate terms, over all on which refers to the cause that originated that operation, caused that the Imperialist colonel Miguel López published, on one of the capital newspapers, a letter in which he asked me with whole sincerity, that I expressed the historical true related to these events.
The Mexican reacctionary press takes from the book mentioned above what most affects the history of our fight against the so-called Empire. It forces me with vehement obstination to revel the secret part of that ending, which is related to the supposed treason of Miguel López and the capture of the city of Querétaro, pretending that the treason of this colonel to his Sovereign, selling his consignation for gold money, caused the city to fall in the hands of the Mexican army.
Rear personal considerations which now I´m going to revel, had made me keep a deep silence on those events. I knew then, that if I kept silence would not affect the prestige and shine of the nation; not as well the honour of the army that was under my command during that glorious time, and the casue for which it fought. The question reduced only to two personalities: mine, which I judge of little importance, and the one of Miguel López, go-between between the Archduke and me, in the conference we had for the solution in which the future of Mexico was implicated, as well as the honour of a foreigner prince and my own honour as a soldier and as mexican, the only title of which I feel proud...
To my own sorrow I took off the veil that hides important events, unkown for the country, and that for this cause have been misjudged. ...
For twenty years I have been object of calumnies; my name has been insulted and put in doubt the part that, as mexican, corresponds me, in the success of the Republic.
Many foreigners, of all nationalities, believeing that something obscure was behind the terrible ending of Maximilian, had come to me insistently to ask me the true and until now, I had reveled nothing of the offering made by a victorious soldier to a prince condemned to death...
The Imperialist colonel Miguel López, although disloyal to the Republic, neither betrayed the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, nor sold for money his place of combat.
The circumstances for which our country was pasisng through since 1862 to 1867, placed me ini the rank of General-in-Chief of the North Army, and then, without wishing it, as General-in-Chief of the operations over Querétaro. As it is known, there were in that city all the main elements of war of so-called Mexican Empire, with all the Imperilist generals and chiefs, brave and with military aknowledgment. There were Miramón, Mejía, Del Castillo, Méndez, Arellano and others of known of prestige.
We began the war agaisnt them; for some time and isolatedly, they were victorious, but ephimeroulsy because almost immediately it turned in disaster, and they had to turn back tomtheir positions... After the offensive of April 27 1867, in the hill of Cimatario, in which the Archduke's soldiers were at a time winners and losers, their rear attacks were weaker and usuccesful, since those troops could not resist anymore the strenght of the enemy.
The army of the Austrian prince, bisieged in Querétaro, lacked of supplies, their weapons were of bad qulity, and the more terrible for him was that his troops had not anymore that cohesion that the militar discipline and moral give....
Everything showed me the next and violent ending of that tight situation. This made me put myself in constant activity, reinforcing even more the vigilance in the line of siege to made impossible the comunication of the besieged with the outside world and vice versa...
On May 14th, I was going through the line of siege. At seven in the evening an assitant of Colonel Julio M. Cervantes came to tell me, sent by his chief, that an individual, coming from the besieged city, wished to talk to me. In that very moment I went to the place where Colonel Cervantes introduced me to the Imperialist Colonel Miguel López, chief of the Empress's Regiment. He said that he had come out of the city in a secret comission that he must fulfill before me, if I allowed it. At the beginning I tought that López was one of many deserters that abandoned the city to save themsleves and that his secret mission was no more than a trick, that he was using to give more interst to the news he was probably going to tell me about the state in which the besieged were. Nevetheless I agreed to talk in private with the Imperialist Colonel Miguel López, taking some distance from Colonel Cervantes and the assistants of my General Staff who accompanied me. Then, briefly, López told me that the Emperor had entrusted him to have a conference with me, in order to let me know, that he (Maximilian), wishing to avoid by all means to continue shedding Mexican blood, intended to abandon the siege, in order for what he asked to be allowed to leave, with the persons at his service and escorted by a squadron of the Empress' s Regiment, for Tuxpan or Veracruz, where a ship must be waiting for him to take him back to Europe, assuring me that he had left in Mexico City, when he left for Querétaro, the document of his abdication, in the hands of his Prime Minister.
For his own satisfaction and in order to assure me that his propositions were of good trust, López told me that his sovereign pledged his word, then and forever, that he would never put a foot in Mexican territory again, giving me besides, as a guarantee of his purpose, as many securities as he be asked to give.
My answer to López was precise ad definitive, limiting myself to tell him to put in the knowledge of the Archiduke that the orders I had from the Supreme Mexican Government were categorical for not accepting any other arrangement but the surrender of the siege, without conditions. Then Colonel López said that his Emperor had forseen the resolution of his previous propositions. Following the course of the conference, he expressed on the aprt of his sovereign, that the military chiefs by his side were well known by me, for their prestige, their courage and skill; and that thanks to the good organization and discipline of the troops that were defending the siege, he could brake it at any time and extend the horrors of war for a long time; that this was an irreparable damage for Mexico to which he did not want to expose the country, being this the main reason for which he wanted to leave the country.
As I judged López's last words, in name of his sovereign, too arrogant, I answered him that nothing of what he was telling me was unknwon to me, and that I had exact aknowledgement of the situation of the besieged in Querétaro; that I was informed of the arrangements they were making in the city to brake the siege, in which their salvation was based, and that these columns already organized, were just waiting for an order to go across the trenches and confront the Republicans; that this was so satisfactory for me since I had planned to let them free way at any point of the front line, and afterwards to attack them with the two thosand horses of the army, victorious in in San Jacinto and San Lorenzo, whose formidable cavalry would leave the field turned into a lake of imperialist blood. The Archduke's emissary started the conversation again, which I thought that had ended, telling me that the Emperor had given him intruccions for ending the matter that had been commended to him, in any way, in case of finding persisiting opposition by my part. Afterewards he revealed me, in the name of his Emperor, that he did not want and he neither could to continue with the defence of the siege, whose efforts he consided useless; that the columns, which should break the siege, were inded organized and that he wanted to stop that imprudent operation, but thathe did not have the certainty that they obeyed him, because the military chiefs were persisting in performing it. Nevertheless he would adventure himself to give the orders to stop the operation.