HOUSE OF HABSBURG ITURBIDE

The Emperor Augustin’s motives in accepting the throne are always going to be a bone of contention to some. Perhaps if he had been asked to serve as President instead of Emperor, his critics would have been less vociferous. His enemies, of whom it can be said there were many, labelled him a conservative man consumed with his own ambition who instigated or at least encouraged his own ‘election’ to the throne. Others see him as a martyr, the liberator, a hero, a man of great integrity and conviction who may have been conservative in his outlook but who sought to serve his people as best he could and who accepted the crown and position of Emperor more out of a sense of duty then ambition.

It would be foolish to pretend that a site dedicated in part to the memory of the martyred Emperor, would not agree with the second view however that would fail to recognise an important factor that has led to the first view. In the late 19th Century the Emperor’s enemies were so consumed with their jealousy of the Emperor and with general anti clerical feeling that they chose to overlook many important facts and achievements so that the image of the Emperor became an entirely distorted one.

Even if it were true that the Emperor was a man of ambition, a conservative and that he actively sought the throne (not a view we share) his achievements for Mexico and it’s peoples were such that he measures alongside all of his contemporaries. After all he was not known as the Liberator for nothing. If he had achieved little else, no one could argue that it was the Emperor that brought about Mexico’s independence. In other countries that alone would have been enough to ingrain his memory in the gratitude of the people forever.

The Emperor was deeply religious and if he was a conservative ruler who supported the idea of union, independence and religion, given his background, this could hardly have come as a surprise. He never pretended that these were not the values (known as the three guarantees) he would embrace. In the end they were the values that he was prepared to die for.

In Mexico the Emperor’s enemies managed to achieve the almost impossible. By rewriting history they took away this achievement. Fortunately historians recently started to question and re-examine the role of the Emperor and in recent years and there has been a very noticeable softening of the criticism. Most particularly in Mexico itself. We believe It is time that the Emperor took his place at the head of the top table of Mexican heroes.

The following are extracts from the books “The Imperial House of Mexico, The House of Iturbide” and “The Iturbides as heirs of the House of Habsburg in Mexico” both by Charles Mikos. Teodoro Amerlinck and David Williamson. We are very grateful to the author for permission to reprint them here.

In addition we are very grateful to a number of people including Juan Manuel Gabino Villascán for permission to use his magnificent flags and coats of arms, to the late author Juan Balanso and to Allen Sangines-Krause.

This short biography is not meant to be an all encompassing work. For those who would like much more detail I would strongly recommend the book by Timothy E. Anna, Professor of history at the University of Manitoba and acknowledged expert on Mexico, The book is entitled “The Mexican Empire of Iturbide” and was published 1990 by the University of Nebraska Press.

Another book, albeit a highly critical one is by W.S. Robertson, and entitled “Iturbide of Mexico” published in 1952 (Duke University Press). Mr Robertson is was obviously not a fan of the Emperor and he gives a highly critical and one sided account of the Emperors life. However he does include a number of previously unpublished references and the book has a large bibliography.