During the Mexican-American War, Mexico almost perished. Why didn’t the United States take the opportunity to annex it?

On February 28, 1845, the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate passed a joint resolution to admit Texas to the United States. This decision humiliated Mexico immensely and forced a hostile response from the Mexican government. There were widespread rumors that the Mexican army was about to invade Texas. As a preventive measure, U.S. President Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to send 3,500 U.S. soldiers to the Nueces River, the border area actually controlled by the Texas Revolution. He hoped that this military deterrence could be used to force Mexico to make diplomatic concessions.

In November 1845, John Slidell, the special envoy of the President of the United States, went to Mexico City to discuss the purchase of New Mexico, Arizona and California. But Mexican President Herrera did not dare to entertain him. In fact, the news of Sdelaire's arrival alone caused the Herrera government to fall by the end of the year and General Paredes to take power. Polk was very angry about this and ordered General Taylor's troops to move 150 kilometers westward and station themselves next to the Rio Grande River, the divide proposed by the Texans.

Mexicans insisted that the Nuecis River was a legal border and that the presence of American troops in the Rio Grande constituted an invasion. On April 25, 1846, they declared a "state of defensive war." . One day later, a Mexican army crossed the Rio Grande and defeated a small American advance force, resulting in 16 American casualties. U.S. President Polk originally planned to declare war on Mexico even if there was no military conflict. Now that he received relevant reports, he naturally claimed that "the Mexicans have crossed the border of the United States and invaded our borders...U.S. Human blood flows on American soil." On May 13, the U.S. Senate voted 40 to 2 and the House of Representatives voted 174 to 14 to declare war on Mexico.

The Mexican army is outnumbered and there are "traitors"

The US military invades Mexico from three directions. First, in the northeastern region of Mexico adjacent to Texas, General Taylor led the US military to occupy Monterey, but was later frustrated by General Santa Ana's troops. The second battlefield was located in the New Mexico region. General Stephen Carney led 2,500 people to occupy Santa Fe. After a short negotiation with the local governor, he announced the annexation of the New Mexico region in the name of the US government. Carney then sent some troops south to aid Taylor, while others went to California to take over the "Bear Flag Republic" established by local American immigrants in the name of the U.S. government and incorporate it into the United States.

The third battlefield of the US military is in the south: General Winfield Scott led an expeditionary force of 12,000 people to land at the port of Veracruz, and then walked straight along the "Royal Highway" built in the colonial era. They rushed to Mexico City, 400 kilometers away, without encountering any obstacles along the way. The only battle took place in the suburbs of Mexico City: on September 12, 1847, more than 3,000 American troops and more than 3,000 Mexican troops fought fiercely at the foot of the Chapultepec Castle. The Mexican army was defeated and fled, and the American army then began to attack the castle itself. At that time, there were about 100 young cadets from the Mexican Military Academy in the castle, ranging in age from 10 to 16 years old. They bravely resisted the U.S. attack. Six cadets fought until the end and were all killed. They were honored by future generations of Mexicans as "Ni?os Héroes" (Boy Heroes). At the last moment, to prevent the Mexican flag over the fortress from being seized by the US military, 15-year-old artillery cadet Juan Escudia wrapped it around his body and then jumped off a cliff to commit suicide. On September 13, General Scott led U.S. troops into Mexico City’s Plaza de la Constitución.

55% of the country was ceded, but the United States still wants all of Mexico?

After Mexico's defeat, the new liberal government began to negotiate with the United States and signed the "Peace of Guadalupe Hidalgo" with the United States in February 1848. According to the peace treaty, Mexico lost a total area of ??2.36 million square kilometers of land, and its remaining land area was only 1.973 million square kilometers—that is to say, 55% of its land was ceded to the United States, leaving only 45%.

In exchange, the United States agreed to abandon all claims for compensation to Mexico and compensate the Mexican government US$15 million, in addition to repaying approximately US$3.25 million in Mexican government public debt to the residents of the ceded territory. Ulysses S. Grant, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army at the time, later recorded his feelings about this in his memoirs: "I don't think there could be a more despicable war than the United States invasion of Mexico. I was very young at the time. I have such a view, but I just don’t have the courage to resign.”

Interestingly, the Mexican conservatives who were primarily responsible for the defeat also had the same idea. In order to get rid of the liberal government, the conservative group is willing to annex all of Mexico to the United States, provided that General Scott and his army stay to ensure the life and industrial safety of these conservatives. Scott rejected the group's proposal and ended the U.S. occupation in July 1848 (then these Mexican conservatives began to seek European intervention, and finally, under the control of French Emperor Napoleon III, concocted the Second Mexican Empire).

"America is the America of Americans"

Across Latin America, the U.S.-Mexico War led these countries to doubt and fear the United States. The United States cut off 2.36 million square kilometers of territory from its "sister republics" to the south. This clearly shows that the Monroe Doctrine is only a constraint on the European powers. The correct interpretation of the sentence should be "America is the America of Americans." For Europe, the war that ended in American victory had an interesting effect: it caused fear among the aristocracy, but gave hope to the democratic forces, because they regarded the United States' defeat of Mexico as a The success of a liberal state advocating industry and commerce versus a clerical-oligarchy state.

The U.S.-Mexico War also had a serious impact on the United States. It provided the United States with an opportunity to train military officers. Officers such as Ulysses Grant, Robert E. Lee, and Thomas Jackson who participated in this battle played an important role in the future Civil War. In addition, the issue of slavery in the ceded territory of Mexico also affected the development of the North-South conflict within the United States. However, what also has a profound impact on the development of the United States is the acquisition of mineral resources on the land ceded by Mexico. Before 1846, due to the lack of these resources, the industrial expansion of the United States had been greatly hampered. The Mexican War also laid the foundation for the United States to later gain the status of an international power. It not only allowed the United States to expand its borders to the Pacific coast, but also used California as a springboard to open the way for future increases in U.S. strength in the Pacific.

Our country wants to build railways, but your country is selling its territory

In the early 1850s, various American railway companies began to survey a more appropriate road to build a link between the east and west of the United States. railway. One of the roads started in Arkansas, passed through southern Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, passing through a territory that was still part of Mexico at the time, and ended in Los Angeles, California. This road is the shortest of the transcontinental railway roads in the plan and can save $20 million in road construction costs. Along the way, the winters are warm and the summers are mild, so there will be no trouble from ice and snow. The most important problem facing this line is that the section of the road that passes through the Mexican border is not under the control of the U.S. government and may be attacked by Mexican bandits and Apache and Comanche Indians.

US President Pierce is a supporter of this path. In 1853, he sent South Carolina congressman James Gadsden as envoy to Mexico in an attempt to negotiate the purchase of northern Mexico. Gadsden initially proposed a $50 million offer to Mexican President General Santa Ana to purchase the five states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and the Baja California peninsula. , and uses the Sierra Madre Mountains as the new U.S.-Mexico divide. This proposal was rejected by Santa Ana. Under strong pressure from the United States, Santa Anna finally agreed to sell 23,000 square kilometers of territory for $10 million. This land, known as the Gadsden Purchase, was located at the southernmost tip of present-day Arizona and New Mexico.

The divide of modern Mexico was set.

From a potential power to crisis

After the end of the U.S.-Mexico War, Mexico was still not immune to turmoil. In 1861, a civil war broke out in Mexico, and it subsequently suspended the payment of foreign debt interest, leading to armed intervention by Britain, France, and Spain. France then promoted Archduke Maximilian of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as the emperor of Mexico and established the Second Mexican Empire. The Mexicans drove away the French interventionist forces in 1867, but soon fell into a 35-year dictatorship. The iron-fisted ruler General Porfirio Díaz transformed Mexico from a feudal state into a modern nation, but became an economic vassal of the United States. The railway length expanded from 730 kilometers in 1876 to 26,000 kilometers in 1911, but most of the railways are owned by American investors. In the Mountain West, America's big mining companies acquired all rights to deposits of gold, silver, mercury, lead, copper and more. Millions of acres of land and pasture in the northern states of Mexico have also fallen into the hands of American companies, and the plantations producing cotton, coffee, and sugar in southern Mexico have also become American companies or their own industries.

In 1901, rich oil reserves were discovered on the Gulf Coast, but these oil fields also fell into the hands of American oil companies such as Mobil, Gulf, and Sinclair. Mexico reformed again in 1910, and the United States sent troops to intervene twice in 1914 and 1917. In 1917, Mexico formulated a modern democratic constitution, but the center-left Mexican National Revolutionary Party (later renamed the Institutional Reform Party) remained in power from 1929 to 2000. From 1930 to 1970, under the guidance of Keynesianism, Mexico entered a 40-year "economic miracle" period, with economic planning increasing rapidly at a rate of 5 per year. However, since 1970, Mexico's economy has grown slowly, its fiscal deficit and foreign debt have gradually increased, and its unemployment rate has increased. It was not until joining the North American Free Trade Area in 1994 that the Mexican economy began to recover.