Cinco de Mayo

In 1861, Mexican President Benito Juárez stopped making interest payments to countries that Mexico owed money to. In response, France attacked Mexico to force payment of this debt. France decided that it would try to take over and occupy Mexico. France was successful at first in its invasion; however, on May 5, 1862, at the city of Puebla, Mexican forces were able to defeat an attack by the larger French army. In the Battle of Puebla, the Mexicans were led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín. Although the Mexican army was victorious over the French at Puebla, the victory only delayed the French advance on Mexico City. A year later, the French occupied Mexico. The French occupying forces placed Emperor Maximilian I on the throne of Mexico in 1864. The French eventually withdrew in 1866-1867. Maximilian was deposed by President Benito Juárez and executed, five years after the Battle of Puebla.

Now that we have had our history lesson for the day, I find myself asking, wouldn't you be celebrating too, if you had just told your creditors that you weren't going to pay your bills, and you thought that you could get away with that? From France's position, evidently Mexico planned to "welch" on the agreement, and according to the dictionary, its derivation relates to Welshmen who, according to the English, similarly didn't make good on their debts. I find this entire phenomena somewhat fascinating but "c'est la vie". Now, that's French, but they weren't about to waive the debt that was owed to them, and the Mexicans weren't about to say, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! They wouldn't have said that either because that's Latin, right? All this foreign language has my mind spinning, or maybe it's just those tasty margaritas. Regardless, I hope everyone has un buen dia, y tambien, could you pick up the tab, porque no tengo bastante dinero; hasta la vista baby!