The Franco-Mexican Pastry War

When a French pastry chef complained to King Louis-Phillippe that his shop in Mexico was destroyed in a riot, it catalyzed a conflict between the two nations. But the military action of the Pastry War was really about a trade agreements and unpaid debts.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from works
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Polly
Brown and I'm Tracy Wilson. Today's episode. If you happen
to look at the title, which is the Pastry War,

(00:21):
it sounds like a food episode, but do not get excited,
because pastry is really only factor into the whole equation mildly.
But this is kind of interesting because it's one of
those episodes where a bunch of significant history events all
kind of rub up against each other. Uh. So, we're
gonna talk about Mexico just after the Texas Revolution. We're
gonna talk a little bit about the French Revolution and
the dwindling monarchy of that country. And we are even

(00:44):
going to talk about a funeral that's been requested by
several listeners over the years, the one that we recall
probably most recently, although I think it's actually been a
while with Tabitha who requested it. So when we get there,
you'll know that that was Tabitha and many other people
asking for it. So, yeah, we're gonna talk about the
Franco Mexican Pastry War. We're gonna start with a little
bit about Mexican independence. In eighteen twenty one, Mexico gained

(01:09):
its independence from Spain, but as a newly independent country,
Mexico was really mired and internal conflict for years afterward.
The government and rebel forces were almost constantly at odds
with each other, and there was a lot of riding
and street fights and looting. Those are just everyday occurrences.
We should also point out that when we say the government,

(01:30):
we aren't really talking about a single stable entity. During
that time, there were constant claims being made for the
presidency of the newly independent nation, and the leadership of
that nation was just changing over and over and over.
So one of the main catalysts for this story actually
happened in eighteen twenty eight, although the story itself take

(01:51):
place for some time, but at this point in Manuel
Gomez Pedraza was President of Mexico, at least by election results.
Uh When Pedraza attempted to remove the governor of the
State of Mexico, who was Lorenzo de Zavola, from power,
Zabola called on his ally, General Antonio Lopez de Santa

(02:13):
Anna for help, and President Pedraza was quickly overthrown and
is as is often the case during times of political rebellion,
major riots erupted. A French born pastry shift named Romantel
had a bakery shop in Tacobia, which is near Mexico City.
Today it's actually a section of Mexico City, but before

(02:34):
the twentieth century it was a separate municipality altogether. And
in eighteen twenty eight the riots that broke out after
Zavola seized the presidency, his shop was actually destroyed by
street fighting and then looted by Mexican officers. It's not
actually clear which side of the rebellion the leaders had
actually been on, but with his pastry shop ruined, Romantel

(02:56):
was put out of business. And we should point out
that this one page shop was certainly not the only
business run by a French national that suffered in the
skirmishes that were common in Mexico City at the time.
Many businesses were damaged, and many, particularly these French nationals
that had kind of flocked there, were left with little
recourse in the matter. Monsieur Romontelle petitioned for reparations to

(03:19):
be paid for his lost business, but the Mexican government
denied his claims. Repeatedly Finally, after just hitting walls and
trying to seek help and compensation for the damages, he
turned to his home country of France. And we're going
to talk for a minute about the king of France
at the time. So King Louis Philippe was the French

(03:40):
monarch at a very precarious time for France. He had
been born on October six, seventeen seventy three, and Louis
Philippe was actually a relative of King Louis the sixteenth,
but despite his royal blood, he was really a supporter
of the revolution. He fought for the French army in
the seventeen nineties, but he deserted in less than a
year in seventeen ninety three. His father was one of

(04:02):
the royal class that was executed during the Reign of Terror,
and consequently Louis Philippe lived in exile from his home
country for much of his life. When Napoleon Bonaparte was
defeated both times, Louis Philippe returned to France, and when
King Charles the tenth abdicated after the July Revolution of
eighteen thirty left a power vacuum that Louis Philippe stepped

(04:24):
into He was sworn in his king of France on
August nine, eighteen thirty, despite some detractors calling him a
usurper to the throne. Those folks who were known as
legitimists believed that Charles the tenth grandson should be the
one to become king. Yeah, and just for clarity on
our comment about Napoleon being defeated both times and Louis

(04:44):
Philippe returning to France, he came back after the first time,
and then when things got a little dicey, he left
again and went to England. And then when Napoleon was
defeated again, then Louis Philippe returned to France and got
involved in all of the politics. He was call all
the citizen King. He actually took the throne under a
revised governing charter that actually limited the power of the monarchy,

(05:07):
but he didn't really deliver on his potential to bring
class equality and stability to France. He soon began ruling
almost as though that limiting charter wasn't in place. He
took a really autocratic approach to things, and instead of
looking after the interests of the poor in the working class,
as everyone who believed he was going to. He instead
was known to favor the wealthy in his decisions. Additionally,

(05:30):
France hit extremely difficult economic times in the eighteen thirties,
which only fed the unrest in the country and the
distrust of Louis Philippe. Many attempts were made on his life. Yeah,
he had like eight assassination attempts, so not wildly popular.
But before we get into Louis Philippe's dealings with Mexico,

(05:51):
I would love to pause for just a moment and
have a word from one of the sponsors that keeps
our show going. While Mexico had been fighting the Texas Revolution,
it had been did money, quite a bit of money,
and it had borrowed a tidy chunk of that money
from France. Lending out the money hadn't exactly made Louis
Philippe very popular with his people, and in early eighteen

(06:11):
thirty eight there had been no repayment on these debts
that had been accrued. Francis King was fretful under over
his country's economic times, and he was growing very irritated
about Mexico defaulting on the loans. And so it was
at this time a decade after that pastry shop that
we mentioned was looted and destroyed. That Monsieur Ramontel, who

(06:33):
had owned the pastry shop and had been trying for
all those years to get money from the Mexican government,
finally was able to speak to the French king about
how his business had been collateral damage in Mexico's internal
power struggles. Louis Philippe was sympathetic to Romontell. So is
sympathetic that French diplomat Antoine Louis Defardi asked all French

(06:53):
citizens living in Mexico to itemize and invoice all of
their goods so that France would be able to clearly
assess the damages that have been caused to their property
by the ongoing violence from a Chepo Montell's losses. France
added sixty thousand paceos to its demand on Mexico to
hustle with repayment of those war loans, and in total

(07:14):
France called for six hundred thousand pacos from Mexico. This
was a huge sum at the time, and in truth
the shop had actually only been valued at about one
thousand paceos. And this was a shop that was kind
of a fancy pants bakery. It was definitely not like
a little small rundown thing. This was in a really
nice part of town at the time. Uh So that's

(07:34):
sixty thousand pacos number is sometimes explained as having been
arrived at as the sum that Hermontelle could have expected
from a lifetime of running that shop, but in fact
Mexico just did not have that kind of money at
the ready. France also wanted a trade agreement with Mexico.
There had been efforts to actually establish one outside of

(07:55):
the demand for repayment of these outstanding loans, but now
both of these issues were lumped together, perhaps in an
effort to use this unpayable debt as a bargaining chip
from Mexico to accept the trade terms that France wanted.
The demands were tendered officially by diplomat Antoine Louis de Fontis,
and these mandates were issued with a sort of or

(08:16):
else ultimatum, with the threat that France would be satisfied
one way or another, implying that there would be potential
military action if they didn't agree at the trade The
ultimatum was issued on March twenty one, eight. Mexico had
until May fifteenth to comply and make payment. Mexico's congress

(08:36):
had until April fifteen to answer these claims and say
either we're gonna make the payment or we'll deal with
a trade situation. But it was very clear that Mexico
had no intention of paying France this overinflated some that
it demanded, and that neither were they terribly interested in
agreeing to the terms of this trade agreement. So Deficoti,
working with the power given him by King Louis Philippe,

(08:59):
called up the military to make good on this or
else portion of the ultimatum. So the day after the
due date of Mexico's answer, which would have been April sixteenth,
the French flotilla arrived. Admiral Charles Baudin headed up the
French navy efforts that pressuring Mexico into forking over the

(09:19):
loan money and agreeing to this trade agreement. French ships
formed a blackade and prevented traffic into and out of
Mexican seaports along the Gulf of Mexico, stretching all the
way from the Rio Grande to the Yucatan Peninsula. Mexico
attempted to circumvent this blockade by having goods shipped instead
into Texas ports and then carried overland into the country.

(09:42):
Then the United States got involved, as allies to the
French and harboring their own issues against Mexico. The United
States government offered the U s r C wouldbury into
the Gulf blockade to aid the French and their efforts
to catch smugglers. Yeah, they were kind of both helping
with the bigg blockade and keeping an eye on the
smuggling that was going into the ports of Texas. And

(10:05):
this obstruction fleet, mostly French with a few uh U
s ships lurked there in the Gulf, hampering passage to
Mexican ports until fall of that same year. So remember
this all started in April. It went on for quite
some time. Various attempts at negotiations were made by the French,
but the President of Mexico, Anastasio Bustamante, was unwilling to

(10:27):
come to an agreement on the matter, and finally, in November,
France was simply tired of this passive approach and they
decided that it was time to move more forcefully against Mexico.
On November seventeenth, Defandi met with Mexico's Minister of Foreign
Affairs at Hualapa, but at that meeting resulted in no progress.
Defani was insistent that if Mexico had not accepted all

(10:50):
demands within ten days, the only possible next steps would
be hostile ones. The island fortress of San Juan de
Ulua sat as a protective stronghold to keep the port
city of Vera Cruz safe, and on November eighteen thirty eight,
so again, ten days after that meeting where nothing really happened,

(11:10):
France launched a full scale attack on this fortress. This
stronghold had been a key defensive position in Mexican history.
It had been in this defensive role since the mid
fifteen hundreds, so when France attacked it, which made strategic
sense because Vera Cruz was really like their ultimate port city.
But when France attacked it, it it was perceived it was

(11:30):
not perceived exclusively as a strategic attack to get Vera Cruz,
but also as something of an insult to Mexico's military history.
Mexico formally declared war on France just days later. Coustamante
called for the conscription of all able bodied Mexican men,
but Mexico did not have the money to put in

(11:51):
their into their military, and San Juan de Ulua was
raided with relative ease by the French navy. They captured
almost all of the Mexican nave and then took command
of their fleet within just a few days. So outmanned
by the French, Mexico made a rather bold and perhaps
surprising choice. They looked to Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

(12:13):
to help. Or more accurately, Santa Anna had heard about
these various goings on in Mexico's struggles and inability to
defend themselves against the French, and he volunteered his services. Initially,
Santa Anna was sent to the fortress outside Veracruz to
investigate the damage and make an advisement to the governor.
He made his investigation even as the fortress was being

(12:35):
actively shelled, and then he reported back that things were
too far gone that they should just surrender the island
to the French, and the governor did so on Santa
Anna's advice. But that was a terrible decision. When President
Bustamante heard of this move, he was infuriated, and he
had the governor ousted immediately to be replaced with none

(12:56):
other than wait for it, Santa Anna, so we don't
oh of Santa Anna purposely gave poor advice to the
governor in an effort to make potential re entry into
politics for himself. He was certainly widely enough for such
a play, but we really just don't know. He may
have thought that the fortress really was lost. Now, it
was not long before this that Santa Anna had been

(13:16):
utterly disgraced at the Battle of San Jacinto, which yes
we know today is pronounced Santa Santo in Texas. Sam
Houston and the Texas militia, fired up over the fall
of the Alamo, were able to defeat Santa Anna's troops
despite being really outnumbered almost two to one. Santa Anna
had negotiated his release from the custody of the Texans

(13:37):
by acknowledging Texas independence, So at this point he definitely
was not seen as a war hero by any means.
But even though uh that final battle had gone poorly,
President Bustamnte remembered how merciless and driven Santa Anna was
capable of being, and he had frankly had it. With
this French invasion situation, the Mexican government was losing money

(13:59):
on the blockade and trying to defend that island. Fortress
had further cost them dearly, and with their navy now
in the hands of the enemy, things were looking extremely desperate.
Santa Anna put together a makeshift army to deal with
the French navy that was occupying Vera Cruz. Also sent
a message to the Admiral Bodan disavowing the surrender of

(14:19):
the fortress. The next morning, Santa Anna was awakened to
a full on attack from the French, and he ordered
his men's a counter attack. True to the reputation that
he had before the embarrassment at San Jacinto, he and
his men quickly drove the French out of the city
and back to the Gulf of Mexico. While chasing after

(14:40):
the vanquished French, however, Santa Anna was hit by grape
shot fire from a cannon. Some accounts describe it as
his horse basically being shot out from under him, and
his horse was killed and one of his legs was
gravely wounded and that leg had to be amputated. It
was initially buried at Santa Anna's Vera Cruz hacienda, and
apparently the surgery to remove that leg had been done

(15:03):
kind of poorly. The surgeon hadn't left enough skin to
properly close up around the bone of the remaining portion
of Santa Anna's leg, and the skin that was there
had to be overstretched when it was stitched closed, and
this is sent to have left Santa Anna with a
great deal of pain for the rest of his life.
But even after the French navy was driven out of
Vera Cruz, the blockade continued and France and Mexico were

(15:25):
with at war with one another for several more months.
But without Santa Anna to leave the troops, Boustamante was
forced to enter negotiations less the French to even more
damage to his already wounded country, and Great Britain, which
was an ally of Mexico, eventually sent a diplomat to
help work out a peace agreement, and it was also
in the British interests to foster a solution because that

(15:47):
blockade was causing them trade troubles as well. Under the
guidance of Sir Richard Pakenham, English Minister to Mexico, and
a cord was finally reached. Mexico cave to France's demands
and they did agree to pay the full hundred thousand
pacos that had been demanded at the outset of the conflict.
Over the course of six months, they also made a
variety of other agreements that the French had demanded. And

(16:11):
so on March nine, eight thirty nine, the French finally
withdrew from Mexico. And before we talk about the aftermath
of this relatively minor war, we will pause for another
word from a sponsor. So in terms of how things
played out after the Pastry War, Santa Anna came out
of that conflict with a boosted image. We're going to

(16:32):
talk more on that in just a moment. But President
Bustamante did not have the same luck. His image was
quite weakened by the whole ordeal. And again the country
was already having fiscal problems. Uh. And after he temporarily
stepped out of his role as president to deal with
a conflict with Guatemala and then resumed his office, Uh,

(16:53):
he didn't last. He was eventually overthrown by an uprising
in eighty one. By the way, Santa an to launch
that uprising, and he ended up becoming president of Mexico.
And so about Santa Anna, Yeah, the Pastry War wound
up being a true redemption story for Santa Anna. Even
though Mexico ended up agreeing to pay France, his actions

(17:14):
had cleared Vera Cruz of the French navy men who
occupied the city. He was actually a success in this case,
and he was very happy to tell everybody. So he
was also very quick to point out that he had
lost a limb in service to Mexico. Yeah, that apparently
was one of the things he would bring up all
the time. So when Santa Anna became president of Mexico again,

(17:34):
because as we mentioned, there was a lot of turnover happening,
and there were several men that took the leadership role
multiple times as various coups happened over and over and
back and forth. But when Santana became president of Mexico
in eighteen forty two, he exhumed his leg from its
resting place at his home. This is the thing that
Tampatha asked us to talk about. And this leg was

(17:56):
given a full military burial with all of the honors
one would normally he bestowed upon a fallen soldier. The
leg was paraded through Mexico City and a coach like
a war hero, and an elaborate state funeral was mounted
with poetry, reading speeches, and cannon fire. The leg was
reburied under a cemetery monument. I have this cartoon version

(18:19):
of this that plays in my head, where people are
making these orations about it was a good leg. It's
just such a wonderfully odd and funny thing. But the
other thing to think about is the fact that political
tides turn, and so Santa Anna's leg did not stay
in its fancy grave for very long. In eighty four,

(18:40):
just a couple of years after he became president. That
for that chunk of time, when public sentiment turned against
Santa Anna, dissidents exhumed that leg yet again. So that's
its second exhamation, and this time it was not to
be given a better place. Instead, it was dragged through
the streets of Mexico City on a rope while these
people that had dug it up chanted death to cripple.

(19:00):
Santana was exiled from Mexico, but his life was nothing
if not cyclical. In eighteen forty six, Mexico asked him
to once again step in as a military leader in
the Mexican American War. When the United States made a
surprise attack on his camp in eighteen forty seven, Mexican
general fled, but in his haste he left behind his
prosthetic leg, and the Illinois infantry that had mounted the

(19:23):
attack took it. So I means basically Santa Ana lost
the same leg twice in battle. Yes, one was his
actual flesh and bone leg and the other was a
cork replacement, but he just couldn't hold on to that
one leg. His captured prosthetic actually toured the United States
and then it went on display at the Illinois State
Military Museum. Eventually it was moved to a display at

(19:45):
the Illinois State Capitol. And this has actually been an
issue of contention between the US and Mexico for years,
as Mexico has asked that the leg he turned over
to their government repeatedly, but much as Mexico repeatedly refused
that French chef's request forimbursement, so has Illinois refused please
to return the leg of the historic general. So as

(20:06):
for Francis King Louis Philippe, he did manage to turn
France's finances around for a little while. France entered a
depression in eighteen forty six, and another revolutionary uprising followed
in eighteen forty eight. Louis Philippe abdicated the throne on
February forty eight, and he traveled under the name Mr
Smith and fled to England, where he lived until his

(20:28):
death on August eighteen fifty. He was the last king
of France. And that's the Pastry War, is it sometimes called,
which I think it's a fun name, but it's such
a misnomer because it really has very little to do
with pastry, even if you want to focus on Monsieur
Lumontel in his shop. It kind of seems to me

(20:49):
that it could have been almost anything at that point,
since Louis Philippe was really itching with some frustration at
Mexico already, it could have been almost any other catalyst
as well. For all we know, this could be called
some other entirely different or depending on who had given
him the information that really finally sparked this this series
of demands to be made. So that is the Pastry War,

(21:11):
though as it is called normally, it's fascinating. I didn't
even realize um when I started researching it, that it
was going to end up being the the whole Santa
Anna thing. I didn't, uh, you know, realize that the
dust up over this pastry shop was so connected to
the Texas and Mexico conflict and all of that stuff.

(21:33):
So it's kind of one of those cool ones where
a lot of things come together and kind of co here.
It helps connect the dots I think on the timeline
of history, and now I have a little bit of
listener mail and speaking on the timeline of history, it
actually refers back to an episode that was before Tracy
and Ice time. But uh, the person who wrote this
to us is kind of talking about it in the

(21:54):
bigger scope of like the cool things that can come
out of this podcast, which is so sweet of her.
And her name is Holly. I automatically like her. She's
as Hi Tracy and Holly. I wanted to send you
a postcard from one of the most interesting places I
have ever been, and thank everyone that is part of
this podcast for making me aware that it existed. I
really enjoyed the podcast and just recently finished listening to

(22:15):
every episode, both archived and present, and as I listen,
I love to imagine visiting the sites and cities that
are subject from week to week, and every host has
done such a fabulous job of keeping me intrigued and
excited enough to have started a bucket list of places
that I would love to see. I live in Kansas City,
so visiting most of the places on my list is
kind of a dream at this point. Imagine how excited

(22:37):
I was when I got to the episode about Cohokia.
As soon as Sarah and Dablina mentioned that this mysterious
settlement was in Illinois, I abandoned everything that I was
doing and jumped on the internet to find out how
far it was from Kansas City. I was filled with
joy when I discovered it was only four hours from
my front door. My family and I had already planned
our summer vacation for June, and we had chosen to

(22:57):
go to Chicago as our destination this year. A map
was telling me that Cookio was almost directly between Kansas
City and Chicago. It was like fate. Visiting the site
took my breath away, and I plan on returning in
the fall so that I can walk the trails around
the mounds in cooler weather. I'm sorry this note is
so long, but I wanted to let you know how
much this listener enjoys the podcast, and although I know
it's exhausting work. Uh. The story is just one example

(23:20):
of how you've informed and inspired me. Thank you for
all you do. I love that history comes alive. Uh,
it's so cool. And I hope that they had a
great time in Chicago, as we know that it's one
of my favorite cities. And like they tweeted the other
day that my best friend was at the field and
I was very very jealous. Uh, So, thank you so much,
Holly for sharing that with us. I like when you know,

(23:43):
you follow up on something that you've heard and it
ends up being a really cool experience. All right for History.
If you would like to write to us, you can
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(24:05):
Instagram account which you can find at mist in History,
and if you would like to purchase history goodies, you
can do so at Misston History dot spreadshirt dot com.
I feel guilty that today's thing is named the Pastry
War and we didn't really talk about pastry very much.
So if you would like to learn about pastries, you
can go to our parents site, how stuff Works. Type
in the words ten pastries in the search bar, and

(24:28):
you will get an article called the ten most Decadite
Pastries Ever conceived. It's not exactly a history article, but
there's lots of delicious things, and like I said, I
feel guilty that we named an episode of the pastry
War and we don't talk about delicious desserts at all.
You can also visit us at Miston history dot com
where we have all of those archived episodes that our
listener Holly talked about, and we also have show notes

(24:50):
for every episode Tracy and I have worked on. So
we do encourageute to come and visit us at Miston
history dot com and how stuff works dot com. For
more on thisss thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
works dot com