Mexico

There were four factors that contributed to the end of the French occupation of Mexico:

• When Mexico City fell to French forces, the Mexican legitimate government and its supporters resorted to guerrilla warfare. This made the occupation of Mexico a very difficult proposition, especially if you take into account the large size of Mexico, which is three and a half times the size of France.

• It was very expensive for France to provide the arms and financial support required to continue the occupation of Mexico, as most military supplies had to be transported from France.

• Prussia became a threat to France, and Napoleon III saw the need to recall all his troops around the world in the event of a confrontation with such European power.

• Finally when the American Civil War (1861-1865) ended, the American government provided financial and diplomatic support to Mexico. No American troops were involved in the Franco-Mexican War.

There are two land areas known as California:

One is Upper California, which is the US state commonly known as Golden State and has cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Fresno or Oakland.

The other is Lower California, which is a peninsula found south of California and is commonly known as Baja California. It is part of Mexico and has cities such as Tijuana, Ensenada and Los Cabos.

This confusion is common due to the fact that both Upper and Lower California were at some time one single entity, known as the Territories of California (Territorios de California), which used to belong to Mexico until the end of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). At the end of such conflict, Mexico lost the Upper California (Alta California) as well as the states of Nevada, Utah, Texas and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming.

Some of them are. The racial composition of Mexico is the following:

• Mestizo (Amerindian-Spanish) 60%
• Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian 30%,
• White 9%,
• Other 1%

There are two major deserts, both located in northern Mexico:

• Sonoran Desert
• Chihuahuan Desert

Within the Sonoran desert is the only dune desert, the Gran Desierto de Altar.

The incident that started it all is called the Tampico Affair, when a misunderstanding between Mexican soldiers and American sailors resulted in a "Mexican standoff" at the Mexican port of Tampico on April 9, 1914. The American sailors were arrested, but later liberated. Then, the American commander in the area, Rear Admiral Henry T. Mayo, demanded a formal apology for the events, which included that Mexico had to raise the United States flag on its soil and provide a 21-gun salute. Obviously, these demands were ignored, and President Wilson ordered an armed invasion of the area. This, among a faulty intelligence report stating that a German shipment of arms was bound for Veracruz, resulted in the United States occupation of Veracruz, when 2,300 American marines assaulted and took the aforementioned port city on April 21, 1914, occupying it for six months.

Immediate results include 22 American marines killed and 70 wounded, and up to 172 Mexican casualties, with 250 wounded including Mexican infantry, sailors and some militia formed from the city populace. Both Victoriano Huerta and Venustiano Carranza (opposing rivals during the Mexican Revolution) officially objected to the occupation, but neither was able to oppose it effectively, as both were fighting against each other. The occupation brought the two countries to the brink of war, and damaged the US-Mexican relations for many years.