End of the Pastry War

The plebeian riot of December 1828 swept like ‘a voracious fire’ through the Parian, a luxury goods emporium in Mexico City’s central square, the city’s governor said. In quelling the violence, soldiers destroyed the premises of a French patissier, causing 1,000 pesos worth of damage. The dispute escalated. Ten years later a French fleet arrived to blockade Mexico’s Gulf Coast ports; they demanded 600,000 pesos in restitution. It became known as the Guerra de los Pasteles, the Pastry War. By late 1838 the French had had enough. On 27 November they opened fire on Veracruz.

Mexico needed a hero – or at least General Antonio López de Santa Anna certainly thought so. Defeating a Spanish army at Tampico in 1829 had made him one, but after an unsuccessful spell as president and his own defeat to the United States at San Jacinto, he had retired in disgrace. Santa Anna was, one observer wrote, ‘gentlemanly [and] melancholy-looking’, like ‘a philosopher, living in dignified retirement’. He was fond of gambling, cockfights, and, critics said, access to the national treasury. He swept into Veracruz and took charge.

On 5 December, 3,000 French troops entered the city under the cover of a thick dawn fog. Opinions differ as to what happened next. Santa Anna claimed that he drove the French back to their ships. Others said the French were returning anyway. Either way, a cannon loaded with grapeshot was fired, smashing Santa Anna’s left leg and killing his horse. That afternoon, he dictated a dispatch, as if from his deathbed: ‘I was wounded in this last effort and probably this will be the last victory that I shall offer my native land.’ He pleaded forgiveness for political mistakes and asked to be remembered as a ‘good Mexican’.

But he did not die. He was carried to the capital where popular acclaim swept him once again to the presidency. The war ended on 9 March 1839. France had its compensation; Santa Anna had power (though only until July). His leg was brought in a glass case to a cemetery in Mexico City. In 1842, with Santa Anna once again returned to power, it was given a state funeral. The speaker solemnly eulogised the ‘mutilated remains of an illustrious caudillo of Independence and Liberty’ while the general looked on.