The Last Emperor of Mexico: Edward Shawcross

In 1864, a young Austrian archduke by the name of Maximilian crossed the Atlantic to assume a faraway throne. He had been lured into the voyage by a duplicitous Napoleon III. Keen to spread his own interests abroad, the French emperor had promised Maximilian a hero’s welcome. Instead, he walked into a bloody guerrilla war. With a head full of impractical ideals – and a penchant for pomp and butterflies – the new ‘emperor’ was singularly ill-equipped for what lay in store.

This is the vivid history of this barely known, barely believable episode – a bloody tragedy of operatic proportions, the effects of which would be felt into the twentieth century and beyond.