The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 1, Issue 1, April 2015 | Page 38

The French Intervention in Mexico
Lawrence Graves
The role of the United States on the global stage has been a subject of
study and debate for many years. America’s dominant role in today’s world is
now generally agreed upon, but what about its entrance into this global arena?
When did this debut actually occur? Since there has been no official certificatory
body to award a global power designation, the occasion that saw America’s
emergence as a world power is up for debate. Although obscured by high-profile
world wars, regional wars, and perhaps other incidents, it was America’s response
to a direct threat of its Monroe Doctrine, that in the form of the French
intervention in Mexico, which marks America’s first significant entry into the
global power community. Its effect on the Second French Empire would ripple
throughout the world wherever France established her interests and ultimately
alter the forthcoming regime change in France. America’s action also had a hand
in reversing a new wave of colonization that was beginning in Mexico; this too
had an effect on global relations that could have grown between Mexico and other
nations around the world.
Many have considered America’s entrance into the First World War as
her first global power emergence. Richard Worth, an author of high school level
textbooks, expressed this generally accepted view, which sums up the common
belief that “through its participation in World War I, the United States became an
important international world power.” 1 Such a statement made to youthful
readers, who will perhaps never approach the subject again, underscores the
widespread acceptance of this view. Such a view does have its merits. American
troops, and their impressive support network, started to arrive in France just in
time to prop up their wavering allies, and then took the battle to Imperial
Germany’s armies. After the war and President Wilson’s retreat from the Paris
Peace Conference, the United States opted for a more isolationist foreign policy. 2
The Senate’s refusal to ratify the Versailles Treaty, and thereby join the League of
Nations, only left American finance as its significant force in the global world.
While the view of the First World War’s importance to the history of global
power is unquestioned, it was decades removed from America’s maiden entry into
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