Querétaro, in central Mexico, had fallen to the Liberal troops of Benito Juarez on May 15, 1867, and the Mexican Emperor Maximilian I, along with his staff, had surrendered at a convent in the city to Liberal General Mariano Escobedo. On the orders of the central Liberal command, the Emperor and his two main remaining military commanders, General Miguel Miramón and General Tomás Méjìa, were tried before a public military tribunal at the Itirbede Theater in Querétaro. They were each found guilty of bearing arms against the Republic and given the mandatory sentence of death. The sentence was carried out by firing squad on the edge of the city on June 19, 1867 before a large crowd of onlookers. (By John Osborne)
Percy F. Martin, Maximilian in Mexico: The Story of the French Intervention, 1861-1867 (London: Constable and Company, Ltd., 1914), 349-359.
