CDG 60 – French Foreign Legion in Mexico, 1863

The January 2014 issue of Armchair General® presented the Combat Decision Game “French Foreign Legion in Mexico, 1863.” This CDG placed readers in the role of Captain Jean Danjou, commander of the French Foreign Legion’s 3d Company, 1st Battalion, which was part of an army that France’s Emperor Napoleon III sent to seize control of Mexico. The Mexican republic, however, fiercely resisted this blatant aggression by the much stronger European power. Indeed, Mexican forces defeated the first French attempt to capture the capital, Mexico City, at the May 5, 1862, Battle of Puebla. Yet Napoleon III persevered in his campaign to conquer Mexico and sent troop reinforcements beginning in September. On March 16, 1863, in another attempt to capture Mexico City, a French army began a siege of Puebla. However, it was operating at the end of a long and tenuous supply line extending through hostile Mexican countryside back to the main French base at Veracruz, on the Gulf of Mexico coast. To protect French supply convoys from attacks...