Die Mexikaner

In the summer of 1864, 6,000 men were recruited in Ljubljana for the volunteer corps of the crowned Emperor of Mexico, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria, in the hope of finding prosperity and happiness in the distant land. Among them were many Slovenians, popularly known as "The Mexicans", who were soon sung about in songs expressing their longing for another world. However, Maximilian was also a "Mexican", who as emperor hoped to gain the prestige in a foreign country that he had been denied in the Austrian dynasty. And so the disastrous fate takes its course. The five-volume graphic novel The Mexicans unfolds the story of this absurd expedition in a broad epic arc, which was to end with the death of thousands of soldiers and civilians as well as the emperor himself. Its individual stages - from the intriguing initiation of the "deal" to the recruitment of the volunteers, the arrival in Mexico, the various battles and the tragic end - follow the historical events. However, these provide the pretext for an evil adventure story in which a desperado driven by his passions plays the leading role and which has never been told before. The Mexicans is a historically based tale of the failure of megalomaniacal European expansionism, but also of the failure to escape from personal guilt.