To the honor of the Belgians in the employ of Maximilian, let it be said that they protested most emphatically against this decree, and the murders which were perpetrated under it.
Two hundred Belgians, who were at the time in the hands of the Liberal forces at Tacambaro, signed a formal remonstrance to Maximilian on the subject, and Colonel Breuer issued the following manifesto:
Tacambaro,October 24, 1865.
To the Representatives of the Belgian Nation:
Gentlemen: The Mexican question has frequently been discussed by you, but the chief point has been the legality or illegality of recruiting for the Belgian legion. Now, however, an event of great gravity obliges us to call your attention to it anew. The lives of two hundred Belgian prisoners are involved. Considering the question some time back, the force was intended solely as a guard of honor voluntarily offered for the protection of a Belgian princess. The emperor, disregarding the special service for which the legion was destined and the neutrality of the Belgian nation, ordered us to take the field, and being Belgian soldiers, we obeyed, and marched to the front cheerfully, animated by the love of war. Although we achieved triumphs, we also, unfortunately, sustained reverses, and two hundred of us Belgians are prisoners. Without taking our position into consideration, the emperor recently issued a decree which may cause terrible results. It announces to the republicans that after the 15th of November, all persons caught with arms in their hands will be shot. At the commencement of this month an imperialist colonel, named Mendez—an ex-republican, who sold himself to the empire—a man hating the Belgians, took a large number of prisoners from the republican army in a fight, including two generals, and several officers of high rank, whom he caused to be shot, without regard to military law, and without waiting for the expiration of the period fixed by the decree, stating after the execution, to persons who
