I just watched a History Channel (or was it Discovery, either way it was a DSC production) about it. Cool, the cocky French got their butts handed to them by some, in their opinions, inferior Mexicans and natives. Most of the natives from the area were armed with nothing more than machetes, the French weren't prepared for any hand to hand fighting. If the general in command had not been so cocky and ful of himself and French superiority, and had listened to, and waited for, the Mexican general the outcome might have been a bit different. Who knows.