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Podcast Transcript
In the 1860s, one of the bloodiest wars in the Western Hemisphere took place….and it wasn’t the US Civil War.
It was a war between Paraguay and an alliance of Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil, and it was one of the bloodiest ever fought in Latin America.
It was a conventional war that resulted in a guerilla war, which spawned famine and disease.
Learn more about the Paraguayan War or the War of the Triple Alliance on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Despite the severity of the Paraguayan War, shockingly, few people have heard of it. It took place right after the American Civil War, which has gotten much of the historical attention because it came first and because the abolition of slavery was at its core.
The Paraguayan War was a much more traditional war insofar as the basis of the war had to do with territory. I previously touched on this war in one of my earliest episodes, in which I explained why Rutheford B. Hayes is so popular in Paraguay.
The origins of the war can be traced back to the original claims made by Spain and Portugal to the region. When they divided up the map, they did so far away from South America with no real knowledge of the reality on the ground.
These problems didn’t just exist between Spain and Portugal. When Spain carved up its section into different colonies, the borders between them weren’t very clear either.
So long as they were colonies of the same European country, this wasn’t a big deal. However, in the early 19th century, when these colonies became independent countries, these land claims suddenly took on a new sense of urgency.
The land in the Río de la Plata river basin was of particular interest. This basin is particularly fertile, where all four of the countries in this episode are located.
These land claims caused a significant amount of political tension between the countries in the region.
Brazil was the first country to recognize an independent Paraguay, for example, mostly because Argentina didn’t because they claimed it as a renegade province.
One of the biggest areas where this conflict played out was in Uruguay.
Uruguay had become a scene for proxy battles between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Multiple military and political interventions, especially by Brazil, had occurred in Uruguay in the first half of the 19th century.
So, that was the geopolitical situation in the region. You had competing countries with overlapping territorial claims.
The other thing you need to understand is what was happening inside Paraguay.
Paraguay was a dictatorship. While there were other strong leaders in other Latin American countries, the blueprint for the Latin American dictator could be said to have been invented in Paraguay in the 19th century.
Following Paraguay’s independence in 1811, it was led by José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who was a dictator. When I say he was a dictator, I mean this in the most literal sense. His title was “Supreme and Perpetual Dictator of Paraguay.”
He ruled from 1814 to 1840. During his reign, he executed most potential opposition and established a secret police force. He also created a prison that was like a Paraguayan gulag in the middle of the forest, 70 miles from the nearest settlement.
In many ways, he created the type of authoritarian government that was found in many countries in the 20th century.
When he died in 1840, he was replaced by Carlos Antonio López, who eventually accumulated powers on a par with Francia. López held the title of President and eventually appointed his son, Francisco Solano López, as vice-president.
The elder López died in 1862, and his son rose to power.
Paraguay was much smaller than its neighbors. It is estimated to have had a population of approximately 450,000 during the rule of Francisco López. In comparison, its neighbors of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay had a combined population of 11 million people.
Despite having a much smaller population, Paraguay had a much larger army than any of its neighbors. There have been various estimates of the army’s size, but the current estimates put the army’s size between 70,000 and 100,000 men.
This was enormous for a population of that size. However, what it had in quantity, it lacked in quality. The weapons were poor. To make a comparison, the guns were decades-old smooth-bore muskets. Their artillery was just as bad.
Their officers were untrained, and the military had poor food and medical care.
Economically, Paraguay practiced protectionism and was rather isolated from its neighbors, which made it much poorer than its neighbors.
Before Francisco López, Parauary was extremely isolationist. Lopez, however, took an interest in the politics of the region.
He aimed to expand Paraguay’s influence and secure greater regional power. Paraguay felt threatened by Brazil and Argentina’s growing influence in the region, and López saw himself as a protector of smaller countries, particularly Uruguay, against their larger neighbors.
With all of that background, the immediate cause of the war was the political instability in Uruguay. Since the 1830s, Uruguay had been divided between two factions—the Blancos and the Colorados.
The Blancos represented rural landowners and were supported by Argentina. The Colorados represented urban interests and had the backing of Brazil.
In 1864, Brazil supported a Colorado rebellion in Uruguay, helping them overthrow the Blanco government.
López believed that if Paraguay did not act, it would eventually be squeezed by Brazil and Argentina.
Thus, after Brazil intervened in Uruguay, Paraguay invaded Brasil’s Mato Grosso province on December 14, 1864. Brazil had about 16,000 men under arms at the start of the war, and their quality was on par with Paraguay, which isn’t saying much.
Paraguay then decided to occupy Uruguay to support the Blancos, but there was a small problem….Paraguay doesn’t border Uruguay.
If you look at a map, you’ll notice there is a branch of Argentina that extends up between Uruguay and Paraguay to border Brazil.
López asked Argentina for permission to cross the province of Corrientes to enter Uruguay but was denied. So, on March 25, 1865, Paraguay declared war on Argentina and subsequently invaded.
López thought that he would get the support of the leader of the Corrientes province, who was an opponent of the Argentine central government, but it backfired.
On May 1, Brazil, Argentina, and the Colorado government of Uruguay signed a treaty forming the Triple Alliance.
While Paraguay had a larger army to start the war, the nations of the Triple Alliance had an over 20 to 1 advantage in population. The long-term odds were overwhelmingly against Paraguay.
One of the most significant battles of the war was the Naval Battle of Riachuelo, which took place on June 11, 1865, when the Brazilian navy decisively defeated the Paraguayan flotilla on the Paraná River.
While landlocked Paraguay didn’t have much of a navy, this loss weakened Paraguay’s ability to transport troops and materials along the river, marking a turning point in the war.
The war was not over quickly. It dragged on for several years, and for most of that time, things did not go well for Paraguay.
The largest battle of the war and one of the largest in South American history was the Battle of Tuyutí, which took place on May 24, 1866. The allied forces launched a massive assault on Paraguayan positions at Tuyutí. The battle ended in a decisive victory for the Triple Alliance, though Paraguayan forces managed to put up a fierce resistance.
From July 1867 to August 1868, the Allies laid siege to the fortress of Humaitá, a key Paraguayan fortress that controlled access to the Paraguay River. The Brazilian navy blockaded the fortress while Allied ground forces besieged it. After a long and grueling siege, Humaitá fell in August 1868, opening the way to Asunción, Paraguay’s capital.
Brazilian forces captured Asunción on January 1, 1869.
However, that was not the end of the war. Francisco López refused to surrender and continued to resist with guerrilla warfare.
López retreated into the Paraguayan countryside, where he organized a guerrilla resistance. The remnants of the Paraguayan army, now drastically reduced, continued fighting a brutal and relentless campaign against the occupying forces. López became increasingly paranoid, executing or imprisoning those he suspected of disloyalty.
The guerilla campaign continued until March 1, 1870, and the final battle of the war, the Battle of Cerro Corá, in which Brazilian troops decisively defeated the Paraguayan forces.
López was killed during the battle, effectively ending the war.
I rushed through much of the actual fighting and battles that took place during the war, and that might give the impression that it wasn’t much of a war.
It was anything but. The war continued for six years, and it was brutal. In fact, the reason I’m doing an episode on this is because of the extreme nature of the conflict.
Paraguay suffered the most devastating consequences of the war, with estimates suggesting that between 0% and 90% of its entire population died during the war.
The exact number is controversial, as there were no reliable pre-war population censuses. The population before the war is estimated to have been between 400,000 and 525,000, but some estimates place it over one million, which is now considered highly unlikely.
Regardless of the actual head count bfoere the war, fter the war, the population had dropped dramatically. The most shocking estimates suggest that up to 90% of Paraguay’s male population perished, leaving a population with a gender imbalance and a much smaller, predominantly female society.
The losses were due not only to combat but also to disease, starvation, and the displacement caused by the war.
In most wars of this era, armies faced each other in open fields and engaged in set-piece battles. To be sure, there were a fair number of those, but when the capital Asunción fell, civilians were caught up in violence.
Then, when the war entered a guerilla phase, the distinctions between military and civilian became blurry, and the battleground was now in civilian areas.
Much of the population loss, particularly in Paraguay, was due to non-combat factors like disease, famine, and displacement. This complicates the death toll estimates, as these deaths were often indirect consequences of the war rather than battlefield casualties.
Most modern estimates, even the most conservative ones, claim that at least half the population of Paraguay died during the war.
In addition to the staggering death count, the loss of the war had other devastating ramifications for Paraguay.
Paraguay’s leadership was almost entirely wiped out during the war. After the war, Paraguay was left in a state of political chaos, with a weak civilian government under occupation by the Allies.
The Triple Alliance imposed harsh terms on the country. Paraguay was forced to cede significant portions of territory to both Brazil and Argentina. The Treaty of Asunción, signed in 1872, formalized the new borders and established Paraguay as a semi-dependent state under Brazilian and Argentine influence.
The modern borders of Paraguay are significantly different and smaller than the borders of the country before the war.
Uruguay, the smallest participant in the Triple Alliance, saw the Colorado faction achieve political dominance, which was secured with Brazil’s backing. However, Uruguay played a relatively minor role in the post-war settlement.
Brazil, despite suffering heavy losses, emerged as the big winner and dominant regional power after the war. The war helped to solidify its influence in the Río de la Plata basin and contributed to the centralization of the Brazilian Empire under Emperor Dom Pedro II.
Argentina gained territory at Paraguay’s expense but was less influential than Brazil in post-war Paraguay. The war also helped solidify Argentina’s internal cohesion, but it would continue to face political instability in the following years.
The Paraguayan War was a transformative event in South American history, shaping the geopolitical landscape of the region for decades. Paraguay’s near-total destruction and its long-term recovery left a lasting scar, while Brazil’s dominance in the aftermath redefined power dynamics in the region.