Paraguay Pre and Post War of the Triple Alliance

Paraguay Pre and Post War of the Triple Alliance

Introduction

In the mid-nineteenth century Paraguay was not the country it is today. Until 1840 it was ruled by Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, intellectual and dictator, which made this territory a prosperous nation with high levels of development and economic self-sufficiency. The big shipyards, steel mills, railroads and telegraph lines were aware of it (Centeno, 2010). In addition, Paraguay has exercised a kind of economic monopoly, charging high tax products that competed with theirs: the grass, cotton (it was the second largest producer in the world after England) and snuff. Paraguay was by then the only country in Latin America that had no external debt. At his death, Gaspar de Francia was succeeded by Carlos Antonio Lopez in 1862 by his son, Marshal Francisco Solano Lopez, who followed the same policies of social and economic protectionism (Cowley, 2008).

Causes of the War (Pre War)

The problems with the neighboring country Uruguay began when the National Party White was destabilized by the militants of the opposition Colorado Party. Brazil intervened to support the latter, claiming that his fellow Brazilians set out in the Banda Oriental were being oppressed by fans of the White Party. But what really brought the Empire to intervene was the pressure of the big landowners who claimed the land near the border with Uruguay, added this also to the long-standing boundary issues coming brewing with Paraguay (Farwell, 2010). Thus, the Whites decided to go for help the Paraguayan government. For Lopez this was a great opportunity and that the country was geographically isolated from a troubled business by not having an outlet to the sea itself, which forced them to rely on Argentine rivers, a victory in that country could represent a new advantage geographical position in Paraguay (Meister, 2009). The Mariscal Lopez summoned to Brazil to cease hostilities against the Uruguayan government, but the request was not accepted, the fact that hostilities began between the 11 November 1864, the day on which the Paraguayan army captured a steamer Brazil. Argentina, meanwhile, declared itself neutral (Farwell, 2010).

The war in Paraguay, a rather absurd war broke out in 1865. was the product of a very complex problem of balance of power in the river of silver, of the megalomania of Francisco Solano Lopez, dictator of Paraguay, Brazil expansionary anxieties, of the weakness of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay and Mitre alliances with friends, the Uruguayan Colorados (Whigham & Kay, 2010). All these factors resulted a war that lasted five years and had no benefit to the country in any way, despite having won it, a war which brought terrible pest to Buenos Aires and around the coast and that ultimately there was only favorable balance: having been the forging of a national army (Centeno, 2010).

Until then, indeed, there was no national army. There were provincial militia or National Guard, which despite its name, were provincial. The Paraguay War prompted many young people of ...