Francisco Solano López, persuded by Uruguayan conservatives…

Francisco Solano López, persuded by Uruguayan conservatives that invasion by Brazil and Argentina is imminent, sends two separate Paraguayan forces to invade Brazil’s Mato Grosso province simultaneously in January 1865.

Five thousand troops, transported in ten ships and commanded by Col. Vicente Barrios, go up the Río Paraguay and attack the fort of Nova Coimbra.

The Brazilian garrison of one hundred and fifty-five men resists for three days under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hermenegildo de Albuquerque Porto Carrero, later baron of Fort Coimbra.

When the munitions are exhausted, the defenders abandon the fort and withdraw up the river towards Corumbá on board the gunship Anhambaí.

After they occupy the empty fort, the Paraguayans advance north, taking the cities of Albuquerque and Corumbá in January 1865, and and taking possession of the province and its diamond mines, together with an immense quantity of arms and ammunition, including gun powder enough to last the whole Paraguayan Army at least a year of active war.

However, Paraguayan forces cannot or will not seize the capital city of Cuiabá, in northern Mato Grosso.