Atanasio Aguirre

Historians have long considered that Paraguay under José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (1813–1840) and Carlos Antonio López (1841–1862) had developed quite differently from other South American countries.

The aim of Rodríguez de Francia and Carlos López had been to encourage self-sufficient economic development in Paraguay by imposing a high level of isolation from neighboring countries.

The regime of the López family is characterized by a harsh centralism without any room for the creation of a true civil society.

There is no distinction between the public and the private sphere, and the López family rules the country as it would a large estate of land.

The government exerts its control on all exports.

The export of yerba mate and valuable wood products maintain the balance of commerce between Paraguay and the outside world.

The Paraguayan government is extremely protectionist, never accepting loans from the outside and, through high tariffs, refusing the importation of foreign products.

Francisco Solano López, officially the eldest son of Paraguay’s president, Carlos Antonio López, was born in Manorá (Asunción).

He had been made Brigadier General of the Paraguayan army by his father at the age of eighteen, in 1844, during the spasmodic hostilities then prevailing with Argentina.

Sent in 1853 as minister plenipotentiary to Britain, France and Italy, he had spent a year and a half in Europe.

Purchasing large quantities of arms and military supplies, together with several steamers, he had organized a project for building a railroad and establishing a French colony in Paraguay.

He had also become infatuated with the empire of Napoleon III and Napoleon himself.

López had equipped his army with exact copies of uniforms of Napoleonic army.

He had ordered for himself an exact replica of Napoleon's crown.

While there, he had met Parisian courtesan Eliza Lynch and brought her with him back to Paraguay, where she will be his mistress and de facto first lady till his death, strongly influencing his later ambitious schemes.

Returning to Paraguay, he had become Minister of War in 1855, and was subsequently appointed as Vice President by his father.

In November 1859, López had been on board the war steamer Tacuari when it was attacked by British Royal Navy ships attempting to pressure his father into releasing a British citizen from prison.

The British consul who ordered the attack is Sir Edward Thornton, who will later personally support Argentina in the Paraguayan War.

This is one of several incidents that has damaged Paraguayan relations with Britain.

Thornton had later apologized for the action in order to repair relations, and promised Britain has no intention of interfering with Paraguayan jurisdiction.

When his father died in 1862, López had called a congress that had unanimously chosen him as president for ten years.

López has modernized and expanded industry and the Paraguayan Army.

The government has hired more than two hundred foreign technicians, who have installed telegraph lines and railroads to aid the expanding steel, textile, paper, ink, naval construction, weapons and gunpowder industries.

The Ybycuí foundry, completed in 1850, manufactures cannons, mortars and bullets of all caliber.

River warships are built in the shipyards of Asunción.

This industrial and military growth requires some contact with the international market, but Paraguay is a landlocked country.

Its ports are river ports, and Paraguayan and other ships must travel down the Río Paraguay and the Río Paraná to reach the estuary of the Río de la Plata (shared by Argentina and Uruguay) and the Atlantic Ocean.

López conceives of a project to obtain ports on the Atlantic Ocean: he probably intends to create a "Greater Paraguay" by capturing a slice of Brazilian territory that will link Paraguay to the Atlantic coast.

The fight between Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro for hegemony in the Río de la Plata has profoundly marked the diplomatic and political relations among the countries of the region since Brazil and Argentina became independent of Spain.

Brazil has carried out three political and military interventions in Uruguay.

The first had been in 1851, against Manuel Oribe to fight Argentine influence in the country, following which Montevideo had rewarded Brazil's support by signing treaties that confirmed Brazil's right to intervene in Uruguay's internal affairs.

In accordance with the 1851 treaties, Brazil intervenes militarily in Uruguay as often as it deems necessary.

The second Brazilian intervention had come in 1855, at the request of the Uruguayan government and Venancio Flores, leader of the Colorados, who are traditionally supported by the Brazilian empire.

The third intervention, in 1864, lights the fuse for the Paraguayan War.

Bernardo Berro, a member of the National (Blanco) Party, had first served as head of state of Uruguay in a provisional government for several weeks in 1852, during a brief period in which the National Party had come to power.

Leading the National Party's return to power in 1860, Berro had made attempts to unite the country's political factions, efforts not seldom opposed by members of his own Party and Government.

Flores, who in 1839 had been made political chief of the department of San José, had fought in the "Guerra Grande" against Manuel Oribe and his Argentinian backers, and had then become a leading figure in the Colorado party and formed a triumvirate with Fructuoso Rivera and Juan Antonio Lavalleja in 1853.

Serving as interim President of Uruguay, he had remained in power until 1855, after which he had moved to Argentina.

In 1863, he had started a rebellion against Berro, which has led to civil war in Uruguay.

Berro had stepped down from the Presidency on March 1, 1864.

Atanasio de la Cruz Aguirre, a member of the National Party and a Senator from 1861, assumes the Presidency of Uruguay as next-in-line, in his capacity of President of the Senate.

The Brazilian government has nominated a member of the ruling Liberal party, councilor José Antônio Saraiva, as plenipotentiary to Uruguay.

In April 1864, Brazil sends a diplomatic mission to Uruguay, led by Saraiva, to demand payment for the damages caused to gaucho farmers in border conflicts with Uruguayan farmers.

Uruguayan president Atanásio Aguirre, of the National Party, refuses the Brazilian demands.

Francisco Solano López offers himself as mediator, but is turned down by Brazil.

Brazil, under the rule of the Portuguese, had been the first country to recognize the independence of Paraguay, in 1811.

While Argentina was under the ruled of Juan Manuel Rosas (1829–1852), a common enemy of both Brazil and Paraguay, Brazil had contributed to the improvement of the fortifications and development of the Paraguayan army, sending officials and technical help to Asunción.

As no roads link the province of Mato Grosso to Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian ships need to travel through Paraguayan territory, going up the Río Paraguay to arrive at Cuiabá.

Many times, however, Brazil has had difficulty obtaining permission from the government in Asunción to sail these waterways.

Saraiva’s main objective is to end the crisis between both countries by peaceful means.

On May 12, 1864 he presents his credentials to the Uruguayan government and four days later formally delivers the Brazilian demands.

The demands are implicitly an ultimatum, and are rejected by Aguirre on May 24, 1864.

Both the Blanco and Brazilian governments are intransigent.

The Uruguayans erroneously believe that their alliance with Paraguay will protect them from a Brazilian attack and that, in the event of war, slave rebellions will occur in Brazil, preventing effective mobilization.

In turn, the Brazilian government has no genuine desire for dialogue.

In addition, Saraiva's arrogant and authoritarian attitude causes irritation among the members of the Blanco government, and hinders the search for a peaceful solution.

The Brazilian Conservatives caution the liberal cabinet, arguing that the war could spread onto Brazilian soil.

This warning will later prove prophetic, when Paraguayan troops invade the Brazilian province of Mato Grosso in December.

Meanwhile, Saraiva has made a secret alliance with the Argentine government.

Immediately afterwards, he had begun conversations with the rebel leader Flores, who had accepted the Brazilian demands.

Aguirre had signed a decree on June 10, 1864, inviting López to serve as an arbitrator in the crisis between Uruguay and Brazil.

The Paraguayan government had accepted the invitation on June 17.

The Brazilian government had simply ignored the proposal, as it knows of the secret alliance between Uruguay and Paraguay, and of the inevitable support that López will grant to the Uruguayan cause.

British ambassador Edward Thornton, together with Saraiva and the Argentine Foreign Affairs Minister Rufino de Elizalde, had madea peace offer on June 17, which Flores had accepted.

The peace accord implicitly allows Flores to nominate a new cabinet that will accept the Brazilian demands.

With the exception of this clause, the Uruguayan government accepts the proposal on June 23.

Flores, however, had put aside the accord on July 23, and resumes military operations four days later.

Saraiva had presented an ultimatum to the Uruguayan government on August 4, stating that there will be a formal declaration of war if it does not accede.

The Uruguayan government has refused to accept the ultimatum, and on August 10, Saraiva had informed Aguirre that the Brazilian commanders will receive orders to begin retaliation.

The following day, Saraiva had delivered to the Vice Admiral Joaquim Marques Lisboa (the Baron of Tamandaré and commander of the Brazilian naval forces in Uruguay) the orders to initiate war operations.

Tamandaré has under his command twelve steamships: the frigate Amazonas; corvettes Niterói, Belmonte, Beberibe, Parnaíba, Jequitinhonha and Recife; and gunboats Mearim, Araguaia, Ivaí, Itajaí and Maracanã.

The Brazilian admiral creates a naval division to patrol the Uruguay River under the command of Francisco Pereira Pinto (later Baron of Ivinhema) that consists of the ships Jequitinhonha, Araguaia and Belmonte.

On August 25, the officer Pereira Pinto sights the Uruguayan steamship Vila del Salto and, despite the warning shots to surrender, it manages to escape to Argentina after a desperate flight from the Brazilian warships.

The first battle of the war will result n the breaking off of diplomatic relations by the Uruguayan government on August 30.

López subsequently breaks diplomatic relations with Brazil—on August 30, 1864—and declares that the occupation of Uruguay by Brazilian troops would be an attack on the equilibrium of the Río de la Plata region.

Uruguay requests Paraguay to intervene in September 1864, after Brazil has begun supporting the rising revolution in Uruguay by Venancio Flores against the Blanco party government of Atanasio Aguirre, who is an ally of Paraguay, which does not have friendly relations with Brazil.

Diplomatically, López wants to ally himself with Uruguay's ruling Blanco Party.

The Colorado party is connected to Brazil and Argentin López accurately assesses the Brazilian intervention in Uruguay as a slight to the region's lesser powers.

He is also correct in his assumption that neither Brazil nor Argentina pay much attention to Paraguay's interests when they formulate their policies.

He is clear that preserving Uruguayan "independence" is crucial to Paraguay's future as a nation.

Having built his army into one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, López uses it to play power broker in the Rio de la Plata region.

Consistent with his plans to start a Paraguayan "third force" between Argentina and Brazil, López commits the nation to Uruguay's aid.

López manifests this support via a letter to Brazil, in which he says that any occupation of Uruguayan lands by Brazil will be considered as an attack on Paraguay.