The Paraguayan War Causes And Early Conduct

The Paraguayan War (1864?70) was the deadliest and most extensive interstate war ever fought in Latin America. The conflict involving Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil killed hundreds of thousands of people and had dire consequences for the Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano L¢pez and his nation. Though the Paraguayan War stirs the same emotions in South Americans as does the Civil War in the United States, there have been few significant investigations of the war available in English. In this first of two volumes, Thomas L. Whigham provides an engrossing and comprehensive account of the war's origins and early campaigns, and he guides the reader through the complexities of South American nationalism, military development, and political intrigue. Whigham portrays the conflict as bloody and inexcusable, though it paved the way for more modern societies in the continent. The Paraguayan War fills an important gap in our understanding of Latin American history.

"'The Paraguayan War' is an engrossing and comprehensive account of the origins and early campaigns of the deadliest and most extensive interstate war ever fought in Latin America."--

"'The Paraguayan War' is an engrossing and comprehensive account of the origins and early campaigns of the deadliest and most extensive interstate war ever fought in Latin America."--

In 1864 the capture of Brazilian steamer the Marquês de Olinda initiated South America's most significant war. Thousands of Brazilian, Argentine, and Uruguayan soldiers engaged in a protracted siege of Paraguay, leaving the Paraguayan economy and population devastated. The suffering defied imagination and left a tradition of bad feelings, changing politics in South America forever. This is the definitive work on the Triple Alliance War. Thomas L. Whigham examines key personalities and military engagements while exploring the effects of the conflict on individuals, Paraguayan society, and the continent as a whole. The Road to Armageddon is the first book utilize a broad range of primary sources and materials, including testimony from the men and women who witnessed the war first-hand.

The Paraguayan War (1864?70) was the most extensive and profound interstate war ever fought in South America. It directly involved the four countries of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay and took the lives of hundreds of thousands, combatants and noncombatants alike. While the war still stirs emotions on the southern continent, until today few scholars from outside the region have taken on the daunting task of analyzing the conflict. In this compilation of ten essays, historians from Canada, the United States, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay address its many tragic complexities. Each scholar examines a particular facet of the war, including military mobilization, home-front activities, the war?s effects on political culture, war photography, draft resistance, race issues, state formation, and the role of women in the war. The editors? introduction provides a balance to the many perspectives collected here while simultaneously integrating them into a comprehensible whole, thus making the book a compelling read for social historians and military buffs alike.

The Paraguayan War, also known as the War of the Triple Alliance, was the largest and most important military conflict in the history of South America, after the Wars of Independence, and its only true 'continental' war. It involved four countries and lasted for more than five years, during which Paraguay fought alone against a powerful alliance formed by Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. This conflict was remarkable in its huge scale and its terrible cost in lives, with the catastrophic human price paid by Paraguay amounting to more than 300,000 men, a loss of some 70% of the country's total population. The war was a real revolution for the armies of South America, and the first truly modern conflict of the continent. When the war began in 1864, the armies were small, poorly trained and badly equipped semi-professional forces. However, by the time the war ended, most of them had adopted percussion rifles employing the Minié system and new weapons like breech-loading rifles and Gatling machine guns were being tested on the continent for the first time. This title covers the whole span of the war, from the early days when the conflict primarily involved small columns of a few thousand men seeking each other out in rugged and sparsely inhabited territory, through to the later Napoleonic-style positional battles fought at points of strategic importance. It also explores the unique challenges presented by the humid, subtropical climate, including the devastating impact of disease on the troops.