The Paraguayan War: How a Nation Nearly Erased Itself

The War of the Triple Alliance (the Paraguayan War, 1864 to 1870) was the deadliest war in the history of South America: Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay against Paraguay. It began with a quarrel over little Uruguay, the seizure of the steamer Marques de Olinda, and the invasion of Mato Grosso and then Argentine Corrientes. It ended with a demographic catastrophe that historians still argue about. I'm Joaquim, a retired Brazilian history teacher, and this is the hardest story I tell: the secret alliance treaty of 1865, the naval battle of Riachuelo, the fortress of Humaita, the vast battle of Tuiuti, the disaster of Curupayti, the death of Francisco Solano Lopez at Cerro Cora, and a country left hollowed out for a generation. Accuracy is sacred here, so where the historians still argue, I say so out loud. Chapters: 0:00 A Boy in the Grass 1:17 Sit With Me 3:23 A Small Proud Nation 5:45 The Quarrel Next Door 8:39 The First Blows 11:27 The Secret Treaty 14:14 Gibraltar of the South 17:01 The Great Battle 19:51 Caxias Closes In 23:19 The War to the Death 26:55 A Nation of Women 30:18 Who Is Missing Sources and further reading: On the origins in the Uruguayan civil war between the Blanco and Colorado factions and Brazil's intervention; on Francisco Solano Lopez and the closed, self-sufficient Paraguayan state; on the opening moves of 1864 to 1865, the seizure of the Brazilian steamer Marques de Olinda, the invasion of Mato Grosso, and the invasion of Argentine Corrientes after Argentina refused passage; on the Treaty of the Triple Alliance (1 May 1865), whose secret terms were leaked and published in 1866; on the decisive naval battle of Riachuelo (11 June 1865); on the long river campaign against the fortress of Humaita, the crossing at Passo da Patria, the Battle of Tuiuti (24 May 1866, commonly called the largest pitched battle in South American history), and the allied disaster at Curupayti (22 September 1866); on the Duke of Caxias, the fall of Humaita in 1868, and the capture of Asuncion; on the final war to the death and the killing of Lopez at Cerro Cora (1 March 1870). On the human cost: Paraguay's population loss was catastrophic and is GENUINELY DISPUTED. Older estimates of well over half the population lost, with a devastating loss of adult men, are contested by revisionist demographers who note the prewar population is itself uncertain and argue for a somewhat lower proportion; the exact figures are not settled, so this video gives the honest shape, not false precision. Framing is also contested: the older reading of Lopez as a megalomaniac tyrant who destroyed his own country versus the revisionist and nationalist reading of Lopez as an anti-imperialist martyr and Paraguay as an independent nation crushed by empire. Where the sources disagree, I say so.