WAR IN PARAGUAY

WAR IN PARAGUAY

Text by Valdemir Mota de Menezes

This war lasted six years, began in 1864 and ended in 1870. It all started when Brazil invaded Uruguay and deposed dictator Aguirre, Blanco party. At this time, Paraguay was an economic powerhouse in South America, is in a better economic conditions than their neighbors in the southern cone, which caused some concern in England that saw an example of Paraguayan independence from the British market and that their behavior could undermine British influence in South America but the outbreak of war was its dictator, Francisco Solano Lopez who had Aguirres as your friend and decided to intervene against Brazil and seize the ship Marquis of Olinda and invading the city of Dourados in Mato Grosso.
The war was declared. In May 1865, the dictator Solano made several forays into Argentine territory in order to win the Rio Grande do Sul, which provoked the reaction of Argentina and Uruguay have joined forces to Brazil, signing an agreement called the TRIPLE ALLIANCE. The Paraguayan dictator Solano were defeated and was killed. In the various battles that ensued some names immortalized in the history of Brazil as General Osório Duque de Caxias and Almirante Barroso, who give names to several streets in Brazil. The dictator Solano was killed in March 1870, after the capital, Asuncion, be taken by the Brazilian army. By war's end, Duque de Caxias resigned from command of operations to find that the Brazilian government was instituting a bloodbath.
As a result of this war Paraguay lost 80% of its population, has inherited a huge amount of debt to Brazil, that this debt was pardoned decades later by President Getulio Vargas.
More detailed studies of the history shows it was a strategic mistake Paraguay armed conflict against Brazil, because the Paraguayans had no adverse economic, social and military to face Brazil. Tax collection in Brazil reached 4,392,226 pounds sterling, in Argentina, about 1,710,324 pounds sterling, and Uruguay, 870,714 pounds. While Paraguay exacted meager 314,420 pounds sterling.