CHAPTER V
CIVIL WAR AND ARGENTINE INTERVENTION
Except for an expedition against the remnants of the once formidable Charrua Indians, the first two years of independence passed in peace. Since the expulsion of Artigas, the country had prospered and its population had risen nearly threefold within twenty-five years, in spite of the bloody fighting which occurred from 1811 to 1817 and from 1825 to 1828. The settlements had spread far back from the coast, and many of the principal interior towns date from this period.
In 1832 the civil wars began again. Lavalleja's partisans organised a conspiracy, and a certain Colonel Garzon took advantage of Rivera's absence from Montevideo to raise a mutiny in the garrison and to issue a pronunciamento deposing the president. The latter soon recovered the city, and after two years of intermittent fighting the Lavalleja party was overthrown for the moment and Rivera finished his term in peace.
Manuel Oribe, a chief of the anti-Rivera faction, succeeded to the presidency by a compromise agreement, but the breach between the two factions had really grown wider and their mutual hatred became irrepressibly bitter. Oribe soon began to persecute his opponents. Meanwhile, the five years had expired during which Uruguayan independence had been guaranteed by the treaty between Argentina and Brazil. Argentina was free to solicit the reincorporation of Uruguay into the Confederation. Rosas, the head of the federalist party, had made himself master of Buenos Aires, and his authority was recognised in most of the Argentine provinces, although the unitarians continued their ineffectual revolts. The new Uruguayan president sympathised with the federalists, while his rival, Rivera, could count on the unitarians. The plan of Rosas was to establish Oribe firmly in Uruguay and through his aid to incorporate that country with Argentina, while the unitarians were desperately anxious that Rivera should triumph, knowing that Montevideo would be a base for the organisation of their own forces for invasions of Buenos Aires and central Argentina.
Thenceforward for many years Uruguay's history is inexplicably entwined with the story of the struggle between the two great Argentine factions. The little country became the storm-centre of South American politics and the chief battlefield of the contending forces. Now for the first time we encounter references to "blancos" and "colorados," which remain to this day the names of Uruguayan political parties. All the forces of the community lined up on either side and never have political parties fought more determinedly and relentlessly. The divisions between them entered into all social and business relations, and even friendly intercourse between the members of the two factions was almost impossible. Men have often been more blanco or colorado than Uruguayan. The old conservative resident Spanish families were the basis of the blanco, or Oribe party, while the colorados, or partisans of Rivera, were the progressive faction. The latter attracted the Argentine refugees fleeing from the tyranny of Rosas, and could count upon the support of resident Europeans and upon the sympathy of foreign governments. Rosas in Argentina and the blancos in Uruguay represented the spirit of exclusivism and opposition to foreign influences.
After Oribe's accession to power Rivera hastened to raise a revolt in the western districts. He obtained help from the unitarians, and his invasion was accompanied by many Argentine generals who had distinguished themselves in the wars against Rosas. The Argentine dictator sent help to Oribe, but for two years the tide of battle set in favour of the colorados and unitarians. Rivera had obtained so decided an advantage by 1838 that Oribe abandoned Montevideo and embarked for Buenos Aires, followed by the chiefs of his party. The colorado chief, now in control of all Uruguay, celebrated a formal alliance with the province of Corrientes, then in revolt against Rosas, and war was declared against the latter. A large Argentine army, accompanied by many blancos, invaded Uruguay, but was decisively defeated at the battle of Cagancha, December 10, 1839.
The interval of unquestioned colorado supremacy which followed was one of the most flourishing periods in the history of Uruguay. Large numbers of the intellectual élite of Buenos Aires swarmed across the river; Montevideo became the centre of arts and letters of Spanish America; the civil wars of the last few years had not been severe, and even during their continuance property had suffered little. Immigration from England, France, and Italy began on a large scale, and the population increased at the rate of four per cent. per annum. In the year 1840 nine hundred ocean-going ships entered the port of Montevideo, more than three thousand houses were erected, and twenty-seven great meat-curing establishments were in active operation. However, Rosas and the blancos were only awaiting a good opportunity to attack.
In 1841 Oribe, in command of one of Rosas's armies, defeated the Argentine unitarians under General Lavalle, and marched into Entre Rios to suppress the insurrection in that province. In January, 1842, Rivera took an army of three thousand men to the rescue of his unitarian allies. He crossed the river Uruguay and united his forces to those of General Paz, but after a year's desperate fighting on Argentine soil he and the unitarian general were overthrown and their armies completely destroyed in the battle of Arroya Grande. The way was open to Montevideo; the colorados and Argentine exiles shut themselves up in that city, and the so-called nine-years' siege began. Rosas's power seemed overwhelming, and although Rivera and other colorado chiefs at the head of scattered bands managed to make some headway in the outlying departments, they were finally driven into Brazil, while the unhappy country was given up to pillage and slaughter. This guerra grande was the bloodiest, longest, and most stubborn war ever fought on Uruguayan soil.
Montevideo seemed doomed to an early surrender when an opportune intervention by France and England upset the plans of Rosas. He had embroiled himself with the ministers of those powers by refusing to give satisfaction for certain alleged injuries to foreign merchants and naval officers, and the dispute became so acrimonious that the European powers finally resorted to the most drastic coercive measures. A French, and later a British, fleet blockaded Buenos Aires and drove Rosas's vessels from the Plate. Under these circumstances it was impossible for him to land re-enforcements on the Uruguayan shore. In 1845 the European navies forced a passage at the head of the estuary into the Paraná and Uruguay, destroying the batteries which Rosas had erected there and opening up those rivers to foreign navigation. Thereafter, troops could be sent from Argentina into Uruguay only by a long détour to the north.
In spite of this hampering of his military operations, and the injury which the blockade caused to the commerce of Buenos Aires, the Argentine dictator stubbornly refused to yield an inch to foreign pressure. France and England were finally tired out; they raised the blockade; Rosas regained his control of the Plate and the early capture of Montevideo seemed certain. Just at this time, however, General Urquiza, governor of Entre Rios, and Rosas's best lieutenant and most successful general, broke with his chief. Entre Rios became a virtually independent state, and Rosas's efforts to reduce it were unavailing. Urquiza's defection again rendered it impossible properly to reinforce Oribe's army. The colorados of the interior plucked up courage and during four years no material progress was made on either side. A tedious and exhausting partisan warfare went on in the interior; guerrilla bands scoured the country in every direction; inhabitants of the same town were arrayed against each other, and surprises, treasons, and massacres were almost daily occurrences. One of the most successful leaders on the colorado side was the famous Giuseppe Garibaldi. The future liberator of Italy had made his début as a revolutionist in the insurrection which broke out in 1835 in the Brazilian province of Rio Grande. Later he crossed the Uruguayan border and fought against Rosas for several years.
Early in 1851 a grand combination to overthrow Rosas was made between Entre Rios, Corrientes, the unitarians, the colorados, and Brazil. The constant policy of the latter power had been to secure and maintain the independence of Uruguay, and she welcomed the opportunity to open up the Paraná and Uruguay, on whose headwaters she had great territories, inaccessible except along those rivers. Urquiza naturally became the general-in-chief of the alliance. On the 18th of July he crossed the Uruguay, followed by a large army from his own provinces. A Brazilian army soon joined him and the colorados flocked to his standard. The Brazilian fleet came down the coast and controlled the estuary. An overwhelming force advanced on Montevideo and the blanco army found itself with a hostile city and fleet in front, a superior army behind, and deprived of the hope of receiving help from Buenos Aires. The officers hastened to make terms with Urquiza. Whole divisions deserted, and Oribe himself was obliged to surrender. Many of the soldiers who had been fighting in the blanco ranks joined Urquiza, and the latter, after a vain attempt to reconcile the Uruguayan factions among themselves, marched his army back through Uruguay and Entre Rios, crossed the Paraná, and, descending to Buenos Aires, defeated Rosas in the great battle of Monte Caseros.
