Although four States were involved in the struggle, South American historians are unanimous in giving the strife which broke out in 1864 the name of the Paraguayan War. This is appropriate enough, for a number of reasons, one of them being that, after the first invading expedition on the part of the Paraguayan armies, the war was fought out on Paraguayan soil.
The capture by the Paraguayans of the Brazilian steamer Marques de Olinda demonstrated to South America that the moment of contest had arrived. The position of the neighbouring States was far less satisfactory from a military point of view than that of Paraguay. During the two years of his reign Lopez had steadily continued to prepare his forces for this event. At the time the Paraguayan army was, numerically, the most formidable in South America. It had, moreover, been brought to an unusual degree of efficiency.
The condition of the Brazilian forces was very different. In the first place, little heed had been taken to make ready for anything of the kind, and another factor which proved greatly to the disadvantage of the fighting material involved lay in the difficulty of communication between Rio de Janeiro and those portions of the great Empire which bordered on Paraguay. Thus Lopez's invading army, when it swept through the Brazilian province of Matto Grosso, met with practically no resistance worthy of the name, and, in the absence of defending troops, it might, undoubtedly, have taken possession of vast tracts of country, and have continued to hold these indefinitely.
It was Lopez's bizarre and wild ambition which frustrated his own schemes. A single tide of invasion was not sufficient to satisfy a mind such as his. Gathering together a second powerful army, he determined to strike at the south-eastern portion of Brazil in addition to its province of Matto Grosso. In order to effect this he demanded in arrogant tones from Argentina permission for his troops to cross the Argentine province of Corrientes. To this, as neutrals, it was impossible for the Argentines to consent. As a result, Lopez in a fury declared war upon Argentina, and, as though even this did not suffice, he next found himself at grips with the Uruguayan forces.
Thus Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay were now leagued together against the armies of the despot Lopez. With a view of alienating the sympathies of the oppressed subjects of the Dictator from their tyrannical leader, the allies caused it to be widely proclaimed that the war they were waging was not directed against the Paraguayan people in general. It was against Lopez alone that they were fighting, they asserted. The claim was true enough, since this was in reality the position of affairs. Nevertheless, owing to the methods of Lopez, the proclamation carried far less weight than had been anticipated.
The Paraguayan forces now penetrated into the Argentine province of Corrientes, seized the capital, Corrientes itself, and took possession of a couple of steamers—the Gualeguay and the 25 de Mayo—which were anchored in the river opposite to that town. The Paraguayan fleet now held command of the river system up-stream of Corrientes. On June 11, 1865, the allied naval forces, steaming up the Paraná, came into contact with the hostile fleet. A battle was fought, which ended in the defeat of the Paraguayan squadron, which was forced to retreat, crippled and damaged, to the north.
A succession of actions now took place on land, and the Paraguayans, although fighting with a desperate heroism, were gradually beaten back and driven across their own frontiers. At the same time, the army which had invaded Brazil retired in sympathy, and the scene of the war changed to Paraguay itself, which was in its turn invaded by the forces of the triple alliance. One of the most sanguinary battles of the war was fought on May 24, 1866—very nearly a year after the first naval action off the river port of Corrientes.
At this Battle of Tuyuti the Paraguayans lost no fewer than 8,000 men, and the casualties of the allies amounted to an equal number. Another important action was fought at Curupaiti two months later, when the progress of the allies was abruptly checked, and they were compelled to retire to some distance with a loss of 9,000 men. This was only one of a fair number of Paraguayan victories, for the defenders, although in the main they preserved an attitude of strenuous resistance, were occasionally enabled to exchange this for active aggression.
The history of this war, which lasted for four years, is one of the most remarkable in the whole category of struggles of the kind. Undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary features to be met with is the tremendous courage and grim determination with which the Paraguayans opposed the forces of the allies. Every yard of the country was contested with a fierceness which left the entire countryside covered with dead and wounded. When, moreover, the modern arms in the possession of which the Paraguayan armies had commenced the war had become lost and depleted in numbers, their place was taken by improvised weapons of all kinds, and it was frequently with the crudest firearms and lances that these devoted armies continued to fight.
The encouragement these troops received from their leaders—or, rather, from Lopez—was in one sense of a negative order. Rewards for valour were unknown, but punishments for defaults, on the other hand, whether real or imaginary, were abundant and terribly severe. Men were shot for having in the course of private conversation uttered words which the suspicious mind of Lopez classed as discouraging. Thus a trooper was on one occasion executed for having ventured the remark that, although the Paraguayans rejoiced over the numbers of their enemies who were slain, they invariably forgot to count their own dead. A second soldier met with a similar fate for having, on his return from a reconnaissance, stated that the enemy lay in great strength to the front. Lopez conceived that a report such as this could serve no good end, and ordered its maker to be executed forthwith.