David Olusoga’s Hidden Histories
Outside of South America – where it remains an open wound – the War of the Triple Alliance is largely forgotten. It lasted from 1864 to 1870 and pitted
Paraguay against a coalition consisting of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil. By many measures, it counts among the most devastating wars of the 19th century.
The root cause of the War of the Triple Alliance was the disputed borders that the independent nations of South America inherited from the Spanish and Portuguese empires, from which they had won their independence. The immediate cause, however, was the policies of Francisco Solano López, the leader of Paraguay. In the 1860s, López catastrophically misread the balance of power in the region and over-played his hand. (Though the leaders of the Triple Alliance nations were far from blameless.)
López’s willingness to risk war with his larger neighbours was founded on the fact that in the 1860s tiny Paraguay had the largest army in South America. But while this army of around 60,000 men looked impressive on the parade ground, it was a less potent force on the battlefield. Much of its weaponry was antiquated, and its leadership undermined by politically motivated purges.
In almost every respect the war between Paraguay and the Triple Alliance was a terrible mismatch. The combined population of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay was 25 times that of Paraguay. Yet even in the face of impossible odds, and with his country invaded, López remained unwilling to surrender or abdicate.
Under his leadership Paraguay attempted a form of total guerrilla war. Every eligible Paraguayan man was drafted into the army. Yet this mass levy barely enabled the generals to keep pace with a death toll that kept mounting after each lost battle. And drawing men from the countryside had another effect: it meant that the remaining farmers lacked the manpower to sow crops or gather harvests. As food supplies dwindled, huge numbers died of malnutrition or were left vulnerable to disease. Dysentery killed thousands, as did cholera and malaria.
When the supply of able-bodied Paraguayan men ran out, Lopez and his supporters did something shocking. Boys of between 9 and 15 years were conscripted. As the rapidly collapsing Paraguayan army could not arm these children, they were given wooden sticks, painted to resemble muskets and rifles, and thrown into battle. Some were said to have been given false beards.
Today, in modern Paraguay, Children’s Day takes place on the anniversary of the battle of Acosta Ñu, a catastrophic, one-sided clash in which around 2,000 of López’s child-soldiers were slaughtered by a Brazilian army that fought with horrific ruthlessness.
As the nation descended into ever deeper chaos, López came to believe himself the victim of a vast and elaborate conspiracy. Seeing traitors everywhere, he had thousands arrested and tortured, among them his own mother and sister. Those found guilty of betrayal included some of López’s most committed supporters and peasant soldiers who had failed to carry out impossible orders. An estimated 700–800 Paraguayans were executed during the war, including López’s own brother.
The war came to an end in March 1870 when López was killed at the battle of Cerro Corá. Utterly routed, Paraguay was forced to cede huge swathes of territory to the victorious alliance, and enemy troops occupied the nation for seven years after the war.
But what really shocked observers was the scale of the loss of life. Although the death toll of the conflict has been the focus of a long historical controversy, some estimates calculate that 60 per cent of the prewar Paraguay population, and 70 per cent of Paraguayan men, died during the war. One source suggests that only 29,000 Paraguayan men over the age of 15 survived the conflict. By some measures, Paraguay has never fully recovered from the devastation.