Brazil after the Paraguayan War: Six Years of Conflict, 1870–6
Early in I869, when the flags of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay were unfurled from the turrets of Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, an end to the horrors of the Paraguayan War was at last in sight. The conflict between Paraguay on the one hand, and Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay on the other, had raged for five years, since 1865, destroying human lives and material wealth. The fighting came to an official end with the death of Francisco Solano L6pez, dictator of Paraguay, on i March I870. The war had, for a time, joined as allies Argentina and Brazil who had been rivals for the control of bordering countries since colonial times. In the I87os the question of the adjustment of defeated Paraguay's boundaries was to bring these countries into conflict again, and to the brink of war. Fortunately, the conflict remained a verbal one, a war of diplomats. Troops and war ships were deployed but no actual fighting occurred. The immediate cause for the new rivalry grew out of differences over a treaty which Brazil negotiated with Paraguay. According to an earlier treaty of I May 1865, which was signed by the governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, no treaty was to be concluded with Paraguay without the participation of all three allies; lines were established and at the proper time definitive boundary treaties were to be negotiated. Brazil violated this agreement in 1872 by sending a representative to the Paraguayan Government to negotiate a treaty. Brazil already maintained a post-war occupation of much of Paraguay and had a superior influence there. The Argentines were jealous of that influence and the new treaty only aroused more feeling against Brazil. Argentine military preparations soon followed, causing anxious moments in Brazil. The conflict continued until 1876, with both sides working either to end or to continue it. From Argentina, former President Bartolome Mitre was sent to Brazil to negotiate for peace, while Dr Carlos Tejedor, the Argentine foreign minister, spoke of peace but secretly schemed for continued conflict.1 The Brazilian representatives, for