The Paraguayan War (review)

The Great Paraguayan War of 1864-70 was the bloodiest conflict ever waged in South America, comparable in scale to the American Civil War. Indeed, in some ways it was worse: well over half the population of Paraguay was killed in battle or died of disease and starvation, and prisoners were regularly tortured or massacred. Great battles were fought with weapons ranging from flintlock muskets to modern breech-loading rifles that reinforced the lessons of the slaughter early on in the war—on September 22, 1866, for example, nine thousand Allied troops were killed or wounded in an assault on a much smaller Paraguayan force dug in at Curupayty. The last stages of the fighting saw the Paraguayans engage in a desperate guerrilla struggle reminiscent of the South African War of 1899-1901. What we see, then, is a conflict that might have been expected to figure highly in studies of nineteenth-century warfare, and even to have received a certain amount of attention in its own right. Yet this is not the case: there have been few modern studies in English, and the result has been that the struggle has remained almost unknown outside South America.

For this reason alone, Thomas Whigham's new history is greatly to be welcomed, even though at present we only have the first volume, covering the origins of the conflict and the campaigns of 1864-65. By origin an economic historian, Whigham takes a curiously traditional view of the road to war. Geographically remote, ethnically homogeneous, and for a long time cut off from the outside world by the isolationist policies of the Francia dictatorship of 1816-40, Paraguay developed a strong sense of nationhood. Thanks, too, to a paternalist government, the Indian masses in particular came to identify with the regime, and all the more so because it embraced their traditions. This devotion survived the demise of Francia (there were persistent rumors that his ghost continued to walk the earth and protect his people), and the result was that Paraguay's new rulers inherited a fund of loyalty that served them well. Under Carlos Antonio López (1840-62), this energy was channeled into domestic development: conscripted into a new European-style army, Paraguay's men were employed in massive prestige projects that served both to impress them with the power of the state and to persuade them that they had a stake in society. Even under López, however, there had been a certain edge to all this: gaining international recognition was all-important, and Argentina and Brazil alike were treated to displays of saber rattling. Yet serious conflict was, in the end, avoided. What changed the situation was the transferal of power to López's son Francisco in 1862. Vain and militaristic, he could not resist foreign adventures, and so it was that personal ambition combined with popular nationalism to plunge the entire region into conflict in 1864.

The war that followed has many parallels with the American Civil War: like the Confederacy, Paraguay was better prepared than her opponents in the short term, but less well equipped for a long struggle. That said, however, it is probably better to leave Whigham's treatment of the fighting to a review of his second volume. What we shall concentrate on here is, rather, his analysis of Paraguayan nationalism. If the war could be explained solely in terms of the posturing of Solano López, this would not be an issue. However, this is not the case, for the dictator's forces fought with the utmost heroism. Time after time, Indian conscripts armed only with spears and machetes hurled themselves on Brazilian and Argentinean rifled muskets and Whitworth cannons. On May 24, 1867, for example, the battle of Tuyuty saw 11,000 such men cut down in...