The Paraguayan War (1864?70) was the deadliest and most extensive interstate war ever fought in Latin America. The conflict involving Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil killed hundreds of thousands of people and had dire consequences for the Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano L¢pez and his nation. Though the Paraguayan War stirs the same emotions in South Americans as does the Civil War in the United States, there have been few significant investigations of the war available in English. In this first of two volumes, Thomas L. Whigham provides an engrossing and comprehensive account of the war's origins and early campaigns, and he guides the reader through the complexities of South American nationalism, military development, and political intrigue. Whigham portrays the conflict as bloody and inexcusable, though it paved the way for more modern societies in the continent. The Paraguayan War fills an important gap in our understanding of Latin American history.

This highly illustrated study examines, in detail, the brutal Paraguayan War of 1864--70, one of the largest and bloodiest conflicts in South American history. The Paraguayan War, also known as the War of the Triple Alliance, was the largest and most important military conflict in the history of South America, after the Wars of Independence, and its only true “continental” war. It involved four countries and lasted for more than five years, during which Paraguay fought alone against a powerful alliance formed by Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. This conflict was remarkable in its huge scale and its terrible cost in lives, with the catastrophic human price paid by Paraguay amounting to more than 300,000 men, a loss of some 70 percent of the country's total population. The war was a real revolution for the armies of South America, and the first truly modern conflict of the continent. When the war began in 1864, the armies were small, poorly trained, and badly equipped semi-professional forces. However, by the time the war ended, most of them had adopted percussion rifles employing the Minié system and new weapons like breech-loading rifles and Gatling machine guns were being tested for the first time on the continent. This title covers the whole span of the war, from when the early days the conflict primarily involved small columns of a few thousand men seeking each other out in rugged and sparsely inhabited territory, through to the later Napoleonic-style positional battles fought at points of strategic importance. It also explores the unique challenges presented by the humid, subtropical climate, including the devastating impact of disease on the troops.

The Paraguayan War (1864?70) was the most extensive and profound interstate war ever fought in South America. It directly involved the four countries of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay and took the lives of hundreds of thousands, combatants and noncombatants alike. While the war still stirs emotions on the southern continent, until today few scholars from outside the region have taken on the daunting task of analyzing the conflict. In this compilation of ten essays, historians from Canada, the United States, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay address its many tragic complexities. Each scholar examines a particular facet of the war, including military mobilization, home-front activities, the war?s effects on political culture, war photography, draft resistance, race issues, state formation, and the role of women in the war. The editors? introduction provides a balance to the many perspectives collected here while simultaneously integrating them into a comprehensible whole, thus making the book a compelling read for social historians and military buffs alike.

This book should not be looked upon as a political or social history, although an understanding of these aspects would give a clearer insight into why and how Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay became embroiled in the largest war ever fought in South America. It is, rather, a work covering the military side of the events that took place between 1810-70, with a hint of the political undercurrents that motivated the various wars fought in the region during the same period. Hopefully it will encourage readers to become interested in Latin and Central American military history--a vast field of research largely neglected in both Britain and the United States.

Weep, Grey Bird, Weep is the story of the most extraordinary love story of the 19th century, set against the background of the most disastrous war ever fought. The war saw the tiny republic of Paraguay fighting against the combined forces of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. By the time the war ended, in March 1870, Paraguay's population had been reduced by more than half, and 80 per cent of the male population had been killed. Paraguay's leader in this war was Francisco Solano Lopez and by his side was his devoted lover, a girl from Ireland called Eliza Lynch. He was killed on the last day of the war and she buried him and their eldest son, who died trying to protect her, with her bare hands.