After the overthrow of Rosas in 1851 the Parana was declared free for navigation to vessels of all nations by Argentine law and by treaties to which Brazil and Uruguay were parties, although Paraguay was not.

Nevertheless, Lopez permitted ships to ascend freely to Asuncion. Lopez wished to concentrate all trade at Asuncion and opened no ports north of his capital. The upper course of the river belonged to Brazil, but the boundary between Brazil and Paraguay had remained unsettled from colonial times. In his control of the Lower Paraguay, Lopez had a lever to force Brazil to terms. He steadfastly refused to permit ships to ascend into Brazil in spite of the latter's persistent efforts to procure the natural and necessary right of egress to the ocean by an international river. While this matter still remained unsettled, Lieutenant Page of the United States Navy appeared in the _Water Witch_ at Asuncion on his survey of the Paraguay. Lopez was delighted, and extended every facility to the officer as far as the northern boundary of Paraguay. Page went on up to Brazil. Lopez was offended, for he feared that he would be at a disadvantage in his further negotiations with Brazil by having apparently granted to an American ship the permission which he had steadily refused to Brazilians. Unfortunately, just at this time occurred the quarrel with the American promoter, Hopkins. The American officer took his countryman's side, giving him refuge on board the _Water Witch_. This so enraged Lopez that he issued a decree prohibiting foreign war-vessels from entering Paraguayan waters, and one of his forts fired at the Lieutenant's vessel, killing a man. This outrage brought about Lopez's ears a naval expedition which compelled him to apologise and to agree to reimburse the Hopkins Company.

Brazil also sent a fleet up the Parana to coerce Lopez into granting free transit along the Paraguay, but he cleverly held the Brazilians in parley until he had an opportunity to fortify the river. England's gunboats at Buenos Aires virtually held the Paraguayan flagship, with Lopez's eldest son on board as hostage for a young British subject named Canstatt, who had been imprisoned and condemned to death for complicity in a conspiracy at Asuncion. Lopez was forced to release him and pay damages.

These humiliations changed his love for foreigners into a bitter hatred, and he began to prepare his country to resist their aggressions more effectively. From his youth he had trained his sons to succeed him.

Francisco, the eldest, early evinced a taste for military affairs. When only eighteen years of age, he commanded the expedition of 1849 into the Argentine, and thenceforward continued to be his father's general-in-chief and minister-of-war and the active agent in improving Paraguay's military resources. The second son, Venancio, was commander of the garrison at Asuncion, and the third, Benigno, was Admiral. Though so rigid with his other subjects, he gave both his sons and daughters unlimited license and they grew up to regard themselves as members of a royal family. They enriched themselves at the public expense. The sons took as many mistresses as they pleased and gave free rein to all their cruel and bad instincts. The selfishness, obstinacy, unspeakable cruelty, and hard-heartedness of Francisco were soon to bring the guiltless Paraguayan people to the verge of extinction.

In 1854 Lopez had sent Francisco to Europe as amba.s.sador. The young man spent eighteen months in the different Courts of Europe, and returned an expert in the vices of great capitals and enamoured of military glory. After seeing the reviews of European armies, he became convinced that Paraguay could be made an efficient military power and that he himself might play a Napoleonic role in South America. His father, exasperated by the repeated humiliations put upon him by other countries, gave hearty support to his plans for the improvement of the Paraguayan army. In 1862, after a long and painful illness, the elder Lopez died. Francisco took possession of his effects and papers and produced a will naming himself Vice-President. Word sent to the military chiefs of the different towns insured the a.s.sembling of an obedient Congress at Asuncion, by which he was formally elected and proclaimed President and invested with all the absolute power wielded by his father and Francia.

CHAPTER V

THE WAR

The new President was thirty-five years old, good-looking, careful of his appearance, fond of military finery, and strutted as he walked. He spoke French and Spanish fluently, but with his officers and men used only Guarany. He was an eloquent speaker and had the gift of inspiring his troops with confidence in himself and contempt for the enemy. He had a will of iron; his pride was intense; he was absolutely unscrupulous, and had no regard for the truth. He never showed any feeling of kindness to his most devoted subjects. He ordered his best friends to execution; he tortured his mother and sisters and murdered his brothers. The only natural affection he ever evinced was a fondness for Madame Lynch, a woman whom he had picked up in Paris, and for her children. He seems to have treated her well to the last, but his numerous other mistresses and their children he heartlessly abandoned. Though physically an arrant coward, no defeats could discourage him. He fought to the last against overwhelming odds and was able to retain his personal ascendancy over his followers, even after he had been driven into the woods and all reasonable hope was lost.

He began his reign like a Mahometan sultan by ridding himself of his father's most trusted counsellors, imprisoning and executing the most intelligent and powerful citizens, and banishing his brothers. The military preparations which he had begun as his father's Minister of War were continued with increased vigour. The warlike Argentines and Uruguayans and the powerful empire of Brazil laughed at his pretensions to become a real factor in South American international affairs, but their laughter soon cost them dear. He was a monarch of a compact little state whose position behind rivers in the centre of the continent made it admirably defensible. Its eight hundred thousand inhabitants were obedient, brave, and physically vigorous. Accustomed for generations to regard their dictator as the greatest ruler in the world, knowing no duty except absolute compliance with his will, they never doubted that under his leadership they would be invincible. He knew that he could raise an army out of all proportion to the size of his country. The problem was how to arm it. With Buenos Aires commanding the only route of ingress from abroad it had been difficult for his father and himself to obtain war material from Europe. For years, however, they had been buying all that they could and had acc.u.mulated several hundred cannon, most of them antiquated cast-iron smooth-bores. They had fortified the point of Humaita which admirably protected the Paraguay River from naval attacks, and had established an a.r.s.enal at Asuncion.

Against Brazil Lopez had serious cause of complaint. The boundary question was still unsettled and his possession of the Lower Paraguay placed the great province of Matto Grosso at his mercy, while the existence of that province, geographically a mere northern extension of Paraguay, was a menace to his own safety. Against the Argentines his hatred was not so well founded, but none the less bitter.

The usual civil war was going on in Uruguay in 1863. The party which held the capital was out of favour at Rio and at Buenos Aires, and Brazil and Argentine were both inclined to support the pretensions of Flores, who led the revolutionists. Lopez thought that his own interests were concerned and a.s.serted his right to be consulted as to Uruguayan affairs. A mighty shout of laughter went up from the Buenos Aires press at the pretensions of the cacique of an Indian tribe to the position of guardian of the equilibrium of South America. Brazil ignored his protests and calmly went on with her preparations to establish her protege in Montevideo. In the beginning of 1864 Lopez began active preparations for war. His army already numbered twenty-eight thousand men, and by the end of August sixty-four thousand more had been enrolled and drilled. Although ill provided with artillery and horses, and although the infantry were mostly armed with old-fashioned flintlocks, no such formidable force had ever a.s.sembled in South America. The news of Lopez's preparations exasperated and somewhat alarmed the people of Buenos Aires, though no one knew his exact intentions. Lopez had, in fact, determined to compel the Brazilian and Argentine governments to accept his wishes as to Uruguay or to risk all in the hazard of war.

Perhaps hazy dreams of himself as emperor of a domain extending from the southern sources of the Amazon far down the Plate valley and over to the Atlantic coast pa.s.sed through his brain. Possibly he foresaw clearly that Paraguay had come to the parting of the ways, and that she must either fight her way to the sea or reconcile herself to slow suffocation between the immense ma.s.ses of Brazil and Argentina. In such a contest the only allies he could hope for would be revolutionary factions in Uruguay and Corrientes, and possibly the virtually independent ruler of Entre Rios. In case of a war with Brazil alone, the neutrality of Argentina might have been secured by careful management, but in the freer countries the feeling against him as a despot was strong, and the extension of his system would have been regarded as a menace to civilisation.

Late in 1864 the Brazilian forces marched into Uruguay and joined Flores. Lopez promptly retaliated by seizing a Brazilian steamer which was pa.s.sing Asuncion on its way to Matto Grosso and followed up this aggression by an invasion of the latter province. His forces quickly reduced the towns on the banks of the Paraguay as far as steamers could penetrate. It was impossible to send reinforcements overland from Rio; Brazil's counter-attack must be delivered from the south. The empire was unprepared, but its troops poured into Uruguay and Rio Grande as fast as they could be mobilised. The anti-Flores party were crushed by the siege and capture of Paysandu late in 1864. The Argentine government under Mitre proclaimed its neutrality. Lopez was flushed with his easy success in Matto Grosso. The forces he had on foot overwhelmingly outnumbered those of the Brazilians in Uruguay and Rio Grande. He wished to strike the latter before they could be re-enforced, overrun Rio Grande, and, as master of one of Brazil's most valuable provinces, dictate terms. To reach the Brazilians it was necessary to cross the Argentine province of Corrientes. He asked for permission to do so and Mitre refused.

Notwithstanding the risk involved, he promptly decided to finish up both Argentine and Brazil at the same time. Sending his troops across the Parana he virtually annexed Corrientes and declared war on Buenos Aires.

Lopez destined twenty-five thousand men for the invasion of Corrientes and the conquest of the Lower Uruguay valley, but the difficulties of getting so large an army across the river and ready for an advance into a hostile country were unexpectedly great. The gauchos of Corrientes, trained for generations in civil wars, quickly a.s.sembled to oppose the Paraguayans. Meanwhile, a Brazilian fleet came up; and, on June 2, 1865, at Riachuelo, decisively defeated the Paraguayan naval forces. Lopez thereby lost all hope of commanding the river. The communications of his army in Corrientes might be cut off at any time and an advance became impossible. The battle of Riachuelo threw Paraguay on the defensive and made Lopez's great plan of carrying the war to the Uruguay impracticable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANCISCO SOLANO LOPEZ.

[From a photograph taken in 1849.]]

Nevertheless, Lopez did not recall the twelve thousand men he had sent across the missions to invade the valley of the Upper Uruguay and the state of Rio Grande. The Brazilians were taken unprepared, and early in August the Paraguayans had captured the chief Brazilian town in that region--Uruguayana. The failure of the Corrientes army to reach the Lower Uruguay left the route up that river free. The Brazilian and Uruguayan army, which had been victorious at Paysandu, marched up the west bank and defeated and destroyed the rear-guard which the Paraguayans had left on the Argentine side opposite Uruguayana. Lopez's army was therefore cut off from retreat. It was promptly surrounded, and on the 17th of September, 1865, had to surrender.

This put an end to Lopez's plan of an offensive campaign. Indignant at the invasion of her soil, Argentina had allied herself with Brazil against him. A secret treaty was signed between Brazil, Argentina, and Flores, now recognised as ruler of Uruguay, to prosecute the war to a finish, to depose Lopez from his throne, and to disarm the Paraguayan fortifications. Lopez withdrew his army from Corrientes and concentrated all his forces in the south-west angle of his own territory.

The position was admirable for defence. North of the Parana and east of the Paraguay stretched a low, wooded country subject to overflow, and intersected by shallow, mud-bottomed lagoons, which were old abandoned beds of the rivers. The Paraguay protected his right flank and afforded him a direct and easy communication with Asuncion. Batteries on the point of Humaita, which the Brazilian fleet did not dare to try to pa.s.s, insured this line of communication. West of the Paraguay the great Chaco, there impenetrable, prevented a movement to get north of Humaita on that side. To the east the swamps along the Parana extended indefinitely, and an advance of the enemy in that direction would have had its communications cut by an army encamped near Humaita. Humaita was, therefore, the key to the situation, and the allies could not advance until they captured it or, by running the batteries with their fleet, destroyed Lopez's control of the Paraguay.

By March, 1866, the allies had concentrated a force of forty thousand men just south of the fork of the rivers. About twenty-five thousand were Brazilians, twelve thousand Argentines and three thousand Uruguayans. The Brazilian fleet, numbering eighteen steam gunboats carrying one hundred and twenty-five guns, lay near at hand ready to co-operate. Protected by the fire of the gunboats, the whole allied army had little difficulty in crossing the Parana and establishing itself on Paraguayan soil. Lopez lost heavily in vain attempts to prevent this landing. On May 2nd, a force of Paraguayans surprised the allies a few miles north of the river and badly cut up the vanguard. The allies, however, continued advancing and took a strong position just south of a great lagoon. Here, on the 24th of May, they were attacked by the whole Paraguayan army of twenty-five thousand men, who fought with desperate valour, but at a hopeless disadvantage. A quarter of the Paraguayan soldiers were left dead on the field, and another quarter were badly wounded, while the loss of the allies was half as great. The Paraguayan army was apparently destroyed, but the allies had suffered so severely, and the difficulties of transportation through the swamps were so great, that they did not make the sudden dash upon the trenches at Humaita which might have ended the war. Lopez did his utmost to reorganise his army. Practically the whole male population was impressed into service.

The river line of communication to Asuncion, and the strategic railroad thence up into the most fertile and populous interior of the country, enabled him comfortably to command all the resources of the country, both in men and provisions.

Humaita had already been well fortified on the land side, and Lopez now threw up the trenches at the top of the bluff at Curupayty, the first high land on the Paraguay River north of the allied army and south of Humaita, and connected it with the latter fortress. Lopez had the advantage of the services of a clever English civil engineer; and the fortifications, though rude, were soon made practically impregnable to a.s.sault. In spite of their defeats, the Paraguayans were as ready as ever to attack when Lopez commanded, or to stand up and be shot down to the last man. They were the most obedient soldiers imaginable; they never complained of an injustice and never questioned an order when given. Even if a soldier were flogged, he consoled himself by saying, "If my father did not flog me, who would?" Every one called his superior officer his "father," and Lopez was the "Great Father." Each officer was responsible with his life for the faithfulness and conduct of his men and had orders to shoot any that wavered. Each soldier knew that the men who touched shoulders with him right and left were instructed to shoot him if he tried to desert or fly, and those two knew that the men beyond them would shoot them if they failed to kill the poor fellow in the centre of the five. This cruel system answered perfectly with the Paraguayans, and to the very end of the war they never refused to fight steadily against the most hopeless odds.

Meanwhile, the allies awaited reinforcements and supplies in the noisome swamps, dying meantime by thousands of fever. By the end of June, when the allies finally determined to a.s.sault the fortifications around Humaita, Lopez had twenty thousand men on the ground. After some b.l.o.o.d.y and indecisive fighting in the swamps, General Mitre, the Commander-in-Chief, ordered a grand attack upon the entrenchments at Curupayty. On the 22nd of September, 1866, it began with the bombardment by the Brazilian ironclads. Eighteen thousand men in four columns advanced from the south, and threw themselves blindly against the fortifications. When they came to close quarters they were thrown into disorder by the terrible artillery fire from the Paraguayan trenches, which cross-enfiladed them in different directions. The enormous canisters discharged from the eight-inch guns point-blank, at a distance of two or three hundred yards, wrought fearful execution. The rifle fire of the allies was useless, and the Paraguayans simply waited behind their trenches until the Brazilians and Argentines were close at hand and then fired. The allies retired in good order, after suffering a loss of one-third their number. The soldiers obediently kept rushing on to certain death until their officers, seeing that success was hopeless, told them that they might retreat. The courage of the Paraguayans had been proved in their unsuccessful a.s.saults on the allies the year before, and now the Argentines and Brazilians showed even in this awful defeat what a stomach they, too, had for hand-to-hand fighting.

After the battle of Curupayty, nothing was attempted on either side for fourteen months. Both sides had had enough of attacking fortified positions. The Paraguayans lay in Humaita and the allies occupied themselves with fortifying their camps. The imperial government made tremendous exertions to reinforce the army. The Argentines also did their best, but the efforts of both were hardly sufficient to make good the terrible ravages of the cholera, which by the beginning of May, 1867, had put thirteen thousand Brazilians in hospitals. It was not until July that the allies felt themselves again ready to take the offensive. A division marched up the Parana with the purpose of outflanking Humaita on the east, while cavalry raids were sent out to the north and rendered the outlying positions of the Paraguayans unsafe.

Finally, in November, 1867, the Brazilian troops succeeded in getting over to the Paraguay River, north and in the rear of Lopez, and General Barreto captured and fortified a strong position on the bank fifteen miles north of Humaita. This was fatal to the security and communications of Lopez. He made one more desperate and unsuccessful a.s.sault on the main position of the allies, and then began to plan to retire toward Asuncion. At the same time the Brazilian ironclads pa.s.sed the batteries at Curupayty, compelling Lopez to withdraw his troops up the river to Humaita. The war became virtually a siege of the latter place, which was constantly bombarded by the fleet from the front and by the army from the rear. The Brazilian position on the river to the north cut Lopez off from direct river communication with Asuncion, and he had to transport his supplies on a new road built in the Chaco swamps. He began preparations to evacuate Humaita and retreat to the north. In January, 1868, Mitre definitely retired from the command of the allies and was succeeded by the Brazilian Marshal Caxias. A month later (February 18th) the Brazilian fleet of ironclads finally succeeded in running the batteries at Humaita, and after throwing a few bombs at Asuncion, devoted themselves to the more useful task of cutting off the transports to Lopez's army.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PALM GROVES IN EL CHACO.]

Lopez's line of river communication was now completely at the enemies'

mercy, and a large force could not be maintained at Humaita. He transported his army to the right bank of the Paraguay, recrossing when he got beyond the Brazilian positions. The garrison of three thousand men which he left at Humaita defended itself for six months. In the meantime, he had fortified a new position less than fifty miles from Asuncion and accessible across the country from his base of supplies in central Paraguay. On his right flank a river battery was erected which again prevented the Brazilians from reaching the upper river. Opposite this point, however, the Chaco is penetrable, and Caxias landed a force on the west bank and, marching up, crossed the river in the rear of Lopez's position. The Brazilians closed in from the north and south on the few thousand Paraguayans, who were all that survived, and after several days of desperate fighting, December 27, 1868, the Brazilians carried Lopez's position and he fled for his life to the interior, followed by a thousand men.

Even after such a defeat he was indomitable and succeeded in gathering another small army which was pursued and destroyed in August, 1869.

Lopez again escaped and took refuge in the wild and mountainous regions in the north of Paraguay. The Brazilian cavalry pursued him relentlessly, but it was not until March 1, 1870, that he was caught.

In an attempt to escape he was speared by a common soldier.

CHAPTER VI

PARAGUAY SINCE 1870

No modern nation has ever come so near to complete annihilation as Paraguay during her five years' war against the Triple Alliance. Out of two hundred and fifty thousand able-bodied men who were living in 1864, less than twenty-five thousand survived in 1870. Not less than two hundred and twenty-five thousand Paraguayan men--the fathers and bread-winners, the farmers and labourers--had perished in battle, by disease or exposure or starvation. One hundred thousand adult women had died of hardship and hunger, and there were less than ninety thousand children under fifteen in the country. The surviving women outnumbered the men five to one; the practice of polygamy naturally increased, and women were forced to become the labourers and bread-winners for the community.

The slaughter was greatest in proportion among the people of white blood. When Lopez was waiting in 1868 for the final attack of the Brazilians, he made use of the last months of his power to arrest, torture, and murder nearly every white man left in Paraguay, including his own brother, his brother-in-law, and the generals who had served him best, and the friends who had enjoyed his most intimate confidence. Even women and foreigners did not escape the cold, deliberate bloodthirstiness of this demon. He had his own sister beaten with clubs and exposed her naked in the forest; had the wife of the brave general who was forced to surrender at Humaita speared, and subjected two members of the American Legation to the most sickening tortures. The Minister himself barely escaped with his life.

When the Brazilians captured Asuncion in 1868 they installed a provisional triumvirate of Paraguayans, but the country was really under their military government until after the death of Lopez. A new const.i.tution was proclaimed on November 25, 1870, but it was not until a year later that the provisional government was superseded by Salvador Jovellanos, the first President. The new President had no elements with which to establish a government,--neither money nor men. The country Paraguayans refused to recognise his authority and he was shut up in Asuncion. There were three so-called revolutions in 1872, which were suppressed by the Brazilian troops. The country really remained under a Brazilian protectorate for the first few years after the war, and the government was largely a convenience to make treaties and to try to place loans abroad. Toward the end of 1874 Jovellanos was succeeded by Gill, and by 1876 the country was finally enjoying peace and freedom from foreign control. The integrity of Paraguay and her continuance as an independent power had been mutually guaranteed by Brazil and Argentina when they began the war against Lopez, and neither of them could afford to let the other take possession of her territory. So Paraguay was left substantially intact, although she was compelled to give up the territorial claims the Lopezes had so long made against Brazil and the Argentine. The latter even submitted to arbitration her right to a portion of the Chaco north of the Pilocomayo. President Hayes was the arbitrator and he decided in favour of Paraguay in 1878. In the treaty of peace Paraguay had agreed to bear the war expenses of the allies and these immense sums are still nominally due from her. As a matter of fact, she has not been able to pay anything thereon, and the matter of forgiving the debt is one frequently discussed in Brazil.

Population rapidly increased after peace was thoroughly established, and has more than doubled in the last thirty years. In the late eighties the influence of the Buenos Aires boom extended to Paraguay, and the government offered great inducements to attract immigration. The movement was not very successful, but it had the indirect effect of transferring great tracts of land from government to private ownership.

Previously, two-thirds of the land belonged to the State. One of the colonies was composed of socialists from Australia who promptly split on their arrival over the question of total abstinence. Those who insisted on being allowed to drink were obliged to leave. Subsequently, disagreements about doctrine and the application of the principles of socialism drove out others. The soil of Paraguay is marvellously fertile, but its isolation and the want of markets for the national products make it unattractive to European immigrants.

Happily Paraguay has not suffered from civil disorders during the slow process of national regeneration which has been going on since 1870.

Most of the Presidents have served out their full four-years term, and the one or two changes which have occurred have not been accompanied by any bloodshed or interruption in administration. The chief difficulties of the government have been financial. Revenue is small and paper currency has been issued until it is at a discount of several hundred per cent. compared with its nominal value in gold; but since foreign commerce is inconsiderable and the population lives off the products of its own farms the results of inflation have not been so disastrous as they might have been in a commercial country.

The wave of twentieth-century progress and immigration may strike this Arcadian region at any moment, but up to the present time the body of the Paraguayans live much as their ancestors. Existence can be maintained with hardly an effort; the people can always get oranges in default of more nourishing food; the climate is lovely; the forests surrounding the peasant's cabin beautiful. Why should a Paraguayan work when he can live happily and comfortably without labour, merely to procure things which to him are superfluities? It must be remembered that the bulk of the Paraguayan people are descended from the Indians which were found crowded into this garden spot three centuries ago by the Spaniards and the Jesuits. They have never lost their simple, submissive, stoical character, and the rule of the three dictators did not tend to change them. The modern improvements of which they saw most during the reign of Lopez were muskets and cannon, and they can hardly be blamed for preferring old-fashioned ways after their experience during the war. Though the nation was almost destroyed, the surviving remnants show the same characteristics which distinguished their ancestors. The new Paraguay, however, is not ruled by any b.l.o.o.d.y-minded despot, and the military possibilities of the people will never again be a menace to the liberties of the surrounding nations. Rather is the present ruling cla.s.s disposed to welcome foreign influences and immigration, and this beautiful, fertile, and easily accessible country stands open to the world.

URUGUAY

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The most fertile parts of the globe have always been fought for the most. Uruguay has been the Flanders of South America. Her admirable commercial position at the mouth of the river Plate has made her capital one of the great emporiums of the continent. On the track of the world's commerce, open to the currents of intellectual and industrial life which sweep from Europe into the luxuriant country of the southern half of South America or around to the Pacific, her people have always been in the vanguard of Spanish-American civilisation. Her productive, well-watered, and gently rolling plains are well adapted for agriculture and unsurpa.s.sed for pasturage. Here the Indians struggled hardest to maintain themselves and longest resisted the Spanish conquest. From colonial times, Argentines have crowded in from the west, Brazilians from the north, and Buenos Aireans and Europeans from the coast, until this favoured spot has become the most thickly populated country of South America.

The very strategic and industrial desirability of this region, and the ease with which it can be invaded, have made it the scene of constant armed conflict. Uruguay has been the c.o.c.kpit of the southern half of the continent, and its people have been fighting continually through the one hundred and fifty years during which the country has been inhabited.

They fought for their independence against the Spaniards, then against the Buenos Aireans, then against the Brazilians, then against the Buenos Aireans again, and in the intervals they have fought pretty constantly among themselves. In colonial times Montevideo was Spain's chief fortress on this coast, and that city has always been the favourite refuge for the unsuccessful revolutionists and exiles from the neighbouring states. The blood of the bravest and most turbulent Argentines and Rio Grandenses has constantly mixed with its population.

By habit, tradition, and inheritance the older generation of Uruguayans in both city and country are warlike.