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.
