Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay. Richard Francis Burton
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Aires, and of Monte Vidéo. Nor will his account be aught but incomplete unless he be enabled to collate with those of the Allies the official correspondence of the Paraguayan commandants, whilst a complete set of the Semanario, the Moniteur of the republic, is becoming almost unattainable. Whatever victory the Brazil has claimed, Paraguay, as may be expected, has revindicated it, and vice versâ.
All accounts which have hitherto appeared are necessarily one-sided: the Allies — Brazilian, Argentine, and Oriental—have told and re-told their own tale, whilst the Paraguayans have mostly been dumb perforce.
Since these remarks were penned, I have had an opportunity of reading, and I have read with the utmost interest, “The War in Paraguay, with an Historical Sketch of the Country and its People, by George Thompson, C.E., Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers in the Paraguayan Army, Aide-de-camp to President Lopez, &c.” (Longmans, 1869). By the kindness of the author and of the publishers the proofs were sent to me before they were made public, and I delayed for some time my own pages in order that Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson should take the precedence to which his knowledge of the subject, and experience of eleven years spent in hard labour and in actual field-service, entitle him. The two books, however, are by no means likely to clash. The “War in Paraguay” is semi-historical, treating of what the author witnessed during the hostilities. “Letters from the Battle-fields” is a traveller's journal of much lighter cast, and necessarily more discursive.
I have attempted also to sketch the campaign, than which, rightly explained, nothing can be more easily understood. It is composed of three great acts, and the following is the skeleton :*—
Act No. 1. President Lopez raises a force of 80,000 men and resolves to brook no interference on the part of the Brazil in the affairs of the Platine States. He engages in hostilities and he determines to be crowned at Buenos Aires Emperor of the Argentines. For this purpose he marches (April, 1865) two corps d’armée of 25,000 men under General Robles, and 12,000 men under Lt.-Col. Estigarribia, down the rivers Paraná and Uruguay, intending that they should rendezvous at Concordia or some central point and jointly occupy Buenos Aires. He himself
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The reader will kindly remember, that these pages treat only of the Paraguayan war in the south. Nothing is said touching the campaign in Matto-Grosso, and on the northern waters of the Paraguay river.
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remains with a third corps d’armée of supports and reserves, behind his proper frontier, the Paraná River. Both the invading columns are defeated in detail, the survivors return by the end of October, 1865, and the central body retreats to Paso. Thus ends the offensive portion of the campaign, which lasted about five months.
Act No. 2. President Lopez, commanding his armies in person, vainly attempts to defend the frontiers of the Republic, and gradually retiring northwards, before vastly superior forces and a fleet of ironclads, he fights every inch of ground with a prodigious tenacity. This defensive phase concludes, after upwards of three years, with the affair of Loma Valentina, the “Waterloo of the war.” This terrible blow was struck December 25th-27th, 1868.
Act No. 3, and as yet not “played out” (September, 1869). The Guerilla phase, when President Lopez, compelled to abandon his capital, Asuncion, falls back upon Cerro Leon, and makes “Paraguary”* provisionally his chief town. Whilst this state of things endured I left the Rio de la Plata.
Named by her Gracious Majesty, Consul at Damascus, I now bid, and not without the sincerest regret, a temporary adieu to the Brazil, that glorious land, the garden of South America, which has so long afforded me a home.
R. F. B.
August, 1869.
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Our periodicals mostly print the word Paraguay, thus confounding the little country town with the country.
Index
Adams, Mr,, warned against harming the bricks of a fallen building, 110
Adventure, an, which might have been serious, 472
Alegre, General, at the storming of Humaita, 304
Alen, Colonel, his attempt at suicide, 334
Allied armies invest Humaita, 333
Alvim, Commodore, visit to, 341
American Gran Hotel, imposing grandeur of, 106
American Mineral Water Establishment at Buenos Aires, 181
Andrade, the Portugal patriot, death of, 142
Angostura battery surrendered, 423
Angulo Eedan attacked by the Brazilians, 360
Animated scene, remembrance of an, 403
Anti-Lopists, false reports of the, 329
Argentine army, weapons of the, 323 ; various reports on the, 324
Argentine camp at Luque, aspect of the, 464
Argentine Contingent ajumble of nationalities, 325
Argentine railway, machinery for making the, 246
Argentine soldiers, loss of, at the battle of Corrientes, 290
Argentine Voluntary Legion led into a fatal ambush, 343
Argolo, General, and his staff boasting of their prowess, 322 ; visit to, 349 ; the predictions of his friends, 350 ; his invitations to a campaigning dinner, 350
Arroyo Hondo, visit to the, 347
Artesian well in Buenos Aires, 150
Assembly of Representatives, ignorance of, 276
Asuncion, the seat of the first diocess, 24; General Congress at, 41; meeting of an Extraordinary Congress at, 55 ; fired into by Brazilian ironclads, 407 ; detailed description of, 431 ; palace of the Marshal President at, 432; the architect of the palace cruelly tormented, 433 ; pest-houses at, 435 ; landing-place and river at, 436 ; bad state of the streets at, 436 ; picturesqueness of the old cathedral at, 437 the much talked of arsenal at, 435 ; the terrible palace of Dr. Francia at, 439 ; deadly dungeons at, 440 ; fantastic palace of the elder Lopez at, 440 ; palace of D. Benigno Lopez at, 441 ; plundering the Club Nacional at, 442 ; various estimates of the population at 443 ; no pretensions to civilization at 444 ; complete change of masters at head-quarters, 445 ; candidates for the chief magistracy at, 446 ; the French consul removed from, 446 ; confiscation of the property of a foreigner at, 449 ; its changeable climate, 452 ; prices of provisions and house-rent at, 452 ; produce of the orange-trees at, 456 ; unprotected state of, 454 ; rude appliances of the railway at, 460
Atrocities of Lopez grossly exaggerated, 128 ; frightful reports concerning the, 330
Attempts to assault two ironclads, 311
Ayolas, D. Juan, attacked by canoe Indians, 424
Bajada, mother-of-pearl found at, 255
Balloons tried in the early part of the campaign, 382
Banda, miserable state of the mixed population in, 134
Barracas artesian well, curious, 150
Barranca de Bella Vista, a settlement of convicts, 263
Barreto, General, cuts up a piquet of troopers, 375 ; his retreat from the
banks of the Arroyo, 375 ; he volunteers to capture the enemy, 420
Barrios, Vicente, degradation of, 476
Barros, Jose de, duped by a farcical project, 141
Barrosa, Vice-Admiral, neglects to push his victory, 267
Basque and Italian sutlers murdering