This is the last chapter! Wow! Eventually I will put out an edited version, with all the footnotes translated, for purchase. However, this version of The War of Paraguay as it exists here on the blog will remain free to read in perpetuity.

On 25 June 1875, Rio Branco, tired of his long ministry, left the government to the Duke of Caxias. Caxias tasked Cotegipe, who came to be the soul and political director of the cabinet, with the post of Foreign Affairs. The Argentine issue had lasted too long and lost its force. Cotegipe was left with the labor of dealing with Irigoyen (1), Avellaneda’s new minister, to discuss an end to the situation created in 1872, and finalizing negotiations between Asunción and Buenos Aires on the foundation of arbitration, offered by Tejedor, a foundation that, although with some modifications, Tejedor himself made impossible to adopt when he negotiated directly with Sosa.

Our government found Irigoyen quite favorably disposed. With negotiations between the Paraguayan envoy and the Minister of Foreign Affairs resumed in Buenos Aires, Baron Aguiar d’Andrade attends them as representative of Brazil; finally, a satisfactory result is reached, and the treaty is signed on 3 February 1876. The republic gains the line of Pilcomayo, the island of Cerrito, and resorts to submitting possession of Villa Occidental and its territory up to Río Verde to arbitration. A few months later Brazil withdraws its troops from Asunción and evacuates the island of Cerrito. The final result of the dispute is known: in 1878, President Hayes (2) rules in favor of Paraguay, and that republic takes back possession of Villa Occidental.

So peace had been made, granting the Argentine Republic those borders that Pimenta Bueno, Uruguay, and Jequitinhonha had recognized as lawfully Argentine on 7 December 1865; borders that, for another thing, were what Brazil agreed to, and what Mitre, signing the May 1^st treaty, believed sufficient to satisfy the needs of his country; the same borders also, probably, which Varela thought of when condemning the right of conquest—only wanting, it may be supposed, to obtain some important Brazilian concession to Paraguay itself, in exchange for that condemnation.

Without Brazilian diplomacy—and without Paraguayan resistance consequently ceasing to exist—no Argentine diplomat would have dared to renounce possession of the right shore of the Paraguay, guaranteed by the alliance treaty. In this sense, one can say that Brazilian diplomacy lent a great service to the true Argentine interests, and to the realization of the aspirations of the most illustrious statesmen of the Plata, namely that the republic not come out of the war enriched with the territorial spoils of the defeated nation.

Unfortunately, the sincerity which should preside when dealing with matters of this stature did not always exist between the allies, and if they did not fall into a new war over the Paraguayan Chaco, it is owing to the painful experience they acquired in the previous campaign, and to fatigue. It is lamentable that, after existing for five years in such perfect harmony on the battlefields, both countries would arrive at such a state of public opinion; but one cannot doubt that for Argentina to launch a war after Cotegipe’s separate treaties, or Brazil after Tejedor’s withdrawal, only a little more popular enthusiasm was needed.Read More »

However, peace will still not be altered this time, despite the fact that the year 1874 begins full of peril. Caballero (1) again invades Paraguay, to whose capital our troops and ships lend protection. In Brazil they attribute this revolution to Argentine machinations.

El Nacional, of Buenos Aires, uses the same language as always: “On the day following the declaration of war there will not be a single Mitrist, Alsinist, nor Avellanedist (2). There will be only Argentines.”

In turn, the Jornal do Commercio, almost always pacifist and prudent, seems inclined to war. “The United States of the South,” it says in an annual review, “are, in their schemes, more audacious and ambitious than the United States of the North, without respect to any foreign right nor care for self-responsibility. Yesterday they robbed the weak and defenseless Eastern State of Martín García Island, key to the navigation of the rivers Paraná, Uruguay, and Paraguay; today they take control of another position no less important on these rivers, the island of Cerrito; and not satisfied with that, they wish to conquer all of Paraguay with our indirect support. Tomorrow they will not be content with these major annexations, and the victim chosen will be the Republic of Uruguay. Refusing, intentionally up to now, to set its borders with the empire, and considering themselves to be much stronger the more we are acquiescent and tolerant, they will aspire later to have claim to Mato Grosso, Rio Grande do Sul, and perhaps Santa Catarina, because at one point Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca disembarked on this island … We have been the most ardent apostles of peace, but we are beginning to feel the conviction that in the end it will be incompatible with dignity, having a neighbor who stirs up alliances against the empire, and who, despite its disorganization, does not cease to provoke conflicts over border disputes of American powers, which it calls dear brothers, such as Chile, Bolivia, and poor Paraguay. It seems to us that in South America one sees the Franco-Prussian drama reproduced. Brazil, which demolished Humaitá close to three hundred leagues from the mouth of the Río de la Plata to ensure the free navigation of its rivers, and to have free access to its province of Mato Grosso, sacrificing a hundred thousand of its sons in the inhospitable fields of Paraguay and jeopardizing the public fortune, should it see with indifference that, as rearguard, only 50 leagues from that delta, other threatening fortifications are raised on Martín García?”

But the presidential election must take place in this year. It will not end, as such, with a Brazilian war, but rather a civil war. Alsinists and Avellanedists join together against Mitre. Mitre rises up, armed against them, and is defeated at La Verde and Santa Rosa by the new federal Remingtons. In Junín, Mitre, the commander-in-chief of the allied armies, surrenders to an official still obscure, beginning his career, Commander Arias.

Mitre’s defeat left Brazil’s enemies in Argentina as owners of the field; but a revolution made at the cost of sacrificing the country’s greatest man always suffers a great weakening of force internally, and a weakening of prestige externally. Avellaneda’s election meant the vanquishing of the old Porteño party, that is, the conquest of Buenos Aires by the province. The resistance by the aristocracy, by the great capital’s culture, against the invasion of provincial elements began. In such conditions, it did not matter that Alsina was Minister of War and that Tejedor continued in his post. The new government could give a great boost to the national life, undertake and realize the “Conquest of the Desert”, complete, through emigration, the foundations of the new United States, which Sarmiento began to outline in the schools; but the very first condition of this work was to withdraw itself from foreign affairs, in the way of the United States of America. In times of activity, expansion, and internal reconstruction, the policy of foreign relations comes to be secondary. As well, the political crisis of Buenos Aires’s dominance brought with it an economic and financial crisis.

Following the first impression produced by Mitre’s fall and the national government’s transformation, Tejedor and Rio Branco returned to their negotiations on the Chaco. When Tejedor believed the terrain sufficiently prepared, he came to Rio de Janeiro in person.Read More »

Meanwhile, General Mitre was going to Paraguay to negotiate peace, and Brazil was being represented in these negotiations by the Baron, later Viscount, of Araguaya (1). The Argentine government did not approve of Mitre’s conciliatory approach, Mitre being content with the line of Pilcomayo and Isla del Cerrito, for which reason that general left the capital of Paraguay at the beginning of September, without having obtained anything. The Buenos Aires government’s final proposal was this: the line of Pilcomayo with Isla del Atajo (Cerrito) and arbitration regarding the Chaco, including Villa Occidental, with the status quo maintained until the verdict; or Pilcomayo and Villa Occidental, with the Argentine Republic desisting from the rest of the Chaco. But Paraguay only accepted arbitration for all of the Chaco, including from the Pilcomayo down to the Bermejo. In October of 1873, when Mitre’s negotiation was interrupted, or ruined, war between the allies was believed to be inevitable; in Argentine newspapers, the campaign which appeared at the beginning of 1872 was reborn. Brazil and Argentina armed themselves, made grand orders of Remingtons, ironclads, Krupp canons, and torpedoes. The Alsinist (2) newspapers attacked Mitre, showing him entitled to the Brazilian crown and representing him, in caricature, making a monkey dance—the monkey being the symbol for Brazil in the Argentine Republic.

Such is the situation we see reflected in the following summons for the Foreign Affairs Section of the Council of State, for which summons Nabuco was speaker (20 November 1872):

“By the 4^th article of the agreement of December 19 of last year, published in December of the same year, the imperial government is obligated to effectively collaborate with its moral force towards the goal of bringing the Argentine Republic and Uruguay to a friendly arrangement with Paraguay, respecting their definitive peace treaties.

“By virtue of that commitment, the extraordinary envoy and minister plenipotentiary of H.M. the Emperor in Buenos Aires, senhor Baron of Araguaya, received instructions and powers to be transferred to Asunción, and there aid señor General Mitre, entrusted with the Argentine mission. The Argentine government seemed very satisfied with the selection of the Brazilian plenipotentiary and Brazil’s rapid cooperation.

“Señor General Mitre initiated negotiations with the Paraguayan government, without requesting Brazil’s direct involvement, and without even discovering Brazil’s thoughts on the conditions that Argentina would accept, maintaining this caution at the same time that it maintained the most courteous and agreeable relations with senhor Baron of Araguaya.

“As can be seen in the protocol of said negotiation, signed by the Argentine and Paraguayan plenipotentiaries, the Baron proposed, and so it was agreed, that before anything else they would occupy themselves with the border treaty, as this was the only issue that could present difficulties.Read More »

There was no reason for serious misunderstanding, however, since the fundamental spirit moving the Argentine government, despite the state of national furor which both parties created, was one of making concessions to Paraguay, of contenting itself, as last resort, with the line of Pilcomayo, and of accepting arbitration on the issue of Villa Occidental. Because of this, the bellicose agitation at the beginning of 1872 calmed down when Mitre’s mission was met in Rio de Janeiro.

Sending Mitre to Brazil in that role was a skillful political maneuver, because if he failed or if he ceded too much to the empire’s demands, he would be ruined for the future presidential election. Cotegipe contributed to his appointment, telling Tejedor that his goal had not been to break the alliance; that the Argentine government could do what he himself had done, with the guarantees the alliance granted to all the allies. The first difficulty lay in the notes exchanged from government to government. Mitre arrived in Rio de Janeiro in early July (1872) and spent three months in resolving this difficulty, because of the meticulous approach which Rio Branco, and, one can say, the emperor himself, offended by the Porteño press’s language against the empire, took in wanting to clarify the allusions Tejedor made. But on November 19^th, Mitre and the Marquis of São Vicente, Brazilian plenipotentiary, sign the accord reestablishing the alliance just as it was before Cotegipe’s treaties, leaving those treaties intact, and obliging Brazil to help its ally in the negotiations it would initiate in turn. The familiarity Rio Branco had with Mitre’s ideas probably contributed to the renewal of the treaty, Mitre also being designated to represent Argentina in the Asunción negotiations.

The Mitre-São Vicente accord did not oppose the policy of separate treaties, but it stripped this policy of all its gravity, reestablishing good harmony between the allies. If Cotegipe’s blow didn’t simply signify abandoning Paraguay to its fate, it did create a difficult situation for Brazil, imposing on it the role of mediator, or, if not recognized as mediator, protector of the defeated party against the former ally. What was Cotegipe’s thinking concerning Paraguay when signing these treaties—to abandon it, or defend it? If he wished to defend it, was he not making Brazil’s intervention more difficult from the very moment in which the alliance broke, or appeared to break? If he wished to abandon it, would this sudden movement not take on the character of pure farce? Would it not be considered a snare set for Paraguay?

Whatever Cotegipe’s idea was at its root, Rio Branco did not want the opportunity it offered to escape him. Without waiting for the situation Cotegipe created to reach a breakdown of relations, he harnessed his skill and perseverance for the protection of Paraguay and the conservation of the territories of the Chaco, a skill and perseverance which in the end granted him his triumph.

Tejedor did not take advantage of Cotegipe’s blow, and as such the Argentine Republic did not obtain a single advantage from the precedent set, not from being able to negotiate with Paraguay separately, nor from being left alone in the field, untethered, against the common enemy.

In view of the capital importance that Rio Branco assigned this issue, it can be said that few diplomats have had reason for such legitimate pride for a triumph obtained as Rio Branco had for having saved the Chaco for Paraguay, perhaps equal to the satisfaction that, years later, his son the Baron of Rio Branco experiences, saving for Brazil the disputed territory of Palmas, which the Argentines considered an extension of Misiones.

But it must be said, in truth, that the Viscount of Rio Branco would have achieved nothing without two factors: 1^st. The impartiality of Argentine politics, which, though at times it suffered eclipses, manifested itself in Varela’s attitude and later in Mitre’s concessions, and which never would have let the Chaco dispute come to a war between the allies; 2^nd. The position the Liberal opposition sustained in the Senate, and especially in the Council of State, rejecting the right of conquest and rejecting besides any possibility of a break-up.

The grueling campaign fought in Parliament for the emancipation of slaves absorbed all of Rio Branco’s activity in 1871. But in August of that year, when, with the challenges facing that project defeated, the government believed itself certain to get the emancipating law off the ground without delay, the question of peace with Paraguay once again took priority over all others, the Baron of Cotegipe being then appointed to continue the negotiations interrupted in January, departing in September, bound for the Río de la Plata.

Talks began in Asunción on November 3^rd. Doctor Quintana represented the Argentine government, and Doctor Adolfo Rodriguez the Uruguayan government, just as he had during negotiations between Paranhos and Varela. From the first moments, the tone was one of misunderstanding. Cotegipe and Quintana each have their policy. It is a match that must be abandoned halfway through by the player who feels weaker from the Paraguayan side and also from the Uruguayan side.

The diplomat Cotegipe met in Asunción was precisely the one who could best provide him the opportunity he needed to develop the vast plan he had in his mind. To oppose Cotegipe, Argentina needed a negotiator whose spirit was either slow or quick, smooth or rough, but cool, flexible, unaffected if you will; one who would at no point abandon the field of negotiations. Instead of this kind of adversary, who would have made signing peace almost impossible for our minister, the Argentina Republic was represented by a man similar to Cotegipe, anxious like him to triumph and write to his government a veni, vidi, vici; imbued with the same precaution against the Empire of Brazil as Cotegipe had against the Argentine Republic, but not managing to conceal it as Cotegipe did; chivalrous, haughty, but deceived as far as his adversary’s intentions, a capital mistake in diplomacy. That mistake would lead him to retreat to separate negotiation, believing that his rival would not dare to do as much.Read More »