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By fortune, no darkness shrouds the origins of the Paraguayan War. In June, with López’s aid solicited by the Blanco government after Saraiva’s mission arrived in Montevideo, López offers his mediation to the imperial government; in August and September he protests Brazil’s threat of reprisals and the aid Tamandaré lent to Flores’s invasion. Seeing his mediation rejected, his protest scorned, in November he captures the steamer Marqués de Olinda, which was bringing to Mato Grosso the new governor, Carneiro de Campos, charged with organizing the defense of that western Brazilian province against any sudden attack from Paraguay. One month after the attack on the Marqués de Olinda, López invades Mato Grosso, his troops having the same orders to pillage and destroy, the same objectives of plundering and raping with which we later saw them cross into Uruguay. It was not a civilized war, this war which caught us by surprise. It was like an invasion of barbarians, a horde of Huns suddenly launched into our defenseless populations.

The Marqués de Olinda lost, Carneiro de Campos imprisoned, and Mato Grosso invaded, we had to force the pass at Humaitá and go on until Asunción. By our luck, a great obstacle was going to disappear from our way. Through the agreement of 20 February (1865), Montevideo was surrendered to Flores, and since that day, not only did we not have to sustain two wars, but we also could count on the Eastern State as an ally instead of an enemy.

Nothing is more likely to be true than the theory that attributes the abrupt resignation of Paranhos (Viscount of Rio Branco) to the emperor, because of that pact: however it is impossible to imagine that the emperor could have asked him to do anything else. And what could be expected to come from the forcible taking of a trading city, in great part foreign, European, such as Montevideo, even supposing that it could not defend itself? Or what could be expected to come from the city’s bombardment, the unavoidable preliminary action of such an assault?

The total deadlock in resolving the war with Montevideo, after the attitude taken by López, had been a catastrophe, and if the delay did not make an impression on our government, it’s because no one expected what happened: the invasion of Rio Grande do Sul, after that of Montevideo. In Flores’s complete victory, López sees the hand of the Argentine government, an accomplice to the invasion according to the Blancos, and he suddenly turns against Buenos Aires with the same violence with which before he turned against Brazil, repeating on 13 April what he did in the waters of the Paraguay with the Marqués de Olinda, only now with canister shot and soldiers boarding the other ships, by which method the Gualeguay and the 25 de Mayo were taken over, two small Argentinian warships that were caught unawares in the port of Corrientes. The following day General Robles (1) occupies the city and invades Argentinian territory, if not for which Paraguay could have claimed some pretext for their actions.

Translator’s Notes

1. Wenceslao Robles, a Paraguayan general.