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We found 2 Reddit comments about To the Bitter End: Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance (Contributions in Military Studies). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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To the Bitter End: Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance (Contributions in Military Studies)
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2 Reddit comments about To the Bitter End: Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance (Contributions in Military Studies):

u/dufour · 11 pointsr/AskHistorians

Christopher Leuchars' horribly expensive (read it in a library) To the Bitter End: Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance offers a good account of the war.

In my view, Paraguay's president acted a bit like Croesus, King of Lydia, who attacked the Persians, as the oracle of Delphi promised "he would destroy a great empire". Unfortunately for him, it was his own. So, hubris on the Paraguayan side.

Argentine and Brazil failed to properly prepare for the logistical and organizational challenge. As the US armies had learned in the underdeveloped and underpopulated South, it was difficult to sustain modern armies in the wilderness. Add neglect, incompetence and politics for a really nasty and unnecessary war.

u/tach · 1 pointr/polandball

As I said above, Argentina considered Paraguay a rebel province, much like China sees Taiwan. They were both part of the River Plate Virreynate, and Buenos Aires was its capital. After independence in 1811, the paraguayans did their own thing and formed a new nation.

Borders in southamerica were not fixed on those times, and there was little allegiance to a nation, especially in Argentina, with the fight between Federales and Unitarios dividing the country.

For Argentina, after the Unitario victory, annexing Paraguay was just a matter of returning a troublesome province to the fold.

Brazil had constant limit problems on their western frontiers - that is to say, they were expansionist fucks, and the independent brazilians kept this policy. See the Cisplatine province - now Uruguay.

As the treaty of Tordesillas divided the Americas into spanish and portuguese spheres of influence, Paraguay was smack at the limit, and had fought against portuguese Bandeirantes since the jesuit missions time. From the paraguayan perspective, Brazil was encroaching once more into Paraguay's land. There are no borders in the jungle, and Brazil was determined to push on until met with resistance. They got it.


> One of the major problems was again the matter of borders, particularly Paraguay's northeastern frontier. This contained little of value, was virtually unpopulated, and produced only mate, which few Brazilians had a taste for. Nevertheless, the latter were convinced of their legal right to the territory, and this had nearly led to war
in 1855, when Lopez expelled the garrison of a Brazilian fort in the disputed zone.

> Brazil sent a large squadron to the River Plate; gaining the permission of
Argentina, this proceeded up the Parana toward Corrientes. The British minister reported that Lopez was "making extensive warlike preparations" and seemed "ill disposed to listen to any reasonable suggestions in favor of a peaceable and moderate policy."1 Lopez ordered a partial evacuation of Asuncion and sent the treasury and church valuables into the interior.

>In fact, Lopez's statements were bluster, and he actually seems to have been terrified by the Brazilian threat and prepared to back down to their demands. It was his son, Francisco Solano, who strengthened his resolve and who managed to persuade the Brazilians to leave the majority of their squadron at Corrientes and proceed upriver to Asuncion with just one ship. By linking the border issue with that of freedom of navigation of the rivers, Lopez managed to secure a favorable treaty, allowing Brazil rights of passage up the Paraguay River to its interior province of Mato Grosso, in exchange for a frontier set at the line of
Paraguayan demands. Predictably, the Brazilian government was furious with its envoy and refused to ratify the treaty.

>The following year a compromise was reached, with the boundary question put on ice for six years. By 1862, at the expiration of this period, during which a solution should have been reached, tension between the two countries rose again.

>Yet no effort was made to appoint commissioners or deal with an issue that could clearly lead to a serious breakdown in relations between them.

Leuchars - To the Bitter End: Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance -pp 23-24