Fortress of Humaitá

Coordinates: 27°04′S 58°31′W / 27.067°S 58.517°W / -27.067; -58.517

Brazilian ironclad vessels at last dash past the Fortress of Humaitá, 19th February 1868. By the Brazilian admiral and watercolourist Trajano Augusto de Carvalho, 1830–1898), who was in command.

The Fortress of Humaitá (1854–68), known metaphorically as the Sebastopol or even the Gibraltar of South America, was a defensive system near the mouth of the River Paraguay. A strategic site without equal in the region, it was "the key to Paraguay and the upper rivers". The fortress was deeply involved in the Paraguayan War (1864–70), but its construction was a key event in South American geopolitics well before that time.

The site was a meander or sharp bend in the river; practically all vessels wishing to enter the Republic of Paraguay were forced to navigate it. The bend was commanded by a 6,000-foot (1.8 km) line of artillery batteries, at the end of which was a chain boom which, when raised, closed the river to navigation. The fortress was protected from attack on its landward side by impassible swamp or extensive earthworks which, at their greatest extension, stretched for 8 lineal miles (13 km) and required a garrison of 10,000 men. At its zenith Humaitá was reputed to be impassable to enemy shipping.

Plan of the Fortress of Humaitá and some of its landward defences, evolved by Brazilian military surveyors during the War. It also shows the Brazilian lines of circumvallation.

The widespread perception which it created in its heyday – that Paraguay was practically immune to naval attack – may have induced its Marshal-President Francisco Solano López to take unnecessary risks in foreign policy and, in particular, to seize government vessels and provinces of the much more populous Brazil and Argentina and to send an army to invade Uruguay. They united against him in the Treaty of the Triple Alliance. The war led to his country’s utter defeat and ruin and the casualties were immense.

Plan of fortress of Humaitá, detail. The red arrow indicates the position of chain boom; the blue arrow, of the church (seen in next image).

A declared purpose of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance was the demolition of the Humaitá fortifications and that none others of that sort should be built again. However the fortress, though not by then invulnerable to the latest armour-plated warships, was a serious obstacle to the Allies’ plans to proceed upriver to the Paraguayan capital Asunción and to recapture the Brazilian territory of Mato Grosso: it delayed them for two and a half years. It was taken in the Siege of Humaitá, an amphibious operation that culminated on 25 July 1868. It was then razed pursuant to the Treaty.

For present-day Paraguayans Humaitá is a symbol of national pride, standing for their country’s unyielding will to resist.

The ruins of the church of San Carlos Borromeo today. Part of the Fortress complex, the church was destroyed by Allied gunfire during the War.

Motives for its construction

The key to Paraguay: the blue arrow shows the location of the fortress near the mouth of the River Paraguay. At the top of the map is the Mato Grosso, and the territory disputed between Brazil and Paraguay. (Source: Thompson, Plate VIII.)

Key to Paraguay

Paraguay is a landlocked country and for much of its history it was difficult of access, except by sailing from the Atlantic up the River Paraná and hence the River Paraguay (see map)[1] as the early Spanish explorers had done. There were other means of ingress, but they would have required an invading force to be resupplied through difficult and hostile country.[2] So the command of the river was key to the security of Paraguay, who feared and distrusted its two much larger[3] neighbours Brazil and Argentina.[4]

Anxiety about the Brazilian Empire

In a long history of conflicts between the empires of Portugal and Spain in America, the Portuguese made numerous incursions – some of them permanent – into Spanish-claimed territory. Slave raids by Bandeirantes from what is now Brazil into the Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay carried off many Guaraní inhabitants, who feared and despised the Brazilians.[5][6][7] The boundaries between the two empires were not resolved and the conflicts continued after independence, when Portuguese America became the Empire of Brazil.[8][9] Brazil had no practical access to its own territory of Mato Grosso except by sailing from the Atlantic Ocean up the River Paraguay (see map);[10] fear that Paraguay might interfere with the navigation was a source of conflict.[11] Where Paraguay ended, and where the Mato Grosso began, was a matter of opinion.[12]

Anxiety about Buenos Aires

The Spanish Viceroyalty of the River Plate occupied an enormous territory roughly coterminous with the modern-day territories of Bolivia, central and northern Argentina,[13] Paraguay and Uruguay. Although it did not exist for very long (1776–1810) the Spanish Viceroy had his seat in the city of Buenos Aires. Upon becoming independent from Spain the city claimed to be the capital of an identical territory it called the United Provinces of South America.[14][15] Other provinces – especially Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay – begged to differ and the Viceroyalty broke up in acrimony and warfare. In particular, Buenos Aires did not recognise the independence of Paraguay and in 1811 sent an army under General Belgrano to try to ‘recover’ it.[16] The Buenos Aires governor Juan Manuel Rosas during his dictatorship (1835–52) tried to bring Paraguay to heel by closing the River Paraná to commercial traffic (see Battle of Vuelta de Obligado). Buenos Aires province fell out with the other provinces of the Argentine Confederation and declared itself the independent State of Buenos Aires; it did not recognise Paraguay’s independence even after the others had. It was not until quite late in the nineteenth century (1859) that a re-united Argentina formally recognised an independent Paraguay. Even so, the boundaries between Argentina and Paraguay were in dispute, notably the Chaco and Misiones territories.[17]

Defensive outlook of Paraguay

Upon its independence in 1811 Paraguay tried to keep out of the anarchy of adjoining Hispanic America. Its formidable dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (1820–1840) imposed a strict policy of isolation. During his reign few were allowed to enter Paraguay, or to leave it.[18][19][20] "In an attempt to coerce Paraguay economically and bring it to its knees, Buenos Aires only stiffened Paraguayan nationalism and produced a voluntary, xenophobic isolation of the breakaway province".[15]

After Francia's death he was succeeded by Carlos Antonio López, (called ‘López I’ by some authors,[21] a convenient if inaccurate designation), the father of Francisco Solano López (‘López II’). López I did open up Paraguay to foreign trade and technology,[22][23][24][25] but the steamship made his country vulnerable to invasion[26][27] and he understandably feared the machinations of his powerful neighbours.[28]

During his presidency there were conflicts, not only with Brazil and Buenos Aires, but also the United States: the USS Water Witch affair of 1855 in which the fort of Itapirú fired upon an American warship,[29] which led to a US naval expedition against Paraguay in 1858.[30] Although Carlos López was astute enough to know when to back down,[31][32][33][34] he resolved to make Paraguay immune to foreign attack in future.[35]

Immediate cause of its construction; initial works

The Guard-House of Humaitá according to an engraving in the Illustrated London News, 1864.

In 1777, in colonial times, a modest guardia (fortlet or lookout post) was established at Humaitá, a place about 15 miles above the mouth of the River Paraguay. However, a more formidable version was built in stages on the orders of López I. He started the work hurriedly in 1854 during conflict with Brazil over boundaries and navigation, when Paraguay was threatened by a Brazilian flotilla;[36] fortunately for López, the Brazilians were delayed by the low state of the river.[37]

To a design by the Hungarian colonel of engineers Wisner de Morgenstern,[38][39] he hastily fortified the river’s left bank with a few batteries, which were continually but slowly augmented, and a trench was dug on the land side enclosing the rear of them.[11] He felled the virgin forest, leaving only a few scattered trees, grubbed up the roots, and laid out the first batteries, to whose completion some two years were devoted.[38] The works, which were continually extended, were supervised by British engineers, of whom there were a considerable number on contract to the government of Paraguay.[40][41]

Description of the finished fortress

Another plan depiction of the Humaitá fortress. The meander was more concave than is shown here.

Location

The fortress of Humaitá was situated on a level cliff about 30 feet (10 metres) above the river, on a sharp horseshoe bend.[42] The bend, called the ‘’’Vuelta de Humaitá’’’[43] was an ideal strategic pinch point. It was some 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) long; the stream narrowed to only 200 metres (660 ft) broad; the current was 2.8 knots (5.2 km/h; 3.2 mph) and in places 3 knots (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph), difficult for the ships of the day to stem; and (a matter that was to horrify the Brazilian navy[44]) ideal for the release of ‘torpedoes' (nineteenth century floating naval mines).[45]

First impression

The explorer Captain Sir Richard Burton, who visited the scene during the war – when the Brazilians were still dismantling the fortifications – described it thus:[46]

The sweep is more than usually concave, to the benefit of gunnery and the detriment of shipping. Nothing more dangerous than this great bend, where vessels were almost sure to get confused under fire, as happened at Port Hudson to the fleet commanded by Admiral D. G. Farragut. The level bank, twenty to thirty feet above the river, and dipping in places, is bounded by swamps up-stream and down-stream. Earthworks, consisting of trenches, curtains and redans, disposed at intervals where wanted, and suggesting the lines of Torres Vedras, rest both their extremities upon the river, whose shape here is that of the letter U, and extend in gibbous shape inland to the south. The outline measures nearly eight miles and a half, and encloses meadow land to the extent of 8,000,000 square yards – a glorious battlefield.

Batteries

An invading force, if steaming around the bend upriver,[47] would have to pass eight batteries,[48] all[42] capable of concentrating fire on the reentrant angle:

Preliminary batteries

First it had to pass the Humaitá redoubt, armed with a single 8 in (20 cm) (20 cm calibre) gun.

It must then pass the Itapirú (seven guns); the Pesada [heavy] (five guns), all partly revetted with brick; the Octava or Madame Lynch[49] (three guns en barbette); the Coimbra (eight guns); and the Tacuarí (three guns).[50]

The Batería Londres

The Londres Battery of the Humaitá fortifications

Next, the invading flotilla must pass the Batería Londres (so called because most of the técnicos in Paraguay were recruited by the Limehouse, London, firm of J. & A. Blyth).[40] Its walls were 8.2 metres (27 ft) thick. It was supposed to be rendered bomb-proof by layers of earth heaped upon brick arches, and there were embrasures for 16 guns. "Of these ports" said Burton "eight were walled up and converted into workshops, because the artillerymen were in hourly dread of their caving in and crumbling down."[50]

The Batería Cadenas and the chain boom

As a climax the invading force would come alongside the Bateria Cadenas (Chain battery), backed by the Artillery Barracks. The boom across the river, which consisted of a number[51] of chains, passed diagonally through a kind of brick tunnel. It was made fast to a windlass supported by a house about 100 yards from the bank. Nearer the battery stood a still larger capstan.[50] According to other sources[52][53] there were three chains (but this does not exclude that they were twisted together).

Landward defences: the Quadrilateral

The landward defences (thick black lines). The red arrow indicates Humaitá proper. The map shows an area about 15 miles square. (Source: Thompson, Plate II.)

The Paraguayans had also taken precautions against Humaitá being seized from the landward side. Much of it was protected naturally by carrizal,[54] marsh or swamp, and where not, an elaborate system of trenches was constructed, eventually extending over 13 km (8 mi) with palisades and chevaux-de-fríse at regular intervals,[55] known as the Quadrilateral (Cuadrilátero,[56][57] Polígono or Quadrilatero in various language sources). The trenches and natural barriers are shown in the map reproduced in this section of this Article, which was drawn to scale by Lt. Colonel George Thompson (engineer) of the Paraguayan army; he personally made a detailed trigonometric survey of the ground.[58] The map is corroborated by Burton's detailed verbal description based on his own inspection on horseback and on figures supplied to him by Lt. Colonel Chodasiewicz of the Argentine army.[59]

Burton reported that the layout required a garrison of at least 10,000 men.[38]

Unmapped terrain

While the Paraguayans were familiar with the ground, maps of the territory were, for the Allies, non-existent.[60] The area lay in the province of Ñeembucú, which is flat, low-lying and obscured by swamp or carrizal. In order to map the area the Allies were obliged to resort to mangrullos (improvised watch towers)[61] or (a first in South American warfare) captive observation balloons.[62][63]

Headquarters

Masthead of the Paraguayan military newspaper Cabichuí, published at the Fortress complex. A cloud of cabichuís (local venomous wasps) assails a Brazilian negro.

López II established his headquarters at Paso Pucú, one of the corners of the Quadrilateral (see map in this Section). A large military hospital was established halfway between Humaitá and Paso Pucú and another one for field officers at Paso Pucú itself.[64] At headquarters were published the military newspapers Cabichuí (mainly in Spanish)[65] and Cacique Lambaré (mainly in Guaraní). These featured crude but effective propaganda woodcuts, often of a racially offensive nature.[66] Paper was in short supply but an ersatz version was improvised from caraguatá (wild pineapple).[67]

Electrical telegraphy

In the final stages of the fortifications electrical telegraph lines were laid out from Humaitá and the points in the Quadrilateral to López's headquarters at Pasó Pucú;[68] and he could instantly be informed—in Morse code—of an enemy attack on any point. The English military engineer George Thompson, a colonel in the Paraguayan army, recorded that the Guaraní became adept telegraphists.[69]

The Chaco side

On the opposite bank of the River Paraguay begins the area known as the Gran Chaco, with a different, hot, semi-arid climate, uninhabited in those days except by fierce Amerindians. In front of Humaitá the land was quite impracticable as far as Timbó which, when the river was high, was completely under water.[70]

Strategic significance and perception

Bird's-eye view of the Fortress of Humaitá from a observation balloon (Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. XII, nº 593).

At least before the introduction of iron-plated[71] warships, Humaitá had the reputation of being impregnable,[72] and it became famous as the "Sebastopol of South America".[73][74][75] During the war the European press compared it to the Richmond[76] and Vicksburg[76] of the American Civil War. It was also famed in Europe and the United States as the Gibraltar of South America.[77][78][76]

Michael Mulhall, editor of the Buenos Ayres Standard, passed the site in 1863 and reported it to the world in these terms:[71][79]

A succession of formidable batteries which frowned on us as we passed under their range… [A]ny vessel, unless iron-plated, attempting to force a passage must be sunk by the raking and concentrated fire of this fortification, which is the key to Paraguay and the upper rivers.

When López I built Humaitá all warships were made of wood, and steamships were mostly paddle-driven.[80] Wooden paddle-steamers, if intending to proceed into Paraguay, would have had to steam, against the current, past the succession of batteries – where the range was 200 metres (660 ft) or less[81] – and somehow cut through the boom of twisted chains, without being sunk: this appeared to be impossible.[71]

A modern appreciation by Professor Whigham:[73]

As a strategic site, Humaitá was without equal in the region, for enemy ships could not ascend the Paraguay [river] without passing under its guns. It was also exceptionally well protected on the south and east by marshes and lagoons. The few dry areas leading to it could be reinforced with troops in such a way as to frustrate any attack.

Weaknesses

After a stare of blank amazement, my first question was— where is Humaitá? Where are the "regular polygons of the Humaitá citadel?" Where is "the great stronghold which was looked upon as the keystone of Paraguay?" I had seen it compared with Silistria and Kars, where even Turks fought; with Sebastopol in her strength …; with the Quadrilateral which awed Italy; with Luxembourg, dear to France; with Richmond, that so long held the Northerners at bay; and with the armour-plated batteries of Vicksburg and the shielded defences of Gibraltar. Can these poor barbettes, this entrenched camp sans citadel— which the Brazilian papers had reported to have been blown up —be the same that resisted 40,000 men, not to speak of ironclads and gunboats, and that endured a siege of two years and a half? I came to the conclusion that Humaitá was a monstrous "hum"[82] and that, with the rest of the public, I had been led into believing the weakest point of the Paraguayan campaign to be the strongest.=— Burton, Letters From the Battle-Fields of Paraguay.[76]

In fact, Humaitá was not invulnerable,[73] at any rate after a sufficient supply of river-navigating ironclad warships became available in South America. Indeed Burton, having inspected the captured site, thought that its potency had been greatly exaggerated – to the point that it was a bluff.

Supply

Because the marshlands were not ideal for the raising of cattle or the cultivation of manioc or maize, and because the Quadrilateral required a large garrison, food for Humaitá needed to be brought in from elsewhere. However, it was a very difficult position to supply.[26]

Cut off by swamps, there was no easy overland communication with the nearest food-producing regions. There was a coastal road, but it was poor, unfitted for oxcarts or cattle droves during the winter floods. During the War there was a shortage of steam vessels; small river craft were difficult to land in winter.[83] "Paraguay never resolved these transportation difficulties during the siege of Humaitá, and the army suffered the consequences."[84]

Even so, Humaitá withstood a siege of more than two years.[85]

Defective weaponry

Although Paraguay could and did manufacture large artillery guns, there was nevertheless a shortage—partly because guns had to be taken to reinforce the landward artillery – [86] and not all of the guns at Humaitá were of acceptable standard. When Burton inspected them (August 1868) he noted that many had been thrown into deep water but the remainder were poor:[87]

The guns barely deserve the name; some of them were so honeycombed that they must have been used as street posts...[88] Not the worst of them were made at Asunción or Ibicuy, whose furnaces and air chimneys could melt four tons per diem. Some had been converted, but it was a mere patchwork. A few rifled 12-pounders had been cast at Asunción. There were sundry old tubes bearing the arms of Spain; two hailed from Seville, the San Gabriel (A.D. 1671) and the San Juan de Dios (1684).

However, Burton may well have been underestimating the Paraguayan artillery: according to both Thompson and Jourdan, some guns had already been evacuated to the Chaco side by the Paraguayans when abandoning the fortress.[89][90]

Defective fortifications

According to Burton [91] the system of fortification lacked the latest developments, mostly using the obsolete en barbette system which failed to protect the defending artillerymen. The consequence:

Thus the works were utterly unfit to resist the developed powers of rifled artillery, the concentrated discharge from shipping, and even the accurate and searching fire of the Spencer carbine. The Londres work, besides being in a state of decay, was an exposed mass of masonry which ought to have shared the fate of forts from Sumpter to Pulaski, and when granite fails bricks cannot hope to succeed. Had the guns been mounted in Monitor towers, or even protected by sand-bags, the ironclads would have suffered much more than they did in running past them.

Other observers formed similar impressions. Thompson wrote that it should have been easy for the Brazilian flotilla firing grape and canister to "sweep the Paraguayans away from their guns"".[92] The British gunboat HMS Doterel, which had passed the site in 1865[93] (long before it was damaged in the war) likewise thought the artillerymen were far too exposed,[94] and that even the casemated battery (the Londres) had poorly constructed embrasures, so wide open as to be "veritable cannonball receptacles",[95] very dangerous to the garrison.[53][96]

Obsolescence

USS Monitor, the first monitor (1861)

López I fortified Humaitá in the era of the wooden paddle-steamer warship. Gloire, the first ironclad warship was not launched until 1859 and that was in France,[80] intended for a blue-water navy;[97] and no battles between European ironclads had actually happened.

However, the evolution of the navies in the American Civil War (1861–65) had fulfilled a demand for heavily armoured vessels that could navigate in river waters. The Battle of Hampton Roads, in which iron-armoured Union and Confederate warships were unable to sink each other, dramatically demonstrated their resistance to heavy artillery. News of this naval engagement arrived in the River Plate on 14 May 1862 and was reported in the Buenos Aires Standard in these terms:[98]

The two steel vessels commenced a cannonade a mile apart, without doing any damage on either side. In less than an hour and a half they were alongside, and then raged so terrible an encounter that both vessels were developed in smoke. Two balls from the Monitor entered her adversary's cuirass; as soon as the wind cleared away the smoke the Monitor was seen running round Merrimac, looking for a vulnerable point, the vessels being about 35 yards apart ...

The Merrimac drove her spur against the Monitor, which received the awful shock motionless and unhurt. Now they were so close that the guns fired into each others' mouths: at length the Confederate got a wound which made her hail the others to tow her into Norfolk. After so terrible a conflict for several hours against heavy artillery, the Monitor showed only a few dinges and scratches. The Merrimac's spur scarcely marked her side.

The superiority so established of steel-clad vessels has caused an immense sensation in America ...

The American sea-fight caused great excitement in England, since it was feared that the new invention would rob that country of naval supremacy. Wooden men of war were declared, in the House of Commons, to be useless, and the Admiralty had stopped all the fortifications and arsenals, to devote all attention to the construction of a steel fleet 35 in number.

Apart from the more conventional ironclads, which the Brazilian navy could order from Britain or France,[99] as noted the Americans had invented the monitor, a heavily armoured, shallow draft vessel that presented little superstructure to enemy fire; monitors could be and were[100][101] built in Brazil. Thus by the time Lopez II fired the first shots against Brazil (December 1864) the Humaitá defences were obsolescent to the latest naval weaponry that could be manufactured or purchased. Brazil was an enormous country and after the war broke out it could have (and soon did have) at least 10 ironclads.[102]

Lack of tautness in the chain boom

Thompson was critical of the design of the chain boom at Humaitá. At Fortín he designed this chain boom made of timbó logs joined endwise by iron shackles. Since it floated underwater it could not be sunk by naval gunfire.

Even heavily armoured vessels might have been impeded by the chain boom, but it turned out to have an Achilles' heel: it could not be drawn tight enough without intermediate floating supports – and these might be sunk by naval gunfire.

Burton's description[50] of the chain boom was:

The chain, which consisted of seven twisted together, passed diagonally through a kind of brick tunnel. On this side [of the River Paraguay] it was made fast to a windlass supported by a house about 100 yards from the bank. Nearer the battery stood a still larger capstan: the latter, however, wanted force to haul tight the chain.[103]

This was so provided an enemy destroyed the chain's intermediate floating supports; for as explained by Thompson,[104] the chains were

supported on a number of canoes, and on three pontoons.[105] The [Brazilian] ironclads fired for three months at these pontoons and canoes, sinking all of them, when, of course, the chain went to the bottom, as the river there is about 700 yards wide, and the chain could not be drawn tight without intermediate supports. The chain was thus buried some two feet under the mud of the river, offering no obstacle whatever to the navigation.

Unintended consequences

The Humaitá defensive system was built to increase the security of Paraguay, but, as will now be described, its strength – real or perceived – may have had the opposite effect in the end.

Provocation of Brazil

For Brazil the fortifications posed a potential threat to her own security and caused her to make war-like preparations. As noted by Lt Colonel George Thompson of the Paraguayan army:[11]

These batteries commanded the whole bend of the river, and Paraguay made all vessels anchor and ask permission before they could pass up the river. As this was the only practicable road which Brazil had to her province of Matto-Grosso [sic],[106] she naturally disapproved of her stoppage of the river, and gradually accumulated large military stores in Matto-Grosso, with the view, no doubt, of some day destroying Humaitá.

Inducing overconfidence

Paso Pucú. Headquarters of the tyrant López. Earthwork to protect him from Allied fire − done from the life. Painting and title by the Argentine general and watercolourist José Ignacio Garmendía (1841-1925).

For Leslie Bethell, López II overestimated Paraguay's military power, and this induced him to behave recklessly.[107] According to Professor Bethell:

Solano López's decision to declare war first on Brazil and then on Argentina, and to invade both their territories, proved a serious miscalculation, and one that was to have tragic consequences for the Paraguayan people. At the very least Solano López made an enormous gamble – and lost… Thus Solano López's reckless actions brought about the very thing that most threatened the security, even the existence, of his country: a union of his two powerful neighbours …

For John Hoyt Williams, Humaitá was instrumental in generating this risk-taking behaviour. According to Professor Williams:[108]

The hundreds of heavy calibre guns mounted at Humaitá and elsewhere, the modern navy, railroad, telegraph, and munitions manufacturing establishments – all helped to bring about the horrendous War of the Triple Alliance and their own destruction by providing the hardware with which Francisco Solano López could become the Mariscal and self-appointed arbiter of the Río de la Plata.

And:[109]

Even El Mariscal would not have dared to do more than to defend his immediate borders had not his military materiel [Williams expressly specifies Humaitá] encouraged him to redefine those borders and play the wider and infinitely more dangerous role of fulcrum in the balance of power.

Upshot

Francisco Solano López ("López II"), and his autograph.

On a traditional view, after the death of the cautious López I, his son paid not enough attention to his father's dying words: to try to settle disputes with Brazil with the pen not the sword.[110] He was induced by the then Uruguayan government to intervene in a conflict in the River Plate region,[111][112][4] which he did on 13 November 1864 by firing across the bows of, then seizing, the Brazilian government[113] ship the Marques de Olinda as she was proceeding upriver on her monthly voyage to the Mato Grosso;[114] he proceeded to seize the Mato Grosso itself.[115] According to the American ambassador to Paraguay Charles A. Washburn, Lopez explained his seizure of the Brazilian ship by saying "with more candor than discretion" that only by a war could the attention and respect of the world be secured to Paraguay; that although Paraguay was a small power in comparison with Brazil, she had "advantages of position" that gave her an equality of strength; and that the Paraguayan troops would be already "fortified and intrenched" before the Brazilians could arrive in any considerable numbers.[116]

Encouraged by the sluggish response of Brazil, infuriated by the mockery of the Buenos Aires press[117] and Argentina's refusal to permit him to invade further Brazilian territory through sovereign Argentine space, on 13 April 1865 López fired upon and seized two small Argentine naval vessels moored in the port of Corrientes, then proceeded to take the Argentine province of that name,[118] making Paraguayan paper currency compulsory in the province.[119] The resulting War of the Triple Alliance was to destroy his country.

An alternative view

A possible alternative view is that López was aware that developments in naval warfare were making Humaitá obsolescent and therefore decided to take the offensive before Paraguay lost the balance of advantage altogether. Paraguay's chief engineer the talented William Keld Whytehead[120] cannot have failed to become aware of the advantages of ironclad vessels and indeed it is on record that in 1863 he obtained a British patent for an iron-cladded vessel.[121] Further support for this view is afforded by López's hesitation in seizing the Marques de Olinda.[114] According to Thompson:[122]

López was at Cerro Leon at the time [when the Marques de Olinda arrived at Asunción], and hesitated for a whole day whether he should break the peace or not... [H]e knew he could assemble every man in the country immediately and raise a large army; he knew also that the Brazilians would be a long time recruiting to get a large force together, and he did not think they would wish to carry on a war for long. He said, 'If we don't have a war now with Brazil, we shall have one at a less convenient time for ourselves.' He therefore sent ... the 'Tacuarí' (the fastest steamer on the River Plate) ... to bring her back to Asunción.

Effectiveness in practice

Brazilian naval vessels navigating the River Paraguay river near Humaitá during the war of the Triple Alliance. Created by Blanchard, after a sketch by Paranhos, publ. on L'Illustration, Journal Universel, Paris, 1868

Despite Burton's strictures[123] the Fortress of Humaitá was a serious obstacle to the Allies’ plans to proceed upriver. On it being announced in Buenos Aires[124] that Paraguay had fired upon and seized the Argentine naval vessels, President Mitre told a furious crowd that:[125]

In twenty-four hours we shall be in the barracks, in a fortnight at Corrientes, and in three months at Asunción.

In fact, the Fortress of Humaitá delayed the Allies, one way or another, for two and a half years.[76] After the debacle of the Battle of Curupayty the Allies overestimated the strength both of the opposing army and of Humaitá: they allowed López almost a year to rebuild his forces, devastated at the Battle of Tuyutí.[126]

On 19 February 1868[127] when the river was unusually high[44] six Brazilian ironclad vessels were ordered to dash past Humaitá, which they did with no great difficulty[128] because by then the chain boom was anyway lying in the river bed.[129] The Paraguayans stopped resupplying Humaitá by river and it was starved out. The fortress was finally captured in the Siege of Humaitá, an amphibious operation that culminated on 5 August 1868.[127] It was then razed pursuant to the Treaty of the Triple Alliance.[130] Although Humaitá was not the only obstacle (the Paraguayans improvised further strongpoints along the river) the Allies did not finally succeed in occupying the Paraguayan capital Asunción until 5 January 1869:[131] nearly four years after Mitre's speech.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The map was published in Thompson, 1879, Plate VIII.
  2. ↑ Burton, p. 296.
  3. ↑ Brazil's population was about 10 million; Argentina's, about 1.5 million; Paraguay's, possibly 300–400,000: Bethell, 6. According to Williams, 1979, ch. 13, the number enrolled in the Brazilian National Guard exceeded the total population of Paraguay.
  4. 1 2 Bethell, p. 3.
  5. ↑ Francis, p. 130.
  6. ↑ Bakewell, p. 427.
  7. ↑ Sarreal, p. 32.
  8. ↑ Williams, 1980.
  9. ↑ Whigham, pp. 14–17.
  10. ↑ So much so, that until 1910 (when a railway link was constructed between São Paulo and Cuiabá, capital of the Mato Grosso), the long sea and river journey through the South Atlantic ocean, the Paraná and the Paraguay was the shortest practical route to the territory: Doratioto, 26.
  11. 1 2 3 Thompson, p. 16.
  12. ↑ Whigham, pp. 78–92.
  13. ↑ It also claimed Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands (Malvinas).
  14. ↑ Still an official name of Argentina today: Constitution of Argentina, Article 35.
  15. 1 2 Williams, 1972, p. 343.
  16. ↑ Whigham, pp. 30–31.
  17. ↑ Whigham, pp. 93–117.
  18. ↑ Thompson, pp. 4–5.
  19. ↑ Washburn, pp. 267–269.
  20. ↑ Whigham, pp. 36–41.
  21. ↑ For example, Thompson.
  22. ↑ Whigham, pp. 68–69.
  23. ↑ Thompson, pp. 10–11.
  24. ↑ Williams, 1971, chs. 6–7.
  25. ↑ Pla.
  26. 1 2 Cooney, p. 38.
  27. ↑ Sailing vessels could take 6 months to sail from Buenos Aires to Humaitá: Burton, 295
  28. ↑ Doratioto, p. 32.
  29. ↑ Washburn, pp. 364–376.
  30. ↑ Williams,1979, ch 10.
  31. ↑ Thompson, p. 12.
  32. ↑ Washburn, pp. 472-473.
  33. ↑ Washburn, p. 476.
  34. ↑ Washburn, p. 471.
  35. ↑ Washburn, p. 417.
  36. ↑ Burton 63.
  37. ↑ Page 109.
  38. 1 2 3 Burton, p. 315.
  39. ↑ Williams 1979, chapter 11.
  40. 1 2 Plá.
  41. ↑ Williams, 1977.
  42. 1 2 Thompson, p. 221.
  43. ↑ Humaitá bend.
  44. 1 2 Burton, p. 332.
  45. ↑ Burton, p. 313.
  46. ↑ Burton, pp. 314–315.
  47. ↑ Burton in describing the batteries examined them from the landward side walking in the downstream direction. In this Article the direction is reversed, as they would be encountered by an invading naval force.
  48. ↑ In the ensuing description the naming of the batteries follows Burton, 1870, whose principal informants were the Brazilian military. An alternative, and somewhat different, naming convention in Spanish is available in Nakayama, 2013.
  49. ↑ Eliza Lynch was López II’s mistress.
  50. 1 2 3 4 Burton, p. 319.
  51. ↑ Seven twisted together (of which the largest had a 1.75 inch diameter) according to Burton, 319, 332; seven twisted together, according to Kennedy, 160; seven (apparently twisted together) according to the Brazilian military map prepared by the engineering corps and reproduced in this Article; three side-by-side (of which the heaviest had 7.5 inch links) according to Thompson, 239.
  52. ↑ Masterman, p. 139.
  53. 1 2 Schneider, p. 115.
  54. ↑ "Land intersected by deep lagoons and deep mud, and between the lagoons either an impassable jungle or long intertwined grass, equally impenetrable": Thompson, 128.
  55. ↑ Whigham, p. 186.
  56. ↑ Nickson, p. 590.
  57. ↑ Doratioto, p. 202.
  58. ↑ Thompson, pp. 331–332.
  59. ↑ Burton, pp. 351–362.
  60. ↑ Garmendía, p. 26.
  61. ↑ Hooker, pp. 58-59.
  62. ↑ Haydon.
  63. ↑ Warren, 1985.
  64. ↑ Thompson, p. 201.
  65. ↑ Thompson, 207 recollected that Cabichuí was entirely in Guaraní but his recollection was faulty.
  66. ↑ Wiiliams, 1978, p. 410.
  67. ↑ Thompson, p. 207.
  68. ↑ 'At this important central point converged ten radii of telegraph wires coming from all points of the so-called "Quadrilateral"': Burton, 357.
  69. ↑ Thompson, p. 155.
  70. ↑ Thompson, p. 222.
  71. 1 2 3 Mulhall, p. 84.
  72. ↑ Nakayama.
  73. 1 2 3 Whigham, p. 185.
  74. ↑ Bethell, p. 8.
  75. ↑ Burton, p. xiii.
  76. 1 2 3 4 5 Burton, p. 314.
  77. ↑ Warren, 1982, p. 237.
  78. ↑ The Times, p. 6.
  79. ↑ And quoted in Burton, 315–316, who may, however, have been quoting an earlier version published in the Buenos Aires Standard..
  80. 1 2 Sondhaus, pp. 73–74.
  81. ↑ Because the stream was 200 metres broad (Burton, 313) but the canal passed close to the bank (Mulhall, 84)
  82. ↑ Victorian slang for 'humbug': Oxford Egnlish Dictionary, sense 2.
  83. ↑ Cooney, pp. 38-9.
  84. ↑ Cooney, p. 39.
  85. ↑ Cooney, p. 40.
  86. ↑ Thompson, p. 191.
  87. ↑ Burton, p. 321.
  88. ↑ In Europe defective cannon were often used as street posts; some of these may have been imported into South America as ballast.
  89. ↑ Thompson, p. 251.
  90. ↑ Jourdan, p. 55.
  91. ↑ Burton, p. 320.
  92. ↑ Thompson, p. 65.
  93. ↑ Doterell had called at Humaitá on 5 June 1865 on her way to Asunción with the intent of repatriating British subjects).
  94. ↑ Schneider, pp. 114-115.
  95. ↑ Wikipedia re-translation.
  96. ↑ Schneider misspells Doterel's name.
  97. ↑ Between Tres Bocas and Humaitá the river was shoal: sometimes less than two fathoms (Kennedy, 104).
  98. ↑ The Standard, Buenos Aires, 14 May 1862, page 2.
  99. ↑ Burton, p. 331.
  100. ↑ Thompson, p. 246.
  101. ↑ Hooker, p. 76.
  102. ↑ Burton, p. 345.
  103. ↑ In a different passage he says that there was no donkey-engine to tighten it when it sagged following destruction of the intermediate floating supports: Burton, 332.
  104. ↑ Thompson 239.
  105. ↑ According to Burton they were supported by three chatas (barges): Burton, 332. According toHMS Dotterell there were three great chains resting on 10 pontoons (Schneider, 115). According to Masterman (chief pharmacist to the Paraguayan forces, whose medical duties took him to Humaitá) they rested on "lighters" – which also served as floating prisons – and on rows of piles. The latter failed (he said) "from the necessity of fishing them when the river was high": Masterman, 139.
  106. ↑ According to the American ambassador Charles A. Washburn "Brazil had large provinces, half as large as Europe, to the north of Paraguay, that were scarcely accessible except by [that route]": Washburn, 560.
  107. ↑ Bethell, p. 4.
  108. ↑ Williams, 1977, p. 252.
  109. ↑ Williams, 1977, pp. 256–257.
  110. ↑ Whigham, p. 92.
  111. ↑ Whigham, pp. 156–160.
  112. ↑ Doratioto, pp. 43, 56, 61.
  113. ↑ The Marques de Olinda was captained by an officer of the Brazilian navy, was subsidised by the Brazilian government, and was carrying the newly appointed governor of the Mato Grosso, 10 soldiers and a large quantity of paper currency for use in the province.
  114. 1 2 Whigham, p. 160.
  115. ↑ Whigham, pp. 192–216.
  116. ↑ Washburn, pp. 563–564.
  117. ↑ Thompson, p. 23.
  118. ↑ Whigham, pp. 259–307.
  119. ↑ Whigham, p. 270.
  120. ↑ Institution of Mechanical Engineers, p. 14.
  121. ↑ Patent Office, p. 373.
  122. ↑ Thompson, p. 25.
  123. ↑ Burton's critique was this: an active and competent enemy would soon have forced the passage of Humaitá, whose strength had been much exaggerated. (Burton, 332 and passim, and compare 234). However this may have been somewhat unfair, or Eurocentric. The Allied officer corps had no prior experience of the type of warfare they were engaged in. See e.g. Dudley, 107-8.
  124. ↑ On April 17, 1865.
  125. ↑ Thompson, pp. 47–48.
  126. ↑ Williams, 1979.
  127. 1 2 Plá, p. 224.
  128. ↑ Doratioto, pp. 308–309.
  129. ↑ See the section Lack of tautness in the chain boom, above.
  130. ↑ Protocol, article 1: "The fortifications of Humaitá shall be demolished, and … no other or others of that kind shall be permitted to be constructed, thereby interfering with the faithful execution of the treaty."
  131. ↑ Plá, p. 225.

Sources

External links

La Fortaleza de Humaitá en 3D (idealised digital reconstruction of the Fortress with moving images and patriotic music)

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