The Paraguayan War - 1865 - 1870

The war that confronted Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay against Paraguay, between 1865 and 1870, was a direct consequence of the British efforts to end the two main autonomous models of development, which emerged in the first half of the 19th century in Latin America, and which could be extended to the rest of Latin America. The traditional argument that the war was due to the policy of national unification and defense of the territory, proclaimed by the Argentine and Brazilian governments, was a simple curtain created to hide the real causes of the war.
The first great model of autonomous development had been created by José Artigas in the early years of the century, when his Federal League covered, in addition to the Banda Oriental (the future Uruguay), the provinces of Córdoba, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Santa Fe and the towns of the Misiones. The Federal League, also called the League of Free Peoples, faced strong opposition from the Buenos Aires government, which tried to impose a unitary system under its authority.
Cith the increasing influence of Artigas in the Eastern Missions, the kingdom of Portugal felt threatened, and waited for the opportunity to intervene. Finally, with the support of his ally England, and taking advantage of a period of weakness of Artigas, concentrated in his fight with Buenos Aires, Portuguese troops invaded the Eastern Strip. The Federal League collapsed like a house of cards and Artigas went into exile in the only place where his enemies could not reach him: Paraguay.
A little later, the English mediation obtained a new triumph in its policy of dividing to govern, when the independence of Uruguay was declared, a wedge placed between the borders of Brazil and Argentina, and that could control the Uruguay River, through which the Paraguayan goods went...