Historiography of the Paraguayan War

This literature was inserted in a broader revisionist context about the country's history, with emphasis on the appreciation of the action of José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia as the founder of independent Paraguay.

[4] In the 1950s, in Argentina, important literature appeared with a Marxist, populist and revisionist influence on the Paraguayan War, with emphasis on authors such as José María Rosa; Enrique Rivera and Milcíades Peña; Adolfo Saldías, Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz, also little studied and rarely mentioned in Brazil.

In the 1960s, a second historiographic current, more committed to the contemporary ideological struggle of this decade between capitalism and communism, and right and left, presented an interpretation that the conflict was motivated by the interests of the British Empire, which sought to prevent the rise of a militarily and economically powerful Latin American nation.

Many of these authors radically denied the thesis of Britain's guilt in the conflict, blaming the Empire of Brazil and Argentina, as in the case of Milcíades Peña and Enrique Rivera, in their classic work.

It was a simplistic and exaggerated view of the causes of the Paraguayan War,[9] claiming that it took place thanks to the infinite ambitions of a supposedly megalomaniac and bloodthirsty Solano López who had the intention to create the "Greater Paraguay" through the conquest of territories of the neighboring countries.

[10] The war's long duration was justified by emperor Pedro II's obstinacy in seeing López defeated for despising him by considering him another Latin American caudillo[10][11] and consequently, it would be necessary to wash the honor of Brazil.

Either he wanted to give wings to his morbid vanity and enormous ambition with war, or he intended, at the expense of his neighbors, to extend the territorial domain of his homeland, taking it to the ocean.

If that was not the case, not even that justification remains in the memory of El Supremo, as the author of the horrible tragedy.The so-called revisionist historiography emerged in the late 1960s and gained strength during the 1970s–80s, mainly pushed by Argentine historians.

Behind these accusations there was an ideology in common among Brazilian republicans, as well as Argentines and Uruguayans, who aimed to discredit the imperial regime by considering it the only culprit for triggering the Paraguayan War and the supposed atrocities committed.

Great Britain, supposedly afraid of this autonomous model and fearing that it could serve as an example for neighboring countries, tried to order Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, mere "puppets", to destroy Paraguay, consequently exterminating practically the entire Paraguayan population.

[7][10][13][16][17] Defending the revisionist version, historian Júlio José Chiavenato argued:[18] In its process of domination, never before has British imperialism been so subtle in form and so forceful in content, as in the conduction of this war.

In 1864, under the government of Francisco Solano López, Paraguay ended up facing a process that provoked an equal confrontation of unequal forces: an emerging and free state against an overdeveloped world power, using its economic satellites as an armed wing.In a similar vein, historian Eric Hobsbawm argued that:[19] The Paraguayan War can be seen as part of the integration of the La Plata basin into England's world economy: Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, with their faces and economies facing the Atlantic, forced Paraguay to lose its self-sufficiency, achieved in the only area in Latin America where Indians resisted white settlement effectively, thanks perhaps to the original Jesuit domination.Such a view, now considered simplistic and without empirical basis, became widespread from the 1960s onwards by different schools of historians, of the most diverse nationalities and strands.

[21][10][13][16][17] However, the effects of the revisionist historiographical view of the conflict were seen in several generations of Latin Americans (mainly Argentines, Brazilians and Uruguayans) who came to observe their past in a pessimistic way and to despise the historical figures of their countries.

[10][13][17][31][32] Historian Francisco Doratioto concisely presented this new view of the causes of the conflict:[33] "The Paraguayan War was the result of the Platine basin contradictions, with the ultimate reason being the consolidation of nation states in the region.

Its rulers, based on partial or false information about the Platine context and the potential enemy, foresaw a quick conflict, in which their objectives would be achieved at the lowest expense possible.

The war was seen from different perspectives: for Solano López it was the opportunity to place his country as a regional power and gain access to the sea through the port of Montevideo, thanks to the alliance with the Uruguayan blancos and the Argentine federalists, represented by Urquiza; for Bartolomé Mitre, it was the way to consolidate the centralized Argentine state, eliminating external support to the federalists, provided by the blancos and Solano López; for the blancos, Paraguayan military support against Argentines and Brazilians would make it possible to prevent their two neighbors from continuing to intervene in Uruguay; For the Empire, the war against Paraguay was neither expected nor desired, but once it started, it was thought that the Brazilian victory would be quick and would put an end to the border dispute between the two countries and the threats to free navigation, and would allow Solano López to be deposed".