São Paulo Revolt of 1924 in the interior
Municipal political leaders were aligned with the Republican Party of São Paulo and tended to be against the revolt, even mobilizing their voters in patriotic battalions to defend the cause of the state and federal governments.
On 9 July, the rebels controlled Itu, Jundiaí and Rio Claro, taken by local units of the Brazilian Army, and Campinas, one of the most important cities in the state.
300 soldiers of the Public Force of São Paulo who could have defended Bauru had been sent away by their commander on 10 July, after the state government withdrew from the Campos Elíseos Palace.
[14] Controlling the interior was not in the plans of the initiators of the uprising; their objective was to capture São Paulo immediately and proceed to Rio de Janeiro to overthrow the federal government.
But this plan fell apart, the march to Rio de Janeiro did not take place, and the need arose to expand the territory inland, guaranteeing a possible escape route in the rear.
[21] In the political scenario of each municipality, situationists and oppositionists chose between joining the revolt, trying to be apolitical or remaining loyal to the federal government of president Artur Bernardes.
[27] Campinas, for example, called for volunteers to be in the policing, controlled the departure of foodstuffs from the municipality, set prices for basic necessities, appointed a coffee purge inspector, hired workers for public cleaning and opened credit.
The rebel lieutenant João Cabanas, who reinforced his column with volunteers and prisoners, referred to both his fighters and the loyalist irregulars as "bandoliers", as the troop composition was the same.
[9] Campinas was a strategic city, with a privileged topographical position, large income from coffee growing and the largest railway junction in the state, controlling access to the interior.
[47] On 6 July, a naval task force headed by the battleship Minas Geraes docked and disembarked a contingent of sailors, who proceeded to São Paulo.
[51] Against him, irregulars and police from the Pirassununga and Ribeirão Preto region, led by deputy Fernando de Sousa Costa, converged in Mogi Mirim, north of Campinas, waiting for general Martins Pereira.
[c] Despite his numerical advantage, the loyalist commander dispersed his forces too much and acted passively, suffering several defeats to a small but experienced and well-motivated troop.
For his ruses, such as telegrams with false information and trains decorated with fake cannons and machine guns, he is considered a pioneer in psychological warfare in Brazil.
[55] The greatest revolutionary authority on the Paulista and Noroeste Railways was captain Guimarães, but the groups of lieutenant Virgílio Ribeiro dos Santos and several sergeants also acted.
[56] From Rio Claro and Campinas, the revolutionaries occupied the municipalities of Piracicaba, Limeira, São Carlos, Araraquara, Araras, Pirassununga, Descalvado and Jaboticabal.
Its defenders had been dispersed by major Januário Rocco, from the School Corps, and captain Salvador Moya, from the 3rd Infantry Battalion, after the news of the abandonment of the capital by the state government, and unfounded rumors of the arrival of revolutionaries.
Deputy Eduardo Vergueiro de Lorena did not believe the rumors and turned his patriots into a small motorized company ("flying column"), but he was unable to retake the city and went to the north bank of the Tietê river, operating west of Araraquara.
Captain Guimarães' revolutionaries, returning from Bauru, passed through Jaú and found the "flying column" on the Jacaré river, in Bocaina, prepared for a fight in the open field.
Lieutenant colonel Ciro Daltro, commander of the 16th Battalion of Caçadores and the Mixed Brigade organized to go to Bauru, may have dragged out the operation, favoring the revolutionaries.
[81][82][83] A rebel cavalry squadron passed through Votorantim, it was said to cut the road between Sorocaba and Mairinque, but it surrendered in the town of Una and taken prisoner by the Fernando Prestes battalion.
[84] On 27 July, the revolutionary command chose to leave the city of São Paulo and head towards Mato Grosso, where they could either continue the rebellion or retire into exile.
General Azevedo Costa's "Southern Column" was about to cut off the last exit from the city: at noon on 28 July, its vanguard reached Jundiaí after passing through Itu.
[89] According to Lourenço Moreira Lima, secretary of the Miguel Costa-Prestes Column, leaving São Paulo was the correct response to the "iron circle" prepared by the government.
[22] Due to the loyalist success in the Sorocaba axis, the only available route was through Bauru, where the bulk of the revolutionaries arrived on 28 July, passing through Campinas, Rio Claro and Itirapina.
[99] At the same time, the loyalists moved a detachment from the Southern Column against Bauru, commanded by colonel Trajano and consisting of the 7th RI, two squadrons of the 5th RCD, a battalion from Paraná and a battery of the 5th RAM.
Colonel João Francisco was against a defensive strategy and preferred to go down the river to the stretch between Guaíra and Foz do Iguaçu and advance to Ponta Grossa by land.
Isidoro preferred to go upriver to Três Lagoas and invade Mato Grosso,[109][110][111] where the revolutionaries would proclaim the "Free State of Brasilândia" and would be able to resist and even counterattack.
[96] In his account, Cabanas stated that the soldiers of the Military Brigade of Rio Grande do Sul came on trains loaded with alcohol and prostitutes;[122] he defined the loyalist advance as "slack".
On the 23rd, in Quatá, they found disabled locomotives and a fire in the passenger cars and in the sawn wood that was waiting for transport on the side of the road; the vanguard attacked Rancharia but were repulsed.
The campaign in western Paraná dragged on until April 1925, when another column of revolutionaries arrived from Rio Grande do Sul, led by captain Luís Carlos Prestes.
