The Paraguayan President who Brought his Country to Military Catastrophe – Part 4: How the War Ended

Francisco Solano Lopez was president of Paraguay from 1862 to 1870. He led the country during one of the most devastating defeats in all history – the War of the Triple Alliance. Here, Erick Redington concludes this fascinating series by looking at how a Brazilian leader managed to take Humaita and the capital, Asuncion – and how Marshall Lopez continued to resist even after these captures.

If you missed it you can read part 1 on the early life of Francisco Solano Lopez here, part 2 on the start of the War of the Triple Alliance here, and part 3 on devastating battles for both sides here.

The 1868 Battle of Avay.

Marshal Lopez knew about all the changes in the Allied high command. He was kept informed through an intelligence network of spies and sympathizers. The changes could only have been encouraging. With Mitre gone, and Argentina facing internal dissention and rebellion, their contribution to the war would be diminished at worst, and eliminated at best. Flores' term ending, and then assassination, meant that Uruguay would have another round of internal problems, which could only work to the Marshal's favor. Then the elephant in the room, Brazil. The new commander was probably just some other decadent Brazilian noble with a fancy title, but no match for the Marshal's military genius. 

There were reasons for the Marshal to be confident. Sure his armies were ill equipped, ill fed, and his country was significantly outweighed. But these facts had been true from the start. Yet, despite all this, he had survived. Paraguay had survived. The strategy of making the Allies pay for every step, letting the terrain and disease take their tolls, seemed to be working. The Allies were barely into Paraguay. Tens of thousands had been killed or invalided out. The Argentines and Uruguayans were seemingly withdrawing from the war. There had been no uprising against his rule. The nascent Paraguayan Legion, full of his opponents, was stymied. For the Marshal, all that seemed necessary was just a little more exertion, if the Paraguayan people could give just a little more, then a peace he could live with could finally be achieved.

For Lopez, the seeming successes (or non-failure depending on your perspective) were further convincing him of his own correctness, and the baseness of his opponents. He had done this himself. The American minister to Paraguay once wrote that the Marshal had many flatterers, but no advisors. The Marshal had stymied the Allies, and this led to a further inflated ego. Other issues began to rear their heads. Lopez did not share in the privations of his soldiers. He was a known gourmand, and would eat enormous amounts of food, even specialty cakes that would have been unthinkable for anyone not in the Marshal's immediate family. Worse, Lopez would drink large amounts of alcohol. Prior to modern sanitary methods, drinking alcohol did not carry the risks of disease, such as dysentery, that drinking unclean water did. However, Lopez's consumption of alcohol grew over the years of the war, and when he drank too much, he was known to lash out at those around him angrily. These scenes of anger would not bode well for the future.

When the Marquis de Caxias took command, he trained, organized and equipped his forces. As a veteran of every war of the Empire, he knew the importance of morale and logistics, and was determined to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors. Whereas the Marshal had assumed that Caxias was going to be another dull Brazilian nobleman, it was Caxias who would rebuild the Brazilian forces, and use the newfound unity of command to wield the Allied army and navy as one instrument for the destruction of Marshal Lopez.

Humaitá Falls      

By July 1867, Caxias was ready to move the Allied Army. President Mitre had made some rumblings about wanting to return to the army to reassume command, and Caxias had to move fast to maintain his operational control. The goal was Humaitá. The Marshal had used the months of inactivity to strengthen the Gibraltar of South America. One element that the Marshal had not counted on was the advancements in naval technology of the previous decade. When Humaitá was originally built by Carlos Antonio Lopez, naval vessels were still primarily made of wood, and steam propulsion was new. The bend in the river would slow ships and the guns of the fort would bring their destruction. With ironclad warships becoming more common, even in South America, the position Humaitá was in was not as impregnable as it had been.   

Utilizing terrain and slowing down the Allies, the Marshal wanted to make his enemies bleed for every foot of Paraguayan ground they stepped on. Caxias was willing to accept casualties in order to encircle the Paraguayan fortress. Being outnumbered almost 2-1, however, limited the Marshal's options and he could not afford a pitched battle. For the Marquis, a pitched battle was what he wanted. He was simply unable to achieve it at this stage. Lopez knew his numbers were low, and he had limited prospects of getting more men. Pre-teen boys and old men were being conscripted into the Paraguayan army. These young men would prove some of the Marshal's most devoted followers. The use of child soldiers would be one of the biggest stains on the Marshal's record and is one of the greatest controversies of the war. For the Paraguayans, they felt they had no alternative. According to the Marshal's propaganda, the Allies were going to partition the country and the Brazilians were going to enslave them. These were motivations to get families to freely give up their children for service. And besides, these children would be under the command of the brilliant Marshal Lopez, who would ensure their safety.

The Marquis would order a wide flanking maneuver to surround the fortress, then when close positions were attained, begin land and naval bombardments. If the Paraguayans would not evacuate, Humaitá would be besieged and the Paraguayan army trapped inside, hopefully with the Marshal as well. Mostly, this is what happened. However, due to the terrain, it was impossible to completely surround Humaitá as closely as the Marquis would have liked. Despite this the Allied army was able to take up positions facing Humaitá, and the siege was on. The defense of this place had been built up in the minds of both sides that immediate evacuation by the Marshal was impossible. For both sides, it was the focus of the war. As long as it held out, there was still hope for the Paraguayans. If it fell, the Allies hoped they would have an open road to Asunción.  

As has been seen, Marshal Lopez was not one to sit and wait for anything to happen to him. He would make attacks during the siege, and at times put the Allies back on their heels. Active defense seemed to be the tactic Marshal Lopez excelled at. But his army was also starving. A larger proportion of his solders everyday was made up of children and old men. Weapons were outdated. Ammunition and powder were short. It was amazing the Paraguayans held on as long as they did. But the Marshal could feel the squeeze he was being put under. Slowly, steadily, month after month, the Allies strangled the Paraguayans. The Brazilians showed early in the siege that their ironclads were able to run the guns of the fortress and make it up river, virtually defeating the purpose of the fortress at that location. With the fleet now able to go upriver and shell Paraguayan positions, Humaitá slowly became untenable. Small-scale counter attacks would not be enough. The Allies inexorably closed in. But no matter how many counter attacks, ambushes, and disruptions to the Allied supply line the Marshal made, he could not shake the grip that Caxias had on Humaitá. It became a matter of time. 

Marshal Lopez was not a man to sacrifice himself in the last ditch defense of the fortress. Nor would he allow himself to be captured by his enemies while there were still Paraguayan soldiers left to carry on. Leaving a small force to man the fort and maintain a semblance of their presence, the Marshal ordered his troops to retreat further north. The Marquis was prepared to assault the fortress that for so long had frustrated Allied designs. When the Allies were prepared for the final assault, negotiations began for surrender. Over 1,200 Paraguayan troops surrendered. These men were starving and sick. Their commander, Colonel Martinez, was so starved, by one report his skin had begun to turn yellow. Despite this, surrender by the Paraguayans up until this moment had been unthinkable. To the Allies, the Paraguayans were unthinking automatons in the service of a brutal dictator. Seeing the walking corpses come out of the fort that day reinforced their belief.

Things Fall Apart

For the Marshal, surrender had been unthinkable. He had only left orders for the evacuation of the sick and wounded, not understanding this meant the whole garrison. Although he had held out for longer than anyone had the right to expect, with the fortress gone, he now began to worry about the safety of his capital. Retreat north was a necessity. The Marquis, however, was not willing to rest on his laurels and savor the triumph. Further naval probes were ordered. The advance would continue.

Before confronting his enemies in front of him, Lopez confronted his perceived enemies behind him. This would be the start of one of the greatest black marks against the Marshal’s character. Paraguay was an authoritarian state, and the Marshal was used to instant obedience. It seems that when his orders had been disobeyed and Humaitá surrendered, Lopez began to delude himself with the idea that there was a massive conspiracy against him personally. Massive numbers of arrests were made. Everyone from foreign travelers to government officials were arrested and subject to extreme forms of torture to extract confessions. Priests were used as informants and the confessional was no longer sacred. Families would inform on each other. Even the Marshal’s family was not immune. His brother would be arrested, and his mother would be tortured for the sin of telling him that he was born out of wedlock. Plots to overthrow the Marshal or to surrender to the Allies were allegedly everywhere. Historians have debated whether any of this conspiracy mongering was based in fact, but there is very little evidence. One result did come about. If no one was willing to challenge the Marshal before, now there was no one left in government or the inner circle who would even think of telling the Marshal the truth about the situation again.

Lopez looked for a defensible position from which to stymie the Allied advance. He settled on the banks of the Piquissiri River south of Asunción. It was here the Marquis would show himself a superior general to the Marshal. Caxias would cross the river, enter the terrible terrain of the Gran Chaco and flank the Paraguayan army. Then he could take the Marshal from behind and destroy him before he could retreat further north. This is exactly what happened. At the Battle of Avay, much of the remaining Paraguayan army was destroyed. With this, there was nothing stopping the Marquis from taking the Paraguayan capital, which was done on New Year’s Day 1869.

The Fall                   

Although the Allies hoped that taking the Paraguayan capital would end the war, that would not be signaled until the Marshal was removed from the board. Ever the survivor, Lopez fled north into the wilderness and the mountains. He would take whatever boys and old men were left, form a new army, and fight a guerilla war against the Allies and their newest ally, the Paraguayan Provisional government. This group was set up by the Allies to govern the country. For Lopez, this group of men was even worse than Brazilians, they were traitors. Many Paraguayans would see them the same way. The war would continue.

For over a year, the Marshal would fight his guerilla war. The Marquis de Caxias would leave the war zone, to be replaced by the Emperor’s son-in-law, the Comte d’Eu. There were more battles, but the primary result was more needless suffering by the Paraguayan people. The battles of the last year of the war would see whole villages burned to the ground and brutal reprisals and counter reprisals by both sides. D’Eu was determined to destroy the support system that sustained the Marshal’s armies and would brutally punish any area that gave the Marshal support. The Marshal would launch deadly attacks on anyone who aided the Allies or would not actively support him. Unlike many dictators who can allow passive acceptance, the Marshal required active participation in his activities by his people. The Marshal had no hope of victory, yet he would order the instant death of Paraguayans who even spoke of surrender. The Paraguayan people probably knew they were doomed, but what else could they do? The habituation of obedience had been with them since the days of Dr. Francia. There was nothing left for the Paraguayan people to do but to fight and die. 

The Comte d’Eu would order continuous campaigns to root out the Marshal. Finally, after all these years of war, Marshal Lopez was cornered. The Allies launched an attack on his camp and cut down his aides and camp followers. The Marshal, believing in his own importance to his cause, jumped on his horse and attempted to ride away. Due to the muck, getting away was not possible. Through the entire war, the Marshal had pointedly not exposed himself to danger. His supporters would say that due to his role as commander in chief and president, it would be irresponsible to expose himself. His detractors would call him a coward. At this moment, when all was lost, and escape was impossible, the Marshal found the courage to face his enemies. He was called upon to surrender by the Brazilians. He not only refused but insulted and swore at his attackers. He would curse and damn them for what they had done to Paraguay. The Brazilian commander, General Câmara, would order his men to capture the Marshal alive. No order could save the Marshal. Not only did the Brazilian troops have their blood up and adrenaline pumping, but the Emperor had offered a reward of £110 sterling for the man who would take the Marshal down. The Marshal, covered in wounds was shot in the chest and fell in the swamps of Northern Paraguay on March 1, 1870. His last words, spat with his last breath, were “I die with my country.”

Legacy

The memory of Marshal Francisco Solano Lopez Carrillo is complicated. To the Paraguayan people who he ruled over with an iron fist for most of a decade, he is a hero, a symbol of national resistance against overwhelming odds. He had defied the superpowers of South America, and though he lost, it was through his sacrifice that Paraguay was able to survive the worst war the continent had ever seen. Supporters say that the fact that Paraguay earned the respect of its’ enemies through its heroism and were moved to allow the country to survive is a testament to the Marshal. To detractors, he was a brutal dictator who launched a war that no sane person could have imagined for one moment he had a chance to win. This view is reinforced by the casualty figures. Of a prewar population of approximately 525,000, over 300,000 died. It is estimated that 90% of men in Paraguay died. This casualty figure surpasses the most brutal of wars, even the Eastern Front of World War II. 

Insane brutal dictator, or enlightened leader who was suppressed by his neighbor. These two positions polarize historians to this day. One thing the Marshal achieved, which he would have enjoyed, was eternal fame. The fame of leading one of the most epic campaigns in military history, fighting against impossible odds, and enacting a true Götterdämmerung will make his name live forever.

What do you think of how he War of the Triple Alliance ended? Let us know below.

Now, read about General Juan Peron , The Famous Argentine President who had 18 years between his two Presidencies here.

References

Saeger, James Schofield. 2007. Francisco Solano Lopez and the Ruination of Paraguay: Honor and Egocentrism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Whigham, Thomas L. 2002. The Paraguayan War, Volume 1: Causes and Early Conduct. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2005. I Die with My Country: Perspectives on the Paraguayan War, 1864-1870. Edited by Hendrick Kraay. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2017. The Road to Armageddon: Paraguay versus the Triple Alliance, 1866-70. University of Calgary Press.

The Paraguayan President who Brought his Country to Military Catastrophe – Part 3: Devastating Battles for Both Sides

Francisco Solano Lopez was president of Paraguay from 1862 to 1870. He led the country during one of the most devastating defeats in all history – the War of the Triple Alliance. Here, Erick Redington continues this fascinating series by looking at the events in the War of the Triple Alliance, including the Battle of Tuyutí and the Battle of Curupayty.

If you missed it you can read part 1 on the early life of Francisco Solano Lopez here and part 2 on the start of the War of the Triple Alliance here.

A depiction of the Battle of Curupayty.

With Marshal Lopez's advance into Corrientes stunted, he knew that pushing all the way to Uruguay was no longer possible. He had achieved much by aggressively invading the Allied Powers. Their armies had been thrown back on their heels, causing increased dissention between the Brazilians and Argentinians, Lopez's only real hope of victory. A wealth of materiel was captured by the Marshal's army aiding the war effort immensely. The small Paraguayan industrial base would have difficulty throughout the war supplying the army with the materiel it needed to fight. The small Paraguayan nation was proving itself to be very dangerous to its larger neighbors. To some, Lopez looked brilliant. To no one more so than the Marshal himself. 

The Allies knew they would have to control the rivers in order to maintain their supply chain. The first Allied target was Humaitá, called the "Gibraltar of South America." They knew that as long as the fortress held out, they would not be able to advance further into Paraguay and take the capital, Asuncion. The Marshal knew this as well. He was determined to use every effort to defend the fort. But he knew that Humaitá needed further reinforcing. Therefore, the best strategy would be to delay the Allies as long as possible in order to improve the fortifications. In the process, the Allies would further bleed, and potentially, greater dissention would grow between the Brazilians and Argentinians. 

The Marshal also knew that Argentina was fragile at this time. President Mitre had assumed office only a few years before, after yet another civil war. Lopez knew that there were many elements within Argentina who were very sympathetic to him and were perfectly happy to see Marshal Lopez create a strong Paraguay. To these Argentinians, Paraguay was the wrong enemy at the wrong time. The right enemy would always be Brazil. The war would be used throughout as a weapon to attack those in power in Argentina. President Mitre himself was tired of the condescension with which he was treated by the Brazilian officers. They saw him as just another caudillo in a long string of caudillos ruling Argentina. The Marshal hoped that if he could inflict a few further defeats on the Allies, one or both would be willing to come to the peace table and Lopez could get a peace he could live with, rather than the partition and exile that the Treaty of the Triple Alliance called for.

The Marshal Counters

The Brazilian naval commander, Baron Tamandaré would use his fleet to advance further up the river system to allow the Allies to invade Humaitá. When the Allies made a landing at the town of Riachuelo, Lopez sensed an opportunity. The Marshal was not a man to sit back and just take what was coming, so he ordered his fleet to attack the Brazilians. The Paraguayan navy was heavily outnumbered.  The Brazilians had better armored ships with more guns. None of this mattered. What mattered was élan. Lopez would fling his navy in a night attack against the Brazilian fleet and in one brilliant move end the threat of an Allied offensive by having his sailors board the Brazilian ships under the cover of darkness, capture them, and then sail the new prizes back up the river to reinforce the Paraguayan fleet.

Of course, this is not what happened. The ships arrived after sunrise. The Paraguayan commander ordered his ships to pass the Brazilian ships and fire on the ground troops. The Paraguayans would lose more ships and have to retreat upriver. It was a disaster for the Paraguayan navy. Marshal Lopez impetuously ordered his fleet to attack an enemy that heavily outnumbered him with a confusing and frankly ridiculous battle plan to not only defeat the Brazilians but also augment his own fleet. Why did he do this? As we have seen, it was in the nature of the man to take risks and wager everything on bold, Napoleonic, plans. As someone who believed he was a military genius, he believed his plans could work. As a brutal dictator in charge of a police state, no one was brave or foolhardy enough to tell him otherwise. Due to this, a sizable part of the Paraguayan fleet that could have been used in the defense of Humaitá was lost, and future defenses were weakened.

By 1866, the Allies were finally prepared to begin what they saw as the war-winning offensive. The Allies crossed the Paraná River and entered Paraguay. The Marshal was a believer in the offensive-defensive strategy. He did not make a general, theater-wide offensive, but he began launching localized counterattacks to make the Allies keep their guard up and slow their advance. This was in keeping with the Marshal's character, but it was also the sound military move. The Marshal knew this would be a war of attrition. He had to make the Allies bleed. He needed to cause further dissention. Passively waiting to be strangled would only lead to being strangled. He had to fight. 

The local counterattacks, while not leading to battlefield victories, worked their intended purpose. The Paraguayans were able to slow down the Allies, stopping their advance at Estero Bellaco for a time. The Marshal began to grow more confident. He had been mostly successful in his strategy so far. With his increasing confidence grew his willingness to gamble. He now began to envision knocking out the Allied army with one decisive blow. When the Allies began advancing again, Lopez decided to strike the blow. The bloodiest battle in the history of South America began, the Battle of Tuyutí.

Tuyutí

With the Brazilians on the left, the Uruguayans in the center and the Argentines on the right, the Allies were drawn up in a flat, swampy area. The Marshal decided to focus his attacks on the Brazilians and the Uruguayans. Lopez had a very low opinion of Brazilians, and the Uruguayans were the smallest contingent. Initially, the Paraguayans made gains, however the Brazilian artillery would seal the fate of the Paraguayan army, and the Allies came away with the victory. The importance of the victory was not that the Allies won the battle, but that it had been so deadly.

Statistics from the Paraguayan army at this time are problematic at best. Due to the dictatorial nature of the country, and the importance that Lopez placed on propaganda, reported casualty figures from the Paraguayans can be taken sometimes with a grain of salt. The best estimates for battlefield losses were 6,000 dead and 7,000 wounded out of an army of about 25,000 men. The Allies lost over 5,000 men out of about 35,000. For the Allies, the losses were terrible, though replaceable. For the Paraguayans, this was a national catastrophe. Based upon prewar population, the losses in this battle represented over 3% of the people in the entire country. These men represented the cream of the large pre-war army the Marshal had accumulated and led into Argentina and Brazil. His army would never recover. Never again would the Marshal order a mass attack on the Allies. 

With victory comes overconfidence. The Allies, having achieved a major victory now began to advance more rapidly against the Marshal. Where other men would draw back in the aftermath of such a catastrophic defeat, Lopez was as defiant as ever. The Paraguayan army would go on to defend itself well against Allied advances. However, at the Battle of Curuzu, the Paraguayans were defeated again and finally Marshal Lopez was growing concerned. He decided to try a different tack, one which he had not utilized so far: diplomacy.

The Marshal Tries Diplomacy     

With the Allies on the move, and getting closer to Humaitá, the Marshal hoped to capitalize on the war-weariness of his opponents. He unexpectedly invited the Allied leaders to a conference to try to end the war. The Brazilians wanted nothing to do with this conference and refused to negotiate with the Marshal. President Mitre, however, decided to meet his enemy. For Mitre, beset by political opposition at home, facing rebellion in outlying provinces, and weary over his own conduct of the campaign (he was supreme Allied army commander, after all), Mitre wanted to find a way to end the war. For Lopez, this represented a wonderful opportunity. Despite his reputation as an insane warmonger, it was said that in person the Marshal could be very charming and a great conversationalist. He was very well read and quick-minded. For Lopez, this was finally his chance to divide the Allies, get Argentina to leave the war, and then take on the enemy he hated, the Brazilians. And he failed miserably. 

Accounts of the meeting vary, with some saying that the conversation was amicable, and others saying the two men got into an argument. Either way the conference was a failure. President Mitre told President Lopez of his determination to abide by all clauses of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance. This included the article demanding the removal of the Marshal from power before any peace could be had. Lopez could have agreed and lived a comfortable life in exile in Europe or North America. Instead, he refused. He would fight on to the bitter end. And that is exactly what would happen. No peace, but war, war to the knife.

After the failure of the conference, Mitre decided to restart the offensive and attempt to deal the killer blow, reach Humaitá, and from there to Asunción. The invasion of Paraguay was on. The Allied army approached the Paraguayan army entrenched at Curupayty. The Paraguayans had used the truce to improve their fortifications and build further defenses. They had brought in artillery and reinforced the trenches. The Paraguayans only numbered about 5,000 men, a quarter of the advancing Allied force. In their confidence after Tuyutí, many in the Allied camp believed the Paraguayans were on their last legs and ready to fall apart. This overconfidence led to Mitre preparing a battle plan whereby the Brazilian navy would shell the Paraguayans from the river, and once softened up, the Allies would launch a grand assault to rout the enemy. Once the fleet had finished the bombardment, Mitre ordered the men in. 

The Battle of Curupayty can be likened to other thoughtless slaughters like Cold Harbor or the Somme. Allied troops went in and were massacred. The Paraguayans only lost about 50 men in the battle. The Allies, however, lost about 9,000, according to the best estimates. It was a shocking and devastating loss, but it could have been worse for the Allies. The commander of the Paraguayan army was not Marshal Lopez. He would never expose himself to battlefield danger. That was not his way. The field commander was General José Diaz, a good commander in his own right, but he operated within the Paraguayan system of nothing is done without the dictator's permission. Even considering the casualties, the Paraguayans were still outnumbered and outgunned, but they had morale on their side. If they had counterattacked and pursued the Allies, a decisive, perhaps war turning victory could have been achieved. Diaz was not stupid. He was not going to take the initiative and incur the wrath of the Marshal. The Allies were allowed to withdraw back to their entrenchments. Here the war would sit for longer than any of the participants had anticipated. For the Allies Humaitá would have to wait. Recovery from the embarrassment of Curupayty would take far longer than anyone expected. They had much bigger problems at hand.

On the Pale Horse

Part of the original defense plan of Marshal Lopez was utilizing the geography of Paraguay to slow the Allies. Much of the country is located in tropical, low-lying swamps. These swamps bred interminable swarms of mosquitos and other insects. The mosquito was, and still is, a primary vector to transport infectious disease from person to person. For the Paraguayan troops, malnourished and under equipped, disease was a fact of life. For the Marshal, there was no ability to import medical supplies. The traditional Paraguayan cure-all for everything was yerba mate, which was obviously ineffective against infectious disease. Every man lost to disease was a man out of the gun line for the Marshal. There was very little he could do to stop the epidemics though. 

With the defeat at Curupayty, the Allies needed to rest and regroup before another advance. Camp life at this time was dull and unsanitary. Given the geography of the area the Allies found themselves, and the filth of the camps, it is no surprise that epidemics began amongst the Allied troops. Dysentery, cholera, and yellow fever were some of the worst. The conditions in the camps, coupled with the terrible defeat the Allies had taken, would lead to much needed changes within the Allied army, but this was small comfort to those who had been stricken.

Out With the Old…

After Curupayty, the squabbling between the Brazilians and Argentinians only grew worse. The Allied field commander, President Mitre, was called a bungler for directing one of the most lopsided losses in modern military history. Mitre was not happy either. He was growing tired of field service. Rebellions were breaking out against his rule in the outer provinces of Argentina. Many within his own government wanted peace. He believed in the necessity of the war still, but he did not believe that he would be the man to lead it. In January 1868, Mitre would leave his army and return to Buenos Aires.

Also out at this time was the President of Uruguay, Venancio Flores. He was also worn down with campaigning and would leave the army. His term as president was ending anyway, and he was to turn over his powers to a new leader from his Colorado Party. He would be assassinated four days after leaving office. The crime was never solved. 

For Marshal Lopez, these changes symbolized a weakening of his enemies' resolve to make war on him. What he did not know was that with Argentina mostly out of the war, and Uruguay effectively out of the war, the Allies would finally have solved the one major disadvantage they suffered through compared to the Paraguayans: unity of command. And that unity would come in the form of Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, the Marquis de Caxias.

What do you think of the devastating battle for Paraguay and then the Allies? Let us know below.

Now read part 4 on the end of the War of the Triple Alliance here.

References

Saeger, James Schofield. 2007. Francisco Solano Lopez and the Ruination of Paraguay: Honor and Egocentrism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Whigham, Thomas L. 2002. The Paraguayan War, Volume 1: Causes and Early Conduct. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2005. I Die with My Country: Perspectives on the Paraguayan War, 1864-1870. Edited by Hendrick Kraay. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2017. The Road to Armageddon: Paraguay versus the Triple Alliance, 1866-70. University of Calgary Press.

The British Leader at the Height of Empire: Lord Salisbury

Lord Salisbury was Prime Minister of Britain at the peak of its power. He was Prime Minister on and off during the period from 1885 to 1902 and had a great influence on the country’s foreign policy at its colonial height. Avan Fata explains.

Lord Salisbury in 1886.

At the turn of the 20th century, the British Empire seemed to be at its zenith. Its colonial holdings far surpassed the second largest imperial power, the French, and the City of London was the trading capital of the world. Yet as the Victorian age gave way to the Edwardian, many in Whitehall and the Foreign Office came to the conclusion that these heights of economic and political might would not be easy to maintain, let alone to increase further. The economic-industrial disparity between Britain and other European great powers was closing, and from the New World the United States was also narrowing the gap.

In foreign politics too, there were signs of a storm on the horizon. The competition between imperial states had also reached a crossroads; large swathes of the globe had already been partitioned between imperialist European states, and some feared that the next “Scramble” would be over the dying carcass of an empire at the end of its tether; not for nothing was the Ottoman Empire termed the “sick man of Europe”. Britain had reluctantly taken up the task of helping to secure the Sublime Porte - as the Ottoman capital at Constantinople was known - from foreign encroachment and possible invasion.

Russia remained the perceived enemy of British foreign policy; its expansion eastwards and into Central Asia had been dubbed “The Great Game” by a British officer and later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim. But Britain also faced the rising ambitions of a newly-created German Empire, whose Kaiser Wilhelm II had dismissed Bismarck as Chancellor in favor of pursuing a more expansionist foreign policy, dubbed Weltpolitik (world politics). 

Enter Salisbury

It was in these circumstances that Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, became Prime Minister. First elected to 10 Downing Street in 1885, he would go on to serve two more terms (1886 - 1892, 1895 - 1902); leading Britain for a total of 13 years and 252 days - only Robert Walpole, William Pitt the Younger, and Lord Liverpool served longer. Curiously however, Lord Salisbury also served as his own Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; a realm which he had considerable experience in.

Salisbury’s first foray into foreign affairs came in 1876, when he was chosen by then prime minister Disraeli to represent Britain at the Constantinople Conference. Despite the conference’s failure to secure greater rights and land for Bulgarian and Herzogvinian subjects in Ottoman territory, it catapulted Salisbury into the political spotlight. Two years later during the Russo-Turkish War, when Disraeli’s Cabinet protested the Treaty of San Stefano, Salisbury was chosen to succeed Lord Derby (who had resigned as Foreign Secretary due to the protest). Even before his official appointment on 2 April, Salisbury single-handedly drafted a circular calling for a congress of European nations to re-examine the terms of the San Stefano Treaty, which was duly approved and dispatched to the great powers.

At the resulting Congress of Berlin (1878), Salisbury was overshadowed publicly by Lord Beaconsfield, but it was apparent to all the plenipotentiaries that he had been the architect of the Congress and the subsequent settlement. The Congress overruled many of the terms of the San Stefano Treaty, reducing the size of a new Bulgaria and returning Russian-conquered territories back to the Ottomans, whilst also securing Cyprus for the British - ostensibly for use as a naval base to dissuade any future Russian aggression into the Straits.

Despite being a Conservative, Salisbury was not particularly supportive of the Empire. He questioned its actual economic benefits, and would come to prefer maintaining the status quo as opposed to seizing any new territory. In a speech as Prime Minister after the Diamond Jubilee of 1897, he remarked that ‘our first duty is towards the people of this country, to maintain their interests and their rights; our second is to all humanity.’ In his foreign policy, he eschewed these priorities, placing the security of the Empire first and foremost.

Foreign policy

To Salisbury, managing foreign policy demanded a calm and unwavering statesman. ‘Sleepless tact, immovable calmness and patience’ were, he deemed, the qualities which would allow a diplomat to succeed. Perhaps more significant to his government and those in Europe, he refused to entangle Britain in any alliances. Much like Gladstone, Salisbury did not prefer to enter Britain into any mutual defense pacts, viewing them as commitments which would seriously hinder Whitehall’s ability to act independently of its continental counterparts. When his government and public opinion pressed for an Anglo-German alliance, Salisbury was reluctant to permit talks with Berlin. When it became clear that the Germans were unwilling to support Britain in the Far East against Russia, whilst simultaneously asking for British colonial concessions, Salisbury remarked to German ambassador Paul von Hatzfeldt that ‘you ask too much for our friendship.’

This commitment to a lack of commitment was seen by Salisbury’s Conservative colleagues not as a deliberate choice, but rather a continuity of a longstanding preference in British - and prior to 1707 English - foreign policy. As far back as the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, they argued, ensuring a balance of power in Europe and remaining independent of embroilments on the continent was the modus operandi. In 1896, Salisbury’s adherence to this doctrine earned a name: ‘splendid isolation’, after a Canadian politician and later Joseph Chamberlain (then Secretary of State for the Colonies) popularized it in debates. Salisbury’s critics were more inclined to use the term ‘terrible isolation’.

For his own part, Salisbury took disdain with the term, deriding it as ‘jargon about isolation’, and mentioned to Queen Victoria that isolation ‘is much less danger [sic] than the danger of being dragged into wars which do not concern us.’ In hindsight, non-intervention seems a more apt term to use, as Britain was far from isolated from the various quarrels taking place at the fringes of its empire: Russia in the Far East and Central Asia, Germany in Africa and the Pacific, and France in Northern Africa as well as the Sudan. In each case, Salisbury balanced the interests of London and the other powers with great skill and, as with the case of Portuguese claims in South Africa (1890), with military pressure if need be. It was during Salisbury’s reign that the Royal Navy adopted the ‘Two Power Naval Standard’, the policy that the British fleet should be equal in strength to the next two largest navies combined. 

Conclusion

Salisbury’s power declined following the Second Boer War, which broke out against his will in 1899. His own health was failing, and in 1900 he finally handed over the reins of the Foreign Office to Lord Lansdowne. At the end of his political career, he had managed to usher the British Empire into the 20th century with great diplomatic skill and tact. Far from being preyed upon by the other great powers,  Salisbury had defended British interests across the world and expanded the “red on the map” by six million square miles, a feat unmatched since the days of Pitt the Elder. His policy of splendid isolation however, was judged by his successors to be a relic of a bygone Victorian age, and Britain would enter into her first mutual defense pact with Japan in 1902. 

Let us know what you think of Lord Salisbury below.

Now read Avan’s series on First World War historiography here.

Sources

Darwin, John. The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970.                                     Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Howard, Christopher. “Splendid Isolation.” History 47, no. 159 (1962): 32-41. Accessed August 22, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24404639.

Leonard, Dick. British Prime Ministers from Walpole to Salisbury: The 18th and 19th Centuries. New                   York: Routledge, 2021. 

MacMillan, Margaret. The War that Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World                                     War. London: Profile Books, 2014.

Margaret M. Jefferson. "Lord Salisbury and the Eastern Question, 1890-1898." The Slavonic and East                                European Review 39, no. 92 (1960): 44-60. Accessed August 22, 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stab                               le/4205217.

Penson, Lillian M. "The Principles and Methods of Lord Salisbury's Foreign Policy." Cambridge                                               Historical Journal 5, no. 1 (1935): 87-106. Accessed August 22, 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stab             le/3020834.

Roberts, Andrew. Salisbury: Victorian Titan. New York: Phoenix Press, 2006. 

The Modern Military History of India: Part 1 - The Indian Campaigns of 1897 and the Bravery of the Sikh Infantry

India’s military history is rich, long and storied yet there is criminally little written about it and it is hideously ignored in many debates on military history of the 19th century. This perhaps is because Indians themselves know very little about what the Indian Army did in the years between 1858 and 1910. In these few decades, the Indian Army became one of the most combat experienced forces in the world as it fought alongside the British Army from Egypt to Afghanistan. The Indian Army (though officially known as the British Indian Army, it was always referred to as the Indian Army), which was already one of the most professional and most well-equipped forces in the world, by the time the Great War rolled around, had become arguably the single most experienced armed force in the world alongside the British Army.

Siddhant A. Joshi starts his series of the modern military history of India by looking at Indian Campaigns of 1897 and the Bravery of the Sikh Infantry.

Subadars (Sikhs) and Gunners (Punjabi Muslims) in the 1890s..

Introduction

Since the British and Indian Armies rarely fought alone, the technologies, techniques and tactics used by either one of them became commonplace in both. Not only that, but their military history also became inextricably interlinked and both armies developed processes that were born of their shared experience – processes and doctrines and traditions that stand to this day. The British Army commemorates the many contributions, sacrifices and stories of Indian soldiers with just as many memorials to Indians as there are to Brits. The Indian Army too does the same and has, in fact, kept many units that were raised by the British.

However, not many outside the armed forces know of this. That is the aim of this – to bring to light that which should long ago have been known.

The Frontier Campaign – Beginnings

To understand this little-known campaign, one must first understand an area of the Indian Subcontinent that was then called the North West Frontier Province or the NWFP. It was an area that had formed just south of the intersection of the Karakorum and Pamir Mountains and just north of the Hindu Kush Mountains and had long been used as a gateway for invasions since it stood between mountains that have been impassable for large armies for centuries. It quickly became the frontier of British India – lands ungoverned by any state and occupied only by tribes of armed Pashtuns.

It was the natural path into India from Afghanistan and its existence posed a threat to the existence of British Rule in India for one reason alone – the Great Game. During this period, the Russians and the British were playing a long-running and high-stakes chess match in Afghanistan for control of the country. Whoever controlled Afghanistan would control not only India’s North Western border but Russia’s southern border.

Afghanistan quickly became the linchpin for the two powers’ plans and prospects in Asia. And, sure as the sun rises every day, one of the most important chess pieces became the North Western Frontier Province. And, in the NWFP there stood a mountain pass – the infamous Khyber Pass –which was of immense strategic value in safeguarding the approach into the subcontinent (a value it still holds!). To guard this pass, the British had recruited a small regiment composed entirely of Pashtun Tribesmen from the neighbouring Tirah and Malakand regions since they knew the land the best.

However, Tirah itself was not of much importance. Colonel T. H. Holdich, writing a few months after the end of hostilities in the campaign, says ‘It is a species of cul de sac, possessing little or no strategic value.’[1] And Malakand was much the same.

If that were true, why did the British and Indians spend months fighting the tribesmen of the regions and mobilise well over 100,000 troops for the cause? It is simple. The tribes guarding the Khyber Pass revolted, attacked their own men and took up positions all along the Khyber. While of utmost importance was the Khyber Pass, securing it was of no use unless the rebellion was put down.

The Frontier Campaign – 1897-1898

‘Our little wars attract far less attention among the people of this country than they deserve. They are frequently carried out in circumstances of the most adverse kind. Our enemies, although ignorant of military discipline, are, as a rule, extremely brave and are thoroughly capable of using the natural advantages of their country.’ These were words written by author G. A. Henty when describing the Tirah and Malakand Offensives.[2]

Neville Chamberlain (yes, that Neville Chamberlain) wrote on the matter and Winston Churchill (yes, that Winston Churchill) was a young Second Lieutenant in the campaign and he too wrote on the matter extensively. It is their works that the remaining part of this article will rely upon.

The thing that is of utmost importance to understand is that the Tirah Campaign was one part of a larger conflict referred to as the ‘Frontier Matter’ by Churchill, with the entire conflict revolving around suppressing tribal rebellions in the NFWP. The Tirah Campaign which was an offensive against the Afridi tribes would take place simultaneously with the offensives against Pashtun tribes in Malakand and the offensive against the Mohamand tribes.

To tackle these rebellions, the Indian Army set up 2 distinct forces – the Tirah Field Force and the Malakand Field Force.

Composition of British Indian Forces

1.     Tirah Field Force - General William Lockhart, KCB[3]

a.     1st Division – Brigadier General William Symons

                                               i.     1st Brigade
- 2nd Bn The Derbyshire Regiment
- 1st Bn The Devonshire Regiment
- 2nd/1st Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 30th (Punjab) Regiment 
- No. 6 British Field Hospital
- No. 34 Native Field Hospital

                                             ii.     2nd Brigade
- 2nd Bn The Yorkshire Regiment
- 1st Bn Royal West Surrey Regiment
- 2nd Bn 4th Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 3rd Regiment of Sikh Infantry
- Sections A, B No. 8 British Field Hospital
- Sections A, C No. 14 British Field Hospital
- No. 51 Native Hospital

                                            iii.     Divisional Troops
- Gurkha Scouts
- No. 1 Mountain Battery 
- No. 2 (Derajat) Mountain Battery 
- No. 1 (Kohat) Mountain Battery
- 18th Regiment Bengal Lancers
- 28th Regiment, Bombay Infantry (Pioneers)
- Two companies, Bombay Sappers and Miners
- Karpurthala Regiment
- Maler Kotla Imperial Service Sappers
- No. 13 British Field Hospital
- No. 63 Native Field Hospital

b.     2nd Division – Major General A. G. Yeatman-Biggs

                                               i.     3rd Brigade
- 1st Bn The Gordon Highlanders
- 1st Bn The Dorsetshire Regiment
- 1st Bn 2nd Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 15th (The Ludhiana Sikh) Regiment
- No. 24 British Field Hospital
- No. 44 Native Field Hospital

                                             ii.     4th Brigade
- 2nd Bn, The King's Own Scottish Borderers
- 1st Bn The Northamptonshire Regiment
- 1st Bn 3rd Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 36th (Sikh) Regiment Of Bengal Infantry
- Sections C, D No. 9 Field Hospital
- Sections A, B No, 23 British Field Hospital
- No. 48 Native Field Hospital

                                            iii.     Divisional Troops
- No. 8 Mountain Battery, Royal Artillery
- No. 9 Mountain Battery, Royal Artillery
- No. 5 (Bombay) Mountain Battery
- Machine Gun Detachment, 16th Lancers
- 18th Regiment Bengal Lancers
- 21st Regiment Of Madras Infantry (Pioneers)
- No. 4 Company Madras Sappers And Miners
- Jhind Regiment 
- Sirmur Sappers
- Section B Of No. 13 British Field Hospital
- No. 43 Native Field Hospital

2.     Malakand Field Force – Major General Bindon Blood[4]

a.     The MFF had no divisions

b.     1st Brigade
- Royal West Kent Regiment
- Highland Light Infantry
- 31st Punjab Infantry
- 24th Punjab Infantry
- 45th Sikhs
- No. 7 Mountain Battery

c.     2nd Brigade
- The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment)
- 35th Sikhs
- 38th Dogras
- Guides Infantry
- 4 Company Bengal Sappers
- No. 7 Mountain Battery

d.     3rd Brigade
- The Queen’s Regiment
- 22nd Punjab Infantry
- 39th Punjab Infantry
- 3 Company Bombay Sappers
- No. 1 Mountain Battery

e.     Cavalry
- 11th Bengal Lancers

 

The Tirah Field Force – Bravery of the Sikh Troops

To get to Tirah, the Force had to march through demanding terrain and the feats of bravery in combat and mountaineering of the Indian Army have been well recorded. In one instance, some 250 men of an unspecified Indian artillery regiment were told to move their guns across a mountain pass. G. A. Henty, referencing the event, describes it as a ‘splendid feat’ when the 250 Indians led by 2 British officers brought the guns by hand (their horses having gone lame or died) through the mountain pass in just a few days through immensely deep snow.

In another incident, Chamberlain describes an attack by two unspecified Indian infantry brigades on a ridgeline (Dagrai Heights) thought to be impregnable on October 18, 1897. It took the two brigades a few hours to link up but when they did, it was found that they had only taken 9 or 10 casualties. He describes also the action of 3 regiments on October 20, 1897 – the Gordon Highlanders, the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and the 15th Sikhs whom he credits with saving a retirement of an infantry brigade from an overwhelming counterattack by the tribesmen saying ‘the retirement was only saved from being a disaster by the coolness under fire of those fine regiments’. 

It is here worth noting that the 15th Sikhs and the Gordons had taken heavy losses in a surprise attack that very day suffering some 250 casualties among them. [5]

In another instance of bravery and complete dominance by Indian troops, a Sikh battalion was given the order to secure another height from the tribesmen. Led by a Punjabi officer with a British 2IC (2nd in Command), the Battalion overwhelmed the enemy position though they were outnumbered 5 to 1.

The Malakand Field Force – Sikh Troops Shine Again

Churchill[6] – known for his admiration of Indian and ANZAC troops in WW2 – narrates an amazing incident where a 62-man Sikh unit was surrounded and outnumbered by the enemy. The only nearby friendly force, some British cavalry, was unable to breakthrough and rescue the Sikhs. It appears that having accepted death, the bugle sounded charge and the outnumbered men rose out of their positions and – swords drawn – charged the pathans (general word for Afghan tribesmen). Not expecting this, the pathans simply ran for no known reason and the small Sikh unit cut down hundreds of the retreating Pathans.

Churchill also describes in detail the actions of a company of the 35th Sikhs which, during a defence, had become surrounded by the pathans. With the assistance of a squadron of cavalry, the Sikh troops of the 35th broke the encirclement and drove the vastly outnumbering Pathans into a small mountainous gulley where they were massacred by the Sikhs and the cavalry.

Henty, regarding the Malakand Campaign, relays the famous story of the handful of men from the 36th Sikhs that defended Fort Saragarhi against 10,000 tribesmen. However, that story deserves its own article!

 

In Conclusion

First things first; while I have only discussed Sikh troops here, they by no means were the only brave soldiers. They were simply the ones I chose to focus on. Many different regiments were named and many soldiers were equally as brave. Secondly, the point of this article, as ever, is simply to shine a light on that which was not known and to exemplify the bravery of those unsung heroes.

What do you think of the Indian Campaigns of 1897? Let us know below.

[1] Col. T. H. Holdich, ‘Tirah’, The Geographical Journal, 12:4 (October, 1898)

[2] G. A. Henty, A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashantee (Blackie and Son; London, 1904)

[3] https://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/indiancampaigns/tirah.htm

[4] Churchill’s work

[5] Neville Chamberlain, ‘The Tirah Campaign’, Fortnightly Review, 63:375 (March, 1898)

[6] Winston Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (Longmans; London, 1898)

The ‘Scramble for Africa’ – Then and Now

When European nations ‘scrambled’ for territory in Africa in the 1800s, the results were catastrophic for its indigenous peoples. A new scramble is now on and the jury is still out on whether Africans will actually benefit this time. Dan McEwen looks at ‘The Scramble for Africa’, then and now.

The 1884 Berlin Conference, as illustrated in "Illustrierte Zeitung"

‘Scrambling’ Everywhere But Africa

Blame Portugal. Ranked 109th by size, little Portugal was the first European country to make it big as a colonial power. Under Prince Henry the Navigator, Portuguese merchants were well ahead of the curve in the so-called ‘Age of Exploration’. Their trading ships had long been slowly feeling their way along Africa’s west coast and by the mid-1400s, their crews were making fortunes trading in slaves, sugar and gold. 

While Christopher Columbus was famously sailing across the Atlantic in 1492 with visions of Oriental sugarplums dancing in his head, the intrepid Portuguese were defeating the Ottomans in a power struggle for control of the lucrative Arab/Indian trade routes. Victorious, they continued east, becoming the first Europeans to arrive by sea in China and then Japan. So toxic was their contact with the shogunate however, Portuguese traders were expelled in 1639 and Japan sealed itself off in two hundred years of self-imposed isolation from the West!

Another small nation, Holland, replaced the Portuguese, enabling The Dutch East India Company [VOC], to become the largest company to ever have existed in recorded history! Next came the Spanish, venturing westward from their possessions in Central America, laying claim to several Pacific islands, including the Philippines. The French, latecomers to the rush, established outposts in Indochina, Vietnam and on a sprinkling of Polynesian islands before being lapped by the British. Their world-class navy would resort to gunboat diplomacy to forcibly establish colonies in China. Later, the Germans, Americans and Russians likewise bullied their way into the Pacific. 

Back in the western hemisphere, the British and French went head-to-head for supremacy in North America even as Spanish explorers, conquerors and settlers following Columbus’ lead, headed for the Caribbean and Central and South America. In their quest for "gold, glory, and God", in that order. Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec empire in Mexico, at a cost of 240,000 Aztec lives and Francisco Pizarro followed suite, nearly wiping out the Incas by 1572.  

"What happened after Columbus was like a thousand kudzus [weeds] everywhere,” laments author/historian Charles C. Mann.“Throughout the hemisphere, ecosystems cracked and heaved like winter ice.” 

Indeed, the impact of all this “exploration” on native populations was apocalyptic. Between 1492 and 1600, 55 million people, 90% of the indigenous populations in the Americas, died from European diseases like smallpox, measles and influenza. This traumatic population loss caused chaos among the indigenous tribes, making them even easier prey for technologically-advanced European powers. And now it was Africa’s turn.

The First ‘Scramble’

History books call it ‘The Scramble for Africa’, making it sound like an innocuous party game.  Africans call it ’The Rape of Africa’. By the mid 1800s, the European nations were elbowing each other aside in their headlong rush to plant their flag on African soil. Mostly it was about money.

As history professor Ehiedu E.G. Iweriebor at New York’s City University frames it; “The European scramble and the partition and eventual conquest of Africa was motivated by ...the imperatives of capitalist industrialization, including the demand for assured sources of raw materials, the search for guaranteed markets and profitable investment outlets.”

All this ‘scrambling’ made the imperialist governments as nervous as cats that a war would breakout in Europe over some far off colonial territory. To prevent this, wily, old Otto von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of a newly-united Germany, hosted a conference that still stands as an unparalleled act of racial and cultural arrogance. At the 1884 Berlin Conference, six European powers - Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Belgium - sat around a table and divided the so-called “Dark Continent” among themselves, redrawing the map of the continent to create 30 new colonies. 

The 110 million Africans who lived in those colonies were never consulted about the new borders. No Africans were invited to attend the conference and; “African concerns were, if they mattered at all, completely marginal to the basic economic, strategic, and political interests of the negotiating European powers,” says historian/author Thomas Pakenham. Between 1870 and 1914, “A motley band of explorers, politicians, evangelists, mercenaries, journalists and tycoons blinded by romantic nationalism or caught up in the scramble for loot, markets and slaves,” increased European control of African territory from 10 per cent in 1870 to almost 90 percent by 1914. Resistance was futile. 

Although most African rulers bitterly contested being handed over to unknown foreign powers, they were no match for rapid-fire rifles, gatling guns and field artillery. Their many battles frequently turned into one-sided massacres. Despite a stunning defeat at Isandlwana, British redcoats rallied and crushed the two million-strong Zulu nation in nine weeks. The Boers conducted a campaign of genocide against the natives who resisted their occupation, driving 24,000 of them into the desert to starve. As many as 300,000 Namibians died in a famine engineered by the German colonizers to bring them to heel. Eight million inhabitants of the Congo were exterminated by their Belgium overseers through a barbarous system of forced labor dedicated to supplying rubber for European vehicle tires. [Ethiopia and Liberia were the only countries not colonized - Ethiopia defeated an inept Italian army at Adwa in 1896, and Liberia became a country that some of the Black populations of the Americas moved to.]

From ‘Civilizing’ to Conquering

The motives the colonizers ascribed to this flagrant land-grab were rooted in a bedrock belief in their racial supremacy over the non-white, 'lesser' races of the world. “The French colonial ideology explicitly claimed that they were on a "civilizing mission" to lift the benighted natives out of backwardness to the new status of civilized French Africans.” But it was the British who proved especially adept at this pernicious snobbery, believing they had some higher calling to drag their Africa colonies into the modern world. Like the Spanish, they had a slogan: ‘Commerce, Christianity and Civilization.’ [Note its money first, civilizing last, just like the Spanish.] And it seems they still believe that. In 2014, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was unapologetic in his defense of the country’s tarnished record. “The days of Britain having to apologize for its colonial history are over. We should celebrate much of our past rather than apologize for it.” 

Tragically for Africa, it wasn’t just the Brits. “Almost without exception... [the colonization of Africa] is a story of the rankest greed enforced by disgusting levels of violence against the native Africans. In colony after colony, all the brave talk about white man’s civilization and justice and religion turned out to hypocritical garbage,” accuses professor Patrick Bond at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban.

Still other African scholars contend the partitioning of tribal lands into those 30 colonies had the most enduring affects on the African peoples. A 2016 study found that, “by splitting ethnicities across countries, the colonial border design has spurred political violence. Ethnic partitioning is systematically linked to civil conflict, discrimination by the national government, and instability. The study, which included more than 85,000 households across 20 African countries found that “members of partitioned groups have fewer household assets, poorer access to utilities, and worse educational outcomes, as compared to individuals from non-split ethnicities in the same country.” Furthermore, conflicts in partitioned lands are deadlier and last longer.

After World War Two, the victors assumed that decolonization would solve all these problems, and between 1945 and 1960, three dozen new states in Asia and Africa achieved autonomy or outright independence from their European colonial rulers. Alas, in state after state, the transition to independence led to violence, political turmoil, and organized revolts that only added to the misery of endemic poverty, hunger and disease. Tellingly, a comparison of 18 African countries found that only six saw economic growth after achieving independence.

Regrettably, most of the continent’s 54 countries remain devastated by; “...crippling rates of poverty, hunger, and disease.” 62% of Africans have no access to standard sanitation facilities. Only 43% have access to electricity and the internet. According to the World Health Organization, sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest under-5 mortality rate in the world. Yet there’s a cautious optimism that Africa’s fortunes are finally about to change for the better.

The New Scramble

By the usual standards of measurement, Africa is poised on the cusp of greatness. In 2019, six of the world’s 15 fastest growing economies were in Africa. The continent has a booming population of 1.3 billion and will soon outnumber the Chinese. This brings with it a “demographic dividend”: the average age in Africa is 19, meaning there’s a huge and growing pool of labor at a time when labor forces in more advanced countries are aging fast. Importantly, a major impediment to economic development is finally being addressed.

The continent’s colonial-era infrastructure remains one of the biggest drags on economic growth. “Africa’s new national states were so small and economically weak that they could not, without giant loans, even begin to embark on the policies of national development they eagerly promised,” writes investigative journalist Lee Wengaf. No nation had the economic wherewithal resources to take on the kind of major projects – highways, railroads, power dams and sea ports – needed to compete in the global marketplace. “Hobbled with weak infrastructures...and insufficient capital to technologically advance, these economies fell increasingly behind.” 

China is changing all that. The bottomless pockets of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have already shelled out billions in funding for 200 major infrastructure projects that promise to truly modernize the continent. Beijing’s willingness to invest in Africa long-term is particularly embarrassing to those ‘civilizing” European powers who never quite got around to it. Governments and businesses from all around the world are rushing to strengthen diplomatic, strategic and commercial ties. From 2010 to 2016, more than 320 embassies were opened in African nations. Facebook and Google are madly laying rings of cables around the continent to improve internet connectivity. 

However, to many, the new scramble looks a lot like the old one. The Financial Times commented that China’s pattern of operation in Africa, “draws comparisons with Africa’s past relationship with European colonial powers, which exploited the continent’s natural resources but failed to encourage more labor-intensive industry.”

Dylan Yachyshen of the Foreign Policy Research Institute agrees, warning that; “Accompanying its ambitious infrastructure projects, Chinese state banks made massive loans to African states, employing debt-trap diplomacy that renders states subservient to Chinese interests if they cannot pay. Though China has not established colonies, the trajectory of its activity in Africa parallels that of the infancy of the ‘Scramble for Africa’.”

Iranian-American journalist and historian John Ghazvinian put it much more forcefully in Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil. “Foreign oil companies have conducted some of the world’s most sophisticated exploration and production operations…but the people of the Niger Delta have seen none of the benefits. While successive military regimes have used oil proceeds to buy mansions in Mayfair...many in the Delta live as their ancestors would have done hundreds, even thousands of years ago.”

What is to be done? Patrick Lumumba, a lawyer specializing in African laws argues persuasively that the continent’s nations must unite in a pan-African economic union similar to the EU with a single passport, a single currency and a single army as essential prerequisites for African nations to take control of their own destinies.

“We [African nations] are weak politically, we are economically weak, socially we are disorganized, culturally and spiritually we are confused. As long as we remain as we are Africa will be re-colonized in the next 25 years.” 

What do you think of the ‘Scramble for Africa’? Let us know below.

Now, read Dan’s article on the lessons from World War I here.

The Paraguayan President who Brought his Country to Military Catastrophe – Part 2: The Start of the War of the Triple Alliance

Francisco Solano Lopez was president of Paraguay from 1862 to 1870. He led the country during one of the most devastating defeats in all history – the War of the Triple Alliance. Here, Erick Redington continues this fascinating series by looking at the outbreak of the War of the Triple Alliance and how Paraguay ended up facing Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay in the war.

If you missed it you can read part 1 on the early life of Francisco Solano Lopez here.

The 1865 Battle of Riachuelo during the war.

While the immediate casus belli was caused by the seizure of a Brazilian steamer, the real beginning of the war was the Paraguayan invasion of the Brazilian territory of Mato Grasso. While a Paraguayan offensive against Brazil might look insane by referencing a map, the true balance of forces held more than a cursory glance would tell.

When Brazil entered the Uruguayan War, the Marshal grew worried about the balance of power. He understood that in a conventional military sense, Brazil would heavily outweigh tiny Paraguay. Brazil had a significantly larger population, and a much larger navy. What Paraguay had was a people used to hardship and deprivation. The habituation of following orders came naturally to people who grew up in a police state. This discipline and iron will would be what allowed a small nation to take on almost all of its neighbors and fight a long war of attrition against all odds. 

To mitigate the significant Brazilian advantages in population, resources, and space Marshal Lopez introduced universal conscription. Paraguay had a prewar population of about 450,000 so every available man had to be called to service. Raising this force was easier than arming and equipping it. Although Marshal Lopez's father had attempted to modernize the economy, and had made some impressive strides, no industrial base existed to meet the immediate needs of the army, let alone expand it to levels never before seen in the country. Little prospect existed for importing arms as well. Brazil's large navy had no problem declaring a blockade of the La Plata and on all Paraguayan river traffic. Throughout the war, Paraguay would be short ammunition, uniforms, artillery, food, and other war material. These shortages would only grow worse as all available men in the country were absorbed into the army. Arms would be inadequate as well. As the world's armies were transitioning to breech loading rifles and artillery, the Paraguayans would have smoothbore muskets little changed from before the Napoleonic Wars (except the Marshal’s personal bodyguard, which was always armed with the latest breechloading rifles). Despite the lack of modern equipment and supplies, the Paraguayan soldiers would show themselves capable of superhuman efforts. 

A major issue facing the Paraguayan army was the officer corps. Marshal Lopez had been Minister of War since 1855 and had handpicked the officer corps. Although some officers were foreign specialists in artillery and engineering, the line officers had been chosen based upon personal loyalty to the Marshal. Many of these officers were barely literate and did not have the type of training in military affairs that he had received. Lack of training and incompetence would be exhibited throughout the war with poor logistics and tactical handling of the troops in battle. Bravery and obedience were the two primary weapons in the Paraguayan arsenal. 

The lack of arms led the Marshal to order as his first offensive action of the war to invade the Brazilian province of Mato Grosso. While there, the Paraguayans burned a few villages and planted the Republic’s flag on Imperial territory. More important was the large quantity of Brazilian arms captured. These supplies would help alleviate the Paraguayan shortages throughout the first year of the war. Although the Marshal's armies would very quickly return to their territory, the invasion would nevertheless be an embarrassment to the Brazilians while providing a morale boost to the Paraguayan forces. 

Creation of the Triple Alliance

In another opening move, Marshal Lopez wanted to send reinforcements to his Blanco allies in Uruguay. While this may have been sound strategy, it would be a costly mistake and show the Marshal's impetuousness. In looking at a map, it is easy to see that Paraguay does not border Uruguay, making it difficult to directly send men to the Blancos. Due to this fact, Marshal Lopez requested of the Argentinian government permission to cross their territory to reach Uruguay. The President of Argentina, Bartolome Mitre, was in no mood to accommodate Paraguay. In the recent civil war in Argentina, Paraguay had sent troops to support Blanco-aligned rebel groups. Mitre was suspicious of Paraguayan motives, and the Marshal's large army. With control of his own country uncertain Mitre knew his country could not afford to become a base for the Paraguayan army to operate against Brazil. When the request reached him to allow the Paraguayan army to cross Corrientes province, it was refused. Since the Paraguayans did not have control of the river, there was no other way to reach Uruguay, so the Marshal ordered his troops to enter Argentina anyway. Lopez, already at war with Brazil and Uruguay, then declared war on Argentina, occupied the city of Corrientes, and declared the annexation of several Argentinian provinces.

With the declaration of war against Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina would sign a formal alliance for the conduct of the war. This treaty covered many of the things a normal treaty would cover, but there were several important parts. First, the Allies agreed to fight the war until the Government of Paraguay was overthrown. This meant the removal of Marshal Lopez as President and the dismantling of his government was a definite war aim. It further stated that the Allies agreed to respect the territorial integrity and independence of Paraguay while also delineating the future boundaries of the nations after the war, dismembering Paraguay in the process. The treaty was supposed to be secret, but very quickly made its way to the British, who then published it to the world, eventually making its way to the Paraguayans. Of course, a treaty which promised his deposition would enrage Marshal Lopez, and only furthered his resolve to fight the Allies to the finish. The Allied plans to carve up the country would go on to be very helpful for the Marshal’s propagandists to rally support for the war.

What was he thinking?

What could have led to such rashness? In the Marshal's mind, he had a window of opportunity to strike at the Brazilians occupying Uruguay before they had the chance to completely destroy the Blancos. Also, Paraguay had mobilized a large army. If it could use that army to strike the Argentinians first and knock them out of the war with one bold strike, his position would be significantly strengthened. Argentina had been weakened from near constant internecine strife and was not as strong as it first appeared. President Mitre was a successful general but knew his country's weaknesses, especially how divided it was. While many historians have viewed the Marshal's decision to take on the two biggest powers in the region as borderline insane, it was not quite as reckless as it appears with hindsight. 

But it was still reckless. This goes to another of the Marshal's character traits. He believed himself to be a brilliant military commander. He had studied the military all his life, after all. He had observed the Crimean War firsthand. He did believe in his own brilliance, and expected others to believe it as well. Raised on tales of great Napoleonic battles such as Austerlitz and Marengo, the Marshal's lesson from his historical studies was that fortune favored the bold, decisive stroke. So, he struck, and furthered the odds against himself long-term.

Marshal Lopez had a view of the Allies facing him that did not necessarily match reality and contributed to his overconfidence. For many years, Paraguayan propaganda had portrayed a very racist view of Brazilians to demonize them. Brazil was one of the last slave societies in the western hemisphere. Many of Brazil's wealthiest elites owned slaves. Although the Emperor was personally against slavery, he had found himself unable to abolish the institution. Due to the large numbers of Brazilians of African or mixed African decent, many Paraguayans held racist beliefs and stereotypes of Brazilian soldiers. Marshal Lopez would call Brazilians "monkeys" throughout the war.

His view of the Argentinians and Uruguayans was more charitable. He believed, and made many public statements, that Argentinians and Uruguayans were being used as "tools of the Empire" and, if they could only see the light, their opposition to him and his policy of the balance of power would disappear. Marshal Lopez seemed to genuinely believe in his own purity of motives for this war. Of course, any dissent from anyone under his power would be punished severely and no opposing views to this belief were heard in the Paraguayan capitol. 

This is one of the great downfalls of all-powerful dictators. They are caught in a self-confirmation bubble from which no unpleasant or dissenting information can reach. When he believed that the Argentinian and Uruguayan people would support him, no one was there to warn him of the insanity of that belief. Marshal Lopez, convinced of his own righteousness and brilliance, had no way of gaining an accurate picture of the situation his country was facing early in the war. 

Allied Squabbling

While the early attacks prevented the Allies from fully coordinating their war effort, the Paraguayans did not have the reserves of manpower and resources to sustain a war winning offensive. The Paraguayans could not even reach Uruguay. There was very little chance they could reach Buenos Aires. They had as much chance of capturing Rio de Janeiro as they did Paris or London. Once the Allies were able to coordinate themselves, the Paraguayans would have to stop the attacks and husband their strength. 

The Allies did begin to bicker amongst themselves. The Allied land commanders were counting on the Brazilian naval commander, the Baron of Tamandaré to clear the riverbanks for an advance against the Paraguayans. The humiliation of the successful raids by the Paraguayans led to Allied commanders on land to blame Tamandaré for their failure to advance. Alliance land forces were to be under the overall command of President Mitre, himself a general. As the initial encounters were under the command of Argentinian and Uruguayan generals, this scapegoating of the Brazilian admiral who commanded the naval forces created further strains in the Alliance. Unity of command would be one major advantage the Marshal would have over his opponents throughout the war. The allies were unsure of each other, jealous and unsparing of criticism. Marshal Lopez had total control of the troops under his command, while loyalty and fear inspired unquestioning obedience to his orders. 

Preparations for Defense

During the time Paraguayan forces were on Allied territory, the Marshal would take the opportunity to fortify the homeland in preparation for Allied invasion. After all, he had studied artillery and engineering since his teenage years and had observed early trench warfare on the Crimea. Terrain was the vital factor in the defense of Paraguay. Swampy and crisscrossed by multiple unfordable rivers, there were few natural avenues of invasion. The road network, despite the modernization efforts of President Carlos Lopez, was poor and no roads were all weather. The climate was tropical which led to infestations of insects, especially mosquitos. Where there are mosquitos, there are camp diseases such as malaria and yellow fever. The longer an army sits in one place the more unsanitary the area becomes, leading to more mosquitos and more disease including that great killer of 19th century armies, dysentery, which comes from polluted water. All these factors went into the building of one of the most formidable fortresses in the Western Hemisphere, Humaitá. 

To maintain their supply and have secure communications, the Allied armies would have to advance up the river system to invade Paraguay. The Marshal would turn all his talents to defending a bend in the Paraguay River at Humaitá. A fortified post had existed here since independence, but large-scale fortification had started under the elder Lopez stemming from fears of Argentinian invasion. By creating a large fort capable of heavy artillery emplacement and a strong garrison, the Allies would be unable to pass farther up the Paraguay River, and any ship attempting to run past the guns of the fort would have to slow down at the river bend and be blown to pieces. The landward side was covered by swamps and the approach was difficult. The defense of this fortress, and the Allied frustrations in attempting to take it, would define the next stage of the war.

For the Marshal and the Paraguayan people, the defense of Humaitá and what would follow would become the national epoch, a symbol of the national will and the determination of the Paraguayan people to defend their independence. This fortress would be the primary reason for the war lasting as long as it did. For Marshal Lopez, it would be the one thing that kept the Allies from defeating him and overthrowing his government. The survival of the army and the defenses of the Republic would determine if Paraguay itself survived. Everything would come down to Humaitá.

What do you think of the outbreak of the war? Let us know below.

Now read part 3 on devastating battles for both sides here.

Further Reading

Saeger, James Schofield. 2007. Francisco Solano Lopez and the Ruination of Paraguay: Honor and Egocentrism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Whigham, Thomas L. 2002. The Paraguayan War, Volume 1: Causes and Early Conduct. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2005. I Die with My Country: Perspectives on the Paraguayan War, 1864-1870. Edited by Hendrick Kraay. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2017. The Road to Armageddon: Paraguay versus the Triple Alliance, 1866-70. University of Calgary Press.

A key US Civil War Battle in 1862: The Battle of Shiloh

The Battle of Shiloh in April 1862 is perhaps one of the most overlooked in its overall importance to the outcome of the US Civil War. In this article Curtis J. Smothers explains the battle and how it impacted the war.

The Battle of Shiloh. By Thure de Thulstrup.

The Battle of Shiloh was one of the bloodiest battle ever fought on US soil up to its time, with over 23,000 dead, 13,000 of whom were northerners. But the battle’s outcome had more far-reaching effects:

·       Shiloh nearly ruined the career of Union General U.S. Grant

·       The battle also cost the Confederacy one its best generals, Albert S. Johnston, who was shot in the leg while riding in the thick of battle

However, Shiloh’s importance lies in how it changed Grant's thinking and how it set the stage for Union domination of the Mississippi River, Grant’s going east and the eventual defeat of the Confederacy.

The sobering reality of the war to come

After Shiloh, Grant realized firsthand that the South would not be easily beaten. Before Shiloh, and based on his earlier easy victories at Fort Henry and Donelson, Grant had scant respect for the Confederate fighting spirit and ability. After the carnage and near defeat of his bivouacked, green Union troops, who ran from the hordes of yelling rebels and cowered by the river bluffs, Grant came to know what his subordinate and friend, William Tecumseh Sherman, knew: the war would last for years, and the South would have to be completely crushed.

Grant’s green troops bivouacked, but didn’t dig on

The Battle of Shiloh took place on the western bank of the Tennessee River, where Grant had ferried his nearly 50,000-man army to place called Pittsburg Landing. (Much of the bloodiest fighting took place around a church called "Shiloh," whose name, ironically, is derived from the Hebrew for "peace.") Grant's plans were to wait for reinforcement from General Don Carlos Buell and strike out at the Confederacy with his superior forces with the goal of capturing the major Confederate rail junction at Corinth, Mississippi. Grant, who was not prone to digging in or building entrenchments, figured his raw troops needed to be drilled and shaped up.

Confederates could have won

In the early morning hours of April 6, 1862, Grant was totally surprised by the Confederates, who overran Yankee camps that had failed to even post patrols.

In the ebb and flow of the battlefield on the first day, it was only through the lack of good tactical leadership, experience and good weaponry on the part of the Confederates that prevented a total Yankee defeat at Shiloh. Confederate General Johnston's biggest mistake was going to the battle front. He left orders to his subordinate Beauregard to stay behind and execute the battle plan of cutting off the Yankee retreat to the river, but Beauregard had a different plan, which was to run straight ahead and push the Yankees into the river. As Johnston bled to death after a leg wound, daylight waned and Confederate hopes of victory also died.

Beauregard decided to wait until the next day

The battle of the first day ended after Grant and Sherman rallied to stabilize the Yankee positions. Beauregard, however, figured that he had the better of Grant and would finish off the Yankees the next day. Beauregard also figured that he still outnumbered Grant, but Yankee General Buell's reinforcements arrived the next morning; and Grant's subordinate, General Lew Wallace (the man who wrote the epic Ben-Hur) whose division had taken the wrong road the day before, finally showed up for duty.

Fortunately for the Union, the second day of Shiloh saw a revitalized Yankee force and a massive counterattack that relentlessly pushed the depleted Southerners back towards Corinth, Mississippi.

Grant took a beating in the press, but Lincoln rehabilitated this fighting general

The battle was over, but the recriminations and controversy would continue. Beauregard would be vilified for not pressing his advantage at the end of the first day. Grant would take a beating in the northern press for the massive Union casualties, and would be relieved by General Halleck and demoted to a do-nothing second-in-command position.

In the end, though, Lincoln moved Halleck to Washington, D.C., and gave Grant back command in the West. (Lincoln recognized Grant as a fighter not prone to the "slows" like many other Union generals)

Grant would go on to amass an astonishing record of victories in the west that would culminate in the capture of Vicksburg that would split the Confederacy at the Mississippi. After victories in Tennessee, Grant would come east to eventually end the war. Sherman would go South and due east cutting a swath of destruction that would isolate and cripple the Confederacy. 

Shiloh forged a winning team

The victory of Shiloh solidified the relationship of Grant and Sherman and led them to a more realistic appreciation of the war. Likewise, all the principal victories of the North (out West) in 1863 and 1864 were made possible. If Johnston's Confederate forces won at Shiloh on April 6, the land-naval campaign against Vicksburg, the March to the Sea, and the Siege of Petersburg (below the Confederate capital) might not have occurred at all.

What do you think of the importance of the Battle of Shiloh? Let us know below.

The Paraguayan President who Brought his Country to Military Catastrophe – Part 1: Francisco Solano Lopez’s Earlier Life

Francisco Solano Lopez was president of Paraguay from 1862 to 1870. He led the country during one of the most devastating defeats in all history – the War of the Triple Alliance. Here, Erick Redington starts this fascinating series by looking at the years leading up to when Solano Lopez became president.

Solano Lopez in the 1850s.

March 1, 1870. In a swamp in a barely explored region of Northern Paraguay, Francisco Solano Lopez was meeting his end. It was not supposed to be this way for him. After all, he was the “Napoleon of South America,” wasn’t he? He had been raised from birth to lead, to command. How could he go from dictator of his home country, with the power of life and death over everyone and everything he surveyed, to dying in a no-account swamp in a place no one had ever heard of?

Early Life

Francisco Solano Lopez Carrillo was born on July 24, 1826, in Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. His father, Carlos Antonio Lopez was one of the great men of his country, a man who served in multiple government positions under the strange and enigmatic rule of Dr. Francia, the dictator of Paraguay. The years after independence were dominated by the rule of Dr. Francia. The policies and style of this eccentric man would habituate the Paraguayan people to dictatorship and following orders unquestioningly. He would even take the title of “Supreme Dictator,” a title unthinkable to even the most hardened despot today. This would be invaluable to Francisco later in life when he would lead his country in the most devastating war South America has, or would ever, see.

At an early age, Francisco was brought into the army, as all young men in Paraguay were. From the time of independence, the country had had to defend itself from neighbors who craved its territory. To the south, many in Argentina wanted to reunite the old Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata, which Paraguay had been a part of under Spanish rule. To the northwest, Bolivia had claimed the Chaco region, a barely developed territory with few people living there except native tribes. To the northeast was the South American colossus of Brazil. For Paraguayans, Brazil was the antithesis of their country. Paraguay was a republic, if ruled by a dictator, Brazil was an empire, the Western Hemisphere’s only monarchy. Paraguay had enforced social equality, to the point that marriage was banned at one point if you married someone of the same race. Brazil had a large slave owning plantation aristocracy with titles of nobility and an active slave trade. Brazil coveted Paraguayan land due to geography. The Paraguay River branches off the Rio de la Plata providing riverine access to the Brazilian interior of the Mato Grosso. A sense of being surrounded by enemies, a siege mentality, would shape, and in some ways warp, Paraguayan national consciousness and be one of the leading causes of the great war to come.

While in the military, Francisco would see battle with his father against the Argentinians. He would be made a Brigadier General at the age of only eighteen due to the influence of his father, who by this point had taken over from the now deceased Dr. Francia. Despite the nepotism, Francisco would take his military studies seriously. He studied fortifications and artillery. Fortifications and fixed defenses would be vital for a small nation surrounded by larger ones, each outnumbering Paraguay. Fortification would act as a force multiplier for the Paraguayans in the coming war.

Exposure to the World

When the military situation of the country allowed it, Francisco would be sent by his father abroad, a luxury not allowed to other Paraguayans. He travelled to several nations in Europe as minister, the most important of which for him was France. While there, he became fascinated with the French Second Empire and everything Napoleonic. He would purchase French military equipment, especially uniforms that were copied from the Napoleonic style. He would try to modernize his country’s military, a fact that belies the modern view of him as simply a martinet. He would even get the chance to observe military actions during the Crimean War in Russia. This experience would prove invaluable to him, and it gave him knowledge on the handling of large armies, and especially siege craft. The Crimean War was defined by the siege of Sevastopol, which saw the Allies of Britain, France, the Ottomans, and Sardinia besiege a Russian army that held out far longer than anyone thought possible. Viewing the siege from the besieger’s point of view would give him a unique perspective when the roles for him were reversed during the war.

For Francisco, perhaps the most important thing he brought back with him was Eliza Lynch, an Irishwoman who would go on to be his long-time mistress (marriage was a very strange thing in Paraguay, but that is for another time). She would be his constant companion, closest adviser, and the mother of his children. Some would see her as the devil behind the throne, others would see her and the children as the only comfort the President would ever have.

Leadership Apprentice

Francisco returned from Europe after his grand tour to become the Minister of War under his father. It was a position, at least on paper, that Francisco was eminently qualified for. He had military training all his life, he had observed the latest in military technology and tactics in Europe, and he had some innovative ideas regarding the defense of the country. Yet, the appointment would be used by opponents as an example of the nepotism of his father, and indicative of the way the Paraguayan Republic would be run until Francisco’s death. This view would be reinforced by Francisco’s appointment, just a few years later, as his father’s Vice President and obvious heir apparent.

Paraguay was seen by its neighbors as a strange place. For decades, it had been presided over by Dr. Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia, the unquestioned dictator. Called "El Supremo," he was considered a revolutionary fanatic by most international observers. He had ruled Paraguay with an iron fist for over 25 years as part of a grand experiment in the implementation of revolutionary and enlightenment ideals. Francia had enforced isolation and attempted to create economic self-sufficiency. Absolute social equality was decreed between those of Spanish descent and the native Guarani people. The nation had repelled repeated attempts to come under the influence and economic dominance of, or be taken over by Brazil, Argentina, and Great Britain. Foreigners were regularly arrested and expelled. The mail was intercepted and read. The police would regularly arrest people in the middle of the night. All these facts would color foreign perceptions of Paraguay. Opinions ranged from the country being a little bit odd at best, and a malevolent dictatorship that needed to be suppressed at worst, but overall, very backward and an outlier in the modern world were the general thoughts on Paraguay, something like how a modern person would view North Korea.

When Dr. Francia died, his successors, eventually leading to Carlos Antonio Lopez, Francisco's father, maintained many of the political and social controls on the Paraguayan people. Despite this, the elder Lopez was extremely interested in building up the economic potential of his country. Lopez was a quite different man from his predecessor. Whereas Dr. Francia was seen as austere and severe, with a lanky appearance and reserved mannerisms, Lopez was overweight and seen as a glutton. Dr. Francia was concerned with his own revolutionary ideals, and the successful implementation of them. Lopez was interested in his country's, and his own by extension, economic benefit. If that meant breaking another taboo, opening the country to foreign contact, then so be it.

Lopez would bring in foreign advisors for military and economic development. New ironworks and foundries were opened to produce weapons. A river monopoly was offered to the United States, though this fell through. Relations were opened with Brazil and rebellious provinces in Argentina, which still claimed Paraguay. One of South America’s first railroads was opened. New iron works, mills, and processing plants were built to increase the economic and military potential of the nation. Military missions with young officers were sent to Europe to learn the latest in war. This is where the horizons of a young Francisco Solano Lopez were broadened. He was dazzled by the militaries of Europe. He was impressed with the great empires of Britain and France. He was determined when he went home to Paraguay, that when it was his turn, he would make his country great.

When his father died in September 1862, Vice President Francisco Solano Lopez moved to make sure the compliant Congress elevated him to the Presidency. His father had the right under the Constitution to name his own successor, but Francisco was not going to leave anything to chance. When he took power, he had grand plans to strengthen his country both internally and externally. However, any grand plans that he had would be very quickly interrupted by a foreign crisis that would lead his country to the brink of annihilation. 

In the brief time of peace that now President Lopez governed his country, he made sure he had total control like his predecessors. He had been head of the military since he returned from Europe, so there were no rivalries for leadership from that quarter. The Paraguayan Congress had been a pliant tool in the hands of his father, and this did not change with the son. Paraguay had a well-functioning police state originated by Dr. Francia. The people were under constant surveillance from neighbors, teachers, even their local priests. The Catholic Church in Paraguay had been nationalized just after independence and all correspondence with the Vatican went through the office of the President. Even the confessional was not sacred. Priests were “encouraged” to report seditious thoughts and criminal plots to the authorities. 

The intense police state belied the personal popularity and magnetism of Lopez. He was fluent in multiple languages and very well read. He could speak French to foreign diplomats and visiting travelers. He would speak Guarani, the local native language, to common soldiers and civilians to show he was one of them. He was one of the best travelled people in Paraguay at the time, had been leader of the military for years, always appearing in a fine French-modeled uniform, and cut a more imposing figure than his grossly overweight father and the spare Dr. Francia. These factors, combined with the awe the office of the Presidency was held, made President Lopez seem the perfect man to lead; soldier, statesman, the best prepared man to take the helm of the nation.

One of the most insufferable things in life is a person who has intelligence and charisma, and they know it. One of the greatest hindrances to the success of Lopez was his colossal ego. He was convinced of his own brilliance. His propaganda machine, newspapers, and the church, would put out only glowing stories and news about the President. He was perfect in every way; the people were told repeatedly. As one example, in Paraguay, even today, his birthdate is listed in 1827 not 1826. Lopez was born too close to the date of his parents’ marriage. To remove the blemish of being conceived out of wedlock, his birthday has been moved in official sources to 1827. Lopez was perfect and the people were to believe he was perfect as well. As would happen to many who had the type of upbringing he had, and laudatory propaganda, his press went to his head. An overinflated ego, and an overinflated sense of his own abilities and brilliance would be a major factor in the lead up to war.

South American Balance of Power

In the South America of the 1860s, peace was kept through a precarious balance between Brazil and Argentina. This balance had been tested several times since everyone concerned had achieved independence from their colonial overlords. Neither power would ever fully trust the other, and their struggles for dominance would influence the two small nations in the region.

The first war between the two countries was the Cisplatine War in 1825. This war saw Brazil and Argentina fight over control of what was called at the time the Cisplatine Province. As the southernmost province of Brazil, it gave the Empire an outlet onto the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, a strategic and economic artery in the area of South America with arguably the most economic potential. Further, access to the mouth of the great river would help Brazil access the interior provinces of the Empire through the river system. Brazil has a formidable mountain range on its east coast, hindering overland transportation and communication. The Rio de la Plata was to be the great highway to the Brazilian interior.

A few years after the adoption of the Brazilian Constitution, which granted autonomy to the province, the people were encouraged to revolt by the newly independent Argentina. The Argentinian leadership had plans to bring the entire Rio de la Plata River valley under their control. After a war that lasted several years, Great Britain brokered a peace. In that peace, the Oriental Republic of Uruguay was created from the Cisplatine Province to serve as a neutral buffer state between the two nations. One concession given to Brazil in the war was a promise of free navigation of the Rio de la Plata. 

For the next forty years, there were many disputes between Brazil and Argentina, but one of the main points of contention for Brazil was to maintain their influence in Uruguay. Since independence, Uruguay had been internally divided. The two groups who constantly battled for political control were the Blancos and the Colorados. They were more than political parties. They were groups that, to an outsider, seemed their only reason for existence was to hate each other. There was, of course, more to it than that, but that is for another time.

This state of perpetual crisis destabilized the balance of power in the whole region. Both Brazil and Argentina were suspicious of the others’ intentions in Uruguay. The Paraguayans were worried that if Uruguay were conquered by one or the other, or the balance of power in the in the region was disrupted, then Paraguay would be the next target. This sense of the balance of power was taken very seriously by Francisco Solano Lopez. The “Marshal,” as was his preferred title, was deeply concerned about the politics of Uruguay when, in 1864, civil war erupted in the country between the Blancos and the Colorados.

Marshal Lopez’s father, Carlos was far more cautious than his son. He had not intervened in multiple Brazilian interventions in Uruguay over the years. While he was interested in opening his country more that Dr Francia was, he was not interested in creating formal alliances or opposing factions in the region. Marshal Lopez, however believed that the Colorado uprising in Uruguay was a Brazilian plot to gain hegemony over the region. The Colorados had received support from Brazil, while the Blancos had received support from Paraguay, as well as from rebel factions within Argentina in the past. These facts, combined with the traditional Paraguayan state paranoia, factored into the Marshal’s mind that Paraguay, and by extension, he, was being targeted.

Brazil would intervene in the Uruguayan War, ostensibly to protect Brazilian lives and property, which would lead to a decisive Colorado victory. The Marshal could not abide by this, as it destroyed the precious balance of power. At the start of the Brazilian intervention, he had sent a message to the Brazilian government, attempting to dissuade or intimidate (depending on how you looked at it) the Brazilians into not crossing the border. The attempt failed. The Paraguayans seized a Brazilian ship, the Marquês de Olinda. This would be the casus belli for the Brazilians to declare war on Paraguay. Thus, would begin the most devastating war in the history of South America, and the great drama of the life of Marshal Francisco Solano Lopez.

Now read part 2 on the start of the War of the Triple Alliance here. 

What do you think of the pre-president life of Francisco Solano Lopez? Let us know below.

Bibliography

Saeger, James Schofield. 2007. Francisco Solano Lopez and the Ruination of Paraguay: Honor and Egocentrism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Whigham, Thomas L. 2002. The Paraguayan War, Volume 1: Causes and Early Conduct. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2005. I Die with My Country: Perspectives on the Paraguayan War, 1864-1870. Edited by Hendrick Kraay. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2017. The Road to Armageddon: Paraguay versus the Triple Alliance, 1866-70. University of Calgary Press.

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase: The Start of the American Midwest

The Louisiana Purchase was the purchase of a vast area of land by the United States from Napoleonic France in 1803. While France only occupied a small amount of the territory, it comprised vast swathes of what is now the American Midwest. William Floyd Junior explains the history of the territory and how the US came to acquire it.

The Louisiana Purchase on a modern map. Source: William Morris, available here.

The first administration of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1805) basically turned on one event, the purchase of the Louisiana Territory and control of the Mississippi River. It was the river, which occupied the President’s mind along with its free navigation, which would lead to the acquisition of the vast territory of approximately 828,000 square miles. Jefferson first began contemplating his vision about the time of the Revolution. In confronting the problem of Virginia’s frontiers, he thought of his idea as “Empire of Liberty.” In his first inaugural address, Jefferson spoke of the United States as, “a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the hundredth and thousandth generation.”

European Exploration

The story of the Louisiana Territory began as far back as 1519, when a Spanish sea expedition explored the Gulf of Mexico. This would be the first time that Europeans would site the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1528, there was another Spanish expedition of some three hundred men travelling inland from the coast of Florida. After a torturous expedition, four emaciated survivors would reach a Spanish settlement in Mexico after wondering through southern Louisiana and much of the southwest for eight years.

In 1541, Hernando de Soto, the newly appointed governor of Cuba, organized an expedition of six hundred soldiers for the purpose of exploring the Louisiana territory. De Soto would die the following year of yellow fever. The force would be reduced by hunger, disease, and Native American attacks to about half of its original size, causing it to sail down the Mississippi to safer surroundings.

The first European settlers to move into the Mississippi Valley were French, who would come in from the north instead of the usual southern route. Samuel de Champlain became governor of new France in 1633 and would encourage his countrymen to expand further into the interior.

When King Louis XIV became ruler of France, he moved to shut the Spanish out of North America and curb British expansion. A great Anglo-French rivalry for control of the Mississippi Valley would ensue.

Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, a young adventurer-explorer would name the territory he was exploring, Louisiana after the king. On April 9, 1682, La Salle planted a column and cross-painted it with “the arms of France.” La Salle would also formulate a plan for the colonization of the lower Mississippi Valley. La Salle would be murdered by two of his own men before he could establish settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi River. In the summer of 1684, France made peace with Spain. The peace and LaSalle’s failure led the French government to abandon immediate plans for attacking New Spain by establishing colonies on the lower Mississippi.

In September 1715, after being in power for seventy-two years, Louis XIV died. He would leave France and the empire bankrupt by the cost of years of war around the world. Several years after Louis died, the rivalry between England and France would gain momentum. France would go on to claim the entire Ohio valley. English leaders looked at Louisiana along with Canada as a wall confining their colonies to the Atlantic seaboard. The French continued exploring trying to find a route to the Pacific Ocean. By 1752, they planted the French flag at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. By the early 1790s, a mass migration had started dividing the country.

1800s

By 1800, France would reign supreme in Europe and Napoleon turned his energies to rebuilding his overseas empire. Louisiana and the Floridas were major elements of his grand design centered on Santo Domingo, the richest of the colonies. In the same year, Spain ceded Louisiana to France on October 1, by the Treaty of San Ildefonso. However, Spain refused to part with the Floridas. Napoleon would now mount an expedition to take possession of Louisiana at the port of New Orleans. Jefferson became aware of the retrocession causing a shadow to fall over his administration.

Napoleon planned to build a commercial bloc in the Caribbean Basin that consisted of the strategically important West Indian Islands Martinique and Saint Dominque which would be linked with Louisiana. The French in the Mississippi Valley would be President Jefferson’s first great diplomatic crisis. He had been a long- time friend of France since his days as ambassador in Paris (1784-1789), which made him familiar with French diplomacy and politics.

Although Jefferson had never been west of the Shenandoah Valley, his attitude about the Mississippi Valley and beyond was long-standing. When news that Spain had ceded its rights to Napoleon and France, Jefferson recognized this as a fundamental shift in the strategic situation. It both threatened American security and would block western expansion.

Jefferson’s instructions to Robert Livingston, the newly appointed American ambassador to France were very direct. The fact that France would now control the Louisiana region was a major disaster that “completely reverses all the political relations with the United States and will fill a new epoch in our political course.” It constituted, he believed, the greatest challenge to American independence and national integrity since the American Revolution. Despite prior friendships with France, the moment the French occupied New Orleans, the two nations became enemies.

Monroe mission

Livingston was more than capable, but he was not a Virginian. Jefferson wanted someone in Paris whom he could trust beyond any doubt. In effect, he would order James Monroe, who was at the time Virginia’s governor, to become a special envoy to France. Monroe’s instructions authorized the purchase of New Orleans and as much of the Mississippi Valley as possible. The boundaries of the French acquisition from Spain were not clear, but Jefferson was offering up to ten million dollars.

During the winter and spring of 1803, while the outcome of the Monroe mission was yet to be decided, Jefferson’s management of the prospective crisis was both smart and shrewd. He would see to it that an old French friend, du Pont de Nemours, was provided information about America’s intentions that could be leaked in the corridors of Versailles. 

When the Spanish official governing New Orleans abruptly closed the port to American commerce, Jefferson came under considerable pressure to launch a military expedition to seize both the city and the Floridas, abandoning diplomacy in favor of war with both Spain and France. In spite of Congress authorizing the president to raise eighty thousand volunteers for a military campaign, Jefferson would reject the idea and continue to pursue a peaceful outcome. Time and demography were on America’s side, justifying Jefferson’s patient approach.

Jefferson was also lucky in that Napoleon’s decision was not to just to sell New Orleans but the entire Mississippi Valley and the modern-day American Midwest. In the early morning of April 11, 1803, Napoleon announced to his Finance Minister Barbe-Marbois that, “I renounce Louisiana.” Within hours the French were enquiring if the United States had interest in the entire territory of Louisiana. Napoleon’s abrupt decision was prompted by the resumption of the Anglo-French war. Ambassador Livingston had complained in the past that negotiating with the French was impossible: “There is no people, no Legislature, no counsellors. One man is everything. He seldom asks advice, and never hears it unasked.” This was typical of Napoleon’s all-or-nothing style. The payment that Napoleon would receive would help subsidize his European army. This worked directly to Jefferson’s advantage. Napoleon’s losing of Santo Domingo was another reason why Napoleon was willing to depart with Louisiana.

Agreement

Livingston knew what to do. “The field open to us is infinitely larger than our instructions contemplated,” Livingston would tell Madison, and the chance “must not be missed.” Livingston and Monroe, now in Paris, negotiated a treaty which gave the United States the Louisiana Territory. The area was so big that the borders were not clearly defined by either party, for about fifteen million dollars or three cents an acre.

The news of the signing of the deal that reached Jefferson on July 3, 1803, was official but not direct. The news came in a letter from the two ministers to Rufus King who got the news shortly before leaving London, brought it with him on his return home, and sent it to Madison from New York. The report of the acquisition of territory west of the Mississippi surprised the American people more than it did Jefferson or Madison. They had learned of the prospect a number of weeks earlier and had approved a larger negotiation in a private letter sent to Paris. Nevertheless, Jefferson was still surprised by the scope of the deal.

The news of the Louisiana Purchase was not accepted favorably by everyone. In Boston George Cabot wrote to his friend Rufus King, the leader of New England Federalism, regarding the recent purchase as being advantageous to France. It is like selling us a ship after she is surrounded by a British fleet,” he said. He would also write that France was, “rid of an encumbrance that wounded her pride,” while obtaining money and regaining the friendship of the United States.

As Jefferson was taking in the news, he wrote to Merriwether Lewis concerning his exploration of the newly acquired territory, “In the journey which you are about to undertake for the discovery of the course and source of the Mississipi (sic) and of the most convenient water communication from thence to the Pacific Ocean . . .” This was a letter full of optimism but also realistic. Jefferson had now done all he could to control the largely uncontrollable nature of Lewis’s dangerous mission.

The official documents concerning the deal would reach Washington on July 14 and were not made public. However, a summary of them would be given out and the financial terms made public. The terms included a payment of $11,250,000 to France in six per cent stock, redeemable for fifteen years, and the assumption by the United States of the claims of its citizens against France in the amount of $3,750,000. For a period of twelve years French and Spanish ships and merchandise were to pay no higher duties than American in the parts of the ceded territory. Finally, the inhabitants of Louisiana were to be incorporated with the United States as soon as possible, consistent with the Constitution, and were to be secure in their personal rights in the meantime. The financing was arranged with the Anglo-Dutch Merchant Banks, Barings Brothers and Hopes, which in effect bought Louisiana from France and sold it to the United States, making nearly $3,000,000 from the deal.

Constitutional matters

On January 13, 1803, Jefferson’s Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, would write to the President explaining his constitutional position regarding the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. He would sum up his opinion by stating the following:

1st. That the United States as a nation has an inherent right to acquire territory.

2d. That whenever that acquisition is by treaty, the same constituted authorities in whom the treaty-making power is vested have a constitutional right to sanction the acquisition.

3d. That whenever the territory has been acquired, Congress have the power either of admitting into the Union as a new state, or of annexing to a State with the consent of that State, or making regulations for the government of such territory.

Later in January, Jefferson would reply to Gallatin saying, “You are right in my opinion, to Mr. L’s proposition: there is no constitutional difficulty as to the acquisition of territory, and whether where acquired it may be taken into the Union by the Constitution as it now stands, will become a question of expediency. It must be assumed at this point that the administration recognized as constitutional the acquisition of territory by treaty. The point of what should be done with it would not be answered at this point in time. For Jefferson to have suggested any difficulties to Congress at this stage would have been to invite trouble. The Senate would finally approve the treaty by a vote of 24 to 7, sealing the deal.

What do you think of the Louisiana Purchase? Let us know below.

Now read William’s article on three great early influences on Thomas Jefferson here.

Sources

1.     Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson & the new nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 745, 746, 747, 748.

2.     Alexander De Conde, This Affair of Louisiana (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976),  4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 15, 20. 

3.     www.loc.gov/collections/louisiana.

4.     Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), 243, 244, 245, 246.

5.     Jon Meacham, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (New York: Random House, 2012), 385, 387.

6.     Dumas Malone, Jefferson The President: First Term 1801-1805 (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1970), 296, 297, 302, 312, 313.

7.     Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Merriwether Lewis, July 4, 1803, National Archives.

8.     Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (New York: Penguin Group, 2014), 324. 

Feminine National Personifications: Part 1 - Britannia (the UK) and Bharat Mata (India)

Feminine personifications of nations are common around the world. Some popular examples include Britannia, Bharat Mata, and Marianne. Usually represented as goddesses, mothers, or queens, these entities embody their countries’ unity, liberty, strength, reason, and spiritual essences. As national icons, they impart to their people a strong sense of identity and belonging associated with their lands. In this two-part mini-series, Apeksha Srivastava highlights some changes in their portrayal with time, along with some similarities and differences among them.

In the first part of this mini-series, she looks at changes in the portrayal of Britannia and Bharat Mata with time.

The East offering its riches to Britannia, Roma Spiridone, 1778. Source: British Library, available here.

Britannia

The Submissive

In his article Britannia and John Bull[1], RT Matthews mentioned how the Greeks and Romans associated anthropomorphic deities with their newly conquered lands. Several coins depicting this were made during Roman Emperor Hadrian’s journey through imperial provinces[2]. As the female personification of the recently subjugated island, Britannia can be seen on one of them. She is depicted sitting with her head slightly bowed. Her pose is submissive, with her shield at rest, and her armor cast off.

The Rising Queen

This submissive Britannia disappeared when Rome’s power declined around 400 CE. She reappeared to personify Britain during the reign of Elizabeth I, making her place in maps and emblem books. In 1603, writer Henry Peacham featured Britannia on one of the first English emblem books (Minerva Britannia). She is seen striding confidently towards a ship, which symbolizes Britain’s newly acquired maritime power. The word “Minerva” is a Roman reference to the Greek goddess of war and reason, Athena. English chronicler Michael Drayton, in 1612, portrayed Britannia on his Poly-Olbion. She is seated under a Roman arch decorated with male figures (Aeneas - the founder of Rome, Julius Caesar - the first Roman conqueror of Britain, a medieval king representing the Tudor line, and a 17th-century explorer). She is the image of Britain’s sovereign powers and flourishing economy and has the horn of plenty in her left arm and a scepter in her right hand. A wreath on her head is being placed by two cherubs. Ships in the sea visible in the background are a reference to Britain’s maritime prosperity. In 1660, King Charles II issued a medal and halfpenny-coin with Britannia on the reverse.

The Colonizer

Eventually, Britannia started marking her presence on statues, paintings, monuments, stamps, and printed works, often commissioned by the government authorities. One such painting, The East Offering Its Riches To Britannia, was made by Roma Spiridione in 1778 on the British East India Company headquarters ceiling in London. Britannia is shown sitting on a rock with a lion near her as a guardian. She is humbly receiving a tribute of pearls/jewels from a dark figure (India). A kneeling woman (China) is offering her a porcelain vase, and a tea chest is lying close by. The camel and elephant on the right side of the painting symbolize the East, especially India. This work presents Britannia at a much higher stature. An interesting point to note here is that the East actually never offered anything to Britain; the latter plundered it. This painting is an interesting example of whitewashing and turning history to one’s advantage[3]. Another example of self-glorification is the painting Retribution by Edward Armitage. It depicted the soldier-massacre in Cawnpore during the Indian Rebellion in 1857. After the rebellion, a British woman and her child are shown on the ground as casualties. Britannia is furious to see her children in this condition. As revenge, she is about to kill the Bengal Tiger, the symbol of the Sepoys, with her sword[4]. It, again, portrays only one side of the story.

Made by Walter Crane, the Imperial Federation Map, published in 1886 for a London weekly newspaper, showed Britannia as the “rising world-power”. She is seated on a globe upheld by Atlas and is gazing down at the people of her empire (denoting parts of the world under British control marked in pink). Another map published in the same year shows her in the middle, with different scenes from the Empire being illustrated[5].

The Celebrity

Britannia also survived the changes in society with time. By the mid-18th-century, people started enjoying written parodies about her. Apart from entertainment, these satires emerged as ways to influence public opinion. Furthermore, caricature-illustrators elevated her to higher moral planes.

In humor magazines (like Punch), Britannia was depicted as the defender of the British Empire, who crusaded for noble causes. She also personified the virtues of the English middle-class like women should be at home for happiness in marriage. Some other cartoons emphasized her vulnerability. In another work, she is seen making preparations for the Great Party[6], holding a candle in her hand, her shield and trident put aside. We can also observe the dishes/spoons on the floor. 

The patriotic song Rule Britannia demonstrated Britannia’s true establishment as a national icon[7]. She became the symbol of Great Britain’s political presence, evolving with time. During the 1990s, the term Cool Britannia (a humorous version), was used to describe contemporary Britain, showing approval of pop groups, artists, and fashion[8].

Bharat Mata

The Goddess

India has worshipped the earth in a female form (Dharti-Mata/Bhu-Devi) since ancient times. According to some scholars, the origins of Bharat Mata (Mother India) can be traced back to this idea. She, as the national personification, was created out of the desire to be free from the British dominion[9]. After gaining popularity from KC Bandyopadhyay's play Bharat Mata (1873), she emerged as a goddess in Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay’s poem Vande Mataram in 1875. She was visually evoked in 1905 through Abanindranath Tagore’s painting[10].

The Symbol of Independence & Nationalism

Sumathi Ramaswamy’s book, The Goddess and The Nation[11], traced Bharat Mata’s origins to Bengal in 1904 (Mother-Bengal/Bangamata). Over the next few decades, artists added new features to her depiction such as the tricolor flag, lions (guardians/vahana), the territory-map she represented, and her weapons (like trident or spinning wheel signifying the Swadeshi Movement to boycott British-made products). In one of her articles, Ramaswamy also mentioned how Aurobindo Ghosh advised his student to become patriotic, “... It is not a map, but the portrait of Bharat Mata ... worship her with the nine-fold bhakti [devotion].” Some works depict Bharat Mata blessing freedom fighters for their sacrifice. In an election hoarding, she is seen as the nation-map, crying, and carrying Indira Gandhi’s lifeless body[12].

Associated with fury and rage, Kali is said to have emerged from goddess Durga. She apparently struck fear in some British people. Ramaswamy argued that Bharat Mata emerged as an intermediate: having fury for the oppressors and maternal love for her children. She rose as the glorious mother/goddess associated with the map of India to effectively elicit strong feelings of nationalism in people.

Shobha Singh’s painting (1947) showed Bharat Mata clad in the Indian tricolor. She has a trident in her hand and a halo around her head. The roaring lion by her side is kicking the British crown into the abyss. K.K. Rajaram’s painting (1962) depicted the Indo-China War setting. Bharat Mata is near the Ashoka Pillar. Carrying the Indian flag and a sword, she is leading four roaring lions and soldiers against the Chinese-dragon on the Himalayan borders[13].

The Unifier of Diversity

After independence, Bharat Mata was sometimes utilized for political ends. In 2011, Anna Hazare highlighted her in his campaign India Against Corruption, emphasizing that she belongs to all India and not just a particular religion. Sri Aurobindo, in 1920, had already written that “if we hope to have a vision of the mother by ... establishing Hindu nationalism ... we would be deprived of the full expression of our nationhood”[14]. In this context, Ramaswamy described an image of Bharat Mata riding through the street with houses of religious worship in the background (church, mosque, and perhaps, Gurdwara), promoting the idea of religious harmony (inclusive-Hinduism).

The Progressive

Bharat Mata survived the evolutions in popular taste. She has been represented in posters, calendars, and films. In one of his sketches, cartoonist Shankar showed Nehru as a cherub, drawing a cover (“Planning”) over the nude female form of the nation. A second cartoon depicted a “new version of Bharat Mata” who is protecting the poor from the corrupt politicians and resembles Lady Justice[15]. Another sketch portrayed her horrified at the incident of the tricolor flag being carried to support a rape accused. Such works underline the social changes in India with time in the form of different physical and emotional states of Bharat Mata.

The first Bharat Mata temple in Varanasi (1936) houses a giant marble relief map of India with its rivers, mountains, and sacred places. Another temple in Haridwar (1983) dedicated its ground floor to Mother India, represented as a map and a marble image. The map contains a network of lights indicating pilgrim places that link the entire nation[16]. Such examples beautifully depict the associations of Bharat Mata with the sacred geography of India.

Read on: In the second part here, Apeksha discusses Marianne of France and some similarities and differences among these national personifications.

Apeksha Srivastava completed her Master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. She is currently an aspiring writer and a second-year Ph.D. candidate at this institute. This article is based on an assignment she submitted for the course, Perspectives on Indian Civilization. 

References

1. Britannia and John Bull: From Birth to Maturity. Roy T. Matthews. The Historian. Vol. 62, No. 4 (SUMMER 2000), pp. 799-820 (22 pages). Published By: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.

2. Britannia and Melita: Pseudomorphic Sisters. Derk Kinnane-Roelofsma. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Vol. 59 (1996), pp. 130-147 (18 pages). Published by: The Warburg Institute.

3. The Hidden Wound. Nick Robins. The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational, 1-18. London: Pluto Press, 2012.

4. Britannia as the embodiment of Great Britain. Aline Gay, Fanny Guilbaud, and Damien Lenoir, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne, France. Essay written for Professor Béatrice Laurent’s seminar, 'Myths and Icons'.

5. Walter Crane and the Imperial Federation Map Showing the Extent of the British Empire (1886). Pippa Biltcliffe. Imago Mundi. Vol. 57, No. 1 (2005), pp. 63-69 (9 pages). Published by: Imago Mundi, Ltd.

6. Britannia's Great Party. 1851. Wood engraving. Punch (7 June 1856): 81. [http://www.victorianweb.org/periodicals/punch/95.html]

7. Britons will never be slaves! Britannia and liberty as a construct of British national identity in James Thomson and Thomas Arne’s song Rule Britannia and Thomas Rowlandson’s engraving, The Contrast, 1792, British Liberty, French Liberty, Which is best? Peter Johnston. The University of Oxford, Department for Continuing Education. Date created: Tuesday, April 18, 2017.

8. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/cool-britannia

9. Mother India: The Role of the Maternal Figure in Establishing Legal Subjectivity. Kanika Sharma. 2017. Law and Critique, 29(1), 1–29.

10. https://scroll.in/article/805990/far-from-being-eternal-bharat-mata-is-only-a-little-more-than-100-years-old

11. The Goddess and the Nation: Mapping Mother India. By Sumathi Ramaswamy. Duke University Press, 2010. 379pp.

12. Maps, Mother/Goddesses, and Martyrdom in Modern India. Sumathi Ramaswamy. 2008. The Journal of Asian Studies, 67(03).

13. Icon-ising national identity: France and India in comparative perspective. Subrata K. Mitra and Lion König. National Identities, 15(4), 357–377.

14. The Life and Times of Bharat Mata: Nationalism as Invented Religion. Sadan Jha. 2006. Manushi.

15. https://timescontent.com/syndication-photos/reprint/just-like-that/454566/buy.jsp

16. India: A Sacred Geography. Diana L. Eck. 2011. Harmony Books.