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control of foreign trade in yerbamate and tobacco and owned extensive
herds of cattle and horses. A large peasantry of mestizos and native
Guaraní sustained themselves on small holdings, in service to the state's
ranches, or in the military. Paraguay's rulers seemed to have success-
fully institutionalized the mentality of the Jesuit colonial missions. The
national treasury kept the president and his sycophants in power while
also supporting the largest military force in the region: 28,000 regular
soldiers and 40,000 reservists.
The war began over border tensions arising from Brazil's devel-
opment of its southernmost territories, which bordered Uruguay,
Argentina, and Paraguay. The Paraná River remained Brazil's fastest
route of communication between the capital of Rio de Janeiro and
the interior state of Mato Grosso. In late 1864, the Paraguayans
intercepted and held a Brazilian gunboat taking the new Mato Grosso
governor to his post via the Paraguay River; in response, the politi-
cal authorities in Rio de Janeiro declared war. A supremely confident
Solano López decided to strike Brazil with a Paraguayan invasion
through the Argentine territory of Misiones. When Argentina objected
to this incursion, Solano López invaded the state of Corrientes,
too. Argentina declared war. Ultimately, Uruguay joined Brazil and
Argentina in the War of the Triple Alliance against Paraguay, which
lasted from 1865 to 1870.
Although the triple alliance would appear to make the war lopsided
and unequal, none of the three allies was prepared. Individual prov-
inces in Brazil and Argentina were loath to send their own militias to
Paraguay, and the troops of Solano López acquitted themselves well in
the first battles. In the last two years of the war, the Paraguayans had
the advantage of fighting on home territory, too. They fought valiantly,
aided and abetted in national defense by Paraguayan women, and sup-
ported Solano López in fighting on until death. In the end, however, the
triple alliance prevailed and occupied Paraguay. The Paraguayan popu-
lation was ravaged by the five-year war: Only 230,000 citizens survived
from a prewar population of more than 400,000. By war's end, women
outnumbered men by a ratio of 14 to one.
To defeat such a foe, President Bartolomé Mitre of Argentina had to
mobilize his country on a massive scale. He instituted a national draft
in order to build up the weak army. Eventually, he fielded an army of
28,000 men, which he personally led in battle; however, provincial
revolts against the draft and against direction from Buenos Aires preoc-
cupied the new Argentine army. A professional officer corps developed
and attracted members of the shopkeeping middle classes and the rural
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