User:Ttocserp/Humaitá

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Siege of Humaitá
Part of the Paraguayan War
Date 2 November 1867 – 25 July 1868 (8 months, 3 weeks and 2 days) Location Humaitá fortress, Paraguay (present-day Humaitá) Result Allied victory
Belligerents
Paraguay	Argentina Empire of Brazil Uruguay
Commanders and leaders
Solano López	Bartolomé Mitre Marquess of Caxias
Strength
At the beginning: 20,000-25,000 ~400 guns At the end: 1,324	At the beginning: 51,107 Brazilians 4,000 Argentines 600 Uruguayans

Context and significance

Brief recapitulation

The Paraguayan war was the most lethal in the history of South America, yet it remains little known outside that continent. It had three phases:

1. Paraguay's invasion of the Brazilian or Argentine provinces of Mato Grosso, Corrientes and Rio Grande do Sul.
2. The allied counter-attack and invasion of Paraguay, and their capture of its capital Asunción.
3. Guerilla warfare and the death of the Paraguayan leader Francisco Solano López.

Essentially a river war, its key event was the capture of the Fortress of Humaitá, which was the gateway to Paraguay, and had held up the allied advance for over two years.

• 
  Location in heart of South America
• 
  Context map: wetlands of southern Paraguay

Paraguay is named after one of the great rivers of South America. The River Paraguay, which enabled the early Spanish explorers to sail into the heart of the continent, was the country's principal highway. There were few roads, and a number of rough trails.

The second (and most intensive) phase of the war was fought mainly along the Lower Paraguay, a stretch of the river that flows south past the capital Asunción and discharges into the River Paraná 240 miles (390 km) later. The Paraná, which forms the boundary with Argentina, and is visible at the bottom of the context map, turns south and flows through many miles of Argentine territory, eventually giving access to the sea. The fortress of Humaitá was located a few miles from the mouth of the Paraguay, and thus defended the river approach to the country.

The fortress, which commanded a hairpin bend in the river, was thought to be virtually impregnable.

Attempt to take fortress by storm

Hoping for a quick result, the Allies tried to take the fortress by frontal assault. On 22 September 1866 they landed troops on the edge of tbe only substantial piece of firm ground, marked M on the map Terrain. To attack in that place was a rational decision in itself, for they had hit upon a weak spot, and they might well have prevailed, greatly shortening the war. But their commands were divided, they dithered and delayed, and the Paraguayans built a defensive trench in the nick of time. Armed with artillery firing a hail of grapeshot and canister, it destroyed the allied attack.

This was the battle of Curupayty, the allies' first major setback, and their worst defeat of the war.

Aftermath of the Battle of Curupayty

Command changes in the Allied army

Aftermath of the Battle of Curupayty, by Cándido López, 1893: Paraguayan soldiers foraging and carrying dead allied soldiers, the painting also depicts some allied soldiers being shot dead at the spot or taken as prisoners

The allied advance into Paraguay came to a complete halt after the disaster of Curupayty. The defeat caused dissention among the allied commanders and no one knew what to do next; as a result, Joaquim Marques Lisboa, the Viscount of Tamandaré and commander of the Imperial Brazilian Navy, Polidoro Jordão, commander of the 1st Brazilian Army Corps, and Venancio Flores, commander of the Uruguayan army, left their positions. Tamandaré was replaced by Joaquim José Inácio and Flores was replaced by Enrique Castro; according to Whigham, Uruguayan participation in the war was now reduced to a "token force only nominally Uruguayan in composition".

The question of who should lead the Imperial forces remained however. In Brazil, emperor Pedro II was determined to continue the war despite Curupayty. The new cabinet, headed by prime minister Zacarias de Góis e Vasconcelos, of the Progressive League, which rose to power seven weeks before the battle, was tasked with continuing the war. The emperor then nominated an experienced and prestigious general to lead the Imperial forces in Paraguay: Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, then Marquess of Caxias.

Caxias arrived in Buenos Aires on 6 November 1866, reaching the allied camp in Tuyutí on 18 November; the next day he assumed unified command of the 1st and 2nd Brazilian Army Corps and began the formation of a 3rd Army Corps in Rio Grande do Sul. The Brazilian navy also fell under Caxias' command, and would no longer operate separately as it had done since the start of the war.

Epidemics and overall state of the army

Cholera-Morbus, satire by the magazine Cabrião depicting cholera scaring Caxias and Solano López, 12 May 1867

At that point several diseases had spread in the battlefield, but a new Asiatic cholera outbreak proved worse, killing or incapacitating thousands of soldiers; the cholera epidemic became so serious to the point the Allied commanders tried to disguise it from both the Paraguayans and the civilian population in their respective countries, even prohibiting the use of the word "cholera" in official communications. Soldiers often drank contaminated water, which they got by excavacating the nearby sandbanks; the water was contaminated by dead bodies that were frequently buried near the water sources. In order to cool the water, the soldiers would dig a hole in the ground and bury the water gallons. Dionísio Cerqueira, a Brazilian soldier, later recalled, after having ordered a hole to be dug in his tent, that "as soon as the comrade had reached the bottom, we felt the characteristic smell of death. One more hoe hit and a rotten skull appeared. He plugged the hole and dug another one ahead".

The sanitary conditions were not the only issue, for the organization and morale of the allied army were also abysmal; referring to the state of the 1st and 2nd Brazilian Army Corps, Caxias later stated that "they seemed to belong to two different nations", as their accounting, payment and promotion criteria were completely different. Another issue was the general lack of material: the cavalry lacked horses and the remaining ones were poorly fed, many soldiers had traded their uniforms and now walked half-naked or barefoot, the Minié rifles used by the infantry needed a ramrod to function, many of which had been damaged, the artillery lacked high calliber guns, something that some observers pointed out as one of the causes for the allied defeat at Curupayty.

Federalist rebellions in Argentina

Felipe Varela, defender of Argentine virtues (one view) or treasonous savage (another).

Ever since the signing of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance the commander-in-chief of all the allied forces had been Argentine president Bartolomé Mitre. After Curupayty, Mitre's prestige fell and growing federalist rebellions in Argentina forced him to pay less attention to the war against Paraguay; this also meant that a growing number of Argentine soldiers had to be diverted from the war to quell the rebellions in the Argentine interior, the most notable of which was led by Felipe Varela, a federalist and staunch opponent of Mitre, Brazil and the war against Paraguay. For the Argentine federalists, Brazil was an enemy ever since its role in defeating Juan Manuel de Rosas during the Platine War fifteen years earlier.

In November 1866, one thousand Argentine soldiers left the Allied army and marched to Buenos Aires in order to join troops being raised there to fight off the rebels; Mitre appointed general Wenceslao Paunero to command this army, but its effectiveness was limited and the rebellion continued; on 24 January 1867, eleven thousand more Argentine soldiers were detached from the Allied army and sent back to Argentina in order to join Paunero's army; finally, after announcing his intention to retire on 31 January 1867, the Argentine president embarked on a steamer on 9 February 1867, heading back to Argentina with another thirty-six hundred soldiers and leaving only four thousand Argentine troops in Paraguay under the command of general Gelly y Obes. Command of the allied army now de facto rested in Caxias' hands, who assumed it provisionally after Mitre's departure; such a reduced number of Argentine soldiers left in the front also meant the allied army strenght now depended mostly on Brazil. By April the rebellion was defeated; the rebels had received considerable aid from Chile, but could not resist the government force sent against them. Mitre returned to Paraguay in July 1867, technically reassuming command of the Allied army, though Caxias continued to exercise extensive authority.

Army reorganization and sanitation reforms

Caxias satirized for his "inaction", Cabrião, 17 February 1867. The fortress of Humaitá is depicted in the background

Caxias started to reorganize the Brazilian Army's depots in Argentina and Uruguay and the health service since his departure from Brazil. The Brazilians had eleven hospitals in the region, four of which were in Paraguayan territory and all of which were overwhelmed by a large amount of sick soldiers. The allied army was in complete disarray; According to Doratioto, a third of the initial Brazilian force that had crossed the Paraná River into Paraguay was either sick or wounded by the time of Caxias' arrival, despite having received reinforcements. A medical commission led by Francisco Pinheiro Guimarães, a physician and colonel of Fatherland Volunteers, who had already dealt with epidemics in Brazil, was nominated by Caxias to inspect the hospitals. Guimarães isolated the choleric patients and instituted strict sanitation standards. Caxias himself was meticulous with his habits, only drinking mineral water brought to him from Rio de Janeiro and ordering his quarters to be cleaned daily. One of the goals of the commission was to inspect the hospitals to search for soldiers that were no longer sick and were overstaying there at the doctors complacence; fifteen days later, some twenty to twenty-five hundred soldiers were sent back to Tuyutí for active duty.

Caxias took several months to reorgazine and stabilize the front before deciding to resume allied actions, for which he became the subject of mockery and critique by the Brazilian press. The marquess convinced the court in Rio de Janeiro to buy five thousand modern breech-loading Roberts and two thousand Spencer repeating rifles from the United States.

Strategic decision: take Humaitá by siege

The plan that was to lead to the capture of Humaitá was as follows. Instead of attacking it frontally, it was to be broadly encircled from the rear and taken by siege. Allied troops were to effect a flanking march to the east of the fortress and its marshes, giving its outer defences a wide berth, then sweeping west again to rejoin the river where it was convenient to do so. Thus the fortress would be cut off by land.

Since the Paraguayans would still have resupplied the fortress by river, however, it was necessary to cut it off by water too. Hence the plan called for armoured Brazilian gunboats to force their way past Humaitá's batteries and interdict the river. As explained in the article Passage of Humaitá, this was much easier said that done, for the fortress had been designed to frustrate that stratagem.

The plan had been proposed by Mitre and readily agreed by Caxias, an experienced general. (Long after the war, though, partisan Brazilian and Argentine journalists sought to belittle Mitre or Caxias and give sole credit to the other man.)

Difficulties facing the besiegers

Strength of the fortress

Such was Humaitá's reputation that it was known as the Gibraltar of South America. Apart from its natural defences (see below, Terrain), it was defended by 400 artillery pieces; on its landward side, by miles of trenches. A system of telegraph lines could send troops swiftly to any threatened point.

Main article: Fortress of Humaitá

Geographical challenge

Logistics

Brazilian troops, artillery, ammunition and stores had to be brought to the vicinity of Humaitá from Rio de Janeiro by steamshipa journey of 1,499 nautical miles (2,776 km) down the Atlantic ocean and up again through the rivers Plate, Paraná and Paraguay that took about a fortnight.

Local vegetation contained plants poisonous to grazing animals, unless accustomed to avoid them. Hence fodder for the cavalry had to be imported from downriver Buenos Aires or Rosario, its price rising to £8 gold per ton. "It was terribly wasted by exposure to wind and weather', wrote Burton, "and in places I have seen it used to bridge swamps. This unexpected obstacle added prodigiously to the difficulties and expenses of the invader".

The sea and river journey, though long, could be said to be the easy part. Cargoes were landed at Paso de Patria in southern Paraguay and had to be taken to their final destinations by ox cart. These convoys were ambushed and harassed by Paragyan forces. [needs expansion]

Hydrology and geology

Confluence of the rivers Paraguay, above, and Paraná (Goddard Space Flight Center)

To appreciate the wetlands terrain of southern Paraguay — where the allies were bogged down in an area of only a few square miles — it helps to understand some peculiarities of this portion of the river.

The Lower Paraguay has a channel that is about 2,000 feet (600 metres) wide on average; it has a meandering pattern with an irregular and complex water regime. Its hydraulic gradient (mean slope) is very small (2 cm/km). In winter it cannot discharge into the Paraná fast enough: it backs up and causes extensive flooding. Not far above Humaitá it receives an enormous streamload of sediment, a red-brown mud brought from the slopes of the Andes by a tributary, the Bermejo River.

Thus, the Lower Paraguay is characterised by sediment erosion in the main channel and deposition in its floodplain channels. Although its left (eastern) bank is elevated, both banks are overflowed during the winter floods, as shown in the photograph from space, forming "meander scroll remnants, shallow lakes, ponds, marshes and long and narrow scroll-swamps"; the floodplain is poorly drained. The local topography is continually changing, differing in summer and winter, and even from year to year.

Terrain

Once the Paraguayans had foreclosed the meadow M at Curupayti, there were few pieces of firm ground upon which the allied troops could manouevre. Most of the surroundings were almost impassible, and consisted of the following features, described by George Thompson, chief engineer of the Paraguayan army:

Terrain: Humaitá and its surroundings, showing the almost impassible carrizal and esteros. (Map by George Thompson of the Paraguayan army, coloured by Wikipedia; north is on the right.)

Carrizal. Extending from the river bank and up to to three miles inland, it was land intersected by deep lagoons and deep mud, "and between the lagoons either an impassable jungle or long intertwined grass three yards high, equally impenetrable. When the river is high, the whole 'carrizal', with very few small exceptions, is under water, and when the river is low, and the mud has had time to dry, paths may be made between the lagoons".

Esteros. Basically lagoons choked with stiff, gigantic aquatic plants, they surrounded the Paraguayan positions and formed their principal defence. "The water of these 'esteros'... is full of a rush which grows from 5 to 9 feet above the level of the water. The water in all standing ponds, is full of this rush..." These plants, called pirí, were triangular in section and grew perfectly straight.

These rushes grow about two inches apart only, and are consequently almost impassable in themselves. The bottom they grow on is always a very deep mud, and the water over this mud is from 3 to 6 feet deep. The 'esteros' are consequently impassable excepting at the passes, which are places where the rushes have been torn out by the roots, and sand gradually substituted for the mud at the bottom. In these passes, as in the rest of the 'esteros', the depth of water to be waded through is from 3 to 6 feet. In some places, one or even two or three persons, on very strong horses, can pass through the rushes ; but, after one horse has passed, the mud is very much worse on account of the holes made by the first horse's feet.

On the opposite shore of the river began the Gran Chaco, a region never conquered by the Spanish Empire and at this time uninhabited still, except by the fierce Toba people. The coastal region was almost impassible. Eventually, pressure of war obliged both sides to make quite extensive forays there; see below.

Lack of appropriate experience

Today — a scene in the wetlands of Ñeembucú, southern Paraguay

The allies had absolutely no experience of fighting in terrain such as just described. Open, mobile warfare was the preferred style in South America. Where the use of defensive earthworks had been resorted to in the Great Siege of Montevideo it had baffled the attackers for 8 years.

When an army faces an unprecedented situation much depends on the professional competence of its officer corps. "Until 1865, the Brazilian army was essentially pre-professional", wrote an American scholar. Its officer corps did not awaken to the need for modernisation and renewal until after the war. The Argentine and Uruguayan officer corps certainly were not better prepared since, unlike the Brazilians, they did not even an adequate supply of military engineers.

Both sides learned the folly of attack over open ground, the Paraguayans at Tuyutí and the allies at Curupayty. Around Humaitá "there was a conglomeration of lagoons, marshes and patches of jungle connected by narrow strips of terra firma which the attacking side had to squeeze through on a narrow front". It conferred a huge advantage on the defence.

No maps

Brazilian cavalry reconnoitering Humaitá. Cavalry was suited to open ground, however.

While the Paraguayans were familiar with the ground, maps of the territory were, for the allies, non-existent. At first completely ignorant of the terrain, they did not even realise that Humaitá was protected by miles of earthworks.

There being no maps, they had to be created. The Brazilian cavalry frequently went out to reconnoitre but this arm was adapted for relatively open ground. At ground level men could not see far because of the vegetation. Two other methods were resorted to.

(a) Mangrullos

A mangrullo, 1867, at the Tuyu-Cué encampment of Col. Pipo Giribone of the Argentine army. (National Library of Brazil.) Giribone, 3rd left, was an old comrade of Giuseppe Garibaldi.

These were improvised watch towers. The explorer Sir Richard Burton, who visited the scene, described them.

The rough contrivance, varying from forty to sixty feet in height, is composed of four or more thin tree-trunks, planted perpendicularly, and supplied with platforms or stages of cross-pieces, mostly palms, the whole being bound together with the inevitable raw hide. The look-outs are ascended by notched palm-trunks, or ladders, which, after a little neglect, become dangerous... In so flat a country the mangrullo acts well.

In August 1866 the Polish engineer Roberto Adolfo Chodasiewicz of the Argentine army, who had acquired his skills in the Crimean War, had made a preliminary map of the area south of Humaitá; he did so by triangulating from three mangrullos.

Chodasiewicz added futher refinements after the battle of Curupayty. With the consent of Caxias a copy of his map was given to Charles Washburn, the American envoy to Paraguay, who was passing through the allied lines, knowing Washburn would show it to Francisco Solano López. López was impressed by its accuracy and became convinced there was a traitor in his ranks who had sold the information to the allies. Suspicion fastened on his brother Benigno; in 1868 he was shot for treason.

(b) Observation balloons

Tethered balloon. In foreground, apparatus for making hydrogen.

On the initiative of the Emperor Dom Pedro II himself and the War Minister João Lustosa da Cunha Paranaguá, Marquess of Paranaguá, the Brazilian government contracted the Allen brothers, veteran balloonists of the American Civil War, to establish a balloon surveillance unit. They were recommended by Professor T. S. C. Lowe, formely chief aeronaut of the Union Army Balloon Corps. The brothers imported two balloons. These had cotton envelopes, which were varnished to make them gas-tight, and were filled with hydrogen, which was made by mixing iron filings with sulphuric acid. It was the first time aviation was used in South American warfare. The balloons did not fly freely: they were tethered by manilla ropes and could be maneouvred by teams of 30 men trained for the purpose.

To the exasperation of Caxias the iron filings had not been despatched from Rio de Janeiro, so lump iron had to be employed instead; hence the apparatus would not generate very much hydrogen. In consequence, ballooning was delayed, and the larger balloon, which could have carried more observers, was not used at all. The smaller balloon had a diameter of 8.5 metres (according to another source, 9 metres).

The first ascents were made in June and July 1867. In the second of those the balloon rose to 400-450 feet (120-130 m) and stayed up 2 hours. In the basket were Chodasiewicz and a Paraguayan scout. They could make out — for the first time — Humaitá's Quadrilateral (its 8 miles of trenchwork defences) and other features such as tracks through the esteros. However, although Caxias used the balloon on his flanking march, he would not allow it to be used in advanced positions, and the Paraguayans took to making grass fires to obscure the area with smoke. Altogether some 20 ascents were made.

Difficulties facing the besieged

A force of 20,000 to 25,000 men — the bulk of the Paraguayan army — defended Humaitá. They had to be fed. Cut off by swamp, it was a very difficult position to supply. Some supplies were brought in by steamships, or by a fleet of canoes, and landed by night to avoid the Brazilian navy, though the shipping was never enough.

Lack of customary vegetable food

Manioc, staple of the Paraguayan diet

The marshy soil was ill-adapted for growing the staples of the average Paraguayan's diet, manioc and maize; these were in short supply. The main foodstuff was poor quality beef. The unaccustomed fare caused dysentry amongst the troops, the biggest killer in the Paraguayan army.

Precarious meat supply

Fresh beef would not keep, nor could it be salted because salt was almost unprocurable. Hence beef was sent on the hoof. Cattle were driven towards Humaitá along a coastal road from the north. However, supplies were precarious, because parts of the route went through swampy terrain, and it flooded in winter.

To the north of the fortress was a large carrizal called Potrero Obella which effectively acted as a holding pen for cattle. Seemingly inpenetrable, it had a single opening by which the incoming cattle were secretly introduced; furthermore, a single exit by which they were taken out, as required, to feed the garrison at Humaitá. The discovery and capture of the entrance of Potrero Obella, see below, was therefore important.

Lack of dietary salt

Traditionally, Paraguay's salt was manufactured by women who extracted it from deposits at a place called Lambaré, but the war disrupted their activity and salt became almost unavailable, according to one source not being enough even in hospitals. Salt is lost by sweating and more so in diarrhoea (as in dysentry). Insufficient dietary salt causes weakness and, eventually, lethargy, apathy and final coma.

Medicines

There was a shortage of medicines, notably calomel (used for internal parasites) and laudanum (an opiate, the only known treatment for dysentry).

Clothing

There was a serious shortfall in production of clothing for uniforms. Winters can be cold in southern Paraguay and attempts were made to manufacture leather overcoats, but the damp cold weather made them unmanageably stiff. "The Paraguayan soldier was barefoot, ragged, and usually malnourished". It was noted that captured allied soldiers were immediately stripped of their uniforms.

Condition of troops

In September 1867 G.F. Gould a British diplomat passing through the lines at Humaitá reported:

The Paraguayan forces amount altogether to about 20,000 men, of these 10,000 or 12,000, at most, are good troops, the rest are mere boys from 12 to 14 years of age, old men and cripples, besides 1,000 to 3,000 sick and wounded. The men are worn out with exposure, fatigue and privations. They are actually dropping down from inanition... Many of the soldiers are in a state bordering on nudity, having only a piece of tanned leather round their loins, a ragged shirt, and a poncho made of vegetable fibre... A great part of them are still armed with flint guns.

Boy soldiers may seem an exaggeration, but it is confirmed by a López decree of March 1867.

Despite this Paraguayan soldiers fought bravely and well, added Gould:

The Paraguayans are a fine, brave, hardy and obedient race of men... They neither give nor accept quarter [mercy], even when wounded. Paraguayan wounded have been seen, when lying in the field almost in the agony of death, to stab any enemy wounded in reach. Others ... refuse pertinaciously to surrender, and have to be run through where they lie.

"Hunger continually stalked the Paraguayan soldiers" wrote Jerry W. Cooney. Already in 1866 the allies noticed that the corpses of Paraguayan soldiers were so emaciated that they could not be burned. This is corroborated by a British pharmacist doing duty in the hospitals of Asunción: he said the wounded from Humaitá who died there dried up without decomposition. For Professor Cooney, it was the lack of food that doomed the defenders of Humaitá.

The flanking march

Tuyu-Cué

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Allied attack on Estabelecimiento/Cierva redoubt

(Battle of Laguna Cierva)

Passage of Humaitá

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The siege

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López escapes with the bulk of his army

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Final capture and destruction of Humaitá

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Significance

When Paraguay's President López had given orders to attack the Empire of Brazil in November 1864, thus launching the 5-year war, he knew he was taking on a country vastly bigger than his own. But he thought Brazil could do little by way of retaliation, so inaccessible was Paraguay. The fortress of Humaitá (which he himself had done so much to strengthen during his father's presidency) blocked access through the river Paraguay, probably the only practicable route by which his country might be invaded. When Charles Washburn American envoy to Paraguay expressed surprise that López had dared to attack Brazil, López had replied:

Paraguay was a small power ... but she had advantages of position that gave her an equality of strength with any of her neighbors. Every soldier that Brazil might send against Paraguay must be brought thousands of miles and at great expense... Besides [Paraguay] would be already fortified and intrenched before the Brazilians could arrive in any considerable numbers, and then, having shown the world their strength, and demonstrated to Brazil that they were not to be conquered except at ruinous cost and sacrifice, the Imperial government would be glad to treat for peace on terms highly advantageous to Paraguay... The war could not last but for a few months.

Thus when Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay signed the Treaty of the Triple Alliance against Paraguay their military agreed that the destruction of Humaitá should be the principal object of the war, to which every other consideration must be subordinated.

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