What if Paraguay won the War of the Triple Alliance?
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Date: 2022-07-15
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Comments and reviews: 9
Emanuel
As a Paraguayan myself, i will give my take: the war was far more complex, and far more gruesome than what people think, it was like those wars that were fought in order to maintain balance and that no country becomes too powerful.
Those strategies that you proposed were valid, but you had to remember that we were in some kind of Edo period, because we just recently opened up the borders for trade, and that we didn't have any relationship with any foreign power so we couldn't have bought anything, while our enemies had the support of United Kingdom, so as you said the only way we had to win was be aggressive and make them surrender before our cracks start to show, because them also had cracks, both Argentina and Brazil were unstable so if somehow we managed to win they would have collapsed or perhaps Argentina would had joined Paraguay and Uruguay to form an unified country as Juan Manuel de Rosas wanted.
Basically this is one of those cases where the winners write the history, simplifying everything to Solano bad, they got what they deserve so people don't pay attention to the fact that a genocide happened in order to establish democracy
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As a Paraguayan myself, i will give my take: the war was far more complex, and far more gruesome than what people think, it was like those wars that were fought in order to maintain balance and that no country becomes too powerful.
Those strategies that you proposed were valid, but you had to remember that we were in some kind of Edo period, because we just recently opened up the borders for trade, and that we didn't have any relationship with any foreign power so we couldn't have bought anything, while our enemies had the support of United Kingdom, so as you said the only way we had to win was be aggressive and make them surrender before our cracks start to show, because them also had cracks, both Argentina and Brazil were unstable so if somehow we managed to win they would have collapsed or perhaps Argentina would had joined Paraguay and Uruguay to form an unified country as Juan Manuel de Rosas wanted.
Basically this is one of those cases where the winners write the history, simplifying everything to Solano bad, they got what they deserve so people don't pay attention to the fact that a genocide happened in order to establish democracy
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Liam
You need to be more informed of te real story my friend, because Lopez wasn't that bad. His father had modernized the country a lot, till the point we were way more advanced than Argentina and Brazil because we where the first South American country that had telegraphs and railways and our economy was far better than the ones in Brazil and Argentina. The statistics show that the criminality in Paraguay was almost 0% comparing it with our neighbors. Anyway, you need to read all versions of the story and not only the ones that were written by the winners because they lied a lot about Paraguay. I can assure you that there are document that show that Brazil and Argentina where planing the entire war almost 10 years before it all happens and the hand of great Britains was behind all of this. READ MORE
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You need to be more informed of te real story my friend, because Lopez wasn't that bad. His father had modernized the country a lot, till the point we were way more advanced than Argentina and Brazil because we where the first South American country that had telegraphs and railways and our economy was far better than the ones in Brazil and Argentina. The statistics show that the criminality in Paraguay was almost 0% comparing it with our neighbors. Anyway, you need to read all versions of the story and not only the ones that were written by the winners because they lied a lot about Paraguay. I can assure you that there are document that show that Brazil and Argentina where planing the entire war almost 10 years before it all happens and the hand of great Britains was behind all of this. READ MORE
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John
My parents spent two years in Paraguay, and were discreetly amused by Paraguay's history: Lopez's incompetence (and his heroic status among Paraguayans, the period of polygamy, the lofty reputation of U. S. President Rutherford B. Hayes (known in Paraguay as Pray-zee-dayn-tay Ah-jayz.
I was a little disappointed that you made no reference to Paraguay's peculiar culture, with its extremely large Native population
Perhaps the actual point of deflection to this history is the American Civil War ending earlier, followed by the sale of military surplus to Paraguay? A brief flowering of empire for Paraguay might be a useful footnote in someone's ACW AltHist - a welcome alternative to another Confederate state of Cuba / Imperial Germany wins the Great War / dirigibles overhead timeline.
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My parents spent two years in Paraguay, and were discreetly amused by Paraguay's history: Lopez's incompetence (and his heroic status among Paraguayans, the period of polygamy, the lofty reputation of U. S. President Rutherford B. Hayes (known in Paraguay as Pray-zee-dayn-tay Ah-jayz.
I was a little disappointed that you made no reference to Paraguay's peculiar culture, with its extremely large Native population
Perhaps the actual point of deflection to this history is the American Civil War ending earlier, followed by the sale of military surplus to Paraguay? A brief flowering of empire for Paraguay might be a useful footnote in someone's ACW AltHist - a welcome alternative to another Confederate state of Cuba / Imperial Germany wins the Great War / dirigibles overhead timeline.
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bluepapaya
The coolest effect of the war of the Triple Alliance for me is that the Spanish speaking population of Paraguay was so totally depopulated that Guarani, the local native language, has survived uniquely well alongside Spanish. Paraguay is a bilingual nation, with Guarani being the lower status language of the home and Spanish being the high status language of the market. The joke goes that all Paraguayans speak Guarani and Spanish, but don't speak either well. (I apologize to any Paraguayans reading if that is offensive rather than playful. I honestly don't know either way) I guess what I'm saying is that the main difference between our timeline and this timeline is that my Sociolinguistics professor would have specialized in a language other than Guarani. :)
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The coolest effect of the war of the Triple Alliance for me is that the Spanish speaking population of Paraguay was so totally depopulated that Guarani, the local native language, has survived uniquely well alongside Spanish. Paraguay is a bilingual nation, with Guarani being the lower status language of the home and Spanish being the high status language of the market. The joke goes that all Paraguayans speak Guarani and Spanish, but don't speak either well. (I apologize to any Paraguayans reading if that is offensive rather than playful. I honestly don't know either way) I guess what I'm saying is that the main difference between our timeline and this timeline is that my Sociolinguistics professor would have specialized in a language other than Guarani. :)
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codecmgs
Whatifalthist. I am gonna have to speak a bit here about your view about the Paraguayan war. I do agree that Lopez was a looney dictator. However, at the time the economy of Paraguay was on top. It had one of the best economies and was pushing forward. Had Lopez won they would have continued to thrive. You also seem to think Lopez automatically decided one day to declare war on all 3 nations. That didn't happen. Multiple sources show that Argentina was neutral at the beginning. Also, you refer to puppet government in Uruguay under Lopez control in a what if scenario, yet you forget the multiple times Brazil had intervened in Uruguay's own political affairs. I request a serious redoing of this video.
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Whatifalthist. I am gonna have to speak a bit here about your view about the Paraguayan war. I do agree that Lopez was a looney dictator. However, at the time the economy of Paraguay was on top. It had one of the best economies and was pushing forward. Had Lopez won they would have continued to thrive. You also seem to think Lopez automatically decided one day to declare war on all 3 nations. That didn't happen. Multiple sources show that Argentina was neutral at the beginning. Also, you refer to puppet government in Uruguay under Lopez control in a what if scenario, yet you forget the multiple times Brazil had intervened in Uruguay's own political affairs. I request a serious redoing of this video.
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Kolubachar
Paraguay would likely stay neutral in the First World War. The fact that they have a German minority is somewhat irrelevant because barely any had any governmental or elitist influences. Not only this, but the most likely states to invest in Paraguay after their victory would probably be France and Britain. Dont forget as well that Argentina and Brazil were slightly German-aligned, as they had trade relations and their government had biases towards the German government and nation state. So the only two likely scenarios would be Paraguay stays neutral, or Brazil and Argentina call to Germany for aid to get revenge on their pesky La Plata neighbor.
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Paraguay would likely stay neutral in the First World War. The fact that they have a German minority is somewhat irrelevant because barely any had any governmental or elitist influences. Not only this, but the most likely states to invest in Paraguay after their victory would probably be France and Britain. Dont forget as well that Argentina and Brazil were slightly German-aligned, as they had trade relations and their government had biases towards the German government and nation state. So the only two likely scenarios would be Paraguay stays neutral, or Brazil and Argentina call to Germany for aid to get revenge on their pesky La Plata neighbor.
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education
it seem you dont really understand what really happen, you should perhaps research a bit more of why the war happened, the involvement of Britain, the secret treaty signed by Mitre with Brazil 6 years before the war and how they tricked Paraguay into a war because an empire needed to eliminate competition.
Paraguay never wanted a war with Argentina, and met Mitre to ask to step out of the war. what Lopez didnt know was that Mitre has signed a secret treaty, and if he would have convinced him, then the story would have been different, perhaps what if Mitre changed his mind and backed off would be more interesting.
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it seem you dont really understand what really happen, you should perhaps research a bit more of why the war happened, the involvement of Britain, the secret treaty signed by Mitre with Brazil 6 years before the war and how they tricked Paraguay into a war because an empire needed to eliminate competition.
Paraguay never wanted a war with Argentina, and met Mitre to ask to step out of the war. what Lopez didnt know was that Mitre has signed a secret treaty, and if he would have convinced him, then the story would have been different, perhaps what if Mitre changed his mind and backed off would be more interesting.
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ZayttseV
This remained me of an alternate history I thought about, with the Mexican general Santa Anna, who proclaimed to be the Napoleon of the West, actually being a military expert at the same level as the man who he compared to. He had a very interesting life, but his image has been severally twisted by most Mexican historians, and commonly remembered as a traitor by the people, and often forgotten how much he did. Obviously he had his bad aspects, but he was not the man who most people here in Mexico believe he was.
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This remained me of an alternate history I thought about, with the Mexican general Santa Anna, who proclaimed to be the Napoleon of the West, actually being a military expert at the same level as the man who he compared to. He had a very interesting life, but his image has been severally twisted by most Mexican historians, and commonly remembered as a traitor by the people, and often forgotten how much he did. Obviously he had his bad aspects, but he was not the man who most people here in Mexico believe he was.
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gillette
i doubt a lot argentina would have gave up the north provinces to paraguay no matter how many thousands, hundreds of thousands or in the unlikely case even millions of argentinians died as a result of the war we would have rather lost half our country than losing those provinces because there is where we grow our sacred trees of yerba mate and they are so special they can only be cultivated in red clay with high concentration of metallic minerals.
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i doubt a lot argentina would have gave up the north provinces to paraguay no matter how many thousands, hundreds of thousands or in the unlikely case even millions of argentinians died as a result of the war we would have rather lost half our country than losing those provinces because there is where we grow our sacred trees of yerba mate and they are so special they can only be cultivated in red clay with high concentration of metallic minerals.
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