Battle of Curupaytí

Battle of Curupaytí

Part of: Triple Alliance War

Attack on the positions at Curupaytí. The picture (taken at the end of the 1890s) shows the battle from the perspective of the Paraguayan defenders.

date	September 22, 1866
place	Río Paraguay , between Curuzú and Humaitá , Paraguay
output	Paraguayan victory
consequences	Provisional defense against further Brazilian-Argentinian offensive advances in the direction of Humaitá (until spring 1867). Despite heavy losses by the allies, however, no improvement in Paraguay's strategic position.

Parties to the conflict
Paraguay	Brazil Argentina
Commander
José Eduvigis Díaz	Joaquim Marques Lisboa Bartolomé Miter
Troop strength
5,000 soldiers 49 guns (on land) improvised mines	20,000 soldiers 4 armored ships 2 mortar ships 6 gunboats 6 transport ships
losses
54 killed 196 wounded 1 gun destroyed	1,461 killed 3,591 wounded 3 ironclad ships damaged

The Battle of Curupaytí was a battle fought during the Triple Alliance War between Paraguay on the one hand and Argentina and Brazil on the other in September 1866. An army force composed of Argentine and Brazilian troops, supported by Brazilian river combat ships , tried the strong Paraguayan Fort Curupaytí on the bank to defeat the Paraguay River . The attack on the fort, which was part of the fortress complex Humaitá -Curupaytí, failed with heavy losses for the attackers. The allies had to postpone their further offensive plans on the Río Paraguay northwards for almost eight months.

prehistory

Around three weeks before the attack on the Fort of Curupaytí, Brazilian units had been able to achieve their first success against the Paraguayan defensive reduit off Humaitá as part of their advance on the Paraguay River to the north near Curuzú . Since the new Brazilian armored ships in particular had proven to be very successful here and their own losses had also been comparatively low, the leadership of the allies hoped for a similarly quick success with Curupaytí. Although this fort was much stronger than the one at Curuzú - which was known to the allies - the Brazilians had since been reinforced by Argentine troops and two new mortar vehicles , which made a similar success seem possible.

The Paraguayan Defense

The Fort of Curupaytí was, compared to the earthworks at Curuzú, better and more spacious with parapets . Furthermore, numerous guns were not only entrenched , but also camouflaged and some of them were in covered positions. As a result, the artillerymen were protected much more effectively against shrapnel detonating in the air (this had caused a large part of the Paraguayan casualties off Curuzú).

The Fort of Curupaytí had a total of 49 guns, including around two dozen 32-pounders, five light 12-pounder field guns and eight heavy 68-pounder Lancaster cannons of British origin. These heavy artillery were able to fire a grape shot specially developed by the Paraguayans (consisting of around 30 iron balls with a diameter of up to 50 mm). After the defeat at Curuzú, around 1,700 soldiers were also ordered as reinforcements from the main fortress Humaitá to Curupaytí, which means that the fort's garrison now numbered around 5,000 men. To improve the defense, the local commander, General José Eduvigis Díaz, also had a 2,000-meter-long neck ditch (about three meters wide and two meters deep) built, which largely shielded the land side of the fort. In addition, obstacles made of felled trees and sharpened wooden stakes were created in the run-up to the defense lines. The Paraguayan troops comprised seven infantry battalions, four smaller but combined cavalry regiments (under Capitán Bernardino Caballero) and a mixed battalion .

Side elevation or schematic representation of the Paraguayan positions at Curupaytí (left the covered positions, in front of the neck ditch).

The Allied Forces

The II. Brazilian Army Corps (2º Corpo do Exército Brasileiro), which was victorious at Curuzú, had been reinforced to around 11,000 soldiers in the first weeks of September. In addition, around 9,000 Argentine soldiers from the 1st and 2nd Argentine Army Corps (1º & 2º Corpo do Exército Argentino) had arrived in Curuzú since the second week of September. General Wenceslao Paunero commanded the 1st Army Corps . The II Army Corps was under the command of Bartolomé Miter , the president of Argentina, who was supported by the experienced generals Emilio Miter and Wenceslao Paunero. The commander in chief of the Brazilian corps was Almirante Joaquim Marques Lisboa (Marquês de Tamandaré). Subordinate to him was the commander of the army, General Antonio Paranhos. In total, the Allies had 21 infantry brigades, two cavalry brigades and two mixed light brigades .

The river forces, consisting entirely of Brazilian units, comprised the three modern armored ships Brasil , Barroso and Tamandaré , the turret armored ship Lima Barros , the two new mortar ships Forte Coimbra and Pedro Afonso - each equipped with a 70 pounder Whitworth gun - the three (unarmored) larger gunboats Ipiranga , Belmonte and Parnaiba as well as three smaller gunboats. Similar to Curuzú, this flotilla was supposed to bring down the guns of the fort and thus enable the attacking land troops to storm the defenses.

The battle

On the morning of September 22nd, around 7:00 a.m., the Brazilian river forces approached the fortress and began bombarding the Paraguayan installations for almost five hours. Almost at the same time, the Curuzú assembled land troops of the allies started moving north, with the Brazilians forming the left wing and the Argentine troops forming the right wing of the army, and slowly advancing to Curupaytí, about six kilometers away.

The failure of the naval attack

Although the Brazilian ships fired around 5,000 shells and shrapnel at the fort within five hours , the artillery fire remained largely ineffective, only one of the fort's guns was put out of action. On the one hand, the Paraguayan fortifications against the detonating in the air shrapnel were very well protected, on the other hand remained the Brazilian ships - for fear of near shore on stilts attached River mines (the loss of the battleship Rio de Janeiro before Curuzú worked here even after) - a comparatively large Distance to the fort, which, however, reduced the accuracy. In addition, the Paraguayans only used around 20 of their guns against the opposing flotilla - the remaining cannons were held back in camouflaged positions by order of General Díaz - which left the impression with the Brazilians that the fort was not as heavily armored as assumed and was largely destroyed after the bombardment. This fatal misjudgment was to turn the actual attack of the army troops into a fiasco a short time later.

Brazilian armored cannon boats during the bombardment of Curupaytí.

The assault

Shortly after 12:00 p.m. and after the bombardment by the river fleet had stopped, around 8,000 soldiers of the allies - the army had been divided into two storm waves - stormed the fort at Curupaytí. The attack was initiated by the Argentines on the right wing. The Paraguayans, whose lines were practically still fully operational, opened fire with all available (and also with the camouflaged) guns, with the grapeshots of the heavy 68-pounders claiming terrible victims among the attackers. Hundreds of soldiers were literally shredded or mowed down in advance of the fort's neckline. The defensive fire was so heavy that only about 70 to 80 soldiers of the allies were able to penetrate as far as the Paraguayan positions. In view of the terrible losses of his Argentine troops, Bartolomé Miter ordered the cessation of all further attacks at around 2:00 p.m. The planned attack at the second meeting of the allies was also canceled. Around half of the soldiers in the first wave of attacks were dead or wounded on the battlefield by noon.

The allies withdrew a short time later in the direction of Curuzú. The march back turned out to be relatively disorderly. The last units to secure the retreat - Brazilians of the 1st Infantry Brigade - some of whom were wounded, did not arrive there until around 5 p.m. The battle came to an end through this, also because the Paraguayans did not pursue the retreating enemy. (The order not to pursue the chase had been given directly by Francisco Solano López , who wanted to avoid unnecessary losses after the lossy defeat at Curuzú. However, this prevented General Díaz from causing an even more severe defeat for the withdrawing opponent.)

The victims

The battle of Curupaytí was a heavy defeat for the allies: 1,461 of around 20,000 soldiers (1,039 Argentinians) were killed and 3,591 (2,002 Argentinians) were wounded. In total, around a quarter of the entire army was lost. It should be noted that the number of those killed includes the number of those missing (66 in total, including ten Brazilians and 56 Argentinians). (This is also maintained in the statistics of the information block.) In addition, three ships of the river flotilla were damaged by artillery fire.

In return, the Paraguayans suffered only very few losses (54 killed, 196 wounded). Only one gun in the fortress had been destroyed. The Curupaytí fort remained largely operational.

aftermath

The debacle before Curupaytí caused some political and military upheaval among the allies. On the one hand, Marechal Luis Alves de Lima e Silva (Duque de Caxias) became the new Commander-in-Chief of the Brazilian Armed Forces in Paraguay in October 1866 (thus effectively replacing the Marquês de Tamandaré), on the other hand, unrest and uprisings occurred in Argentina from autumn 1866 - also a consequence of the heavy losses in Paraguay (the troops of the allies were hit by a cholera epidemic in the autumn of 1866 , which caused additional casualties) - which forced President Miter to use part of the army units (around 4,000 soldiers) to secure the rear to withdraw from the front. As a result of this internal weakening of the ally, Brazil in turn had to make a greater effort to provide troops. This, and the cholera outbreak that lasted until the beginning of 1867, meant that the allies could only resume their offensive against Curupaytí and Humaitá eight months later.

Assessment of the battle

Even if the defense against the attack by the allies at Curupaytí represented a clear tactical success for the Paraguayans - also when measured against the heavy losses of the Brazilian-Argentine units (in terms of percentage of casualties, it was the allies' defeat with the most losses during the entire war) - , this defensive victory did not change anything in Paraguay's increasingly worsening overall strategic war situation. The initiative remained with the materially and personally superior allies, who then renewed the offensive on the fortress complex Curupaytí-Humaitá in the early summer of 1867, while the Paraguayans, who were increasingly struggling with an inadequate supply situation, remained in a purely defensive position.

literature

• Donato, Hernâni: Dicionário das Batalhas Brasileiras . Editora Ibrasa. São Paulo 1996.
• Doratioto, Francisco Fernando Monteoliva: Maldita Guerra: Nova História da Guerra do Paraguai . Companhia das Letras. São Paulo 2002.
• Gratz, George A .: The Brazilian Imperial Navy Ironclads, 1865–1874 . In: Preston, Antony: Warship 1999-2000 . Conway Maritime Press. London 1999.
• Hooker, TD: The Paraguayan War . Foundry Books. Nottingham 2008.
• Muñoz, Javier Romero: The Guerra Grande: The War of the Triple Alliance, 1865-1870 . Decision Games. Bakersfield 2011.
• Rauch, George v .: Conflict in the Southern Cone. The Argentine Military and the Boundary Dispute with Chile 1870-1902 . Praeger Publishers / Greenwood Publishing Group. Westport (CT) 1999.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rauch, George v .: Conflict in the Southern Cone. The Argentine Military and the Boundary Dispute with Chile 1870-1902 . Praeger Publishers / Greenwood Publishing Group. Westport (CT) 1999, p. 98.
2. ^ Rauch: Southern Cone , p. 98.
3. ↑ Guillermo Lascano Quintana: Brigadier General Wenceslao Paunero. Un héroe desconocido . Lumiere, Buenos Aires 2008, ISBN 978-987-603-050-2 , pp. 95-103.
4. ^ Hooker, TD: The Paraguayan War . Foundry Books. Nottingham 2008, p. 63.
5. ^ Hooker: Paraguayan War , p. 63.
6. ^ Rauch: Southern Cone , p. 99.
7. ^ Hooker: Paraguayan War , p. 64.
8. ^ Rauch: Southern Cone , pp. 99f.