The Fortress of Humaitá (1854–68), known metaphorically as the Gibraltar of South America, was a Paraguayan military installation near the mouth of the River Paraguay. A strategic site without equal in the region, "a fortress the likes of which had never been seen in South America", it was "the key to Paraguay and the upper rivers". It played a crucial role in the deadliest conflict in the continent's history – the Paraguayan War – of which it was the principal theatre of operations.
The site was a sharp horseshoe bend in the river; practically all vessels wishing to enter the Republic of Paraguay – and indeed to steam onwards to the Brazilian province of Mato Grosso – were forced to navigate it. The bend was commanded by a line of artillery batteries, at the end of which was a chain boom which, when raised, detained the shipping under the guns. The navigable channel was only 200 yards wide and ran in easy reach of the artillery. The fortress was protected from attack on its landward side by impenetrable swamp or, where this was lacking, defensive earthworks which, at their greatest extension, comprised a system of trenches stretching for 8 lineal miles (13 km), had a garrison of 18,000 men and deployed 120 cannon. At its zenith Humaitá was reputed to be impassable to enemy shipping.
The widespread perception which it created in its heyday – that Paraguay was a country difficult to invade – may have induced its Marshal-President Francisco Solano López to take unnecessary risks in foreign policy and, in particular, to seize government vessels and provinces of the much more populous Brazil and Argentina and to send armies to invade them and Uruguay. They united against him in the Treaty of the Triple Alliance. The war led to his country's utter defeat and ruin and the casualties were immense.
A declared purpose of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance was the demolition of the Humaitá fortifications and that none others of that sort should be built again. However the fortress, though not by then invulnerable to the latest armour-plated warships, was a serious obstacle to the Allies' plans to proceed upriver to the Paraguayan capital Asunción and to recapture the Brazilian territory of Mato Grosso: it delayed them for two and a half years. It was taken in the Siege of Humaitá (1868), then razed pursuant to the Treaty.
For present-day Paraguayans, Humaitá is a symbol of national pride, standing for their country's unyielding will to resist.
Motives for its construction
Key to Paraguay Paraguay is a landlocked country and for much of its history it was difficult of access, except by sailing from the Atlantic up the River Paraná and hence the River Paraguay (see map)The map was published in Thompson, 1879, Plate VIII. as the early Spanish explorers had done. There were other means of ingress, but they would have required an invading force to be resupplied through difficult and hostile country. So the command of the river was key to the security of Paraguay, who feared and distrusted its two much largerBefore the War Brazil's population was about 10 million; Argentina's, about 1.5 million; Paraguay's, possibly 300–400,000: Bethell, 6. neighbours Brazil and Argentina.
Anxiety about the Brazilian Empire In a long history of conflicts between the empires of Portugal and Spain in America, the Portuguese made numerous incursions – some of them permanent – into Spanish-claimed territory. Slave raids by Bandeirantes (frontiersmen from what is now Brazil) into the Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay carried off many Guaraní inhabitants, who feared and despised the Brazilians. The boundaries between the two empires were not resolved and the conflicts continued after independence, when Portuguese America became the Empire of Brazil. Brazil had no practical access to its own territory of Mato Grosso except by sailing from the Atlantic Ocean up the River Paraguay (see map);So much so, that until 1910 (when a railway link was constructed between São Paulo and Cuiabá, capital of the Mato Grosso), the long sea and river journey through the South Atlantic ocean, the Paraná and the Paraguay was the shortest practical route to the territory: Doratioto, 26. fear that Paraguay might interfere with the navigation was a source of conflict. Where Paraguay ended, and where the Brazilian Mato Grosso began, was a matter of opinion.
Anxiety about Buenos Aires The Spanish Viceroyalty of the River Plate occupied an enormous territory roughly coterminous with the modern-day territories of Bolivia, central and northern Argentina,It also claimed Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands (Malvinas). Paraguay and Uruguay. Although it did not exist for very long (1776–1810) the Spanish Viceroy had his seat in the city of Buenos Aires. Upon becoming independent from Spain the city claimed and thought itself rightly to be the capital of an identical territory it called the United Provinces of South America. Other provinces – especially Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay – begged to differ and the Viceroyalty broke up in acrimony and warfare. In particular, Buenos Aires did not recognise the right of Paraguay to act independently and in 1811 sent an army under General Manuel Belgrano to prevent it, without success. The Buenos Aires governor Juan Manuel Rosas, "who viewed Paraguay as an errant province" during his dictatorship (1835–52) tried to bring Paraguay to heel by closing the River Paraná to commercial traffic (see Battle of Vuelta de Obligado). Buenos Aires province fell out with the other provinces of the Argentine Confederation and declared itself the independent State of Buenos Aires; it did not recognise Paraguay's independence even after the others had. It was not until quite late in the nineteenth century (1859) that a re-united Argentina formally recognised an independent Paraguay. Even so, the boundaries between Argentina and Paraguay were in dispute, notably the Chaco and Misiones territories.
Defensive outlook of Paraguay Upon its independence in 1811 Paraguay tried to keep out of the anarchy of adjoining Hispanic America. Its dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (1820–1840) imposed a strict policy of isolation. During his reign few were allowed to enter Paraguay, or to leave it. Professor Williams' assessment: "In an attempt to coerce Paraguay economically and bring it to its knees, Buenos Aires only stiffened Paraguayan nationalism and produced a voluntary, xenophobic isolation of the breakaway province".
After Francia's death he was succeeded by Carlos Antonio López, (called 'López I' by some authors,For example, Thompson. a convenient if inaccurate designation), the father of Francisco Solano López ('López II'). López I did open up Paraguay to foreign trade and technology,Williams, 1971, chs. 6–7. but the steamship made his country vulnerable to invasionSailing vessels could take 6 months to sail from Buenos Aires to Humaitá: Burton, 295 and he understandably feared the machinations of his powerful neighbours.
During his presidency there were conflicts, not only with Brazil and Buenos Aires, but also the United States: the affair of 1855 in which the fired upon an American warship, which led to a US naval expedition against Paraguay in 1858.Williams,1979, ch 10. Although Carlos López was astute enough to know when to back down, he resolved to make Paraguay immune to foreign attack in future.
Immediate cause of its construction
In 1777, in colonial times, a modest guardia (fortlet or lookout post) was established at Humaitá, a place about 15 miles above the mouth of the River Paraguay. However, a more formidable version was built in stages on the orders of López I. He started the work hurriedly in 1854 during conflict with Brazil over boundaries and navigation, when Paraguay was threatened by a Brazilian flotilla; fortunately for López, the Brazilians were delayed by the low state of the river. The Paraguayan author and diplomat Gregorio Benítes − who was in the Paraguayan army at the time − gives a different explanation. López I, hearing the Brazilian squadron was on its way, immediately transferred 6,000 troops from Paso de Patria to Humaitá; working night and day, in 15 days they fortified that place, including furnaces for making red hot cannonballs.Warships at that time were always of wood. The Brazilian squadron desisted because of the strength of the fortifications; the low state of the water is mentioned only incidentally. Thomas Jefferson Page USNThe commander of USS Waterwitch, which vessel explored the region in the 1850s. wrote an independentBenites' version was not published until 1904; Page's version was published in 1859. account that tends to confirm Benites' version.Wrote Page: "The river defense [Humaitá] was pushed on with great rapidity, and is of such strength that I believe it might have arrested the ascent of the squadron... The expedition was at that time a failure".
Initial works To a design by the Hungarian colonel of engineers , he hastily fortified the river's left bank with a few batteries, which were continually but slowly augmented, and a trench was dug on the land side enclosing the rear of them. He felled the virgin forest, leaving only a few scattered trees, grubbed up the roots, and laid out the first batteries, to whose completion some two years were devoted. By January 1859 the installation appeared formidable. As described by an eyewitness aboard , part of the Paraguay expedition sent by President Buchanan to demand reparations for wrongs alleged to have been done to the United States
Sixteen ominous apertures pointed their gloom, and whatever else they may contain, upon us; and, like the eyes of the figure in the picture, seemed to follow the vessel's motion ... These apertures are those of the casemate battery, constructed of brick, but very deep, and defended by the very formidable battery of sixteen eight inch guns. Numerous other batteries were noticed. Fulton, having left the rest of her squadron behind, was allowed to proceed upriver.
The works, which were continually extended, were supervised by British engineers, of whom there were a considerable number on contract to the government of Paraguay.
Description of the finished fortress
Location The fortress of Humaitá was situated on a level cliff about 30 feet (10 metres) above the river, on a sharp horseshoe bend. The bend, called the Vuelta de HumaitáHumaitá bend. was an ideal strategic pinch point. It was some long; the navigable channel narrowed to only broad; the current was and in places , difficult for the ships of the day to stem; and (a matter that was to horrify the Brazilian navy) ideal for the release of 'torpedoes' (nineteenth century floating naval mines).
An unpleasant surprise for an invading flotilla was that, owing to the peculiar conformation of the river bed, there were "treacherous backwaters which often neutralize the action of the rudder, in direct proportion to the length of vessels".According to Artur Silveira da Mota, (Baron Jaceguai, commander of the Brazilian ironclad Barroso, who tried it), cited in Tasso Fragoso III, 409. (Wikipedia translation.)
First impression The explorer Captain Sir Richard Burton, who visited the scene during the war – when the Brazilians were still dismantling the fortifications – described it thus: