Conceived as a drama in five acts, with an interlude and an epilogue, this review of the War of the Triple Alliance emphasizes the tragic nature of Paraguayan history. Act One, “Expulsion from Eden,” is primarily a review of the Jesuit mission system and of Francia’s ascendancy. Act Two follows with an unbalanced account of Carlos Antonio and Francisco Solano López. Too much credit is given to the younger López for building Paraguayan strength before 1864, and too much space is allotted to Eliza Lynch. Act Three, “The Napoleon of South America?” reviews causes of the war, assesses relative resources, and summarizes the first military actions. Act Four, “Offensive and Defensive,” describes the conflict to Paraguay’s great victory at Curu-paity in 1866. The “Interlude” is a few pages of odds and ends ranging from activities behind Paraguayan lines to the Brazilian fiasco of the Camisão effort to recapture the Mato Grosso. Col. Carlos de Morais Camisão’s retreat from Laguna is the subject of Alfredo d’Es-cragnolle Taunay’s classic A retirada da Laguna. Act Five, “The Long Retreat,” combines battles for the cuadrilátero, the so-called conspiracy, the Cordillera campaign, and the end at Cerro Corá. The “Epilogue” swiftly bridges the gap from 1870 to the Chaco War without providing an adequate summation.
The author has put together a volume that will attract readers who might ignore works of sound scholarship based on archival research. However, no aspect of Paraguayan history, no part of the War of the Triple Alliance, receives adequate treatment in Tragedy of Paraguay. Among many untenable generalizations one may be selected for refutation: “It is the Chaco War that forms the natural conclusion to the story of Francisco Solano López and his Paraguay” (p. 276). The Chaco War led to treaties that finally ended the Bolivan-Para-guayan dispute over the Chaco Boreal, an area to which Bolivia had asserted her claims several years before the War of the Pacific left her with no access to the Pacific coast. The Paraguay of Francisco Solano López died with him at Cerro Corá, if not sooner.
The “Select Bibliography” shows a fair acquaintance with the literature but includes some peculiar choices, such as Henry Lyon Young’s Eliza Lynch Regent of Paraguay, and excludes the works of Efraím Cardozo, Augusto Taso Fragoso, L. Schneider, and the Archivo Mitre. Robert B. Cunninghame-Graham’s Vanished Arcadia is hardly an adequate substitute for Guillermo Furlong’s Misiones. Phelps makes references to archival material in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., to the Public Record Office in London, and to a small number of articles. However, he appears to have depended primarily upon a dozen or so prominent memoirs, such as those by George Thompson, George F. Masterman, Richard F. Burton, A. J. Kennedy, and Max von Versen, and upon such secondary works as those by Charles Kolinski, William E. Barrett, and Arturo Rebaudi.
Phelps is entirely correct in seeing the history of Paraguay as a tragic drama with tremendous human interest, but it is a drama that demands the genius of a very great dramatist, novelist, or historian. Until this genius appears, we shall continue to have such books as Tragedy of Paraguay, which, fortunately, is well written and generally accurate. The casual reader will find it interesting; the scholar can ignore it without loss.
