Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/21

 opportunity of reading, and I have read with the utmost interest, “The War in Paraguay, with an Historical Sketch of the Country and its People, by George Thompson, C.E., Lieutenant-Colonel of Engineers in the Paraguayan Army, Aide-de-camp to President Lopez, &c.” (Longmans, 1869). By the kindness of the author and of the publishers the proofs were sent to me before they were made public, and I delayed for some time my own pages in order that Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson should take the precedence to which his knowledge of the subject, and experience of eleven years spent in hard labour and in actual field-service, entitle him. The two books, however, are by no means likely to clash. The “War in Paraguay” is semi-historical, treating of what the author witnessed during the hostilities. “Letters from the Battle-fields” is a traveller's journal of much lighter cast, and necessarily more discursive.

I have attempted also to sketch the campaign, than which, rightly explained, nothing can be more easily understood. It is composed of three great acts, and the following is the skeleton :*—

Act No. 1. President Lopez raises a force of 80,000 men and resolves to brook no interference on the part of the Brazil in the affairs of the Platine States. He engages in hostilities and he determines to be crowned at Buenos Aires Emperor of the Argentines. For this purpose he marches (April, 1865) two corps d’armée of 25,000 men under General Robles, and 12,000 men under Lt.-Col. Estigarribia, down the rivers Paraná and Uruguay, intending that they should rendezvous at Concordia or some central point and jointly occupy Buenos Aires. He himself

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 * The reader will kindly remember, that these pages treat only of the Paraguayan war in the south. Nothing is said touching the campaign in Matto-Grosso, and on the northern waters of the Paraguay river.