Each nation usually thinks that it is at least something (if not everything!) Better than others! The Chinese invented acupuncture, compass, silk, paper, gunpowder … The USA is the "cradle of democracy." There is even nothing to argue here: this is "the most democratic country in the world." France is an example of world fashion. Czechs have the best beer in the world. We Russians, in the eyes of world public opinion, have the best ballet in the world, a Kalashnikov assault rifle and Stolichnaya vodka, and we also had Gagarin, Dostoevsky and Gorbachev. Turkmens are the ancestors of all Turkic-speaking tribes, and they also have the best horses in the world (Arabian horses are also good, but not so hardy!), Turkmen brides have the largest number of traditional silver jewelry in the world, and they also have the Rukhnama. Ukraine … Well, even girls are already composing poetry about their own greatness, so there is no need to continue. The same, by the way, applies to those wars in which certain countries participated. We had the Great Patriotic War, but in South America … its own Great Paraguayan War, which is considered the longest, largest and most bloody military conflict on this continent. However, the story of all the events of this military conflict would require too much time and space. But one of his episodes simply cannot be kept silent, because this does not happen often in the history of wars!
“Breakthrough at the Umaita fortress in 1868. Artist Victor Merelles.
The reason for the war, which began on December 13, 1864 and ended on March 1, 1870, is the ambitions of the Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano Lopez, who at all costs decided to achieve access to the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, the coalition of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay opposed him, which did not smile at such a strengthening of Paraguay on the continent. At one time, H. G. Wells very rightly said that you have to pay even more for a clever ruler of a nation than for a complete dumbass! This applies to President Francisco Solano Lopez in the most direct way. No wonder he is considered one of the most controversial figures in history. For some, he is an ardent patriot of his homeland and a selfless leader of the nation, who did everything possible for the prosperity of his country and even sacrificed his life for her. Others argue that it was a tyrant dictator who led Paraguay to a real disaster, and even took with him to the grave more than half of its population.
And no matter how paradoxical it sounds, in this case both are right.
Already at the very beginning of the war, Lopez's army was defeated, and the fleet, no matter how bravely the Paraguayan sailors fought, was practically destroyed in the battle of Riachuelo. After all these defeats, the Paraguayans fought with the courage of the doomed, as Brazil sought to completely eliminate the military potential and industry of their country and nothing good was expected in this case. The enemy suffered losses, but the forces were unequal.
At the beginning of 1868, the Brazilian-Argentine-Uruguayan troops approached the very capital of Paraguay, the city of Asuncion. But it was impossible to take the city without the help of the fleet, although it was possible to approach it from the sea along the Paraguay River. However, this path was blocked by the fortress of Umaita. The allies had been besieging it for over a year, but they could not take it. The most unpleasant thing was that the river made a horseshoe-shaped bend in this place, along which the coastal batteries were located. Therefore, ships heading to Asuncion had to travel several kilometers under crossfire at close range, which was an impossible task for wooden ships.
But already in 1866 - 1867. the Brazilians acquired the first river battleships in Latin America - the Barroso-type floating batteries and the Para tower monitors. The monitors were built at the state shipyard in Rio de Janeiro and became the first tower battleships in Latin America, and in particular in its southern hemisphere. It was decided that the Brazilian armored squadron would climb the Paraguay River to the fortress of Umaita and destroy it with their fire. The squadron included small monitors "Para", "Alagoas" and "Rio Grande", a slightly larger monitor "Bahia", and casemate river battleships "Barroso" and "Tamandare".
It is interesting that Bahia was first called Minerva and in England it was built by order of … Paraguay. However, during the war, Paraguay was blocked, the deal was canceled, and Brazil, to the delight of the British, acquired the ship. Umaita at that time was the most powerful fortress in Paraguay. Construction began back in 1844 and continued for almost 15 years. She had 120 artillery pieces, of which 80 fired at the fairway, and the rest defended her from land. Many batteries were in brick casemates, the thickness of the walls of which reached one and a half meters or more, and some of the guns were protected by earthen parapets.
The most powerful battery in the Umaita fortress was the Londres (London) casemate battery, which was armed with sixteen 32-pounder guns, commanded by the English mercenary Major Hadley Tuttle. However, it should be noted that the number of guns did not correspond to their quality. There were very few rifled among them, and the bulk of them were old cannons that fired cannonballs, which were not dangerous for armored ships.
Battery "Londres" in 1868.
Therefore, in order to prevent Brazilian ships from entering the river, the Paraguayans stretched three thick iron chains across it, attached to pontoons. According to their plan, these chains should have delayed the enemy just in the range of his batteries, where literally every meter of the river surface was shot! As for the Brazilians, they, of course, learned about the chains, but hoped to overcome them after their battleships rammed the pontoons and those, having sunk to the bottom, pulled these chains along with them.
The breakthrough was scheduled for February 19, 1868. The main problem was the small supply of coal, which the monitors took on board. Therefore, for the sake of economy, the Brazilians decided that they would go in pairs, so that the larger ships would drive the smaller ones in tow. Thus "Barroso" was in tow on "Rio Grande", "Baia" - "Alagoas", and "Para" followed "Tamandare".
At 0.30 on 19 February, all three couplings, moving against the current, rounded a promontory with a high hill and reached Umaita. The Brazilians hoped that the Paraguayans would sleep at night, but they were ready for battle: the steam engines of the Brazilians were too loud, and the noise over the river spreads very far away.
All 80 coastal guns opened fire on the ships, after which the battleships began to respond to them. True, only nine cannons could shoot along the coast, but the quality advantage was on their side. The Paraguayan cannonballs, although they hit the Brazilian ships, bounced off their armor, while the elongated shells of Whitworth's rifled cannon, exploding, caused fires and destroyed the casemates.
Nevertheless, the Paraguayan artillerymen managed to break the towing cable connecting the Bahia with the Alagoas. The fire was so strong that the ship's crew did not dare to get out on deck, and five battleships eventually went ahead, and the Alagoas slowly drifted towards the direction from which the Brazilian squadron began its breakthrough to the enemy's capital.
The Paraguayan gunners soon noticed that the ship had no progress and opened concentrated fire on it, hoping that they would be able to destroy at least this ship. But all their efforts were in vain. On the monitor, boats were smashed, the mast was blown overboard, but they did not manage to pierce its armor. They failed to jam the tower on it, and by a miracle the chimney survived on the ship.
At the same time, the squadron that had gone ahead rammed and drowned the pontoons with chains, thus freeing its way. True, the fate of the Alagoas monitor remained unknown, but not a single sailor died on all the other ships.
Paraguayans take the Alagoas on board. Artist Victor Merelles
Meanwhile, the monitor was carried by the current beyond the bend of the river, where the Paraguayan guns could no longer reach. He dropped anchor, and his sailors began to inspect the ship. There were more than 20 dents from the cores on it, but not one pierced either the hull or the turret! Seeing that the enemy artillery was powerless against his ship, the monitor commander ordered to separate the pairs and … go on alone! True, in order to raise the pressure in the boilers, it took at least an hour, but this did not bother him. And there was no hurry, because the morning had already begun.
Monitor "Alagoas" in the color of the Great Paraguay War.
And the Paraguayans, as it turned out, were already waiting and decided … to take it on board! They threw themselves into boats and armed with sabers, boarding axes and boat hooks, they headed across to the enemy ship slowly going against the current. The Brazilians noticed them and immediately rushed to batten down the deck hatches, and a half dozen sailors, led by the only officer - the commander of the ship, climbed onto the roof of the gun turret and began firing at the people in the boats from rifles and revolvers. The distance was short, the killed and wounded rowers were out of action one after the other, but four boats still managed to overtake the Alagoas and from 30 to 40 Paraguayan soldiers jumped on the deck.
And here began something that once again proves that many tragic events are at the same time the funniest. Some tried to climb the tower, but they were beaten on the head with sabers and shot at point-blank range with revolvers. Others began to chop hatches and ventilation grilles in the engine room with axes, but no matter how hard they tried, they did not achieve success. Finally it dawned on them that the Brazilians standing on the tower were about to shoot them one at a time, as if the partridges and the surviving Paraguayans had begun to jump overboard. But then the monitor increased its speed, and several people tightened under the screws. Seeing that the attempt to capture the monitor failed, the Paraguayan gunners fired a volley that nearly destroyed the ship. One of the heavy cannonballs hit him in the stern and tore off the armor plate, which had already been loosened by several previous hits. At the same time, the wooden sheathing cracked, a leak formed, and water began to flow into the ship's hull. The crew rushed to the pumps and began to hastily pump out the water and did this until the ship, having covered a few kilometers, was thrown onto a beach in an area controlled by Brazilian troops.
Meanwhile, the squadron that had broken through up the river passed the Paraguayan Fort Timbo, whose guns also did not harm it, and already on February 20 approached Asuncion and fired at the newly built presidential palace. This caused panic in the city, as the government repeatedly declared that not a single enemy ship would break through to the capital of the country.
But here the Paraguayans were lucky, as the squadron ran out of shells! They were not enough not only to destroy the palace, but even to sink the flagship of the Paraguayan naval flotilla - the Paraguari wheeled frigate, which was standing here at the pier!
On February 24, Brazilian ships once again passed Umaita and again without losses, although the Paraguayan artillerymen still managed to damage the armor belt of the battleship "Tamandare". Passing the immobilized Alagoas, the ships greeted him with honks.
Battery "Londres". Now it is a museum with these rusty cannons lying next to it.
This is how this strange raid ended, in which the Brazilian squadron did not lose a single person, and no less than a hundred Paraguayans were killed. Then "Alagoas" was repaired for several months, but he still managed to take part in hostilities already in June 1868. So even a country like Paraguay, it turns out, has its own heroic ship, the memory of which is written on the "tablets" of its navy!
From a technical point of view, it was also a rather interesting ship, specially designed for operations on rivers and in the coastal sea zone. The length of this flat-bottomed vessel was 39 meters, width 8.5 meters, and a displacement of 500 tons. Along the waterline, the side was covered by an armor belt made of iron plates 90 centimeters wide. The thickness of the side armor was 10.2 cm in the center and 7.6 cm at the extremities. But the walls of the case themselves, which were made of extremely durable local perob wood, were 55 cm thick, which, of course, represented very good protection. The deck was covered with half-inch (12.7 mm) bulletproof armor, on which teak deck decking was laid. The underwater part of the hull was sheathed with sheets of yellow galvanized bronze - a technique very typical for the then shipbuilding.
The ship had two steam engines with a total capacity of 180 hp. At the same time, each of them worked on one propeller with a diameter of 1, 3 m, which made it possible for the monitor to move at a speed of 8 knots on calm water.
The crew consisted of 43 sailors and only one officer.
Here it is: Whitworth's 70-pound cannon on the Alagoas monitor.
The armament consisted of only one single 70-pound muzzle-loading Whitworth cannon (well, at least they would put a mitrailleuse on the tower!) With a hexagonal barrel heat, firing special faceted shells and weighing 36 kg, and a bronze battering ram on the nose. The range of the gun was approximately 5.5 km, with quite satisfactory accuracy. The weight of the gun was four tons, but it cost £ 2,500 - a fortune in those days!
It is also interesting that the gun turret was not cylindrical, but … rectangular, although its front and rear walls were rounded. It was turned by the physical efforts of eight sailors, turning the turret drive handle by hand, and who could turn it 180 degrees in about one minute. The turret frontal armor was 6 inches (152 mm) thick, the side armor plates were 102 mm thick, and the rear wall was 76 mm thick.
