Paraguayan War

The Paraguayan War, also known as the War of the Triple Alliance, was fought from 1864 to 1870 between Paraguay and an alliance of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, triggered by a regional power struggle over influence in Uruguay that drew in Paraguay's ruler, Francisco Solano Lopez. Despite early Paraguayan offensives into Brazilian and Argentine territory, the vastly more populous Triple Alliance gradually overwhelmed Paraguay's forces, and the war dragged on for years of grinding attrition even after Paraguay's initial armies had been destroyed, ending only with Lopez's death in battle in 1870. The war inflicted catastrophic losses on Paraguay, with widely cited demographic estimates suggesting a large share of its prewar population, including a substantial majority of adult men, died from combat, disease and starvation, along with the loss of significant territory to Brazil and Argentina in the postwar settlement. It remains the deadliest interstate conflict in Latin American history and left Paraguay economically and demographically devastated for generations.