alternatehistory.com

First a long (and extremly biased) historical introduction:

In 1850, Argentina was rulled by Rosas. Rosas was formally just the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, provisionally in charge of the foreign relations of the Confederacy. But, in practictice, he was the supreme ruler of the country. He had invented a formula that would proved very succesfull a century later, not only in Latin America: it combined the ideas of order, social conservatism, anti-liberalism, nationalism, idealization of a mythical past (in his case, the colonial society), control of the church and (and this was the new element) support form the masses. Rosas atacked modernizers as “Europeizantes”, that is, people who wanted to introduce ideas that would destroy the traditional way of life of the country. He knew how to get support (or, more precisesly the “respect”) of the masses of gauchos, mestizos and blacks. Many of the members of these groups didn’t see any concrete benefits in the Liberals’ projects[1]. They didn’t see what benefit secularization, division of power, commerce or European immigration would bring them. All they knew was that those who advocated these reforms where members of the upper classes who dressed as European, talked like Europeans and looked down them. Rosas, instead, was seen as “one of them”, a man of the people, who spoke like them and dress like them.

Despite numerous rebelions, Rosas had managed to effectively control the whole country by 1850. He didn’t recognised the independence of Paraguay and Uruguay. In fact, he effectively controlled most of Uruguay through Oribe, an Uruguayan caudillo who answered to him. He was feared (or “respected” if you prefer) from the tents of the Amerindian Chiefs in the pampas to the british House of Commons (Britain and France had negotiated a favourable treaty with him two years before).

There was, however, a a city with constituted an obstacle to his complete control of the River Plate: Montevideo. The city had been under-siege for seven years, but still held, getting supplies through the River. Those Argentinians who were against Rosas’s “way of dealing with public affairs” had fled to Montevideo. From there, with the help of Uruguayan leaders, they had organised, supported or directed a series of rebelions and/or invasions against Rosas government. By 1850, however, Rosas had placed loyal governors in all Argentine province, and had streched the siege around Montevideo.

Some historians [2] argue that, having already assured internal peace, the next step in his mind was a war with Brazil, which, in case of a victory, would imply the formal re-anexation of Uruguay (and maybe even Paraguay) to the Confederacy. In 1850, Rosas had an army of more than 20.000 well preapared soldiers. Brazil (according to this same historian) didn’t.

IOTL, this war didn’t took place, because Urquiza, governor of Entre Ríos, got fed up with Rosas’ tyranical rule and decided to ally with his enemies: Montevideo and Brazil. Brazil invaded Uruguay, the siege was broken, and an army compossed by Entrerrianos, Argentine exiles, Uruguayans and Brazilians (“Ejército Grande”) invaded Buenos Aires and defeated Rosas at the Battle of Caseros (3/02/1852). This would in tern lead to the Argentina we all know: smaller, but open to immigration and modernization, secular, and looking more towards Europe (meaning France or Great Britain) than to its Hispanic and colonial traditions.


But what if Urquiza had stayed loyal, and gone to war with Brazil in 1850? Would he had won? What would the consequences of this victory be in the region?

[1] In a way, they weren’t that mistaken, because the way Argentina would eventually modernize during the second half of the XIX century wouldn’t bring these groups substantial benefits. On the countrary, many of them were largely marginalised from the wealth brought by modernization. Other groups, such as the big landowners or the newly arrived European immigrants, benefited more directly.

[2] Floria y García Belsunce
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