Marquis de Olinda - Paraguayan war

[vawarner]

Does any one have any information of the Brazilian sidewheel packet
Marquis de Olinda. This was the ship, whose capture started the
Paraguayan war. I know its tonnage(300 hundred tons), its armament(6
32lb smoothebores) and what happend to it in the battle of Riachuelo,
but nothing as to what it looked like. Any ideas?

Regards

William Warner
Norfolk VA
[/i]

[Paulrjordan]

I was hoping our member from Brazil, Alvanir, would be able to throw a
little light on this Brazilian sidewheeler as he is extremely
knowledgable and has prepared plans for many of them. Alvanir?

PJ

[Alvanir B de Calvanho]

Hi there, Paul, and all of our colleagues from the Paddleducks group.

Paul said that "he was hoping our member from Brazil, Alvanir, would be able
to throw a light on the Brazilian sidewheeler Marquês de Olinda."

Well! To my own disapointment, there is not much to be said or shown, reason
why I kept my silence until now.

Aside to the fact that the Marquês de Olinda was overtaken by the arbitrary
decision of the Paraguayan Dictator Solano Lopez, while peacefully crossing
the Paraguayan river on its normal course to the Brazilian Provincial State
of Mato Grosso, in a period of time in which there were no internal roads
connecting the different regions in my country, we have not much of a
description of that small and uninportant ship. She was no more than a
pretext, the "causa belli", as the Romans created that terminology.

That non-provoqued incident, plus the subsequent invasion of the Northern
part of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, forced Brazil to declare war against
Paraguay. Fortunately, the arrogance and self confidence of General Solano
Lopez resulted in his ordering his army to also invade the Argentinian
territory, in order to attack the Brazilian territory, therefore
contributing to the Argentine Government to also declare war against
Paraguay, followed suite by the Uruguayan Government. That was the origin of
the so called "Tripple Alliance against Paraguay".

The Paraguayan war was quite of a surprise to all concerned. In the year of
1864, when the war broke, Brazil had a small army of about 17.000 soldiers,
spreaded all over our vast territory, while Paraguay, according to a book by
the British Advisor Colonel Thompson, published a few years after the war,
is supposed to had about 80.000 men, concentrated in a small area. In
addition to that, Brazil had had war against Argentine, less than ten years
earlier, and at that time we had an army invading Uruguay, in support to a
local leader.

We should also point out the psychological aspects of that war: in Brazil,
we speak Portuguese while all of South America speaks Spanish. During the
colonization period, the friction between Portuguese and Spaniards were
quite frequent, therefore resulting on a certain unfriendly and suspitious
behavior, from part to part. Therefore, had we entered a one sided war
aginst Paraguay, we would certainly being facing the opposition of the
"Spanish speaking countries" of the region.

At the end of the war, Brazil had massed about 100.000 men into the fight,
while Argentine had sent no more than 10.000 men and Uruguay less than
1.000. However, we were "allies" and we could use their harbours and
territory as men and ammunitions depot, as well as market supply for food
and other needed commodities.

The Paraguayans fought bravely a lost cause, which resulted in the
destruction of their country. So many able men were dead that the new
Government allowed anyone that could support more than a wife to marry as
many wooman as they would see fit. As a matter of fact, lots of the
Brazilian army and naval personel also married Paraguayan girls.

Now! Back to the Marquês de Olinda: after that ship was taken by the
Paraguayans, Solano Lopez ordered her to be armed with four 32 pounds guns,
replaced the Brazilian crew with Paraguayan sailors as well as British
mercennary mechanics and sent her down the river to attack the Brazilian
naval force in what is knowned as the Naval Battle of Riachuelo ( 11 of June
1865 ) when that ship, under a new name, given by the Paraguayans, was sunk
by the Brazilian wooden frigate AMAZONAS.

Alvanir

[Paulrjordan]

Hi Alvanir:

Good to hear from you again, and thank you for such a fascinating
account.

So it seems that "Marquês de Olinda" was in fact sunk by our beloved
"AMAZONAS"..I didn't realize this...now there's a coincidence...

(For all you others there are pictures of a model of "AMAZONAS" in our
files under "Paddlers from Brazil" which Alvanir kindly provided.
Alvanir has drawn up plans of her.)

Now, Alvanir, you havn't mentioned if you are currently working on any
modeling projects..would love to hear if you are..even non-paddler
ones!!!

Thanks again for all the info.

PJ

[John Roberts]

Good Morning, Alvanir,
Many thanks for the history lesson. We, in theUS have an extremely limited knowledge of your history and are grateful for the additional knowledge.
Happy Modeling!
John

[Alistair Deayton]

Do you have any information on any still existing paddle steamers in Brazil

1) Are there any still on the Rio Sao Francisco, either operating, or in
static use.

2) James Rees of Pittsburgh built a batch of about 12 for the Amazon in
1912-13. Some of these were still listed in Lloyds Register a year or two
back, although that stated that they had screw machinery. Do you know
anything of these steamers and their eventual fate.

Alistair Deayton
Paisley
Scotland

[Alvanir B de Calvanho]

Hi there, folks,

Back to the Marquês de Olinda incident, I thought you may appreciate the
picture attached to this message in which one of the participants of the
fight tryies to represent the moment in which the Brazilian frigate Amazonas
sinks, with her bow, the Marquês de Olinda, now armed with guns by the
Paraguayans and sent down the river against the main concentration of the
Brazilian naval forces.

Alvanir