THE NAVAL OPERATIONS IN THE PARAGUAYAN WAR.*
TOWARDS the end of 1863, Captain Kennedy was ordered out to the South American station to take command of Her Majesty's gunboat Spider,—a tiny little craft carrying one 100-pounder Armstrong, and looking, as he puts it, "all gun," then lying off Monte Video. After a month or two employed there, in company with his brother officers of the British Squadron, in eating bad dinners in stuffy hotels, with the thermometer at 100 deg., growling at the heat and vile 'smells of the town, strolling about the plaza, drinking matj, flirting, and falling victim to the many ingenious practical jokes in which the South American senorita of the period indulges at the expense of her admirers, he was suddenly ordered up the Parana, to watch over the interests of certain British subjects exposed to personal danger and risk of loss from the Paraguayan raids on Argentine territory, of the unpleasantness of which the residents had already had an opportunity of judging. The ascent of the Parana accomplished and all the dangers of paraperos —sudden squalls blowing from off the Pampas—eddying currents, shifting sand-banks, and cul-de-sac channels overcome, Captain Kennedy and his big gun anchored off Corrientes,—Corrientes, we may mention, for the sake of those of our readers whose South American geography is not quite up to the standard of Cannon Row, being a picturesque city, the third largest in the Argentine Confederation, founded by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, and beautifully placed on the Parana just below the junction of that river and its tributary the Paraguay. Even here, eight hundred miles from the sea, this . magnificent river is more than two miles broad, and Corrientes, from the natural advantages of its situation, being in full communication by water both with the sea and the interior of Brazil, served throughout the war as a naval and military depot for the allies, and an admirable basis for the naval operations in the Paraguay. As it turned out, Captain Kennedy was never called upon to intervene in any way on behalf of the interests of his countrymen, though much annoyed by the obstinacy of a handful of them, who evidently enjoyed having grievances to write about and a ship to protect them, and positively refused to remove themselves and property out of harm's way. During his stay, however, which extended over several months, he be- came intimately acquainted with many of the Argentine authorities and Brazilian naval °Ricers, and turned the local and personal knowledge thus acquired to good account, and by closely following the course of affairs after his return to England, be was enabled to compile a brief but concise and clearly told narrative of the main events of the war up to its virtual close in 1868. His views as to its origin and political bearings are naturally marked by a Brazilian bias, but with regard to the events of the war itself he simply speaks as a naval officer, feeling a keen interest in all matters connected with his pro- fession, and possessed of unusual facilities for gaining accurate in- formation as to the details of the naval operations in the Paraguay by which the war was virtually decided. On this point, indeed, his facts and observations arc worthy of the closest attention, as bearing upon what is now a most important department of national strength. It was Uncle Sam's web feet" that en- abled him over and over again to inflict heavy blows upon the Confederates, which, with one or two notable exceptions, they could neither ward off nor retaliate, and which contributed in great measure to cause their fival defeat. Ihe lessons taught by the events of the great war in North America were not lost upon the maritime empire of the South, even at the very commence- ment of hostilities. The Paraguayan fleet—all wooden ships— was so shattered in the first naval action as to be of little further use, desperately as those who manned it fought ; and for the mat of the struggle, while Lopez was shut out from any liCCO18iOn of naval strength, the Brazilians were recruiting their fleet from the yards on the Clyde, Mersey, and Thames, and, in fact, creating for themselves an ironclad navy specially constructed for the exigencies of the service for which they were required. When we contrast the melancholy failure of our Crimean gunboats, and the present weakness of our Navy in light - draught ironclad, with the sagacity and enter- prise of the Brazilian Government, which had to purchase its vessels 5,000 miles from the scene of action, we can only hope our Admiralty authorities will not fail to lay to heart the necessity for paying special attention to what may be termed the fluvial department of our Navy. Patting all other contingencies aside, • La Plata, Brazil, and Paraguay during the Present War. By Commander A J. Kennedy, R.N. Stanford. 1869. there is no nation so liable to be called upon suddenly for aggres- sive action in the great rivers of Asia as England, and a fleet such as that possessed by Brazil towards the close of the war, and described by Captain Kennedy, would be simply invaluable in such a case. Had half-a-dozen gunboats such as those with which Admiral Ignacio forced the passage of the Paraguay at Humaita been at our disposal in our Chinese and Burmese wars, they would have been far shorter, and far less costly both as regards men and money. And yet now, when we have the results of American and Brazilian experience before us, we doubt if the outbreak of a similar war would find us in a position to reap the benefits of its teaching. The doom of Lopez was virtually sealed when the first detachment of European-built iron- clads arrived in the Paraguay. Despite all the difficulties and dangers of the navigation, the rapid current, shifting sandbanks, and sud- den rises and falls of the river, the genius of Lopez and the desperate valour of his people were alike unavailing against a fleet of gunboats which could engage their strongest batteries, shell their entrenchments, cut off their water supplies, defy their most desperate efforts at capture by boarding, and break uninjured through the most formidable artificial obstructions to navigation. Two ships alone, for example, the Lima Barros and the Bahia, built by Messrs. Laird of Birkenhead, were almost sufficient to turn the scale in favour of the allies. The former was a twin screw, 1,340 tons, was plated with 41-inch iron, carried two 150-pound Whitworth guns in each of two Cowper Coles' turrets, drew 12 feet of water, and had made twelve knots at the measured mile. The Bahia was of the same school of construction, but had one turret only, with two 150-pounders and drew but eight feet of water. Then there were two gunboats built by Messrs. Rennie, of smaller tonnage, also twin screws, each carrying eight 70-pounders in two turrets, one at each end of the vessel, with a clear range in every direction. In consequence of their peculiar construction and lowness in the water, they had to be fitted with temporary wooden bows and sterns for their Atlantic transit. With boats like these, the passage of the batteries at Curupaiti and Humaita, formidable as they were, was but a question of time. The system ultimately adopted by the allies on both those occasions was admirably devised to ensure success. A picked squadron of vessels with heavy armaments and of light draught was selected to break through obstructions and run the gauntlet of ale fortifications, while the main body of the fleet, wooden vessels included, endeavoured to cripple, or at least to distract, the land batteries. So effective indeed were these tactics at liumaita, that the storming squadron was enabled to pass the forts in forty minutes, and with the loss of only ten wounded. The fortifications were so arranged that vessels ascending the stream were exposed to a terrific cross and raking fire at every point of their advance, some of the batteries being armed with 120-pounders. Advantage was taken of a sudden rise in the river to dash over the bights of the chain between the supporting barges before the Paraguayans had been able to tighten it by hauling on the rope which communicated through a tunnel with a capstan in Humaita. As at Curupaiti, however, the 41-inch plating proved ineffective to resist the heavier artil- lery of the enemy, and though a perfect protection against the smaller land batteries and the guns carried by the Paraguayan smaller wooden ships, it was to their speed and lowness in the water that the ironclads owed their impunity from damage. When they did get hit with shot of large calibre, the results were disastrous ; but it is no discredit to the gunnery of the Paraguayans that they were successful only in disabling two of the swift, low craft during their rapid dash past the batteries. The batteries once passed, the ironclads were of course able at once to cut off the supplies which Lopez had previously received from the Chaco side of the river, and thus virtually render Humaita untenable.
The Paraguayans, unable from the outset to cope with their adversaries in open naval engagements, appear to have relied as greatly upon fire-ships, torpedoes, and boarding attacks by night in their offensive operations against the allied fleet. Fire-ships, of course, were useless against ironclads, and although the allies stood in great dread of them on account of the danger to which their wooden ships were exposed, no great damage appears to have been done. Captain Kennedy, while the Spider was anchored at Corrientes, was under considerable apprehensions from this cause, and took every precaution to insure being able to get out of the way in case an attempt was made against the allied fleet stationed there but none of the numerous "fire-ship panics" ever resulted in anything. Torpedoes, which were used to a very great extent by the Paraguayans, seem
for some reason or other to have been singularly ineffica- cious. On one occasion a Brazilian boat's crew was destroyed while incautiously cutting adrift a torpedo from its moorings, and during the attack on Curupaiti, the Rio Janeiro, a 4f-inch plated casemate central battery, was shattered into fragments by a floating torpedo, numbers of which were launched higher up, and allowed to float down with the stream. It is true that on this same occa- sion the fleet was indebted in great measure for its safety to the pluck of Admiral Ignacio in choosing for the passage a dangerous channel close to the enemy's works, which the Paraguayans, never anticipating an attack from that quarter, had left unob- structed by infernal machines, fixed or floating. Altogether, the evidence as to the efficiency of torpedoes, as far as tested by Captain Kennedy, is far from conclusive either way, but as the question is one of paramount importance as affecting both fluvial warfare and harbour defences, the facts he has gathered are valuable. The Brazilian Admiral Tamandare reported that he had found an advance guard of boats provided with long grap- pling hooks and long ropes most serviceable in detaching the machines from the floats by which they were supported, but this plan is full of risk to those engaged in it, and manifestly could not be employed at the very times and places when danger from torpedoes is most to be apprehended. Heavy spars fitted to the bows so as to project some distance ahead were useful in some cases in exploding torpedoes clear of the ship. One thing at least is certain, that they failed from the first in inspiring amongst the allies that terror which they have been relied upon to produce in an attacking enemy. The night boarding attacks, so much re- sorted to by the Paraguayans, seem to have proved fruitless in every case, notwithstanding the desperation with which they were made. In most cases stout boarding-nets and a sharp watch were sufficient protection, and on the turreted ironclads the crew simply battened everything down and retreated into the turrets, whence they swept the deck with a small-arm fire through the loopholes, in the face of which any attempt to hold it was use- less. The fact seems to be that in river operations gunboats such as those of the allied fleet are practicably irresistible, except when opposed by a corresponding force of similar vessels, and in that case victory would probably incline to the side which exhibited most pluck and skill in using its ships as rams. In any case, however, should England have occasion to resort to warfare of the kind in any quarter of the globe, we trust that the lessons of the Paraguayan war will not have been thrown away upon us.
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