Good as being one of the few books in English on this war. I have been interested in this war ever since I read Woman on Horseback, a biography of Paraguayan president Francisco Lopez's Irish consort. The author does his bet to be objective about a war which till evokes intense emotions, especially in Paraguay, in which the Paraguayan president created a quite formidable amry and took on all his neighbors-- in fairness, initially he was intervening in a Uruguayan civil war and (according to another book, not this one) had some reason to think that the rival of Argentine president Sarmiento could prevent Argentina from intervening effectively. Even so, he knew he was taking on Brazil which had vastly greater resources and better opportunities for getting military supplies from Europe.According to this book, e hoped the Spanish population of Brazil's western province would join him (as a long revolt had just been suppressed there) but that again failed to happen. i was struck by how some of the strategy in this was resembled that of te just-concluded US Civil War. In particular Brazilian Marshal Caxias's Pykysry maneuver reminds me strongly of Grant's march around Vicksburg, while the battle of Cuyuti reminds me of Fredericksburg, though in that case it may be simply a matter of the inevitable result of trying to storm a strongly defended position. As usual with Osprey this book has a survey of the war (the most useful part for me) and pictures of soldiers with discussion of their uniforms (intended for hobbyists painting miniatures). That does not concern me, but other reviewers complained it showed too many dress uniforms and not enough field uniforms, which woud ave been what most soldiers would have worn if they had any uniforms at all --many did not in the later stages of the war, especially Paraguayans who are shown wearing a kind of traditional native kilt. ( )

The War of the Triple Alliance was a nasty affair among four nations in South America: Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Paraguay's crazy president and dictator Francisco Solano López who inherited the presidency from his father. Fearing the growing future strength of his neighboring countries, he kicked off a war against them all. As Paraguay is situated in a forsaken spot, it took the others quite some time to create, move and sustain effective armies there. Like the South in the American Civil War, López managed to inflict defeats against superior forces early in the war until he had fully exhausted the resources and the goodwill of his people. Paraguay suffered terribly for the senseless war, much more than the Confederacy. Any Southerner complaining about Sherman's march through Georgia might be well advised to have a look at what happened to Paraguay.

This Osprey MAA title offers an all too short introduction to the topic. It is simply not possible to give adequate coverage toa 6 year war of 4 nations in 48 pages. Osprey should have published it either as two MAA or a Campaign title(s). With fewer than 4 pages per army, the author can only list the basics of each army. The short text about the war also suffers from concatenation by squeezing multiple facts into single sentences. The maps included lack scales and are sometimes quite confusing. The most recent non-English publication listed in the bibliography dates from 1990. There must have been more recent publications produced for the ongoing bicentennial. The highlight of the title are the very vivid paintings by Giuseppe Rava. Get the booklet for the illustrations and because there isn't much else readily available in English. ( )