Imperial skirmishes - Andrew Graham-Yooll

Since the dawn of independence in the early nineteenth century, the South American continent has witnessed a series of conflicts, some short and small-scale, others long-lasting and extensive. Battles have been fought over serious issues--border disputes, trading disagreements and oil wealth--but blood has also been spilt over such seemingly trivial matters as manure and the result of a football match. Many such conflicts amounted to little more than sabre-rattling and cost little human life. But not all hostilities were small or trivial. More than 400,000 troops and civilians died in 1865-70 when Paraguay went to war with Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay in the continent's greatest military disaster. In this revised and updated edition of his acclaimed Small Wars You May Have Missed, Graham-Yooll also looks back at the Falklands War in the context of earlier foreign adventures in South America. Revealing for the first time the true extent of European involvement in Latin America's internal strife, this book captures the imperial ambitions, the belligerence and the incompetence of Victorian generals and profiteers.