Argentine Navy: Navy Colonel Juan Bautista Thorne

Navy Colonel Juan Bautista THORNE



The Thornes had ancient recorded origins in Europe and North America. One of the Thornes was among the first to settle on American soil; Enrique, the father of Juan Bautista, a naval engineer by profession as a ship captain, fought for the independence of the United States. Juan Bautista, son of Margarita Brayer and Enrique, was born on March 8, 1807.

He enlisted in the Argentine Navy that, under the command of Brown, was preparing Rivadavia to defeat the power of the Brazilian empire in the waters of the Plata. Discharged from the squadron on June 1, 1826, he went on to review with the rank of Midshipman and pilot on the warship Congreso, placed under the command of Fournier, whom the Brazilian newspapers called "Exterminator Ray." Shortly afterwards, at the beginning of 1827, he was assigned to the brig Chacabuco, which under the command of Santiago J. Bynnon, later second commander of the Argentine fleet, came from Chile to join the original fleet and was later to fight the heroic defense of Patagones.

That March 7, 1827, in front of the river bar that the enemy ships had tried to cross and the coastal battery that Admiral Pinto Guedes had ordered to be destroyed, a glorious action would be fought for Argentine naval weapons. Commander Bynnon, with the Chacabuco and the ships of his squadron, at dusk set out to board the Brazilian ships; He took the Escudeiro, fell on the Constança, and the brave Thorne jumped first onto the deck of the Itaparica to triumphantly raise the Argentine flag. The action earned him command of the brig Patagones, armed with two cannons and an 18-gun revolving wheel, which on December 23, 1827 engaged in combat with the sixteen-gun Brazilian brig Pedro II and was surrendered, while Thorne was wounded. shrapnel was taken prisoner and taken to the capital of the empire, from where he returned when peace was made with Brazil in 1828.

Returning to service, he joined the brig Balcarce, which at the beginning of the war had been Brown's flagship. While there, he received the rank of captain on February 23, 1830, and then obtained several assignments: in February 1831, He was transferred to the schooner Martín García, in September 1832 he reached command of the brig Republicano with which he carried out the Entre Ríos campaign, upon whose return he was promoted to Sergeant Major. In the schooner Margarita he undertook the campaign to the Colorado River in 1833, and in order to assist in the expedition of Don Juan Manuel de Rosas, he explored said river in the schooner Sofía. The following year he was part of the exploration cruises to the southern regions, and alternately commanded the schooner brig San Martín, the brig Republicano and the lugger Patriota.

Designated Commander of the Sarandí, he was entrusted with the mission of assisting the defense of Martín García Island, a task he completed to be transferred to command of the land artillery of said island, where on October 12, 1838, with a hundred braves Gauchos led by Gerónimo Costa sold their lives dearly in the single combat they fought against the blocking French squad. Thorne fought heroically and remembering the episode many years later he used to say:

"My grave should be Martín García, because there I fought defenseless and
even with anger when seeing my helplessness..."

Difficult days ensued. The fight between federalists and unitarians became bitter and persistent. Thorne, a foreigner, was unable to discern any slogans in his chosen homeland other than subordination and discipline. Destined to land service, he carried out the Entre Ríos campaign with Echagüe in 1839. He was in many combats, received numerous wounds, and in old age he could locate under the skin, in different parts of the body, the leads of the bullets received. When on April 15, 1841, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, he returned to place himself under the orders of Admiral Brown, he had to note in his service record that he had attended the war actions of Cagancha, Pago Largo, Don Cristóbal, Caaguazú , Yerúa, Sauce Grande and Punta Diamante.


Appointed commander of the brig General Belgrano in June 1842, he accompanied Brown in the campaign against Garibaldi; The Admiral continued going up the Paraná with the purpose of defeating the enemy, while Thorne had the mission of guarding the entry of reinforcements through the Plata, for which he had the second division of the fleet, made up of the 25 de Mayo and the General San Martín.

Assigned to the river defense service, on August 17, 1845 he was appointed commander of one of the three batteries located in the Vuelta de Obligado, in which position, a few months later, on November 20 of the same year he maintained with high courage and a tough fight against the blocking squad would be bizarre. The action having begun in the middle of the morning, Thorne's guns grumbled until late in the afternoon, and only ceased when the bullets had run out.

The brave opponent of the Anglo-French squadron obtained, perhaps in recognition of his previous services, the designation of Commander in Chief of the coasts of Paraná. From this position he directed the fortification of the Quebracho coast and fought some skirmishes against the blockading squad, in one of which he was wounded in the shoulder. Commander of the schooner Pontón in 1849, Caseros found him on February 3, 1852, commanding the boat Julio from which he descended to soon begin the path of political banning.

Erased from the military list he was forced to earn a living. Sea dog, as captain of a low-freight merchant ship, made many trips to India and worked in various tasks as a naval expert, until calmer spirits, the just and patriotic law of September 24, 1868, ended in general with the material sufferings and the moral agony of the brave combatants of the independence campaigns and the war against the empire of Brazil. The state remembered the helpless octogenarians who had founded the Republic and reparations were made.

Retired with the rank of colonel to the peace of the home, which he had formed by marrying María Abad. Thorne's existence came to an end at the age of seventy-eight, he suddenly fell ill and left life in his house in Tucumán Street, on August 1, 1885. His mortal remains were buried in the Dissidents cemetery. Twenty-two years later, in March 1907, on the centenary of his birth, a popular tribute commission honored him, and Dr. Pedro J. Coronado recalled his memory to say, among other things: "A century has passed since he was born on earth. "our hero misses, and his figure grows out of the cloud of passions and partisan mirage. Thorne chose his country and his destiny." The newspaper La Nación also expressed: "History owes him an illuminated page of heroism. Today, he belongs without hesitation to immortality."

Argentine Navy (c)

Argentine Confederation: Rosas' Gunsmith

Rosas' Gunsmith

Friedrich Nell (1819-1894)

Friedrich Nell was born in Baden-Baden, Germany in 1819. He was a man of great drive and aspirations who, after traveling throughout Germany in the early 1800s, settled in Buenos Aires before 1850.

Nell met the Indians in the area of large ranches of the time, in the vicinity of Dolores (Province of Buenos Aires). Later he moved to San Luis, working in the La Carolina gold mine; He settled in San Luis (Capital) and finally lived in Mendoza, in Alto Verde, near San Martín, where he died in 1894.

Despite not having been a professional – says Puntano geologist Lucero Michaut – he instilled in his children an interest in the German and French languages and in the positive sciences. He had Catholic religious convictions and always despised everything superstitious and lacking logical explanation. He was a man of great personal courage, forming what could be defined as a “guts gringo”, one of those who contributed to forming countries.”

Friedrich Nell arrived in the country around 1846 or 1847. He married in October 1850 in Buenos Aires María Theodore Elisabeth Polte, a German from Hannover, born in 1820, all the witnesses to their marriage being also German, which indicates that at the time There was already an appreciable flow of spontaneous German immigration, without counting men of science who arrived shortly after, from the hierarchy of Germán Burmeister, a true scholar in matters of natural sciences, organizer of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences “Bernardino Rivadavia”, and in whose In honor, an Argentine mosquito (Chunga burmeistari), whose popular name is chuña, has been named.

His daughter, Basilia Nell, born in Dolores, Province of Buenos Aires, was the wife of Dr. Adolphe Joseph Michaut, a prestigious French doctor who in 1866 was hired by the Ministry of War and Navy to provide services in the War of the Paraguay.

The informative material provided by Dr. Lucero Michaut includes the Memoirs of Don Carlos Michaut Nell (1) about his maternal grandparents, Friedrich Nell and María Polte, according to the stories he heard in his childhood from their mouths, in family wheel

German Gunsmith in Rosas Service

In the interesting “Memories” it is related that the Nell-Polte couple had an Artistic Blacksmithing Workshop in which spears, sabers and other weapons such as rifles were forged, to supply the cavalry militias called “Los Colorados de Rosas”.

“My grandfather Federico narrated – says Carlos Michaut Nell – that Rosas himself once personally appeared in his workshop, who, after carefully observing the entire existence of weapons prepared and in preparation, left without speaking to anyone.

Both Don Federico and his wife María E. Polte were supporters and sympathizers of Rosas and therefore federalists by conviction and both permanently used the federal currency; The same, which consisted of a wide red ribbon, was worn on the hat by my grandfather and on the “chapeca” that hung on his back, by my grandmother.

Despite this, both the workshop and the house were visited very often by the leaders of La Mazorca, generally by Commander Ciriaco Cuitiño and Andrés Parra, in search of possible Unitarian refugees, who were persecuted to the death. What happened was that La Mazorca systematically distrusted them due to the fact that they were “gringos”, as Cuitiño himself told them in those reviews in which they investigated even the basements.

Don Federico remembered that Cuitiño once showed up with his police group of gauchos with red chiripá and pony boots; Cuitiño was in his shirt sleeves and his right arm was completely stained with the blood of a Unitarian that he had just personally beheaded.

Shortly afterwards, on a date that I cannot specify but which evidently had to be before Caseros, my grandparents decided to sell the workshop and move to the countryside of the province of Buenos Aires, excited to start raising sheep; Thus, they settled in a ranch in the Dolores District, belonging to a rich family with the last name Cisneros; On that ranch my late mother Doña Basilia Nell was born (1858) (who would later marry my father Joseph Adolph Michaut in 1880, in Paso Grande, San Luis).

The Cisneros couple became attached to my grandfather Federico's family and asked my grandmother to name the newborn Basilia and that they were going to be her godparents; Likewise, Mr. Cisneros ordered his butler that every calf that was born male be designated in the name of his “daughter” Basilia. I don't know what purpose that promise had, because on my mother's birth certificate a German Goldschmidt and another person with the last name Adaro, both from Dolores, appear as godfather.

My grandfather said that on two occasions they owed their lives to the punzón currency that they still used permanently while they worked on the aforementioned Cisneros ranch. My grandparents lived in a part of that large ranch, which had been assigned to them, and in which they busily dedicated themselves to raising a huge flock of sheep, for which they occupied an old ranch whose doors were barred shut at night out of fear. to the banditry that at that time devastated the entire national territory.

On two occasions with a very similar development, they were presented with two malones of “pampas Indians”, who upon seeing them wearing the punzón badge did not attack them, since the Indians of that time adored Juan Manuel de Rosas; In fact, the chief shouted to the Indians: “Christian being a federal, not killing, not killing and not stealing, brother, giving capons,” and my grandfather with his blunderbuss on his belt answered them, imitating the Indians' way of expressing themselves: “yes.” , brothers, all grabbing capons, “and there began the mass slaughter until the savages were fed up, after which they withdrew at dawn, keeping their word not to harm them or steal anything from them. While my grandfather had attended to them kindly, trying not to provoke her anger, my grandmother, in desperation, was walking around with a bottle of gin and a jug serving the drink to the chief and her captain, who were very respectful towards her.

The Indians considered Rosas as a kind of ally against the Unitarians, whom they evidently hated with a prevention possibly fueled by him. These malones, upon returning inland, systematically devastated the large ranches belonging to the Unitarians.”

The Three Friedrich Nell Stakes

“About his stay at the ranch, my grandfather always recounted in family gatherings the memory of three mishaps that happened to him there.

One Sunday, my grandfather, like many other residents of that vast countryside, went to a “pulpería” to entertain himself with horse races and card games, on which occasion he had an altercation with one of the gauchos present, whom he stabbed. a strong fist blow; His immediate response was a stab in the lower abdomen. The shopkeeper had him transported to his house where upon entering he simply said “Maria, give me a glass of wine, they have stabbed me, damn it!” The local healers cured him with weed poultices. The word “fuck” was permanently in my grandfather's mouth; He evidently found it very expressive and used it to underline the end of any sentence.

On another occasion - Don Federico said - he was riding his horse along those deserted roads of the region, with the aim of visiting a friend, when suddenly he encountered a group of four semi-wild gauchos who, after making him get off his horse and When they hit him, they told him: “We just killed a gringo and now we are going to kill you.” While some of the assailants pressed him to the ground, another sharpened his knife on a stick at the same time he told him. "I'm going to cut your throat." Then, at the right moment, like a miracle from God, they saw a horseman approaching the great race, before which the bandits released him and mounted their pingos and fled. I say that this happened at the right moment, because one of the savages had my grandfather pulling him by the black beard he wore, or "pear" as it was called, to proceed with the slaughter, while he told them: "Cut quickly, damn it." ”, according to his custom of expressing himself. The person who had arrived so opportunely was a friend of his, very dear and linked to the family by ties of sponsorship that were taken so seriously at that time; This man, like many others in the area, was a very decent gaucho who had assimilated quite a bit of civilization.

On another occasion, while Don Federico was in the same grocery store mentioned, he heard from the locals that nearby there was a place where at night no one dared to walk without being the subject of terrible "scares" or serious accidents. Since my grandfather always used to say that he never knew what fear of anything or anyone was, he assured everyone present that he “planned to go that same night, damn it.” He did so and that night, mounted on his regal pingo, with the faith that he was as good a rider as the best of the gauchos, he went to the aforementioned place in order to personally find out what was true in that mystery that He had terrified the gauchaje of the area, no matter how brave some of them were. Arriving at the place after midnight, he noticed that his horse reared up asking for rein and more rein until suddenly, he received a terrible blow or slap in the face that knocked him off his horse; He fell to the ground with the reins in his hand, which prevented the horse from fleeing, leaving him on foot. Next, Don Federico says, he resolutely shouted: “Hit me again, damn it,” but from then on everything was silent, so he decided to return home, not scared as he said, but very worried about what had happened and because he had not been able to unravel the mistery".

Gold Rush in La Carolina (San Luis)

“Around 1860 (when my mother Basilia was two years old) attracted by the “gold fever” sparked by the discovery of the then rich gold deposits in the “La Carolina-Cañada Honda” area of the province of San Luis , my grandfather decided to leave the Buenos Aires countryside and move with the whole family to the aforementioned place, where the precious metal was extracted both from the sands of the rivers by washing with carob plates, and from quartz veins that carried the same.

Apparently, there he met the Swiss Emile Ruttimann and they worked together for some time. My grandfather and his family stayed in the precarious camp of an abandoned mine long ago and he dedicated himself with all his might to the new task; Unfortunately, and according to their own expressions, the vein developed from top to bottom, requiring the extraction of the metal at increasingly greater depths that came up against the flooding of the works due to the water circulating in fissures in the rock. He finally had to leave the company after heavy financial losses. This situation forced him to move to the capital of the Province (San Luis) where, based on the knowledge acquired about the aforementioned metal, he set up a jewelry business, which allowed him a certain economic recovery.

The stay of the Nell family in the capital of San Luis must have been quite long, since their five children began to go to school and four of them (the three girls and one of the boys) got married there. The three women, Basilia (married in Paso Grande, San Luis, to Dr. Joseph Adolphe Michaut in 1880), Juana (married to Becerra) and María (married to Romanella) were the only blondes who attended the College, so They were called by their companions “the three Marys”; Another of the sons, Pedro, also got married in San Luis and as for the remaining one, Juan, when the whole family moved to their last home (always in that east-west migration so common among foreigners who enter the country ) in San Martín-Buen Orden, Mendoza, he went to Chile where he married, giving rise to a large family; I remember seeing my mother Basilia cry bitterly when she received the news from Chile of the death of her brother Juan de ella, and later after a strong earthquake that occurred in that country, she lost until now all contact with that family branch ; This happened around 1895 or 1896, if I remember correctly.

Once the Nell family (Don Federico, his wife María Theodore E. Polte and the then only unmarried son Juan) moved to Mendoza, my grandfather opened an Artistic Blacksmith Workshop again in a place in the San Martín Department called Alto Salvador; The Michaut-Nell couple, that is, my parents, had already lived in San Martín since 1884, where I was born the following year. Shortly after, we went to live in Alto Alegre, where I remember that grandparents Federico and María Nell visited us very often.

From that time of my childhood so full of pleasant memories due to the almost constant presence of my grandparents and their very interesting stories, I remember very clearly that I once saw him arrive for a visit (I was about 7 years old, so it may have been because 1892) on horseback on his superb dark pingo malacara at full gallop and he made it streak across the patio at the foot of the gallery with his mastery as an accomplished rider, at the same time that his white “perita” (beard) flew over the shoulder; My grandfather would have been around 73 years old at that time.

In his conversations he used to repeat with good Spanish diction, although still with a bit of a German accent, “I'm going to die working, damn it!” And so it was indeed; One day he was working in his Workshop, when he was already 75 years old (in 1894, I think) striking a hot iron, when he suddenly fell on his back, dead of cardiac syncope, with a hot iron held in a clamp in one hand. , and the hammer in the other.

My grandfather Federico was buried in the Buen Orden Cemetery (San Martín), but since at that time there were no permanent niches but rather he was buried directly in the ground, his remains have been lost and it has not been possible to locate the exact place of his burial. his grave; On the other hand, my grandmother María T. E. Polte de Nell, who died in 1904, is currently in a niche in perpetuity, very close to the Pantheon of Dr. Michaut (her son-in-law).

They are descendants of the primitive Nell-Polte branch (my maternal grandparents) the Michaut-Gatica (Buenos Aires and Córdoba), the Lucero-Michaut (Mercedes-San Luis-Córdoba), the Michaut-Ríos-Gutiérrez (San Martín-Mendoza) , all of whom are linked to my mother Basilia Nell de Michaut (1858-1941); From the branch of María Nell de Romanella, among others, the Musset-Romanella (Buenos Aires) descend, from that of Juana Nell de Becerra, there are the Iturralde-Becerra (Buenos Aires); From Pedro, also son of Don Federico, the Barraza-Nells who live in Córdoba descend; As for the descendants of

Reference

(1) Son of the Dr. Joseph Adolphe Michaut and Basilia Nell Polte marriage.

Sources

• Benarós, León – Francisco Nell: Alemán, armero de Rosas y un “gringo de Agallas”.
• Efemérides – Patricios de Vuelta de Obligado
• Michaut Nell, Carlos – “Memorias” – Villa Mercedes, San Luis (1977)
• Portal www.revisionistas.com.ar

Todo es Historia – Año XI, Nº 130, Buenos Aires (1878)

Argentine Confederation: Paraná War

Paraná War

Revisionistas





Patricios in Vuelta de Obligado in El Tonelero


After the Vuelta de Obligado combat, the allied forces that disembarked there with the intention of entering, had been overwhelmed in the months of December and January by those of Colonel Thorne, who commanded the line of observation on the coast. On February 2, 1846, the allies landed 300 soldiers protected by the artillery of their ships anchored on the coast. Thorne deployed against them a strong guerrilla, and after a heavy firefight he fell upon them with two companies of artillery and 50 lancers, forcing them to re-embark.(1)

General Mansilla conveniently placed his flying artillery on the coast of San Nicolás del Rosario, San Lorenzo and Tonelero, and came to personally lead the resistance to the passage of the convoy of those who speculated on the war and in favor of the progress of the intervention. On January 9, the ships of the convoy arrived at the port of Acevedo. Mansilla pointed his cannons against them. Four British and French ships anchored in front of him, responding with their large-caliber artillery. Thus they protected the path of the convoy, which moved away from the coast and towards an island interposed in front of the Mansilla position. In the impossibility of harassing it through the islands that rose between the two coasts at that height of the Paraná, Mansilla followed the convoy by land to verify it where it was within range.

In the ravines of the coast they appeared between the convent of San Lorenzo and Punta del Quebracho, Mansilla had placed eight cannons hidden under piles of brush, 250 police officers and 100 infantrymen in the ravines of the coast arrived between the convent of San Lorenzo and Punta del Quebracho.

At noon on January 16, the steamer Gorgon, the corvette Expeditive, the brigs Dolphin, King and two armed schooners appeared in the Colony, which mounted 37 large-caliber guns and accompanied 52 merchant ships. When facing San Lorenzo, the Expeditive and the Gorgon fired three shots with bullets and shrapnel over the coast to discover the Mansilla force. The Argentine soldiers remained hidden in their post, according to the order received. When the entire convoy found itself in the narrowness of the river that runs upstream from San Lorenzo, Mansilla ordered the fire of his batteries led by captains José Serezo, Santiago Maurice and Alvaro de Alzogaray to break. The attack was accurate; The dismantled merchant ships headed towards two nearby streams, increasing with the collision of one with the other the damages caused by the land cannons.

At four in the afternoon the combat was still going strong, and the convoy did not make up for what it had done with its great damages. Favored by the stern wind and behind the ships that incessantly vomited deadly fire, he approached the Quebracho. Here Mansilla reconcentrated his forces and fought until late afternoon, when, dismounted their cannons and neutralized their rifle fire by the enemy cannon, the convoy was able to save Punta Quebracho, with major damage to the warships, considerable losses in manufacturing, and 50 men out of action. Rear Admiral Inglefield, in his official part to the British Admiralty says that “the English and French steamers held their fire for more than three and a half hours; and hardly a single ship in the convoy left without receiving a bullet.”

The loss of the Argentines was insignificant this time, and Mansilla could correctly say that he had had the honor of defending the flag of his country in the same place of San Lorenzo that San Martín watered with his blood when leading the first charge of his later famous Horse Grenadiers.(2)

As can be seen, the allies did not continue their conquest in Argentine interior waters with impunity. It is true that Mansilla, complying with strict government orders, incessantly covered the extensive coast that he defended, making his few cannons thunder wherever those within range appeared. That was how he outwitted them in their landing attempts after Obligado and San Lorenzo. On February 10, immediately after failing in one of these attempts, the English warships Alecto and Gordon bombarded the Cooper field for three hours with bullets a la Paixhans 64. The artillery and infantry of the Argentines commanded by Major Manuel Virto responded boldly, and they only managed to kill some militiamen, set fire to two guns, and destroy the huts and trees that had . (3) A few days later they renewed hostilities without much success. On April 2, Philomel arrived in front of Quebracho. Lieutenant Colonel Thorne brought his guns upon them, but as the Philomel fled downstream, he tied three pieces of 8's to the girths of his horses and ran up the coast to catch up with her; which he could not verify because the French ship was at full sail and current. On the 6th, the same Thorne battery held another combat with the English warship Alecto, which passed through the Quebracho towing three schooners. The English had some deaths and their ship came out badly damaged.

On the 19th, after another battle, Mansilla managed to dam the Federal pailebot, taken by the allies in Obligado. When informing the government of this event, sending the conquered English flag, and under the relation, all the camera baggage of the former commander of the prized pailebot Carlos G. Fegen, Mansilla added in his note: "The Anglo-French will see the difference that exists between the looting of the baggage of the brave Obligado men who called themselves civilizers, and the conduct of the federals who defend their homeland and respect even the spoils of their enemies." On the 21st, Thorne still had to sustain another two-hour battle with the English ship Lizard, which he riddled with bullets, turning over the flag that was flying at the top and leaving it almost useless for new operations. “The enemy, says Lieutenant Tylden, who commanded the Lizard, on his part to Captain Hotham, capsized our fo'c'sle piece; and their terrible shrapnel and musket fire, sifting the ship from stem to stern, forced me to order the officers and crew to go down…. The Lizard received thirty-five cannonballs and shrapnel, The list of the dead and wounded is in the margin….”(4)

Simultaneously with these combats on the north coast, the blockade ships from the south coast forced the port of Ensenada at dawn on April 21 and organized a landing column, which was rejected by the batteries on that coast under the command of General Prudencio de Rozas. Then the allies entered the bay with blood and fire; they seized the best that they found on board the neutral ships there, and set fire to several of these ships with the cargo they contained. Four days later, an English midshipman in charge of practicing reconnaissance, entered the nearby port of La Atalaya in a boat with a small cannon at the bow and 15 armed men, and held a firefight with the party that garrisoned the point. As he ran aground when he wanted to retire, he raised the flag of parliament and was received ashore by the Argentine chief, who sent a boat with eight men to bring the English crew. This fired a fire that was answered, and in the confusion the officer was killed.(5)

In the presence of the fire and violence perpetrated by the allies in Ensenada, the Argentine government issued a decree of reprisals, in which "constituting itself the duty to save this society, no less than the neutral and Argentine properties from such fires and depredations" proscribed by civilization; and without prejudice to adopting other measures for the future in case the same scandalous attacks are repeated by the naval forces of England and France, it established that the commanders, officers or individuals of the crews of the ships or warships of said two powers, who were apprehended in any of the ports and rivers of the Province, either for violently removing national or foreign ships, or for burning or looting them, would be punished as arsonists with the penalty prescribed for them in the general laws.(6)

The warlike intervention did not, then, resolve the situation in favor of the allies, no matter how much Great Britain and France trusted in their powerful military elements, in the resources of their diplomacy and in the propaganda and efforts of the unitary émigrés and the government of Montevideo. The Argentine government remained firm defending the soil and the rights of the Confederation; and the intervention no longer had a rigorous measure to use against him to reduce him. The only thing left to do was double or triple the naval forces of both powers, and bombard and occupy Buenos Aires. The latter had been the subject of consultation in London and Paris; and if Admirals Lainé and Inglefield had not carried it out, it was because they did not resign themselves to immediately presenting proof of an impotence very similar to defeat, when in their immeasurable pride there was no room for the magnitude of their exploits in Malta, in Acre, in Mojador, in San Juan de Ulloa. They were no longer deceived about this; and the same opinion had been generalized among the English and French officers, to such an extent that several of them did not hide their fears that the mercantile expedition that was to go down the Paraná, protected by the squadrons of the intervening powers, would suffer a disaster. "Rosas is setting up batteries along the ravines between us and Obligado," wrote Lieutenant Robins, of the Firebrand frigate up in the Santa Fe descent; “If there is not a strong division below with ground forces to drive the men out of the ravine, they will scuttle some of the ships in the convoy and probably do great damage to the men-of-war. We have entered very soon upriver. We have taken a position that we cannot hold without many fortified positions. If the Province of Buenos Aires is attacked, the attack must be made in Forced. The country is open and suitable for reorganizing troops..." "The San Martín -wrote Lieutenant Marelly- surged in the descent of Santa Fe awaiting the convoy that had to leave Corrientes, after this campaign it will not be able to do more services without very expensive repairs. We are very concerned about the batteries that Rosas raises against us in San Lorenzo…”. (7)

The accuracy of these observations was revealed very soon. The ships that had passed to Corrientes loaded together with others, on behalf of merchants from there and from Montevideo and even the government of this place and the intervening ministers, and set sail to lower the Paraná protected by the combined squadrons. On May 9 they anchored in an inlet about two leagues from the positions that Mansilla had taken in Quebracho. On the 28th, Mansilla ran along the coast with two howitzers, and fired a few bullets at them, forcing them to retreat upstream, in the midst of the confusion resulting from this operation, whose main objective was to temper the spirit of the novice soldiers who executed it. On June 4, favored by the north wind, the entire convoy of the allies faced the Quebracho position, made up of 95 merchant ships and 12 warships, namely: steamers Firebrand, Gorgon, Alecto, Lizard, Harpy, Gazendi and Fulton; brigantines schooners Dolphin and Procida; brigantines San Martín and Fanny, and corvette Coquette, which mounted 85 cannons of caliber 24 to 80, plus a battery of three rockets à la Congreve that had been placed the night before on an islet to the left of that position.

The Mansilla line was supported by 17 cannons, 600 infantry soldiers and 150 police officers, positioned as follows: to the right a battery and pickets from the San Nicolás y Patricios de Buenos Aires battalion under the command of Major Virto; in the center two batteries and two companies of infantry under Colonel Thorne; to the left another battery and the rest of the Santa Coloma regiment, under the command of this chief; in the reserve 200 infantry, two squadrons of lancers from Santa Fe and the general's escort. In such circumstances, Mansilla reminded his soldiers of their duty to defend the rights of the homeland, already fulfilled in Obligado, Acevedo and San Lorenzo. And taking the national flag and shouting "Long live the sovereign Argentine independence!" He ordered the voice of the homeland to thunder through his cannons, when the allied squadrons had already lined up his powerful artillery against him so that the ships of the convoy could pass through the rear. The sustained fire of the Argentines made the allies falter and wreaked havoc on the merchant ships, some of which ran aground to get to safety, or were torn to pieces when they collided with each other in the narrowness of the river for fleeing too soon. At 1 p.m., after two hours of fighting, the convoy was still unable to save the fires of Thorne's batteries.

Firebrand, Gazendi, Gorgon, Harpy, and Alecto retreat to cover the most engaged line of ships. But, seeing, after another hour of bitter combat, that this was fruitless and that everyone was running a great risk, they set fire to those who could and rushed down the river with the rest. This combat was a significant defeat for the allies; for not only did they suffer more considerable losses than in Obligado, without inferring them on their part to the Argentines, but they also became convinced that they could not navigate the interior waters of the Confederation with impunity by force. They counted about 60 men out of combat and lost a boat, three schooners and a pailebot loaded with merchandise worth one hundred thousand dollars, part of which Mansilla saved by managing to put out the fire of the pailebot. Of the Argentines, only Thorne fell, wounded in the back by a shrapnel helmet, and some soldiers. “The fire was sustained with great determination, –says Lieutenant Proctor in his part to Captain Hotham- we were pursued by flying artillery and by a considerable number of troops that covered the banks making live musketry fire at us. The Harpy is pretty much destroyed; it has many bullets in the hull, chimneys and tops” Captain Hotham himself, in his report to Admiral Inglefield dated May 30 on board the Gorgon, accompanying the list of English and French dead and wounded in Quebracho, declares that “the ships have suffered many”. (8)

The convoy of the allies was awaited with great interest by the merchants of Montevideo, who promised themselves huge profits given the scarcity of many of the products of Corrientes and Paraguay that was felt in that place. The losses and failures suffered in the Quebracho visibly increased the discontent of the main merchants in whose hands was the fate of the Government of Montevideo, and who, as shareholders of the company buying the customs rights under the guarantee of the ministers Ouseley and Deffaudis, had already protested from the new contract made by Minister Vásquez until the year 1848. A in prices; and the government offered them quick profits that Rivera would facilitate, as will be seen.

Rivera had gone into campaign and his first operations had been as happy as they were fast. With just over 400 men, among whom were good officers such as Colonel Mundelle, who was recommended to him by Minister Ouseley and, aided by an Anglo-French flotilla under the command of Garibaldi, Rivera planted himself in the Colony, went to Carmel and fortified it after beating Commander Caballero's forces. Along the way he entered the Vipers with blood and fire, seizing everything he found. Despite Colonel Montoro's dispositions, he headed for Mercedes, seized this city on June 14, and defeated Montoro, taking 400 prisoners, 2,000 horses, and much armament.

These operations were accompanied by depredations, in which the merchants of Montevideo and mainly the comptrolling ministers of Great Britain and France were interested, who entered into the leather, cattle and fruit businesses of the country, which Rivera sent them, and in exchange gave resources and money to continue a devastating war.

It is necessary to see it written like this by the same men from the Montevideo government so that there is no doubt about the role that the Anglo-French intervention in La Plata played in their impotence. On June 5, 1846, Minister Magariños wrote to Rivera: “..I have spoken with the ministers (interventions) about the armaments that they will take charge of paying for it, taking for their reimbursement earned from what you have and will serve the maritime stations. They will also give us 20 quintals of gunpowder these days, and they have already put two of the cannons taken in Obligado into battery; the others went to London as trophies" "Don Agustín Almeida leaves - Magariños himself writes to Rivera on June 24 - so that associated with the person you choose in that, he will take charge of conducting what they want to send to him from what was taken from the enemy, and according to the contracts that were convenient to make, because that has seemed more arranged and expeditious to go in harmony...".

The means for the interested parties to come together in harmony is provided by Finance Minister Bejar, writing to Rivera on that same date: "I have previously told you that the purchase of weapons was arranged with the intervening ministers, who had told me how to arrange this business... Lately they have said that they will take cattle to collect their amount... For the best performance in the remittance of hides, cattle and other fruits taken in the territory occupied by the enemy, the government has appointed a committee concerned, which is Mr. Agustín Almeida, who will proceed in conjunction with another that you name. In this way it has seemed to us that it will be more convenient, and that these resources will be available to the government sooner”. Ratifying Bejar's assurances, Magariños still wrote to Rivera on July 5: "Yesterday it was agreed to notify you that to cover the arms contract, their value in hides and cattle must be delivered at the order of the ministers and admirals." On June 11, Minister Bejar acknowledged Rivera's receipt of a consignment of hides, but charged him with new consignments, "because you know our state well and the need to avoid inconveniences that may arise in this matter."

It is clear that the latter referred to the demands of the intervening ministers, such as that the consignments of hides and fruits should not be very abundant. It is that although Rivera made enormous collections, everything was not enough to entertain his system of squandering. Besieged by those who went to smell his largesse; Exploited by those who thrived in favor of the disorder that characterized him, he was always in need of money, which he reserved nothing for himself. At the end of August he was already asking the Finance Minister for more money, and when he sent it to him, the latter could not help but ask him for the report on hides "with the documents that can illustrate the matter." This is how the intervention and the war were entertained by the intervening ministers of Great Britain and France, when the sudden arrival of the British commissioner Thomas S. Hood began to give a new turn to the question of the Río de la Plata.

References

(1) See El Comercio del Plata of February 10.

(2) See this part of Admiral Inglefield who transcribed La Gaceta Mercantil of January 8, 1847, from the Morning Herald of September 12, 1846. Part of General Mansilla and letter from Captain Alzogaray in La Gaceta Mercantil of February 9, 1846. El Nacional and El Comercio del Plata of Montevideo, when referring to the battle of San Lorenzo, silenced the breakdowns and losses that the convoy suffered; but it is certain that many of the merchant ships were rendered useless, and that the Dolphin and Expeditive could not continue their services afterwards except at the cost of serious repairs.

(3) Lieutenant Austen's part of the Alecto to Captain Hotham, transcribed in The Mercantile Gazette; Ditto from Virto to Mansilla.

(4) This report was published in the Morning Herald of London on September 12, 1846. See the reports from Mansilla, Thorne and Santa Coloma, relating to these four battles, in the Mercantile Gazette of May 14, 1846. See also the letters from the English and French sailors, taken with the correspondence of Federal pailebot, and in which they feel the need to increase their maritime forces against the Confederation , and they discover all the setbacks and losses that the mercantile expedition of the allies suffered in San Lorenzo.

(5) See the Mercantile Gazette of May 2, 1846. The death of midshipman Wardlaw gave El Comercio del Plata the theme for a heroic romance, in which the Argentine soldiers appeared as murdering that officer little less than at close range.

(6) Decree of May 1, 1846.

(7) Correspondence taken to the allies together with the Federal pailebot. See the Mercantile Gazette of May 2, 1846.

(8) These reports were transcribed by La Gazeta Mercantil on January 8, 1847, from the London Morning Herald on September 12, 1846. Mansilla's official report in the Mercantile Gazette on June 12, 1846. See El Comercio del Plata on June 3 and 4, 1846 and what Bustamante says about it (mistaking the battle of San Lorenzo with that of Quebracho) in his book Intervention Errors, page 114.

(9) This protest was inserted in El Nacional de Montevideo on January 17, 1846.

Sources

Efemérides – Patricios de Vuelta de Obligado

Portal www.revisionistas.com.ar

Saldías, Adolfo – Rozas y el Brasil – Ed. Americana – Buenos Aires (1945)

Turone, Oscar A. – Efemérides – Patricios de Vuelta de Obligado.

Military Intervention to Banda Oriental: Battle of India Muerta

Battle of India Muerta

At the beginning of 1845 the fight was going to resume in the Argentine territory, but the war has never been interrupted. In Uruguay three armies of the Confederation are fighting and in Oribe's there are Argentine battalions. There has also been some insignificant meeting in Entre Ríos, promoted by the governor of Corrientes. But now Rosas will have before him the most notable of our soldiers, General Paz, who has just been appointed chief of the Allied Pacifying Army in Corrientes, and who has already begun to organize his troops. This appointment is not the only skill of the Corrientes government. His trade treaty with Paraguay, which Rosas considers a betrayal, because a province cannot agree with a foreigner, is the first step towards military collaboration.

Manuel Oribe defeated Fructuoso Rivera in Arroyo Grande (December 6, 1842). He lost all his army, and even his pistols and sword of honor, which he threw away in order to flee. This act of arms meant the end of the Federation of Uruguay that Rivera presided over. After that battle, the Rosas troops commanded by General Oribe crossed Uruguay, while Rivera's troops fled towards Montevideo without offering resistance. After that, Oribe with almost the entire country in his power. He set out to besiege Montevideo, in a siege that would last nine years and would be remembered by Uruguayan histography as the “Big Site”. And establish his seat of government in what is now known as the Cerrito de la Victoria neighborhood, in what was then the outskirts of Montevideo.

Fructuoso Rivera, who had not exercised acts of government except as he passed, at the points he occupied with his arms, was followed by the army under the command of Urquiza, who caught up with him in the Sierra de Malbajar, and forced him to cross the border and take refuge in Rio Grande. On behalf of the eastern government, Rivera addressed the Marquis de Caxias, Commander-in-Chief of the Empire's forces in that province, with whom he had had negotiations through his secretary, José Luis Bustamante. There he was able to reorganize with the help of weapons, clothing and horses that he received. The last days of January 1845 he passed to the eastern frontier. His divisions, under the command of Colonels Flores, Freire and Silveira, had minor clashes with those of Urquiza; but as he passed in mid-February from the north to the south of the Negro River and laid siege to the town of Melo, Urquiza gathered his forces and on the 21st moved from Cordobés in the direction of Cerro Largo. Rivera hid in the Sierra del Olimar and Cebollatí. Urquiza countermarched the 23rd of the Dead Fraile, and headed for the path of the blade, with the design of putting himself on the right flank and leading the way. But it was useless. Rivera, knowing the terrain, made Urquiza march and countermarch in order to ruin his horse and fall on him at a propitious moment. They remained like this until March 31, when Urquiza moved from his Los Chanchos camp, upon learning that Rivera, at the head of 3,000 men, was going to take the town of Minas. Urquiza was able to prevent him from reaching the San Francisco bar on time, but he had to remain at this point to give his horses a rest. On the 21st Rivera gathered his entire army and headed for Urquiza. On the 25th both armies sighted each other, and on the 26th he took up positions in the fields of India Muerta.

Rivera had just over 4,000 men; Urquiza had 3,000, most of them veterans. At sunrise on March 27, Urquiza led two strong guerrillas through the Sarandí stream, and behind them he advanced his columns, extending his line within Rivera's cannon shot, and made up the right: from the Entre Ríos division under the command of Colonel Urdinarrain ; center: three companies of the Entre Ríos battalion and three artillery pieces under the command of Major Francia; left: eight cavalry squadrons, two infantry companies and the eastern division commanded by Colonel Galarza. The Entre Ríos squadrons carried out a tremendous charge with saber and spear on the left and center of Rivera, the first made up of recently incorporated militias from the departments of Río Negro, and the second of an infantry battalion and two artillery pieces, respectively commanded by Colonels Baez, Luna, Silva and Tavares. The federal charges were irresistible, and very soon the battle on Rivera's right was reduced, where his best forces were under the command of General Medina, leader of the vanguard. Faced with the danger of being outflanked and encircled, Rivera personally went to his left to redo it, which he was able to accomplish by bringing some squadrons into combat. But Urquiza then launched his reserves, and after an hour of fierce fighting he completely defeated him, killing more than 400 men, among whom there were thirty-odd chiefs and officers; taking about 500 prisoners, the park, horses, all
to his correspondence, and even his sword with shots and balls.

“I notified you of the unfortunate event of the 27th –Rivera writes to his wife- unfortunately I suffered another contrast that forced us to cross the Yaguarón in a bit of a hurry. I lost part of the mount and since that day we have been under the protection of the imperial authorities”.

This victory forever destroyed the military influence of the director of the war against Rosas.

In Buenos Aires, where the news arrives on the last day of March, the triumph is celebrated with great parties: fireworks, downloads, lighting, flagging and street demonstrations with music. A column of four to five thousand people arrives in Palermo. There are deputies, judges, officials. Rosas does not show up to receive his tribute and they are attended by Manuelita.

At the end of January, Admiral Brown, by order of Rosas, has restored the blockade. No longer the partial blockade, like the previous year, to certain merchandises and the exemption for England and France, but the absolute one. But Admiral Lainé does not know. Converted since the previous year into an enemy of Rosas, into another Purvis, he applauds the legionnaires and says he cannot dissolve them because they are no longer French. At the same time, he harasses Oribe, ignores his rights and does not allow other Frenchmen to go to Buenos Aires. He has established in Montevideo, an undoubted intervention. He is the one who now rules there. Very little is missing for the city to be occupied by France. Rosas then decreed, to the indignation of the representatives of France and England, that the ships that had landed in Montevideo should not enter Buenos Aires, the true port of destination.

After India Muerta, the fall of Montevideo seemed inevitable. The government itself even declared that the city could not sustain itself for forty days with its own resources. Oribe convened in May for the renewal of the legislative assembly and elections for the president of the Republic, and proposes the surrender. Repulsed, he prepares to attack. Lainé and Inglefield declare that they will not allow the fall of the city. And that is when they provide it with weapons, ammunition and food and when troops land. And the government of Montevideo writes to the government of Brazil some infamous and shameful words according to which Uruguay, almost having to surrender to a foreign power, "rather than succumb under the blade of Rosas" -words verbatim- "would lie down with preference in the arms of an American power”. That is to say, that before being governed by their compatriot Oribe, hero of Uruguayan independence, one of the "33" and head of Ituzaingó, those bad Uruguayans prefer to be Brazilians, they prefer to hand over their homeland to Brazil, the only and perpetual enemy of Their independence.

Once again, foreigners prevent the fall of Montevideo. Now only four hundred and nine Orientals defend it. The rest of the troops are slaves, mostly belonging to foreigners and in number of six hundred and eighteen; and 2,500 foreigners, including 1,554 French. What have the remaining thousand Frenchmen done? The most serious, as well as others who never formed in the legion, have taken refuge in Buenos Aires. From here they address a petition to the French government, where these significant words are read: "Mr. Lainé, has he been sent to protect the dying party that dominates in Montevideo, or to protect us?" That dying party, those four hundred and nine men, now that Rivera's army does not exist, represent the Eastern State for France and England. And in the name of that handful of individuals, France and England come to get involved in the politics of La Plata, to rule as owners, to impose themselves with their cannons.

And the emigrants? The number of Argentines who defend the plaza is barely one hundred and thirty. Very few more are those who carry weapons. The rest are in Buenos Aires or in Brazil. But those few Argentines are the owners of the Montevideo government, mainly Florencio Varela. Varela must be happy, seeing the result of his mission to Europe, seeing his homeland about to go to war against the two great powers of the world, in danger of being destroyed and devastated.

Source

• Efemérides – Patricios de Vuelta de Obligado (2008).
• Gálvez, Manuel – Vida de Don Juan Manuel de Rosas – Ed. Tor – Buenos Aires (1954).
• Portal www.revisionistas.com.ar
• Saldías, Adolfo – Historia de la Confederación Argentina.

Source: www.revisionistas.com.ar