John Sedgwick wrote:I have only a passing familiarity with Paraguayan history, but can only assume that Hohenlohe's interest has to do with the
War of the Triple Alliance. Paraguay had a (relatively) massive and modern army compared to its neighbours, and tried to carve out a "Greater Paraguay," but in the end was utterly destroyed - they lost at least half their prewar population (some figures put it as high as 70-90%); the vast (and I mean
vast) majority of adult males died or fled the country between 1864 and 1870. In some areas there were roughly 20 women to every 1 man left alive. It was a complete and total demographic catastrophe. That may explain why you haven't heard of Paraguay doing anything
lately 
Thanks, dear Sedgewick, for your kindly support in terms of my idea to implement either directly or with a mod Paraguay into PON.
It is not unusual that no one in Europe or North America have ever heard about Paraguay. Even my older cousin a former Major in the BUndeswehr who served a long time as a staff officer in different staffs has never heard about this conflict was therefore amused as he heard that I know more about that.
First you should know that the past Paraguayan state around 1850 until 1870 had his grass roots in the long forgotten Jesuit reducciones in which the old Guarani warrior society lived under the supervision and the spiritual leadership of the Jesuits. These settlements had in those days to fight slave hunters from Brazil and Argentine and they did well in most cases until the old Jesuit order was forbidden and dissolved around 1773 - only in Prussia and Russia the Jesuits got a refugium.
Around 1850 the Paraguayan dictator initiated some modern reforms. He introduced an new elementary school system with around 400 schools in Paraguay and parallel he tried to build up the first modern manufactories like Sawmills and the first foundry in South America. He even introduced and built the very first railways in South America and he built a decent merchant fleet.
Paraguay was once in that time the only country which was relatively autarch in economics because the dictator did not accepted any investments or loans by foreigners like the usual British entrepreneur or banker.
At the same time Paraguay was often called the Prussia of South America because it had the most modern standing army at that time until around 1865.
Sadly Paraguay intermingled in a totally wrong way in some Uruguayan civil war quarrels and tried a wrong approach to that country via Argentine soil but Argentine resisted to allow Paraguay any military access.
And so Paraguay not only declared war to Brazil but also to Argentine and thus it has no longer access to the Atlantic anymore via the Parana.
Somehow interesting was the financial support of this war on the side of Brazil and Argentine by the British and later on even by the USA which comes very handy with more modern weapons and ships and money.
Paraguay fought in those days the first modern war with trench systems and heavy manouvring and even the first guerilla warfare at the Paraguayan side in the last war years.
Thus in the end Paraguay existed no longer like before and most of their male adults were dead in either way. During the Brazil occupation after war the Guarani widows mingled with Brazil soldiers thus the very most of the indigene population is no longer of pure Guarani origin.
But BRazil had suffered in some way too. Most of the Brazil soldiers were freed slaves due to the resistance in the Brazil population to this war.
And around ten years after the Brazil imperial monarchy was abolished by a military coup and Brazil need until the late 1930ies to repay the war loans and credits to the British...
That s in short some info about a forgotten conflict. If Paraguay would had survived in the old way it would have been the first modern industrial nation in Latin America by their own but this bloody war ended this way...
greetings
Hohenlohe, who likes to recreate history in some way...
edit: it was the first true TOTAL WAR ever waged...
R.I.P. Henry D.
In Remembrance of my Granduncle Hans Weber, a Hungaro-German Soldier,served in Austro-Hungarian Forces during WWI,war prisoner, missed in Sibiria 1918...
. Though date is somehow 1830-45. 
), and are forced on pain of death to go on an epic quest to find another one. It was pretty amusing - can't remember what it was called.