Page 216 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

216 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

had been damaged. It kept full freedom of maneuver and imposed more casualties than
suffered. The Platino cavalry that followed them remained at the distance of a musket
shot and broke contact at dusk.
The strategic-operational plan carefully designed and implemented by Alvear to
seduce the Army of the South into a decisive battle failed because he dia not destroy
the Imperial army that afterwards stood under the cover of the Jacuí river and continued
to operate from “strong positions”, both employing its cavalry’s coverage in the border
region, as assuring the defense of the road to Porto Alegre, in sum, fulfilling the
mission assigned to it by the grand strategy of the Imperial government. The immediate
result of the campaign of 1827 which culminated in the battle of February 20 was the
withdrawal of the Republican Army from Brazil’s territory in Rio Grande, but in the
rush to produce a victory crucial to the survival of his political ally Rivadavia in Buenos
Aires, Alvear had issued a bulletin that proclaimed the battle a resounding victory, a
perception that has influenced all Platino historiography about the conflict and came to
our days, although this interpretation leads nowhere: a “victory” that does not produce
any gain or advantage, militarily or diplomatically, is something logically impossible.
The Brazilians had the intention to interfere in the Republican Army’s crossing of the
Santa Maria River and to hit part of the army on its east bank, that idea they were wrong.
The Platinos were aiming at something much larger: the destruction of the Army of the
South, but then failed for lack of combat power. Neither side achieved its objectives,
with no victory in this battle, opposite of what Alvear had broadcast for political reasons.
Other observers at the time, were more circumspect, reading Alvear’s bulletin with its
blurring of the results, as did Baron Mareschal, Austrian ambassador at the court of Rio
de Janeiro, who wrote to Prince Metternich, the Foreign Minister of Austria.
The Bulletin of General Alvear, contained in the Journal of Buenos Ayres, confirms what I said to
Your Highness on the action of 20 and 21 February, he called the Battle of Ituzaingó, and qualifies
as a complete victory: he estimates the loss of Brazilians in 1200 and his 500 men, and said it seized
luggage, park and 10 pieces of artillery, but adds expressly that the exhaustion of the horses did not
allow him to pursue the enemy. [...]
This result [of the Almirante Brown on the Brazilian flotilla of Uruguay River] seems much more
important than the action on land that remained undecided and where Brazilians were first able to
show that they could fight, a point which had not been taken so far. (MARESCHAL, 1827, p. 15-16)
If the Platinos had nicknamed Ituzaingo the “Battle of disobediences” , the Brazilians
16
might well have called it the Battle of discipline when its infantry showed a courage, a
skill and a calm that were even recognized by the commander of the Republican Army.
Throughout the campaign of 1827, and even earlier, in 1826, during the maintenance
of the boundary line in Quaraí and Jaguarão, the performance of the Brazilian cavalry
was remarkable, particularly in the coverage by the light brigades of Bento Manuel
and Bento Gonçalves of the strategic march done by the Army of the South, until the
junction with the force of Marshal Brown, and then, in the surveillance exercised on
the flanks of the Republican Army. The Army of the South’s covering action during the

16 Tasso Fragoso transcribed the words of General Paz: “Ituzaingó might be called the battle of disobedience:
there, all were chiefs, all fought and all won guided by our own inspirações” (FRAGOSO, 1951, p. 316).