page_title: Francisco Solano López
section_title: Battle of Cerro Corá
hierarchical_section_title: Francisco Solano López / Presidency / War of the Triple Alliance / Battle of Cerro Corá
caption_attribution_description: English: Death of Francisco Solano López in River Aquidabán, Battle of Cerro Corá
context_page_description: Francisco Solano López Carrillo was President of Paraguay from 1862 until his death in 1870. He was the eldest son of Juana Pabla Carrillo and of President Carlos Antonio López, Francisco's predecessor.
  At a very young age he served in the Paraguayan Army fighting against Juan Manuel de Rosas in the sporadic hostilities sustained by Paraguay and Argentina during the Platine Wars. After the downfall of Rosas, he became Ambassador of Paraguay, as Minister Plenipotentiary, in several European countries from 1853–1855. At his return in Asunción, he was appointed Vice-President of the Supreme Government of his father Carlos, and then assumed the Presidency when his father died.
  He is one of the most controversial figures in South American history, particularly because of the Paraguayan War, known in the Plate Basin as "Guerra de la Triple Alianza".
  From one perspective, his ambitions were the main reason for the outbreak of the war while other arguments maintain he was a fierce champion of the independence of South American nations against foreign rule and interests. He resisted until the very end and was killed in action during the Battle of Cerro Corá, which marked the end of the war.
context_section_description: Allied troops captured the Paraguay capital city of Asunción on 1 January 1869, forcing López and what remained of his army and government to flee to the countryside. By late 1869, López was at last driven with a handful of troops to the northern frontier of Paraguay. He arrived at Cerro Corá on 14 February 1870. Two detachments were sent in pursuit of Solano López, who was accompanied by 200 men in the forests in the north, where he received news of the considerable Brazilian forces that were closing in on him. This caused some of the officials who were still with López to abandon him and approach the allied force, under the command of the Brazilian General José Antônio Correia da Câmara, which they readily joined as scouts in order to lead them to López.
  Upon hearing about this, López called a last war council with the remaining officers of his general staff in order to decide the course of action for the upcoming battle: whether they should escape into the rainforest hill range or stay and make a stand against the attackers. The council decided to stay and end the war once and for all by fighting to the death.
  The Brazilian force reached the camp on 1 March. During the battle that ensued, López was separated from the remainder of his army and was accompanied by only his aide and a couple of officers. He had been wounded with a spear in the stomach and hit with a sword in the side of his head and so was too weak to walk by himself. They led him to the Aquidabangui stream, and there they left him on the pretext of getting reinforcements.
  While Lopez was alone with his aide, General Câmara arrived along with six soldiers and approached him, calling on him to surrender and guaranteeing his life. López refused and shouting ¡Muero con mi patria!, ("I die with my nation!"), tried to attack Câmara with his sword. Câmara ordered him to be disarmed, but López died during the struggle with the soldiers who were trying to disarm him. This incident marked the end of the war of the Triple Alliance.
caption: Death of Francisco Solano López
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2004:11:10 07:26:38", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "268", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "986", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5273", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "0", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:11:08 10:29:08", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:11:08 10:29:08", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Strobe return light not detected", "EXIF FocalLength": "0", "EXIF SubSecTime": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "80", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "437", "EXIF RelatedSoundFile": "", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 0, 2, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}