Francisco Solano López

   

Francisco Solano López (24 July, 1827 - 1 March, 1870) was president of Paraguay from 1862 until his death in 1870.

He is widely regarded as responsible for the Paraguayan War. This has led to debate within the country as to whether he was a fearless leader who led his troops to the end, or whether he foolishly led Paraguay into a war which it could never possibly win, and which nearly eliminated the country from the map. This debate was not helped by the revisionist stance taken by the Stroessner regime, regarding national history.

He was the eldest son of president Carlos Antonio López.

During a trip to Europe in 1853 he met the Parisian courtesane Eliza Lynch. López fell in love with her and brought her with him back to Paraguay. There she was his mistress and de-facto first lady till his death.

In Paris he also developed an interest in Napoleon, this later influenced his foreign policy.

This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it (http://www.centipedia.com/index.php?title=Francisco_Solano_L%F3pez&action=edit).

For the comic book artist, see Francisco Solano López (comic book artist)



he:פרנסיסקו סולנו לופז

Retrieved from "http://www.centipedia.com/articles/Francisco_Solano_L%F3pez"

This page has been accessed 64 times. This page was last modified 16:04, 13 Oct 2004. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details).