People

Venancio Flores

Uruguayan president and leader of the allied vanguard.

Life: 18 May 1808, Trinidad; 19 February 1868, Montevideo
Party: Colorado
Government: Provisional president of Uruguay, 1865 to 1868
In the war: Leader of the allied vanguard at Yatay (17 August 1865) and at Tuyutí
End: Assassinated in Montevideo

In 1863 he rose against the Blanco government with the Cruzada Libertadora (Liberating Crusade). With the support of Argentina and the Empire of Brazil, he took power in February 1865, after the siege of Paysandú, and Uruguay joined the Triple Alliance. He led the allied vanguard at Yatay and at Tuyutí, where his Uruguayans took the first Paraguayan blow. In September 1866 he returned to Montevideo. On 19 February 1868, four days after leaving office, he was assassinated; on the same day the former Blanco president Bernardo Berro was also assassinated.

‡ Disputed.Date of the return to Montevideo: 25 September 1866, according to a Uruguayan study. The authors of Flores’s assassination were never identified with certainty.

Sources: “Venancio Flores”, “Uruguayan War”, “Battle of Yatay” and “Bernardo Prudencio Berro”, English Wikipedia; “La división oriental olvidada en la Guerra de la Triple Alianza”, CIIA Historia Militar.

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