The relationship with Brazil was, is and will be a priority issue for Argentina and not just because of geography. Throughout history, conflicts have generally been first encapsulated and then resolved. In both countries, the dialogue sectors ended up prevailing over those that encouraged confrontation.
A unique conflict situation occurred in the second part of the first decade of the 20th century. The protagonists were not the presidents, as is happening now, but the foreign ministers.
The Argentine chancellor was Estanislao Zeballos, appointed in November 1906 by Argentine president José Figueroa Alcorta. Zeballos, known for his nationalist positions on regional politics, held the position for the third time.
At the time, Brazil’s Minister of Foreign Affairs was José Maria da Silva Paranhos Júnior, the Baron of Rio Branco, a unique and to some extent foundational personality in Brazilian diplomacy. He held the position during three successive governments, from 1902 to 1912, when he died. A few months after his first appointment, Baron do Rio Branco was already in direct correspondence with the then Argentine president Julio A. Roca.
The conflict was due to two factors that generated tension between the two countries. One of them was the Brazilian government’s decision to order two large 20,000-ton warships from British shipyards, which were the most powerful weapons system at the time. The ships of the same type that Argentina and Chile had acquired five years earlier were of 13 thousand tons.
The other factor was a dispute between Argentina and Uruguay over jurisdiction over the Rio de la Plata. The Argentine Foreign Minister defended the “dry coast” theory, according to which all waters were under Argentine jurisdiction. The Uruguayan government sought diplomatic support from Brazil and received it.
In response, the Argentine government began efforts to acquire two more warships, to achieve naval equivalence. They were ordered from American shipyards. The nationalist presses of Argentina and Brazil encouraged the conflict, and Washington and London discreetly expressed their concern through their foreign offices.
The Baron of Rio Branco, who always followed what was happening in Argentina with attention and precision, saw an opportunity to generate an event of détente. Former Argentine president Julio A. Roca, whose second term had ended at the end of 1904, was returning from a long trip to Europe. His name represented a moment of convergence between Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, with visits by presidents Roca and Campos Salles to neighboring countries in 1899 and 1900. These were the first meetings of this type in the region and the beginning of “presidential diplomacy”.
Rio Branco then decided to invite Roca to visit Rio de Janeiro on his trip back from Europe – at that time intercontinental travel could only be done by ship. The former Argentine president stayed for almost a week. He was honored by the government, by the intelligentsia, by the Brazilian business community with fireworks, in events attended by seventy thousand people. Roca made public statements on several occasions in favor of peace between Argentina and Brazil, showing a very different position from that of Zeballos.
This fact reinvigorated criticism against Zeballos in Argentina, but at the same time it strengthened the distance between Roca and President Figueroa Alcorta, who were political opponents. In 1908, national and international criticism generated by Zeballos’ belligerence led Figueroa Alcorta to replace him. But the tension remained, despite the bellicose statements having eased somewhat.
The arms race, which had a significant economic cost due to the purchase of warships, continued. Brazil had ordered its third ship of this type and Argentina was considering doing the same. The two navies would be among the ten most powerful in the world, but at a great economic cost.
In 1910, Argentina celebrated its first centenary and there was no official Brazilian delegation at the festivities. That year, Roque Sáenz Peña, then the country’s diplomatic representative in Rome, was elected president of Argentina. Once again, the Baron of Rio Branco took the initiative: through the Brazilian diplomatic representative in the Italian capital, he invited Sáenz Peña to visit Rio de Janeiro on his return trip to Argentina, and he accepted.
In the Brazilian capital, the elected president met with the country’s highest authorities. In a decisive conversation with Rio Branco about reducing tension and ending the arms race, they decided that Sáenz Peña, once in Buenos Aires, would privately send a personal delegate to negotiate with the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs. The chosen one was Ramón J. Cárcano, a person of his complete trust,
At the meeting, held in secret, the two men proposed suspending the order for the third warship. For both countries, this decision would be a pivotal event that would change the situation. The two presidents were consulted and both supported the proposal: the agreement was made public.
Given the current tensions in bilateral relations between Argentina and Brazil, the lesson is that a greater role for those who defend diplomacy and detente in both countries is not only convenient, but also necessary.
Rosendo Fraga is Director of the Union Studies Center for the New Majority.
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