Brazilian Armed Forces - Military History of Brazil

Military History of Brazil

Since 1648 the Brazilian Armed Forces have been relied upon to fight in defense of Brazilian sovereignty and to suppress civil rebellions. The Brazilian military has also four times intervened militarily to overthrow the Brazilian government.

It has built a tradition of participating in UN peacekeeping missions such as in Haiti and East Timor. Below a list of some of the historical events in which the Brazilian Armed Forces took part:

• First Battle of Guararapes (1648): Decisive Brazilian victory that helped end Dutch occupation. Due to this battle, the year 1648 is considered as the year of the foundation of the Brazilian Army.
• Invasion of Cayenne (1809) (1809) : Was a combined military operation by an Anglo-Portuguese-Brazilian expeditionary force against Cayenne, capital of the French South American colony of French Guiana in 1809, during the Napoleonic Wars.
• Luso-Brazilian invasion (1816-1820) : Was an armed conflict between the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves and the partisans of José Artigas over the Banda Oriental (Eastern Bank), present-day Uruguay.
• Brazilian War of Independence (1822–1824): Series of military campaigns that had as objective to cement Brazilian sovereignty and end Portuguese resistance.
• Confederation of the Equator (1824) : Was a short-lived rebellion that occurred in the northeastern region of Brazil during that nation's struggle for independence from Portugal.
• Cisplatine War (1825–1828) : Armed conflict over an area known as Banda Oriental or "Eastern Shore" between the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and Empire of Brazil in the aftermath of the United Provinces' emancipation from Spain.
• War of the Ragamuffins (1835-1845) : Was a Republican uprising that began in southern Brazil, in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina in 1835. The rebels, led by generals Bento Gonçalves da Silva and Antônio de Sousa Neto with the support of the Italian fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi, surrendered to imperial forces in 1845.
• Platine War (1851–1852): The Brazilian Empire and its allies went to war against the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas of the Argentine Confederation.
• Uruguayan War (1864–1865): Brazilian intervention in Uruguay. With support from Argentina, imperial forces deposed President Atanasio Aguirre from office and instated general Venancio Flores in his place.
• Paraguayan War (1864–1870): Over 200,000 Brazilians fought on this conflict, which is considered as the most serious in Brazilian history.
• Brazilian Naval Revolt (1893-1894) : Were armed mutinies promoted mainly by Admirals Custodio de Mello and Saldanha da Gama and their fleet of Brazilian Navy ships against unconstitucional staying in power of the central government in Rio de Janeiro.
• War of Canudos (1893–1897): The deadliest rebellion of Brazil, the insurrectionists defeated the first 3 military forces sent to quell the rebellion.
• Contestado War (1912-1916) : Was a guerrilla war for land between settlers and landowners, the latter supported by the Brazilian state's police and military forces, that lasted from October 1912 to August 1916.
• Brazil during World War I: Brazil entered into World War I in 1917 alongside the Triple Entente. Brazil's effort in World War I occurred mainly in the Atlantic campaign, with a smaller participation in the land warfare.
• Constitutionalist Revolution (1932) : Was the armed movement occurred in the State of São Paulo, Brazil, between July and October 1932, which aimed at the overthrow of the Provisional Government of Getúlio Vargas and the promulgation of a new constitution for Brazil.
• Brazil in World War II (1942–1945): Brazil declared war on Nazi Germany in August 1942 and in 1944 sent an Expeditionary Force of 25,334 soldiers to fight in Italy. Brazil also supplied vital raw materials for the war effort and ceeded important airbases at Natal and Fernando de Noronha Archipel that made possible the North African invasion, i.e. Operation Torch, and had a key role in pattroling the South Atlantic sea lanes.

Brazilian Expeditionary Force, initially composed of an infantry division, eventually covered all Brazilian military forces who participated in the conflict, including the Brazilian Air Force who did a remarkable job in the last nine months of war with 445 missions executed. Offensive: 2546, Defensive: 4.).