Paraguay, 1947 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
On 7 March 1947 rebel military units rose against President Higinio Morinigo of Paraguay, opening what became the Paraguayan Civil War, also called the Barefoot Revolution. A revolt at the Asuncion navy yard on 7 March put a working class district of the capital briefly under rebel control, and on 8 March the two infantry divisions at Concepcion rebelled, later joined by the two Chaco divisions, giving the rebels four of the army's eleven divisions and the sympathy of roughly 80 percent of the officer corps. The rising was orchestrated by a coalition of Febreristas under former president Rafael Franco, Liberals, and Communists after Morinigo tilted toward the Colorado Party.
As a coup it failed: Morinigo held Asuncion with Colorado militias and Argentine support, and by 20 August 1947 government forces had crushed the rebellion, with rebel leaders fleeing to Argentina and a huge share of the population displaced abroad.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
15003071947
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Higinio Morinigo survived the rising unharmed and had regained control of the country by August 1947.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Luttwak
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →