| abstract | - Buenos Aires faced the French blockade of the Río de la Plata between 1838 and 1840. The Peru–Bolivian Confederation, allied with France, declared the War of the Confederation to Argentina and Chile. Rosas resisted the blockade longer than France estimated he would do, and his strategy of generating disputes between France and England over the blockade eventually gave fruit. France lifted the blockade in 1840, exchanging mutual most favoured nation status between her and the Argentine Confederation. Unable to deploy French troops during the blockade, France promoted civil wars against Rosas to support the naval actions. For this purpose France aided Fructuoso Rivera against the Uruguayan president Manuel Oribe, who was forced to resign. Oribe escaped to Buenos Aires, and Rosas received him as the legitimate president of Uruguay, denying such recognition to Rivera. This started the Uruguayan Civil War, where the Whites sought to restore Oribe in power and the Colorados to keep Rivera. As Rivera was hesitant to attack Rosas as the French expected, the Argentine expatriate Juan Lavalle was convinced to do so, but his army was weakened by desertions, hostility of the villages in the way to Buenos Aires, and the lack of French support, as France had negotiated peace with Rosas by that time. Lavalle's army retreated to the north in disorder, without attacking Buenos Aires as intended. Rivera's ambition was to expand the limits of Uruguay, annexing Paraguay, the Argentine Mesopotamia and the Riograndense Republic (part of Rio Grande do Sul, that had declared independence from Brazil and was fighting the Ragamuffin War), into a projected Federation of Uruguay. The Argentine José María Paz, allied with Rivera against Rosas, was against this project. Rivera took control of Paz's forces, but without his superior military training, he was completely defeated by Oribe at the battle of Arroyo Grande. Rivera's project never got off the ground, and he was forced to stand in Montevideo against Oribe's siege. Brazil proposed a military alliance to Rosas: Rosas would take Uruguay with Brazilian support, and Brazil would take the Riograndese Republic with Argentine support. Tomás Guido, Argentine representative in Brazil, supported the proposal, but Rosas rejected it. Rosas thought that such treaty would violate the Uruguayan sovereignty, and that it would be null if Oribe was not part of it. Honório Carneiro Leão, representative of Brazil, did not accept Rosas's alternative proposal, and Brazil distanced from Argentina.
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