Historiography
Juan Manuel de Rosas depicted Urquiza as a mere servant of the Empire of Brazil, and described his military actions as a foreign attack against the Confederation. In the future, the idea of an international war between the Confederation and the Empire would be upheld by revisionist historians in Argentina. However, historian Isidoro Ruiz Moreno (member of the National Academy of History of Argentina and the San Martín National Institute) considers instead that it was mainly a conflict between Rosas and Urquiza, part of the Argentine civil wars, and that the documentary evidence supporting the mainstream view is overwhelming in comparison with the revisionist view. Although Rosas declared war to the Empire of Brazil on August 18, 1850, it was just a mere political gesture: he had no actual intention of making an actual aggression, and neither was the Empire in condition to attack the Confederation alone. On May 1, 1851, unaware of the rebellion of Urquiza, the Imperial government told the British James Hudson that the Empire had no reason to wage war against the governor of Buenos Aires. Initially, Urquiza had no intention of letting the Empire take part in the attack, and later agreed only for naval support. The military campaign began and ended without an active role of the Empire. The agreement signed on November 21, 1851 in Montevideo to continue the military actions against Rosas was explicit in that the attack was only against Rosas, and that the army was not an Argentine-Brazilian army, but an Argentine army with Brazilian auxiliary forces.
Revisionist historian José María Rosa wrote the book "La caída de Rosas" (Spanish: The fall of Rosas) in 1957, using documentation he found in Uruguay during his exile. However, he did not use the documentation to reflect the complexities of the conflict, but to draw a lineal version of it. According to Rosa, the fall of Rosas was the result of long machinations of the Empire of Brazil, aided by a betrayal of Urquiza and successfully ending in Caseros. To achieve this interpretation of the events, Rosa neglected to consider the regional interests, the political scenario, the decline of Rosas' government in his last years and his neglect of proper defenses against Urquiza.
Read more about this topic: Platine War