| This Mere Men article has not been expanded past 1965 yet. |
| Argentine Republic República Argentina (Spanish) Timeline: Mere Men
OTL equivalent: Argentina | ||||||
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| Motto: En unión y libertad |
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| Anthem: Argentine National Anthem |
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| Capital | San Martin en la Patagonia | |||||
| Largest city | Buenos Aires | |||||
| Official languages | Spanish | |||||
| Religion | Christianity, irreligious | |||||
| Demonym | Argentine | |||||
| Government | Federal parliamentary republic | |||||
| - | President | |||||
| - | Vice President | |||||
| - | Prime Minister | |||||
| Legislature | National Congress | |||||
| Independence from Spain | ||||||
| - | Declaration of independence | 9 July 1816 | ||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total | 2,780,400 km2 1,073,518 sq mi |
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| Currency | Argentine peso | |||||
| Time zone | ART | |||||
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic (Spanish: República Argentina) is a country in the southern half of South America. It borders Chile to the west, Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast and Uruguay and the Southern Atlantic Ocean to the east. Additionally, Argentina also claims sovereignty over the British territories of Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and a portion of Antarctica. The capital of Argentina is San Martin en la Patagonia, located in central Argentina near the Atlantic coast, the largest city is Buenos Aires on the coast of the River Plate basin.
Argentina has been populated since the Paleolithic Era. The territory was colonised by Spain in the 16th century and later organised as the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. The country declared independence in 1816 after a independence war against the Spanish, but a civil war broke out, ending in the 1860s by the federalisation of the country. Since then, Argentina enjoyed relative peace and stability. In the late 1940s, President Juan Perón adopted a new constitution to allow himself to run for a second term, but after his assassination and the subsequent military coup it was repealed again. In the 1960s Argentina came under a military junta under Guillermo Suárez Mason, who launched an invasion of Chile. After the fall of the junta, Argentina was restored as a parliamentary republic through constitutional changes under President Raúl Alfonsín.
History[]
Second World War and the post-war era[]
By the Second World War, Argentina had been ruled by the Concordancia alliance for several years, although President Roberto María Ortiz had initiated the democratisation of the country. In the war, Ortiz supported the Allies and attempted to initiate Argentine and American entry into the war, but American disinterest and Argentine army opposition resulted in the failure of the plan. Ortiz resigned as President in 1942 due to poor health. His successor, Ramón Castillo, reversed the democratisation policies and started paving the way for deeply unpopular Robustiano Patrón Costas to succeed him. Patrón Costas went on to win the 1943 presidential election, but the government was deposed by a military coup shortly after on the charge of electoral fraud and General Pedro Pablo Ramírez was installed instead. Although Ramírez strived to keep Argentina out of the war, under American pressure he broke relations with the Fourpartite Pact countries, which generated unrest in the military and led to Edelmiro Julián Farrell forcing his resignation. To prevent a possible American–Brazilian invasion of Argentina in order to get the country to join the Allies, Farrell announced the first free presidential elections in over a decade for the end of the year.
Juan Perón, President of Argentina from 1945 to 1950
The 1944 election was won by Farrell's Vice President Juan Perón. Perón kept Argentina out of the war despite American pressure, nationalised the state's infrastructure, revitalised the Argentine economy and introduced further social reforms. While popular with the working class, Perón was loathed by the conservative elite and intelligentsia and eventually even the military. In 1950, Perón was assassinated before a presidential election and a military coup led by Benjamín Menéndez removed the Peronist Party (Partido Perónista) from power. The delayed election was subsequently won by Miguel Ángel Zavala Ortiz of the Radical Civic Union (Unión Cívica Radical). Although Zavala's attitude towards Peronists prompted a rebellion by the conservative faction of the army in Julio Roberto Alsogaray's 1954 coup attempt, his radical government enjoyed the support of the Argentine military, as did his successor Ricardo Balbín.
Military junta[]
Despite other successes of their administrations, both UCR presidents failed to adequately deal with economic issues started by Perón's policies, which, alongside with an agreement between the splinter group called the Intransigent Radical Civic Union (Unión Cívica Radical Intransigente) and the Peronist leader Andrés Framini, then in exile in Colombia, resulted in the defeat of the UCR in the 1962 presidential election. Oscar Alende's policies were seen with distrust by many, most notably by the Argentine Army, which resulted in a plot against his administration being developed by Guillermo Suárez Mason and other officers. The final straw came in 1965, when Alende's administration seemed to lift the ban on the Peronist Party after further talks with Framini, and Suárez Mason gave the order to execute the coup, deposing Alende and installing himself atop of a military dictatorship.