Brazilian Army

The Brazilian Army (Exército Brasileiro) is the land arm of the Brazilian Armed Forces. The Brazilian Army has fought in several international conflicts, mostly in South America during the 19th century. In the 20th century, it fought on the Allied side in World War I and World War II. Aligned with the Western Bloc during the military dictatorship in Brazil from 1964 to 1985, it also had active participation in Latin America and Southern Portuguese Africa during the Cold War, as well as taking part in UN peacekeeping missions worldwide since the late 1950s. Domestically, besides having faced several rebellions throughout the two centuries since its creation, it also ended the monarchy with support of local political and economic elites and imposed its political views and economic development projects during the periods when it ruled the country: 1889–94, 1930–50 (First Vargas period and Dutra years), and 1964–85. Although the Brazilian Army was only created during the Brazilian independence process from Portugal in 1822, with units of the Portuguese Army in Brazil that had remained loyal to prince Pedro, its origins date back to the Land Forces used by the Portuguese in the colonial wars against the French and Dutch, fought in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the colonial period, Portuguese king Manuel I ordered military expeditions with the goal of protecting the Portuguese dominions in South America, then newly discovered. As colonization advanced in Pernambuco and São Vicente, the native military authorities and bases of the colony's defensive organization began to be built to defend it against the French, English, and the Dutch. The first major interventions were the expulsion of the French from Rio de Janeiro in the 16th century and the Maranhão in 1615. As colonization progressed through the broad territorial expansion movement in the 17th and early 18th centuries, it forced the organization of the defense of the newly conquered territory.